bottomless within him, that no word, no blow, no scourge of Captain Snipe's could cut deep enough for that. He but clung to an instinct in him,--the instinct diffused through all animated nature, the same that prompts the worm to turn under the heel. Locking souls with him, he meant to drag Captain Snipes from this earthly tribunal of his, to that of Jehovah, and let Him decide between them. No other way could he escape the scourge. "To the gratings, sir!" cried Captain Snipes. "Do you hear?" Fernando's eye measured the distance between him and the sea, and he was gathering himself together for the fatal spring-- "Captain Snipes," said a voice advancing from the crowd. Every eye turned to see who spoke. It was the remarkably handsome and gentlemanly gunner, Hugh St. Mark, who was scarcely ever known to break the silence, and all were amazed that he should do so now. "I know that man," said St. Mark, touching his cap, and speaking in a mild, firm, but extremely deferential manner, "and I know that he would not be found absent from his station, if he knew where it was." This speech was almost unprecedented. Never before had a marine dared to speak to the captain of a frigate in behalf of a seaman at the mast; but there was something unostentatiously forcible and commanding in St. Mark's manner. He had once saved the captain's life, when a French boarder was about to slay him. Then the corporal, emboldened by St. Mark's audacity, put in a good word. Terrence, who had been promoted to a small office, poured forth a torrent of eloquence, and, almost before he knew it, Fernando was free. As he was going to his quarters, his brain in a whirl, he heard Job the cook say: "He ain't no Britisher! Dar ain't no more Angler Saxon blood in his veins dan in dis chile!" An hour later, when he stood near a gun carriage, still dizzy from his narrow escape from the double crime of murder and suicide, St. Mark passed Fernando. He grasped the hand of the silent gunner, held it a moment in his own and whispered: "Thank you!" CHAPTER XI. SHIPWRECK--ESCAPE AND RETURN TO OHIO. Ship's rules, stringent as they were on the war frigate, and officers severe as were those of the _Macedonian_ could not wholly curb the rollicking spirit of Terrence. His exuberance of spirits constantly got the better of any good intentions he might have formed. Any wholesome dread he may have entertained of that famous feline of nine tails, known to sailors of that day, was overcome by his love of pranks. What guardian spirit protects the bold and mischievous has never yet been discovered; but it is a well authenticated fact that wild, harum scarum fellows like Terrence Malone seldom come to grief or disaster.