The cause of this trouble went forward, muttering to himself: “Powder! the captain said powder! I might have found it to-night if they hadn’t caught onto the lantern. How did they know it was there, I wonder?” He climbed the fore rigging, unmindful of the taunts of the crew at his second punishment that day, and the captain’s words kept ringing in his ears. “To-morrow morning they’ll all be put where I can’t get at ’em,” he muttered, “and if only they hadn’t found the lantern, I could have got away with some of them rockets to-night. And the powder! I can’t do nothing without a lantern, though, and I ain’t even got a match.” He perched himself upon the royal yard, with a lunatic’s cunning, inventing various schemes for getting at those fire-works. That was his mania. Although as sane as anyone on other subjects, he was an absolute monomaniac in everything relating to such matters; and since the day when he had overheard a remark relating to the signal-lights and rockets, his fingers had itched to investigate them and see what they were like. Not even the certainty of punishment could stand in his way. Some people, when they ascend to the roof of a high building, have an almost irresistable desire to leap from it. It is not that they wish to do so, but some strange power seems urging them to it in spite of themselves. Others have a similar feeling when in close proximity to a swiftly-moving railroad train, and require all their will power to keep from casting themselves before the locomotive. So it was with Dick Lewis. He could no more keep his mind off the lazarette and its contents, than steel can resist the influence of a magnet. He sat there as the hours passed, looking ahead into vacancy; thinking and thinking; and imagining just how the rockets must look, as they lay side by side in their boxes down in the midnight darkness of the lazarette. How quiet and silent they were! And yet the touch of a match— He put up a hand before his eyes and turned his head to one side, as though to ward off a blow. * * * * * “Aunt, we really must go below. It cannot be far from twelve o’clock, and we have staid on deck nearly two hours past the usual time.” “That is true, Laura; and yet I feel strangely wakeful. But, as you say, it is very late, and high time that we turned in. So good night, captain, and pleasant dreams. Good night, Mr. Bohlman.” Mrs. Evans paused as she reached the companion-way. “How beautiful the moonlight is,” she said, so low that no one heard; “and from what an awful peril have we this night been delivered.” She slowly followed her niece to the cabin.