The sailor, terrified at the condition in which he saw his commandant, wished to ask him what the matter was, but the Count roughly imposed silence on him by repeating his order to procure a boat at once. Michael bowed his head. "Woe is me. I foresaw this," he muttered, with mingled grief and anger, and he ran off towards the port. It is not a difficult task to find a boat at Cadiz, and Michael had only to choose; comprehending that the Count was in a hurry, he selected one pulled by ten oars. The Count arrived at the same moment. "Twenty louis for you and your crew if you are at Puerto in twenty minutes," he shouted, as he leaped into the boat, which was almost capsized by the violence of the shock. The boat started, the sailors bent over their oars, and made her fly through the water. The captain with his eyes obstinately fixed on Santa Maria, and striking his clenched fist on the boat's gunwale, in spite of the excessive speed at which it was going, incessantly repeated in a choking voice-- "Quicker, quicker, muchachos." He passed like an arrow across the bows of the frigate, whose crew were preparing to weigh anchor. At length they reached Puerto. "No one is to follow me," the captain cried, as he leaped ashore. But Michael did not heed this order, and at the risk of what might happen to him, he set out in pursuit of the Count, whom he would not abandon in his present frightful condition. It was fortunate he did so, for when he reached the house Doña Clara had inhabited, he saw the young man lying senseless on the ground. The house was deserted, and Doña Clara had disappeared. The sailor took his captain on his shoulders and conveyed him to the boat, where he laid him as comfortably as he could in the stem sheets. "Where are we going?" the master asked. "To the French frigate; and make haste," Michael replied. When the boat was alongside the frigate, Michael paid the master the promised reward, and then aided by several of the crew, conveyed the captain to his cabin. As it was eminently necessary to keep the Count's secret, and avoid arousing suspicions, the sailor in his report to the first commandant, ascribed to a violent fall from a horse, the condition in which the captain was; then, after making a signal to Bowline to follow him, he returned to the cabin. M. de Barmont was still as motionless as if he were dead; the chief surgeon of the frigate in vain bestowed the greatest care on him without succeeding in recalling life, which seemed to have fled forever. "Send away your assistants; Bowline and myself will suffice," Michael said to the doctor, with a meaning glance. The surgeon comprehended, and dismissed the mates. When the door had closed on them the sailor drew the doctor into a gun berth, and said to him, in so low a voice as to be scarce audible--