The words were hardly uttered, before Dillon, after galloping furiously along the cliffs, and turning short into a thick wood that lay in his route, was out of sight. The loyalty of this gentleman was altogether of a calculating nature, and was intimately connected with what he considered his fealty to himself. He believed that the possession of Miss Howard's person and fortune were advantages that would much more than counterbalance any elevation that he was likely to obtain by the revolution of affairs in his native colony. He considered Griffith as the only natural obstacle to his success; and he urged his horse forward with a desperate determination to work the ruin of the young sailor before another sun had set. When a man labors in an evil cause, with such feelings, and with such incentives, he seldom slights or neglects his work; and Mr. Dillon, accordingly, was on board the Alacrity several minutes short of the time in which he had promised to perform the distance. The plain old seaman, who commanded the cutter, listened to his tale with cautious ears; and examined into the state of the weather, and other matters connected with his duty, with the slow and deliberate decision of one who had never done much to acquire a confidence in himself, and who had been but niggardly rewarded for the little he had actually performed. As Dillon was urgent, however, and the day seemed propitious, he at length decided to act as he was desired, and the cutter was accordingly gotten under way. A crew of something less than fifty men moved with no little of their commander's deliberation; but as the little vessel rounded the point behind which she had been anchored, her guns were cleared, and the usual preparations were completed for immediate and actual service. Dillon, sorely against his will, was compelled to continue on board, in order to point out the place where the suspecting boatmen were expected, to be entrapped. Everything being ready, when they had gained a safe distance from the land, the Alacrity was kept away before the wind, and glided along the shore with a swift and easy progress that promised a speedy execution of the business in which her commander had embarked. CHAPTER XVII. “_Pol_. Very like a whale.” _Shakespeare._