"But," he said to himself, as he still sat on smoking, "no harm shall come to her if I can prevent it--if I can! nay, as I will. He may order me out of these moorings since the whole island is his--well, let him. If he does, I will find out Nicholas's cove and anchor myself there--or, better still, I will go and lie off the middle Key. And, by the powers! if he does know that the treasure is there and begins to dig for it, not a penny, not a brass farthing shall he take away without my being by to see that he shares fair and fair alike with his sister. He seems capable, from what I have seen of him and she has told me, of taking the whole lot off to Aspinwall or Porto Rico and losing it in one of his loathsome gambling dens, while he leaves her here alone!" He went on deck of his little craft as he made these reflections, and, more from sailor-like habit than aught else--since no one ever came into the river--he trimmed his lights and arranged them for the night, and then went to his cabin and turned in. But before he did so, he cast a glance up to where Barbara's home was, and saw that on the slight eminence there twinkled the rays of the lamp through the now opened windows. All was well, therefore, for this night. Yet he could not sleep. He could not rest for thinking of the girl up there with no one but that brutal kinsman for a companion; with no one to help her if he in his violence should attempt to injure her--a thing he would be very likely to do if he questioned her about aught he might have overheard, and she refused to satisfy him. At last this feeling got too strong for him--so strong that he determined to go and see if all was well with her. Therefore, ashore he went again, and, making his way up quietly through the glade and the little wood, he came within sight and earshot of the hut. And there he soon found that, no matter how fierce and cruel a nature Alderly's was, he at least meant no harm to the girl herself. She, he could see from the close proximity to the hut which he had attained, was lying asleep upon a low couch on which he had often sat, a couch covered with Osnaburgh cloth and some skins. Alderly was sitting at the table, drinking and smoking and occasionally singing. He had evidently found some liquor of his own--probably stowed away by him ere setting out on his various cruises--and was pouring it out pretty rapidly into the mug he drank from.