When the watch was set for the night, however, and the ship lay in the customary silence of the hour, the form of the Rover was again seen walking swiftly to and fro across the poop, of which he was now the solitary occupant. The vessel had drifted in the stream of the Gulf so far to the northward, that the little mound of blue had long sunk below the edge of the ocean; and she was again surrounded, so far as human eye might see, by an interminable world of water. As not a breath of air was stirring, the sails had been handed, the tall and naked spars rearing themselves, in the gloom of the evening, like those of a ship which rested at her anchors. In short, it was one of those hours of entire repose that the elements occasionally grant to such adventurers as trust their fortunes to the capricious government of the treacherous and unstable winds. Even the men, whose duty it was to be on the alert, were emboldened, by the general tranquillity, to become careless on their watch, and to cast their persons between the guns, or on different portions of the vessel, seeking that rest which the forms of discipline and good order prohibited them from enjoying in their hammocks. Here and there, indeed, the head of a drowsy officer was seen nodding with the lazy heaving of the ship, as he leaned against the bulwarks, or rested his person on the carriage of some gun that was placed beyond the sacred limits of the quarter-deck One form alone stood erect, vigilant, and evidently maintaining a watchful eye over the whole This was Wilder, whose turn to keep the deck had again arrived, in the regular division of the service of the officers. For two hours, not the slightest communication occurred between the Rover and his lieutenant. Both rather avoided than sought the intercourse; for each had his own secret sources of serious meditation At the end of that period of silence, the former stopped short in his walk, and looked long and steadily at the still motionless figure on the deck beneath him. “Mr Wilder,” he at length said, “the air is fresher on this poop, and more free from the impurities of the vessel: Will you ascend?” The other complied; and, for several minutes they walked silently, and with even steps, together, as seamen are wont to move in the hours of deep night. “We had a troublesome morning, Wilder,” the Rover resumed, unconsciously betraying the subject of his thoughts, and speaking always in a voice so guarded, that no ears, but his to whom he addressed himself, might embrace the sound: “Were you ever so near that pretty precipice, a mutiny, before?” “The man who is hit is nigher to danger than he who feels the wind of the ball.” “Ah! you have then been bearded in your ship! Give yourself no uneasiness on account of the personal animosity which a few of the fellows saw fit to manifest against yourself. I am acquainted with their most secret thoughts, as you shall shortly know.”