"A what!--a Moham--"

"A Mohammedan--a robber on board ship."

"On board ship!"

He was not going to give up his ascendancy in the matter, hard as she
pushed him; so he bethought him of a pack of old tales there-anent, and
went on to explain drily--

"They go to the Baltic--to Russia--to salt human flesh."

"Human flesh!"

"Yes, and sometimes, too, they seize vessels in the open sea and do
their salting there."

She fixed a pair of large, terrified eyes on him, which made the old man
continue--

"And it is especially for little girls they look. That meat is the
finest, and goes by tons down to the Grand Turk."

Having played this last trump, he was going in again, but was stopped by
her eager question--

"Do they use a glass there on board?" And when he said they did, she
slipped quickly by him through the door, and kept cautiously within as
long as the vessel was to be seen through the window-pane on the