his way down to the corridor on the second floor,
in which a night-light was always burning. He
advanced to the truckle-bed; and, steadying
himself against the opposite wall, looked at it
attentively. Prolonged contemplation of his
own resting-place for the night, apparently
failed to satisfy him. He shook his head
ominously; and, taking from the side-pocket of his
great-coat a pair of old patched slippers,
surveyed them with an aspect of illimitable
doubt. "I'm all abroad to-night," he mumbled
to himself. "Troubled in my mind— that's what
it is— troubled in my mind."

The old patched slippers and the veteran's
existing perplexities, happened to be intimately
associated, one with the other, in the relation of
cause and effect. The slippers belonged to the
admiral, who had taken one of his unreasonable
fancies to this particular pair, and who still
persisted in wearing them, long after they were
unfit for his service. Early that afternoon, old
Mazey had taken the slippers to the village
cobbler to get them repaired on the spot, before
his master called for them the next morning. He
sat superintending the progress and completion
of the work, until evening came; when he and
the cobbler betook themselves to the village inn to
drink each other's healths at parting. They had
prolonged this social ceremony till far into the
night; and they had parted, as a necessary
consequence, in a finished and perfect state of
intoxication on either side.

If the drinking-bout had led to no other result
than those night wanderings in the grounds of
St. Crux, which had shown old Mazey the light
in the east windows, his memory would
unquestionably have presented it to him the next
morning, in the light of one of the praiseworthy
achievements of his life. But another
consequence had sprung from it, which the old sailor
now saw dimly, through the interposing bewilderment
left in his brain by the drink. He had
committed a breach of discipline, and a breach
of trust. In plainer words, he had deserted his
post.

The one safeguard against Admiral Bartram's
constitutional tendency to somnambulism, was
the watch and ward which his faithful old servant
kept outside the door. No entreaties had ever
prevailed on him to submit to the usual precaution
taken in such cases. He peremptorily declined
to be locked into his room; he even ignored his
own liability, whenever a dream disturbed him,
to walk in his sleep. Over and over again, old
Mazey had been roused by his master's attempts
to push past the truckle-bed, or to step over it,
in his sleep; and over and over again, when he had
reported the fact the next morning, the admiral
had declined to believe him. As the old sailor
now stood, staring in vacant inquiry at his
master's door, these incidents of the past rose
confusedly on his memory, and forced on him the
serious question, whether the admiral had left
his room during the earlier hours of the night?
If by any mischance the sleep-walking fit had
seized him, the slippers in old Mazey's hand
pointed straight to the startling conclusion that
followed— his master must have passed barefoot
in the cold night, over the stone stairs and
passages of St. Crux. "Lord send he's been quiet!"
muttered old Mazey, daunted, bold as he was
and drunk as he was, by the bare contemplation
of that prospect. "If his honour's been walking
to-night, it will be the death of him!"

He roused himself for the moment, by main
force—strong in his dog-like fidelity to the
admiral, though strong in nothing else— and fought
off the stupor of the drink. He looked at the
bed, with steadier eyes and a clearer mind.
Magdalen's precaution in returning it to its
customary position, presented it to him necessarily
in the aspect of a bed which had never been
moved from its place. He next examined the
counterpane carefully. Not the faintest vestige
appeared of the indentation which must have
been left by footsteps passing over it. There
was the plain evidence before him—the evidence
recognisable at last by his own bewildered eyes
—that the admiral had never moved from
his room. "I'll take the Pledge to-morrow!"
mumbled old Mazey, in an outburst of grateful
relief. The next moment the fumes of
the liquor flowed back insidiously over his
brain; and the veteran, returning to his customary
remedy, paced the passage in zig-zag as
usual, and kept watch on the deck of an imaginary
ship.

Soon after sunrise, Magdalen suddenly heard
the grating of the key from the outside, in the
lock of the door. The door opened, and old
Mazey reappeared on the threshold. The first
fever of his intoxication had cooled, with time,
into a mild penitential glow. He breathed
harder than ever, in a succession of low growls,
and wagged his venerable head at his own
delinquencies, without intermission.

"How are you now, you young land-shark in
petticoats?" inquired the veteran. "Has your
conscience been quiet enough to let you go to
sleep?"

"I have not slept," said Magdalen, drawing
back from him in doubt of what he might do
next. "I have no remembrance of what
happened after you locked the door—I think I must
have fainted. Don't frighten me again, Mr.
Mazey! I feel miserably weak and ill. What
do you want?"

"I want to say something serious," replied
old Mazey, with impenetrable solemnity. "It's
been on my mind to come here, and make a clean
breast of it, for the last hour or more. Mark
my words, young woman. I'm going to disgrace
myself."

Magdalen drew further and further back, and
looked at him in rising alarm.

"I know my duty to his honour the admiral,"
proceeded old Mazey, waving his hand drearily
in the direction of his master's door. "But, try
as hard as I may, I can't find it in my heart, you