scarcely a new feature, except one: in that Bank
was not only a mole; but a mole catcher: and,
contrary to custom, the mole was the master, the
mole catcher the servant. The latter had no
hostile views; far from it: he was rather attached
to his master: but his attention was roused by
the youngest clerk, a boy of sixteen, being so
often sent for into the Bank parlour, to copy into
the books some arithmetical result, without its
process. Attention soon became suspicion; and
suspicion found many little things to feed on, till
it grew to certainty. But the outer world was
none the wiser: the mole catcher was no chatterbox;
he was a solitary man; no wife nor mistress
about him; and he revered the mole, and liked
him better than anything in the world—except
money.

Thus the great Banker stood, a colossus of
wealth and stability to the eye, though ready to
crumble at a touch; and indeed self-doomed; for
bankruptcy was now his game.

This was a miserable man; far more miserable
than his son whose happiness he had thwarted:
his face was furrowed, and his hair thinned by
secret struggle: and of all the things that gnawed
him, like the fox, beneath his Spartan robe,
none was more bitter than to have borrowed
five thousand pounds of his children, and sunk
it.

His wife's father, a keen man of business, who
saw there was little affection on his side, had
settled his daughter's money on her for life, and,
in case of her death, on the children upon coming
of age. The marriage of Alfred or Jane would be
sure to expose him; settlements would be
proposed; lawyers engaged to peer into the trust,
etc. No; they must remain single for the
present, or else marry wealth.

So, when his son announced an attachment to a
young lady living in a suburban villa, it was a
terrible blow, though he took it with outward
calm, as usual. But if, instead of prating about
beauty, virtue, and breeding, Alfred had told him
hard cash in five figures could be settled by
the bride's family on the young couple, he would
have welcomed the wedding with great external
indifference, but a secret gush of joy; for then
he could throw himself on Alfred's generosity,
and be released from that one corroding debt;
perhaps allowed to go on drawing the interest of
the remainder.

Thus, in reality, all the interests, with which
this story deals, converged in one point; the
fourteen thousand pounds. Richard Hardie's
opposition was a mere misunderstanding; and,
if he had been told of the Cash, and to what
purpose Mrs. Dodd destined It, and then put on
board the Agra in the Straits of Gaspar, he
would have calmly taken off his coat, and helped
defend the bearer of It against all assailants as
stoutly, and, to all appearance, imperturbably, as
he had fought that other bitter battle at home.
For there was something heroic in this erring
man; though his rectitude depended on
circumstances.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE way the pirate dropped the mask, showed
his black teeth, and bore up in chase, was
terrible: so dilates and bounds the sudden tiger on
his unwary prey. There were stout hearts among
the officers of the peaceable Agra; but danger
in a new form shakes the brave; and this was
their first pirate: their dismay broke out in
ejaculations not loud but deep. "Hush!" said Dodd,
doggedly; "the lady!"

Mrs. Beresford had just come on deck to enjoy
the balmy morning.

"Sharpe," said Dodd, in a tone that conveyed
no suspicion to the new comer, "set the royals,
and flying jib.—Port!"

"Port it is," cried the man at the helm.

"Steer due South!" And, with these words in
his mouth, Dodd dived to the gun deck.

By this time elastic Sharpe had recovered the
first shock; and the order to crowd sail on the
ship galled his pride and his manhood; he
muttered, indignantly, "the white feather!" This
eased his mind, and he obeyed orders briskly as
ever. While he and his hands were setting every
rag the ship could carry on that tack, the other
officers, having unluckily no orders to execute,
stood gloomy and helpless, with their eyes glued,
by a sort of sombre fascination, on that coming
fate: and they literally jumped and jarred, when
Mrs. Beresford, her heart opened by the lovely
day, broke in on their nerves with her light
treble.

"What a sweet morning, gentlemen. After
all a voyage is a delightful thing: oh, what a
splendid sea! and the very breeze is warm. Ah,
and there's a little ship sailing along: here,
Freddy, Freddy darling, leave off beating the
sailors' legs, and come here and see this pretty
ship. What a pity it is so far off. Ah! ah!
what is that dreadful noise?"

For her horrible small talk, that grated on
those anxious souls like the mockery of some
infantine fiend, was cut short by ponderous blows
and tremendous smashing below. It was the
captain staving in water casks: the water poured
out at the scuppers.

"Clearing the lee guns," said a middy, off his
guard.

Colonel Kenealy pricked up his ears, drew his
cigar from his mouth, and smelt powder. "What,
for action?" said he, briskly. "Where's the
enemy?"

Fullalove made him a signal, and they went
below.

Mrs. Beresford had not heard, or not
appreciated the remark; she prattled on till she made
the mates and midshipmen shudder.

Realise the situation, and the strange
incongruity between the senses and the mind in these
poor fellows! The clay had ripened its beauty;
beneath a purple heaven shone, sparkled, and
laughed, a blue sea, in whose waves the tropical
sun seemed to have fused his beams; and beneath
that fair, sinless, peaceful sky, wafted by a balmy
breeze over those smiling, transparent, golden