Philadelphia, and in her youth had been a beauty; even now she was an exceedingly fine woman, very tall, with fine dark hair and eyes, and a most delicate complexion. Her smile was absolutely irresistible.

"But, Master Benjie, let us have a small view of Miss Helen Hudson, whom you have taken so much pains not to describe."

"All in good time, mon ami—all in good time; but here comes De Walden."

"Good morning, Mr Brail; you seem much better. Mrs Hudson has Dr Delaville's permission to offer you some coffee and toast this morning."

"Well, do you know, I think I could eat it."

Breakfast was accordingly brought, and I made a deuced good one. Excellent coffee, bread most beautiful, all the concomitants delicate in the extreme; even the cool water in the small porous earthen jar, that flanked a magnificent red snapper, was an unspeakable luxury. The very privilege of grasping the dewy neck of the little vessel, in the act of helping yourself, was worth a Jew's eye.

"So, Master De Walden, shake hands, will ye, that I may be certain you are really flesh and blood; and tell me how came it that you were not drowned, my lad, when you fell overboard on the bar?"

"The only way that I can account for it, my dear sir," said the handsome young fellow, laughing, "is, that I suppose I am fated to a drier death."

"I would not hear thine enemy say so," quoth I.

"However, my tale is easily told:—You remember, sir, that I was standing close beside you, when you were jamming the Spanish schooner on the reef?"—I nodded—"I got a regular souse, and must have sank some way, but I never lost my recollection. When I rose amidst the breakers on the bar, I found myself in the very thick of the wreck of the schooner, and, close to me, five poor devils clinging to her mainboom, with the sea breaking over them every moment. One of them presently parted company and disappeared; and finding that the spar was anchored by the topping-lifts and boomsheet to the hull of the vessel that had swamped, part of which as yet held together, I left it, and struck put for a large piece of wreck, apparently several deck planks, kept together by part of two beams, when the deck had blown up. I reached it, and found two men already on it,—one of them a Spaniard, the other an Englishman, as he instantly addressed me in English, in answer to some sudden exclamation of mine, on first clambering on to the planks. My surprise at this was great, and so was his, I make no doubt; but the unruly surge was more surprising than all, for another sea rolled over us, and the Spaniard alone remained. The next moment I saw my countryman struggling in the water close to me, but so weak that it was clear he must instantly sink if not succoured. As I looked, a piece of a sweep, belonging to the schooner, surged against me, and nearly drove me off my perch; I caught it, and shoving the blade to the drowning man, with some danger of being unroosted myself in the attempt, it reached him: he held on, and I got him once more on the planks. He was a gruff savage, however, and scarcely seemed to relish my saving him at all at first. He had been stunned, forsooth, by a blow on the head from a piece of floating wreck when he sank, or he could easily have resumed his place on the spar again without my assistance; and I daresay he said true, only I did not much admire his manners in the declaration, all things considered: indeed, I soon perceived that his physical endurance and bodily strength were greatly superior to mine. Both of us saw—as for the third of the trio, he appeared almost dead from fatigue or fear, and we could get no assistance from him either by advice or labour—that unless we could get the piece of the wreck we clung to out of the broken water, we must inevitably be washed off and perish. With one accord, we therefore contrived to hold up the blade of the sweep, so as to expose the flat of it to the land-wind, and in a few minutes we had the inexpressible delight to find that we had slid into smooth water. Cold comfort, you will say, to find ourselves drifting out to sea, on so frail a conveyance; but the escape from immediate and impending death made one of us at least most thankful to Heaven for the chance of escape, however slender, thus presented to us; although my judgment told me at the same time, that it would prove, in all human likelihood, nothing more than a reprieve, and that none of the longest. When the day broke, the breeze, as you may remember, shifted and blew on shore again, where, by the aid of the sweep blade once more, we landed about noon, faint from hunger and thirst, I don't know which was most violent, and fatigue. The seaman I had saved was a large and exceedingly powerful man, with immense whiskers, and his strong but very handsome features bronzed almost black by the sun. His limbs were beautifully moulded, and he had the chest and neck of a Hercules: both he and the other poor creature, who came ashore more dead than alive, were dressed in white trowsers, and shirts made of some blue cotton stuff, and wore the long Spanish knife, stuck through red silk sashes. 'What is to be done now?' said I to my new friend; but he by this time had got his wits about him, and pretended that he did not understand me, confining himself to Spanish in his reply. 'Now, that won't do, my good sir,' I said; 'you spoke as good English on these planks there as I do, and you understood me well enough when I called to you to lay hold of the blade of the sweep, when'——

"'I was drowning, you would say, young gentleman,' interjected he of the sash and stiletto. 'It is very true I am an Englishman, and you will find me not ungrateful, although, Heaven knows, the life you have preserved is no boon to'——He checked himself, and proceeded—'But it is lucky for you that you have made a friend of me, for otherwise, although you have escaped the perils of the sea, you could not have eschewed the certain death that would now await you, from those you must mingle with, were it not that I am here to ward it off.'

"And time it was, indeed, for him to make some demonstration in my behalf; for the half-drowned devil, that we had been the means of saving between us, by getting the piece of wreck to shore, now began, like a wasp that you have picked out of a honeypot, to revive and whet his sting, and to fumble with his long knife, looking at me all the while very ominously. My protector, noticing that I shrunk behind him, for I was altogether unarmed, immediately said something sternly to his companion in Spanish; and the other continuing to grumble, he made a sudden snatch at his knife, and cast it from him as far as he could into the sea.

"'Now, young gentleman,' said my preserver, 'I don't care who you are, although I conceive I am not wrong in surmising you to be a midshipman of that infernal felucca that has been the cause of ruining me and my hopes; but, notwithstanding, if I can help it, you shall come to no harm; so lend a hand, let us have a search for water—there must be some hereabout in the crevices of the rocks above high-water mark, brackish though it may be—and I will try to pick up some sea-birds' egg's. Antonio!' shouted he, in a voice of authority, to the other man who had hung astern, 'venga el fuego.'

"By this time he had several pieces of driftwood in his hand, and having secured the flint and steel which the Spaniard had in a small bag, that he carried at his waist for lighting his cigar, by jerking them forcibly away, he put them in his pocket; and the comely personage who had taken a fancy to scour his steel in my brisket, and I, separated to look for water. It was not long before I succeeded, and setting up a shout, my two allies were soon beside me. The Englishman, having first soaked it in fresh water, now spread the tinder on the rock, where the hot sun instantly dried it. He then struck a light, and taking half-a-dozen wild sea-fowls' eggs out of the net-bag that he usually wore his hair in, we roasted them, and found them deucedly fishy, but