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156 him at Gibraltar; but if she had done so during the real voyage, how could he have the meeting all over again, with this ghastly variation? If he could only remember whether she had come out, or not! It was singular, incomprehensible! But his memory was a blank on such a vital fact as this!

"Would you like to have my field-glass for a moment?" said Sir William, considerately.

Peter took it, and the next moment the binocular fell from his nerveless hands. He had seen only too clearly the familiar form of Sophia seated in the peaked stern of a small craft, which a Spanish boatman was "scissoring" through the waves towards the Boomerang.

"Come, courage!" said the Judge kindly, as he picked up his glass and wiped the lenses. "Don't be nervous, my boy. You don't know what she may have to say to you yet, you know!"

"No, I don't!" he groaned. "I—I think I ought to go down to the gangway and meet her," he added, tremulously—not that he had any intention of doing so, but he wanted to be alone.

Before the Judge could even express his approbation of Peter's course, Tourmalin