‘It is worse than dreadful,’ said I; ‘it is tedious with the threat of a neat little tragical complication by-and-bye--any day indeed--if Wilfrid doesn’t stow that gun in his hold or heave it overboard. The Dutchman might very well have answered our shot had he mounted a piece or two or driven alongside and plied us, as they used to say, with small arms. Now one isn’t here for _that_ sort of thing, Miss Jennings.’ ‘No. Is there no way of losing the cannon?’ I laughed. ‘If Wilfrid will reserve his fire until he is sure of the “Shark” instead of blazing away at the first craft that resembles her, the weapon might yet prove something to usefully serve his turn; for I doubt if anything will hinder the Colonel from cracking on when he catches sight of us, short of iron messages from the forecastle there. But we shall not meet with the “Shark” this side the Cape, if _there_.’ ‘I fear it will prove a long voyage,’ said she, with the sparkle of the starlight in her eyes. ‘You will be glad to return?’ ‘Not without my sister.’ ‘But shall you be willing, Miss Jennings, supposing us to arrive at Cape Town without falling in with the “Shark,” to persevere in this very singular and unpromising sea quest?’ ‘I will remain with Wilfrid certainly,’ she answered quietly. ‘My duty is to help him in this search, and where he goes I shall go.’ ‘But he will be acting cruelly to carry you on from the Cape unless able to certainly tell where to find the fugitives, fixing the date too for that matter.’ ‘I see you will leave us at the Cape, Mr. Monson,’ she exclaimed with an accent that could only come from the movement of the lips in a smile. ‘Not unless I prevail upon you to accompany me home,’ said I. She shook her head lightly, but made no answer. Perhaps it was her silence that rendered me sensible of the unpremeditated significance of my speech. ‘Well,’ said I, lighting a second cigar, ‘whilst you feel it your duty to stick to my cousin I shall feel it mine to stick to you. Not likely I should leave you alone with him. No.’ At that instant the harsh, surly voice of old Jacob Crimp hailed the skipper, who still stood aft talking with Wilfrid. All was in darkness forward; it was hard upon two bells; the canvas rose as elusive to the eye in its wanness as a dim light in windy gloom far out at sea, and the shadow of it plunged a dye as opaque as blindness into the obscurity from the mainmast to the forecastle rail, where the stars were sliding up and down like a dance of fire-flies to the quiet lift and fall of the close-hauled yacht upon the invisible folds brimming to her port bow. ‘Capt’n,’ sung out Crimp’s melodious voice--plaintive as the notes of a knife upon a revolving grindstone--from the heart of the murkiness somewhere near the galley. ‘Hallo!’ answered Finn. ‘Can I speak a word with ye?’ ‘Who is it wants me?’ ‘The mate.’