With a sigh, Talbot relinquished the hand of his mistress, which he had clasped within his own, and, pressing his lips to her fair forehead, turned to assist Gonzalez in removing the wounded man. They then effaced all traces of their presence, and retired as they had come, through the window of the quarter-gallery. The next morning the table in the forward cabin was spread for breakfast; the steward, in passing to and fro, grinned leeringly as from time to time he looked toward the after cabin. One of the midshipmen of the watch came to report 8 o’clock. The steward tapped lightly at the state-room door, but receiving no reply, and not presuming to disturb his master, took it upon himself to report to the officers that the count said “Very well”—the usual reply. By 9 o’clock, he began to be uneasy, not that he apprehended any thing to have happened to his master, but that the lady might awake before the count had left her apartment. At the lattice-work, and to the key-hole of his master’s door, he alternately placed his ear. At the last he thought that he distinguished a deep and smothered breathing; at the first he could hear no sound whatever. Satisfied that his master was in his state-room, he felt more easy. At 10 o’clock, the wonted hour, the drum beat to quarters for inspection. When the first lieutenant came to make his report, the steward intimated that the count was indisposed. “Has he directed that he should not be disturbed?” asked the officer. The steward admitted that he had not. “Have you been summoned to him in the night?” “No, sir!” “Then I must make my report.” He advanced to the door and knocked, at first gently, and then louder and more loudly still. There was no reply; and the officer, turning the bolt, to the surprise of the steward, the door yielded to his push, and flew open. (That their mode of entrance might not be suspected, Gonzalez had unlocked it before retiring.) The count was found with his wrapper on, lying in a profound stupor, the blood clotted thickly over the wound he had received. The orphans were buried in a sleep which the surgeon pronounced unnatural; and the steward was suspected of having drugged them, and afterward attempted the life of his master. This miserable wretch was thrown in irons as the supposed murderer of the man in whose contemplated villainy he had been a willing and a free participant.