His face was browned by long exposure to every climate in the world; he had faced all the dangers of the deep, and their name is legion; he was hardy, tough, and athletic, and, being at times conversational, he learned from Morley, long ere the voyage was over, the whole history of his love, rivalry, and adventures. "Take heart, young gentleman," said he, as they kept their watch together on a lovely moonlight night, when drawing near the tropic of Capricorn; "when I was a bairn at home, my mother (God bless her puir auld body!) aye taught me that 'the ways o' Providence were dark and intricate, perplexed wi' mazes and distressed wi' errors,' and I have seen but little reason to alter my opinion in manhood, or as I grow aulder in the horn, as we say in Scotland. But something tells me that you will bring this rascally piccaroon up wi' a round turn yet." "But Miss Basset?" "If _she_ countenanced him," interrupted the Scotchman, turning his keen gray eyes and knitted brows to Morley, "why, then, I say, e'en let her go with a flowing sheet." "Which means----" "That you'll be well free of so unseaworthy a craft." So, at this period of their story, the loved and the loving, Morley Ashton and Ethel Basset, are both traversing the same mighty ocean. Morley knew that, if Ethel lived, she would now inevitably be sailing for the Isle of France; but she, alas! believed that her lover was no more, and lost to her indeed for ever! Will they ever meet more? They may meet peacefully and happily again, never to separate; or, it may be, that they shall be united never more on this side of the grave, for both are now upon the sea, and the perils encountered by those who go down into the great deep and see the wonders thereof--wreck, storm, fire, mutiny, piracy, and famine--may be the lot of one or of both. The wheel of fortune turns, and anon we shall see! CHAPTER XVII. SECOND HEARING. The Scotch mate, Morrison, spun many a strange yarn to Morley, when together they kept their watches at night under the glorious radiance of a tropical moon, when the vast sea shone like a silver flood, over which the _Princess_ glided before the trade wind, with all her canvas, topsails, and topgallant sails set. "When falling over those rocks, on which we found you, Ashton," said he, on one of those occasions, "did you utter any person's name?" "Not that I remember of--why?" asked Morley, with surprise. "Because--I have known of such things--_that_ person might have heard your cry, however far distant." "I do not understand." "I mean on the principle, or rather the theory, of polarity. In the terror and despair of such a moment, your thoughts would flash, or rush to some one whom you loved--say Miss Basset--who became the recipient of the force, the hearer of your cry, by that faculty which is called in some countries _second hearing_." Morley, though he coloured at Ethel's name, smiled, for he knew that this was another of Morrison's strange theories.