Paul's Account of himself.-Joe Smart's Welcome of his old Friend. Joe meets Jem Stevens in the Dark-Apprehension of Paul.--Ned and Tim in Africa.--A demand for Rain.-Ned's Dilemma.--Tim's Statesmanship.--The Escape.--Sad Fate of Nero.--His Burial.-A Prairie Fire.--Among the Natives again.-A Negro Village.-The Queen.--Her Beauty.--Her Affection for Ned.--Her Proposal.--Pur- suit by Ned's former Friends.-Battle.--Death of the young Queen. In the Desert.-Want of Water.-Death of the Guide.-The last Draught of Water. --Tim's devoted Faithfulness.-And Death.- Rain.--Burial of Tim.--An Arab Village.--The Union-jack.—The Jem Stevens and Edith.-A Letter to the latter.-Reads it.-Jem pur- poses to depart.-Edith locks the Door.-Arrival of Ned.-He shows Jem the Door.—Apprehension of Ned.................................... Message to Edith from a dying Man.-Who confesses himself guilty of the Murder of her Father.-Evidence against Jem.—Deposition.— The Sessions.-Paul and Ned at the Bar.-Evidence of Mrs. Jones. -The Defense.-The Murderer in Court.-The Judge examines the Trinkets so long ago "cast up by the Sea."-Ned finds his Fa- CAST UP BY THE SEA. CHAPTER I. N the rugged coast of Cornwall, where the waves of the Atlantic break in their rudest force against the inhospitable cliffs, there stood in the year 1784 a small fishing village. This hamlet was hardly worthy of the name, as it consisted of merely two or three clusters of huts, chiefly formed of decayed vessels which, no longer sea-worthy, had been sawn in halves and inverted; thus their well-tarred bottoms became the roofs to protect the occupants, who in former days had navigated their dwellings in the double capacity of fishermen and smugglers. The spot was well chosen. In the rough wall of precipices which rose from the waters' edge to the height of several hundred feet there was a sudden break, and a narrow cleft in the face of the cliff of about fifty yards' width opened into an inclosed bay so completely land-locked as to form a natural harbor of exceedingly small dimensions, the entire diameter of the horse-shoe form being within two hundred yards in width. This bay, surrounded by lofty, precipitous cliffs, formed an amphitheatre excluded from the rest of the world, as its very existence would be unknown to a stranger until he suddenly approached the verge, and observed the calm basin below, with the sea horizon beyond the narrow gap |