I paused, with the bottle in my hand.
"Gartmore," said I, "do you hear that odd splashing
sound, like oars or paddles close at hand?"

"Eh? no; I hear nothing," said he, rising
from his seat and approaching the cabin-window,
as if to look out through the glazed scuttle.

"Ha! you hear that, I suppose?" cried I,
as a new and more formidable noise succeeded.

This was no other than a trampling of many
feet on the deck overhead, a sound of struggling
panting and blows, and a smothered outcry of
blended voices, in which I thought I recognised
the energetic forecastle oaths of old Bill. Mr.
Gartmore did not answer me, but threw
himself upon me, with a bound like that of a
tiger, and wrapped his arms round me, pressing
mine closely down to my sides.

"Are you mad?" cried I, indignantly,
struggling hard. We were both strong men,
and Gartmore had enough to do to hold me.

"Quick, Kinder, quick!" he said.

Professor Kinder's proceedings were very
curious. Deliberately taking off and flinging
aside his spectacles, he rose from his chair,
picked up a napkin, and very dexterously
applied himself to bind my arms together at the
wrist. Furious at this incomprehensible
perfidy, I made a violent effort, disengaged one
hand, and gave Kinder a blow that sent him
staggering among the plates and glasses on the
sideboard.

The false professor's yellow face grew livid.
"I'll make that a dear hit to you, Britisher.
If I don't gin ye goss, I'm no man."

He drew a revolving pistol from his breast-
pocket, and hurriedly presented it at me. I
remember what followed very vaguely indeed. That
Gartmore seemed to remonstrate—that Mrs.
Kinder sprang forward and thrust herself
between me and the deadly weapon, with
outstretched arms—I know; but of what was said,
nothing remains in my recollection. There was a
scuffle, and I am pretty sure that Kinder dealt
me several blows on the head with some blunt
instrument, and I know that I lay stunned and
fainting on the floor, and that the last
impression my faculties retained was one of stupid
wonder that Mrs. Kinder, whose spectacles had
dropped off, and whose long black hair had been
shaken in rippling masses over her shoulders,
should look so young and pretty as she lifted
one slender arm over my prostrate form, and
seemed to intercede for my life. Then I swooned
away. When I regained my senses I was alone,
lying on a sofa in the cabin, stiff and sore, and
with dizzy and aching brains. I tried in vain
to rise; my limbs could not stir. In vain I
tried to call aloud, for a gag was between my
teeth, and my voice sounded like the inarticulate
murmurs of the dumb. I was fast bound
hand and foot, but my head lay on a soft pillow.
I could guess that it was a woman's kindness of
heart that had occasioned this slight alleviation
of my captivity. I could feel that the yacht
was in rapid motion, bounding over the waves
of the lake, and heeling over to a gale. What
was the meaning of the perfidious violence of
which I had been the victim? I could not
doubt that some deep-laid plot was at the
bottom of the affair, but why had I been singled
out for such an attack? Not for revenge; no
man, I believed, owed me a grudge, and
Gartmore least of all men. Not, surely, for the
sake of the few dollars on board? Not for the
purpose of gaining possession of the yacht?
At sea, pirates might make her useful, but not
on a lake, however large. What was that?
A gun! Yes, it was the report of a small
cannon, and then followed that of another,
and a distant dropping fire of musketry
succeeded. I wondered for a moment, and then
sank into a lethargy again.

The next thing I remember is being in bed
in my own chamber, in my own house on the
Canadian shore. Mrs. Mackieson, the motherly
old Scotchwoman who acted as my housekeeper,
and who was a good and kind nurse in illness,
was shuffling about the room in list slippers,
and there were phials of medicine near, and the
room was darkened.

"Ne'er a word will I tell ye, sir, till ye're weel
enough to hear it and the doctor gies consent.
Sae if ye hae ony curiosity aboot it, ye maun
just take your medicine and gruel, and give up
speiring till ye're bonny again. Na, na, ye
canna mak auld Effie Mackieson betray her
trust, neither by fleechin nor flytin."

The worthy woman was inexorable, and so
was the doctor, as to giving me any exciting
information until I was fairly convalescent.
Once or twice I heard old Bill's grumbling
voice without, but he was never permitted to
enter. At last, when I was well enough to sit
up and take as much beef tea and jelly as
my attendants thought good for me, the doctor
introduced Bill. The old sailor wanted little
pressing to tell all he knew.

"Ye see, captain," said he, "I'm right down
ashamed to have been such a greenhorn as to
let them landsharks weather on me. But I was
down below, and Eli he were on deck, and
the stupid young cornstalk never sings out
till the boat was alongside, and the niggers a
scrambling aboard of us. Then he holloas out,
and up I comes, and we played pull devil pull
baker for a minit. But bless your soul, sir,
I'm an old hulk, hardly seaworthy, and I
couldn't make much fight agin eight big he
niggers and two whites——"

"Niggers? " said I, eagerly; "do you mean
to say they were our assailants?"

"Yes, your honour," said Bill, turning his
hat round and round, "the niggers were hid in
that log-hut ashore, and had been there for
weeks, a lookin' out for means of getting over
to Queen Victoria's ground, where in course
they're free. For you see, sir, they'd given leg-
bail to their masters, out in Tennessee State,
helped by some of them 'mancipation chaps."

"The niggers were escaped slaves, desperate
of getting out of the reach, of American law,
and Mr. Gartmore and the professor——?"

"If ever I come across them two lubberly
land pirates," energetically cried old Bill,