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With a feeling of intense joy, Fred sprang once more upon the deck of the privateer, and resigned the fainting girl to the hands of the surgeon, and then hastened to exchange his wet clothes for dry ones. Gus, who had arrived in the other boat a few moments before, listened with envy and amazement to his friend's story.

"Well, luck is everything!" he exclaimed, with a sigh, when his friend had concluded; "if every ship in the British navy were to take fire, I don't believe I'd have the good fortune to save a single young lady from a scorching; while you're not well out, when you return with an angel in your arms, wringing wet, and never look any more elated by it than if you were a man of stone. O Fortune! Fortune? thou fickle goddess, if you would only throw such chances in my way as is thrown in the path of this stony-hearted cynic, believe me, I would be far from proving so ungrateful."

"A very good speech for an extempore one," observed Fred, as he coolly lighted a cigar. "And, by the way, here is the doctor, I must ask him how his fair patient is."