prisoner were now merely to "cut his liver out, and-nothing more." On Ramsay the blow

fell with less violence than his enemies had expected. They knew not, in the first place, how fully he was prepared for the stroke, nor, in the second, that his whole faculties were absorbed in preparing to escape the deeper gulf into which it was the firm resolve of his enemies to plunge him. Anxiously had he looked from time to time at his faithful friend, the surgeon's head, but the quills did not yet bristle on "the fretful porcupine;" and when the court broke up, he found himself standing solitary and avoided. Around young Livingstone he saw several of his late messmates crowding forward, to offer him their slavish and hypocritical congratulations-men whom he had often heard condemning the same creature behind his back, for all the meannesses under heaven. His father also, and several of the other members of the court, came forward to shake hands with and take him below to luncheon; while on Ramsay the only looks bestowed were those of cold indifference or half-concealed contempt;

and this from many who, in the sunshine of his day, had basked and laughed with him, ready to receive any favour or obligation in his power to grant. His blood boiled fiercely in his veins as he witnessed these sad proofs of human littleness. But then, thought he, it will be the same in all times while the abject species shall endure, and they are only fools who expect aught beside. What says the immortal Shakspeare?" Men's eyes did scowl on Richard-no one cried, God save him!"

As these bitter reflections passed through his mind, he questioned of himself what should prevent him from stepping forth, and hurling insult and defiance in his late accuser's teeth, now that the bonds of the service no longer held him down in slavery. In another instant he had done so, but the thought of her to whom he was betrothed intervened. That reflection convinced him that any mean and despicable triumph over himself should be permitted, rather than that he should provoke an encounter which might end in his taking her brother's life-an accident that might place an insuperable bar

rier between himself and the object of those deep hopes and strong affections for which he had already not only perilled but lost all. Mustering all his fortitude, therefore, to receive with the panoply of scorn the keen arrows of desertion, he looked at his watch with that feverish anxiety which is the first offspring of misfortune. "What if even my tried old friend should waver now! we know not who may fall away from us till the hour of trial comes. If the appointment, for which I am so anxious, should not be obtainable, then am I indeed lost; yet if it were, surely by this time I should have received it. At any rate I can linger here no longer. I suppose I must, therefore, go through the form of removing from the frigate those few things which another hour may witness carried back, like myself, by force."

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By your leave, sir, if you please, make way." These words, pronounced in a loud authoritative tone, as if they came from the lips of a man wholly unsubservient to any control save such as pleased himself, came

upon the ear with a sudden surprise, and strangely contrasted with the low sickly whisper of the thronging underlings, who, as they had no voice for the acknowledgment of a soul, took care to put as little soul as possible into their voice. The accents, however, struck more sharply upon Ramsay's senses, and, turning round, with delighted eye he beheld make toward him a portly figure, whose topnot stood as perpendicular as the back of a drill-sergeant. Many members of the court had not retired, and anxious to commit his friend as little as possible, Ramsay did not intend to recognise his messmate by more than a private look; but the other, elevating his voice into a still louder key, strode forward with glowing features and outstretched hand, saying, as he greeted the late prisoner with a friendly shake, "Ramsay, my dear boy, I congratulate you on being a free man at last-how are you?"

Had the Palladium, as of old, in Troy, dropped down among the surrounding bevy, they could not have viewed it with more utter surprise than they did this audacious outbreak

of friendship and good feeling in a spot whence both seemed, by universal consent, to have been banished. Had the gift of empires been in Ramsay's power, the noblest of them all had been his friend's-so dear to us in adversity becomes that fidelity, the value of which in our prosperity we had scarcely known. To this, however, it should be also added, that had Ramsay possessed wealth and empire beyond that which mortal has ever yet owned, no gift, however costly, could have brought to the bosom of his friend half the satisfaction then glowing in it from the knowledge of selfworth-no idle dream of ill-based vanity, nursing itself in the belief of virtue, which the first rude touch of affliction would dispel; but the ineffaceable consciousness of one who has fought the good fight, and stood firm when all beside have fled.

According to agreement, Ramsay at once complained of severe indisposition, and the surgeon, taking him into the unoccupied cabin, beyond that in which the court-martial

had been held, was no sooner satisfied of