Besides the patrol and the ship's long-boat only one other ever tied up to the prison-vessels, and that one belonged to Dame Grant, the bumboat woman, who brought such small luxuries as the prisoners were able to purchase. She herself seldom came on board, but sent up her tiny parcels by two boys who made their deliveries under the eye of the warden. This was the woman Richard had hoped to bribe to aid his escape, but with whom he had never found the smallest opportunity to speak at close range. She was corpulent and coarse of feature, and the boys who served her often felt the weight of her big hand; but Richard had once thrown her a jest over the rail, and she had laughed good-naturedly, showing that she had a soft side to her rough exterior. In the lining of his ragged boot were the few coins Colborn had given him, but not so much as a letter had he been able to bribe her to take. Often he cursed the watchfulness of the sentinel, longing to send at least some little message to those who thought of him in far-off Hillsboro'-town. The morning of his awakening from the despairing stupor in which nearly two months had been passed, it so chanced that Dame Grant brought in her boat a basket of pears. Very luscious they looked, for sun and dew had kissed them lavishly; but only the guards could pay their price, so the prisoners feasted with their eyes only. By and by, however, one of the sentinels who had purchased some of the fruit went to attend to some duty below, and left one of the pears on the rail of the deck. So transparent was his action and so subtle the temptation, that it almost seemed he had set a delicate trap for some unwary captive. If, indeed, it was a trap, it caught its prey; for one of the prisoners, a poor old man, starving, yet too ill to eat the mouldy biscuit and rancid meat that was their daily portion, saw the tempting fruit and stole it, hoping the owner would think it had rolled off into the water with the rocking of the ship. But nothing escaped the argus-eyed watch; one of the other sentinels saw him as he ravenously devoured it, and collaring the trembling culprit carried him to the warden. He acknowledged the theft, excusing himself on the plea of extreme hunger, and begged for mercy. He might as well have asked for the sun, whose rays whitened the deck and shimmered on the restless waves. "I will make an example of him that we may have no more thieving on this ship. Order the prisoners out that they may see," commanded the warden, a big-thewed fellow with the face of a bulldog.