fellow and a damned good officer--for then there were no need to part.'
At that they parted. But as Edward was leaving, the Admiral came forward
again, and said: 'Where are you going, Debney?' 'I'm going nowhere,
sir,' Ted answered. 'I'm being tossed into strange waters--a lone
corvette of no squadron.' He stopped, smiled, and then said--it was so
like him, for, with all his wildness, he had the tastes of a student:
'You remember that passage in Isaiah, sir, "And God shall turn upon them
violently, and toss them like a ball into a large country"?'

"There wasn't a man but had a kind thought for him as he left, and
there was rain in the eyes of more than one A.B. Well, from that day he
disappeared, and no one has seen him since. God knows where he is; but
I was thinking, as I looked out there to the setting sun, that his wild
spirit would naturally turn to the South, for civilised places had no
charm for him."

"I never knew quite why he had to leave the Navy."

"He opened fire on a French frigate off Tahiti which was boring holes in
an opium smuggler."

Mostyn laughed. "Of course; and how like Ted it was--an instinct to side
with the weakest."

"Yes, coupled with the fact that the Frenchman's act was mere brutality,
and had not sufficient motive or justification. So Ted pitched into
him."

"Did the smuggler fly the British flag?"