"You still mistake my meaning; on the wharf you had another companion."

"Ay, ay; he is in the offing there, overhauling that bit of a light-house,
which is badly enough moored unless they mean it to shew the channel to
your ox-teams and inland traders; hereaway, gentlemen, where you see that
pile of stones which seems likely to be coming down shortly by-the-run."

The stranger looked in the direction indicated by the other, and saw the
young mariner, to whom he had alluded, standing at the foot of a ruined
tower, which was crumbling under the slow operations of time, at no great
distance from the place where he stood. Throwing a handful of small change
to the seamen, he wished them a better meal, and crossed the fence, with
an apparent intention of examining the ruin also.

"The lad is free with his coppers," said Dick, suspending the movements of
his teeth, to give the stranger another and a better look; "but, as they
will not grow where he has planted them, S'ip, you may turn them over to
my pocket. An off-handed and a free-handed chap that, Africa; but then
these law-dealers get all their pence of the devil, and they are sure of
more, when the shot begins to run low in the locker."

Leaving the negro to collect the money, and to transfer it, as in duty
bound, to the hands of him who, if not his master, was at all times ready
and willing to exercise the authority of one, we shall follow the stranger
in his walk toward, the tottering edifice. There was little about the ruin
itself to attract the attention of one who, from his assertions, had
probably often enjoyed the opportunities of examining far more imposing
remains of former ages, on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a small
circular tower, which stood on rude pillars, connected by arches, and
might have been constructed, in the infancy of the country, as a place of