past memories.

"Amongst other matters, I dabbled a little in the Private Inquiry line of business, and the old man came to me. He had a son who had gone abroad--a wild young dog, by all accounts—and he wanted particulars of him."

"Did you get them?"

"To a certain extent. I hunted him through Paris into Brussels, from Brussels to Antwerp, from Antwerp back to Paris. I lost him there. A miserable end to a long and expensive search. I got nothing but a portmanteau with a lot of letters from his mother. the particulars to the shipbuilder, and by all accounts the news killed him, for he died not. long after."

I sent

The old

man had left him his fortune-a large one, I believe-but he'd left Europe, it seems, for India, and was lost in the Hydaspes. Frere was his cousin.”

"Ah !"

By Gad, it annoys me when I think of it,” continued Rex, feeling, by force of memory,. once more the adventurer of fashion. "With the resources I had too! Oh, a miserable failure! The The days and nights I've spent.

walking about looking for Richard Devine, and never catching a glimpse of him. The old man gave me his son's portrait, with full particulars of his early life, and I suppose I carried that ivory gimcrack in my breast pocket for nearly three months, pulling it out to refresh my memory every half-hour. By Gad, if the young gentleman was anything like his picture, I could have sworn to him if I'd met him in Timbuctoo."

"Do you think you'd know him again?" asked Rufus Dawes in a low voice, turning away his head.

There may have been something in the attitude in which the speaker had put himself that awakened memory, or perhaps the subdued eagerness of the tone, contrasting so strangely with the comparative inconsequence of the theme, had caused John Rex's brain to perform one of those feats of automatic synthesis at which we afterwards wonder. The profligate son—the likeness to the portraitthe mystery of Dawes' life! These were the links of a galvanic chain. He closed the

circuit, and a vivid flash revealed to himTHE MAN.

Warder Troke coming up, put his hand on "Dawes," he said, "you're

Rex's shoulder.

wanted at the yard;" and then, seeing his mistake, added with a grin, "Curse you two; you're so much alike one can't tell t'other from which."

Rufus Dawes walked off moodily; but John Rex's evil face turned pale, and a strange hope made his heart leap.

Gad, Troke's right, we are alike. I'll not press him to escape any more."

HE Pretty Mary-as ugly and evilsmelling a tub as ever pitched under

a southerly burster-had been lying on and off Cape Surville for nearly three weeks. Captain Blunt was getting wearied. He made strenuous efforts to find the Oyster-beds of which he was ostensibly in search, but no success attended his efforts. In vain did he take boat and pull into every cove and nook between the Hippolyte Reef and Schouten's Island. In vain did he run the Pretty Mary as near to the rugged cliffs as he dared to take her, and make perpetual expeditions to the shore. In vain did he-in his eagerness for the interests of Mrs. Purfoy-clamber up

the rocks, and spend hours in solitary soundings in Blackman's Bay. He never found an oyster. "If I don't find something in three or four days more," said he to his mate, "I shall go back again. It's too dangerous cruising here."

On the same evening that Captain Blunt. made this resolution, the watchman at Signal Hill saw the arms of the semaphore at the settlement make three motions, thus:

The semaphore was furnished with three revolving arms, fixed one above the other. The upper one denoted units, and had six motions, indicating ONE to SIX. The middle

one denoted tens, TEN to SIXTY.

The lower one marked hundreds, from ONE HUNDRED to

SIX HUNDRED.

The lower and upper arms whirled out. That meant THREE HUNDRED AND SIX.

A ball ran up to the top of the post. That

meant ONE THOUSAND.

Number 1306, or, being interpreted, "PRISONERS ABSCONDED."

By George, Harry," said Jones, the signalman, "there's a bolt!"

The semaphore signalled again: "Number 1411."