“The light-house keeper and his assistant have both been drowned,” answered Mulford. “The lamps have been lit to-night by the people of the brig which has just gone out.” “Pray, sir, what brig may that be?” “The Molly Swash, of New York; a craft that I lately belonged to myself, but which I have left on account of her evil doings.” “The Molly Swash, Stephen Spike master and owner, bound to Key West and a market, with a cargo of eight hundred barrels of flour, and that of a quality so lively and pungent that it explodes like gunpowder! I beg your pardon, Mr. Mate, for not recognizing you sooner. Have you forgotten the Poughkeepsie, Capt. Mull, and her far-reaching Paixhans?” “I ought to ask your pardon, Mr. Wallace, for not recognizing _you_ sooner, too. But one does not distinguish well by moon-light. I am delighted, to see you, sir, and now hope that, with my assistance, a stop can be put to the career of the brig.” “What, Mr. Mate, do _you_ turn against your craft?” said Wallace, under the impulsive feeling which induces all loyal men to have a distaste for treachery of every sort, “the seaman should love the very planks of his vessel.” “I fully understand you, Mr. Wallace, and will own that, for a long time, I was tied to rascality by the opinions to which you allude. But, when you come to hear my explanation, I do not fear your judgment in the least.” Mulford now led the way into the house, whither Rose had already retreated, and where she had lighted candles, and made other womanly arrangements for receiving her guests. At Harry’s suggestion, some of the soup was placed over coals, to warm up for the party, and our heroine made her preparations to comfort them also with a cup of tea. While she was thus employed Mulford gave the whole history of his connection with the brig, his indisposition to quit the latter, the full exposure of Spike’s treason, his own desertion, if desertion it could be called, the loss of the schooner, and his abandonment on the rock, and the manner in which he had been finally relieved. It was scarcely possible to relate all these matters, and altogether avoid allusions to the schemes of Spike in connection with Rose, and the relation in which our young man himself stood toward her. Although Mulford touched on these points with great delicacy, it was as a seaman talking to seamen, and he could not entirely throw aside the frankness of the profession. Ashore, men live in the privacy of their own domestic circles, and their secrets, and secret thoughts, are “family secrets,” of which it has passed into a proverb to say, that there are always some, even in the best of these communities. On shipboard, in the camp it is very different. The close contact in which men are brought with each other, the necessity that exists for opening the heart and expanding the charities, gets in time to influence the whole character, and a certain degree of frankness and simplicity takes the place of the reserve and