"What station do you mean, sir?" Fernando asked, forgetting the accustomed formality of touching his hat, by way of salute, while speaking with so punctilious an officer as Captain Snipes. This little fact did not escape the captain's attention. "Your pretension to ignorance will not help you sir," the Captain retorted. The first lieutenant now produced the station bill, and read the name of Fernando Stevens in connection with the starboard main-lift. "Captain Snipes," said Fernando in a voice firm and terrible in its sincerity, "it is the first time I knew I was assigned to that post." "How is this, Mr. Bacon?" the captain asked turning to the first lieutenant with a fault-finding expression. "It is impossible, sir, that this man should not know his station," replied, the lieutenant. "Captain Snipes, I will swear, I never knew it before this moment," answered Fernando. With an oath, the captain cried: "Do you contradict my officer? I'll flog you, by--!" Fernando had been on board the frigate for more than two years and remained unscourged. Though a slave in fact, he lived in hope of soon being a free man. Now, after making himself a hermit in some things, after enduring countless torments and insults without resentment, in order to avoid the possibility of the scourge, here it was hanging over him for a thing utterly unforeseen,--a crime of which he was wholly innocent; but all that was naught. He saw that his case was hopeless; his solemn disclaimer was thrown in his teeth, and the boatswain's-mate stood curling his fingers through the "cat." There are times when wild thoughts enter a man's heart, when he seems almost irresponsible for his act and his deed. The captain stood on the weather side of the deck. Sideways on an unoccupied line with him, was the opening of the lee-gangway, where the side-ladders were suspended in port. Nothing but a slight bit of sinnate-stuff served to rail in this opening, which was cut down to a level with the captain's feet, showing the far sea beyond. Fernando stood a little to windward of him, and, though Captain Snipes was a large, powerful man, it was quite certain that a sudden rush against him, along the slanting deck, would infallibly pitch him headforemost into the ocean, though he who rushed must needs go over with him. The young American's blood seemed clotting in his veins; he felt icy cold at the tips of his fingers, and a dimness was before his eyes; but through that dimness, the boatswain's-mate, scourge in hand, loomed like a giant, and Captain Snipes and the blue sea, seen through the opening at the gangway, showed with an awful vividness. He was never able to analyze his heart, though it then stood still within him; but the thing that swayed him to his purpose was not altogether the thought that Captain Snipes was about to degrade him, and that he had taken an oath within his soul that he should not. No; he felt his manhood so