that are occurring in Russia at the present time, it is not improbable
that there was treachery; and that when it was discovered, suspicion
centred on certain persons, who were, in accordance with Muscovite
autocracy, dispatched without ceremony, guilty or not guilty.

"Ah!" said Mr. C---- to the captain, who had just finished describing
his last departure from ---- Harbour, "you may thank your stars that
the torpedoes were loaded with sand or some other rubbish, or you
wouldn't have been here this day. The officers were in a great fury at
the wires not operating when you were running out, and the
men--submarines, I think, they are called--who were behind the
earthworks were knocked about badly. They came to my place to get to
know the name of the vessel, but I bamboozled them, and gave them
cigars and vodka, and they weren't long in forgetting about what had
happened. I think there is no doubt about your being the cause of
having the mines raised, as, to my certain knowledge, they tried to
explode them the day after you left the port, and very few of them
went off. Things were kept a bit quiet, but I can always get to know
what is going on, and if the gunboats had been properly handled that
night it would have been all up with you."

"But," said the captain, "what on earth is the use of talking that
way! They were not properly handled, and here I am. And what I want to
know is this: do you think there will be any more about it, now the
war is over, and old Pumper Nichol [the Admiral] and his friends are
not here?"

"I don't know," said his friend. "You never can tell what these sly
rascals are thinking or doing; but I will know as soon as there are
any indications. If I had been you, I wouldn't have come out here so