“Tom, is it the truth ye’re afther telling me?” inquired Judith, through her tears. “Ay, lass; what else? D’ye think I would tell ye a lee?” “Thin, Tom, darlint, I beg your pardon entirely for thinking ill iv ye. Troth——” And here Judith broke down and sobbed. “Hout, tout, lass! dree your een and sae nae mair,” said Tom. “Tom, ye’re a jewel, sure; but how came ye here at all at all, whin all the prisoners were left at Cape Town except thim that took the oath of illaygiance and shipped on the _Xyphias_?” “I tould my tale to the captain, and said I would like to take service on the prize. And when I was able to leave my hammock he granted my petition and put me here.” “Och, Tom, jewel, sure my hearts broke entirely wid the thought iv how I misthrusted and abused ye,” said Judith. “Hout, lass, sae nae mair. D’ye think a bit hard word is gaun to part you and me after a’ that’s come and gane?” Miss Conyers had been for some time dropped out of the conversation. And now honest Tom became so extremely sentimental that she really felt herself one too many; and so she arose, and leaving the sweethearts together, she slipped away to her seat in the stern. There presently her own ill-used lover joined her. And she gave him the solution of the ghost riddle by describing her meeting with Foretop Tom. “It is singular that I have never chanced to meet him,” said Justin. “I fancy that he has been below in his hammock until lately. He looks scarcely fit for duty now,” said Britomarte. And then as the night was growing damp and chilly, and the lights in the cabin looked cheerful and inviting, Miss Conyers proposed to her companion to go below; and they went and finished their evening in music and conversation. The next day Justin had an interview with Foretop Tom, who was able to tell him much more relating to the rescue of the missionary party than he had learned from the Burneys. Tom related all that he knew, either from observation or hearsay—how that the crew of the lifeboat, finding all their arguments and persuasions vain to induce their captain to desert the ship and join them, and being moved by the tears and prayers of the missionaries’ wives, had at last consented to receive the two missionaries, who, being of slight form, they said, would not both together take up much more room than that left vacant by the stout captain. So they had been rescued from the wreck of the _Sultana_, picked up by the Dutch merchantman, and afterward taken on board by the East Indiaman, which was luckily bound to the very port of Calcutta for which they themselves had sailed in the ill-fated _Sultana_. From this time no event occurred to vary the monotony of the sea voyage.