Pacific Station.

"However, my trial of His Majesty's ships was not a success: twice I
was in irons, once leapt into mid-ocean; nor could the battleship
hold me when she had nothing to teach me; so I did to the King what
I had done to the old man--cut and ran.

"It was at Valparaiso, and I made my way across the continent to
Buenos Ayres.

"I forget now what took me to Bristol: but there I was one day when
I happened to see--what do you think?--a girl--sixteen--I a
stripling of nineteen, or so--but she most precocious, spoke like a
woman--a grating in a wall between us. Ah, well, God is good, and
His Mercy endureth for ever. But she said it could never be--she a
Jewess: though that, by the way, is nonsense, for she is a Jewess,
and a Parisienne, and a Hindoo, and a Negress, and a Japanese, and
the man who marries her will have a harem. My friend, I have seen
her this very night!"

He was silent. Suddenly he broke out: "I came home raving! The old
man was scared out of his wits by my frenzy--I drank like ten men--
in a month was the terror of Westring. One midnight, going home
through the beech-wood--I don't know if you have noticed a hollow
elm-tree which stands to the right of the path?"

"I think I have", said Loveday.

"We shall pass near it presently; and at the moment when we approach
it, I shall feel a little thrill in my back: always it is so with