As he spoke, he slowed the launch. Its owner presently came up alongside and laid hold of the boat's edge. "Do you want to get aboard?" inquired Lawrence. It was an instant before Meramble could reply. Poor devil, it was hard on him! "Is there any other craft near?" he asked, finally. Lawrence gazed leisurely about him. "None within five miles, I should say," was the answer. To this Meramble made no reply in words. The launch came to a stand, and he scrambled aboard. It is dreadful when a human being has within him quite so much of a wild-beast rage. Meramble knew that he had been made ridiculous before this woman. He knew that he was dripping and ridiculous now. He had not been in any real danger; real danger would have eliminated the ridiculous. Lawrence rose, bowed, and relinquished the charge of the launch to its owner. Meramble sat down without a word. Since he could not use the violent oaths which were all the words he wanted to use, he did not know why he should speak at all. So it was in entire silence that the three went back to land. The group on the shore came down to the wharf, uttering exclamations and inquiries. Meramble explained that he had been awkward enough to fall into the water, but that Lawrence (with a look at that gentleman) had been kind enough to rescue him, and he added that he, Meramble, should never rest until he had been able to do as much for Mr. Lawrence. Somebody on the wharf affirmed that, at this speech, Mrs. Lawrence shuddered unmistakably. Therefore, a wise few immediately asserted that there was more in Meramble's falling into the water than met the eye. When Lawrence tried to recall how he and his wife reached St. Augustine and the Ponce that night, he could never remember the slightest thing. Apparently they did get back the same as the rest of the party. The next day the owner of the sailboat came to Lawrence and demanded to know what had become of it. Then Lawrence endeavored to carry his mind back to the sailboat, and to explain. But it ended in his paying the man an exorbitant price for the boat, and so settling the matter that way. CHAPTER XIV. A BULL TERRIER. After this Prudence said she would not stay in St. Augustine another day; she affirmed that the place was hateful to her. She said she expected to find Rodney with a dagger stuck through him, if he left her for a moment. Lawrence listened calmly to all this. The two were on the water-battery of the old fort again, and he was smoking. It was the week following the expedition to Matanzas. Prudence looked pale and very charming in a white suit that fitted as her clothes always fitted. Lawrence once told her, with a suspicion of bitterness in his tone, that if she were to be led out to execution she would not pray, she would only ask if her gown were becoming, and was her hair right? "Where do you want to go?" he inquired. "I don't care." "That means you do care."