and self-indulgence, and shut him out, forever, from the staid old
English cathedral town where he was born. He knew that his relations
believed and wished him dead. He thought of this past with little
pleasure, but with little remorse. Like most of his stamp, he believed
it was ill-luck, chance, somebody else's fault, but never his own
responsible action. He would not repent; he would be wiser only. And he
would not be retaken--alive!

Two or three months passed in this monotonous duty, in which he partly
recovered his strength and his nerves. He lost his furtive, restless,
watchful look; the bracing sea air and the burning sun put into his face
the healthy tan and the uplifted frankness of a sailor. His eyes grew
keener from long scanning of the horizon; he knew where to look
for sails, from the creeping coastwise schooner to the far-rounding
merchantman from Cape Horn. He knew the faint line of haze that
indicated the steamer long before her masts and funnels became visible.
He saw no soul except the solitary boatman of the little "plunger,"
who landed his weekly provisions at a small cove hard by. The boatman
thought his secretiveness and reticence only the surliness of his
nation, and cared little for a man who never asked for the news, and to
whom he brought no letters. The long nights which wrapped the cabin in
sea-fog, and at first seemed to heighten the exile's sense of security,
by degrees, however, became monotonous, and incited an odd restlessness,
which he was wont to oppose by whiskey,--allowed as a part of his
stores,--which, while it dulled his sensibilities, he, however, never
permitted to interfere with his mechanical duties.

He had been there five months, and the hills on the opposite shore
between Tamalpais were already beginning to show their russet yellow
sides. One bright morning he was watching the little fleet of Italian