"Heigh! heigh!" cried the owner, rushing on toward the spot where the rape was being committed, "down with it, you brute! down with it! drop it!"

"Fetch it?" came a voice from the boat; "come on, good Bruno! Fetch it!"

The words were followed by a peal of laughter that rang scornfully along the cliffs. The voices of both the boatmen took part in it.

Blacker than the rocks behind him became the face of the sportsman, who had paused in silent surprise.

Up to that moment he had supposed that the two men had not seen him, and that the dog had been sent to pick up what might appear "unclaimed property." But the command given to the animal, with the scornful laugh, at once cured him of his delusion, and he turned toward them with a scowl that might have terrified bolder spirits than theirs.

It did not check his rising wrath to perceive that they were a brace of young "bloods" out on a pleasuring excursion. Perhaps all the more did he feel sensible of the insult.

He who had wandered far and wide; who had tracked Comanches on the war-path; had struck his sword against a _chevaux-de-frise_ of Mexican bayonets, to be mocked after such fantastic fashion, and by such fellows!

"Command the dog back!" he shouted, in a voice that made the rocks re-echo. "Back with him; or, by heaven, you shall both rue it!"

"Come on, Bruno?" cried they, reckless, now they had committed themselves. "Good dog! Fetch it! fetch it!"

He in the shirt-sleeves stood for a moment irresolute, because feeling himself helpless. The animal had got out of his reach. It would be impossible to overtake it. Equally so to swim out to the boat, and wreak his wrath upon the rowers, whose speech continued to torture him.

Though seeming to him an age, his inaction was scarce of a second's continuance. On looking around to see what might be done, his eye rested upon the gun, still lying upon the ledge where he had left it.

With an exulting shout he sprang toward the piece, and again held it in his grasp. It was loaded with large shot; for he had been sporting for water-fowl.

He did not wait to give warning. The scurvy behaviour of the fellows had released him from all ceremony; and hastily raising the piece, sent a shower of shot around the shoulders of the Newfoundland.

The dog dropped the coat, gave out a hideous growling, and swam, crippled-like, toward the boat.

Laughter no longer ran along the cliffs. It had ceased at sight of the gun.

"It's a double one," said he who grasped it, speaking loud enough for them to hear him. "If you'll bring your boat a little nearer, I may treat you to the second barrel?"

The bloods thought better than to accept the invitation. Their joke had come to a disagreeable termination; and with rueful faces they pulled poor Bruno aboard, and continued the row so regretfully interrupted.

Fortunately for the sportsman, the tide was still "running," so that his coat came ashore--dollars and documents along with it.

He spent some time in wringing out his saturated habiliments, and making himself presentable for the hotel. By good luck, there were no streets to pass through--the Ocean House being at this time separated only by farm fields from the rocky shore that had been the scene of his achievements.

"Adventures enough for one day!" he muttered to himself, as he approached the grand _caravanserai_ swarming with its happy hundreds.

He did not know that still another was in store for him. As he stepped into the long piazza, two gentlemen were seen entering at the opposite end. They were followed by a large dog, that sadly needed helping over a stile.

The recognition was mutual; though only acknowledged by a reciprocal frown, so dark as not to be dispelled by the cheerful gong at that moment sounding the summons to dinner.

CHAPTER SIX.

A LOVING COUPLE.

"Married for love! Hach! fool that I've been!"

The man who muttered these words was seated with elbows resting upon a table, and hands thrust distractedly through his hair.

"Fool that I've been, and for a similar reason!" The rejoinder, in a female voice, came from an inner apartment. At the same instant the door, already ajar, was spitefully pushed open, disclosing the speaker to view: a woman of splendid form and features, not the less so that both were quivering with indignation.

The man started, and looked up with an air of embarrassment. "You heard me, Frances?" he said, in a tone half-surly, half-ashamed.

"I heard you, Richard," answered the woman, sweeping majestically into the room. "A pretty speech for a man scarce twelve months married--for you! Villain!"

"That name is welcome!" doggedly retorted the man. "It's enough to make one a villain?"

"What's enough, sir?"

"To think that but for you I might have had my thousands a year, with a titled lady for my wife!"

"Not worse than to think that but for you I might have had my tens of thousands, with a lord for my husband! ay, a coronet on my crown, where you are barely able to stick a bonnet?"

"Bah! I wish you had your lord."

"And bah to you! I wish you had your lady." The dissatisfied benedict, finding himself more than matched in the game of recrimination, dropped back into his chair, replanted his elbows on the table, and resumed the torturing of his hair.

Back and forth over the floor of the apartment paced the outraged wife, like a tigress chafed, but triumphant.

Man and wife, they were a remarkable couple. By nature both were highly endowed; the man handsome as Apollo, the woman beautiful as Venus.

Adorned with moral grace, they might have challenged comparison with anything on earth. In the scene described, it was more like Lucifer talking to Juno enraged.

The conversation was in the English tongue, the accent was English, the speakers apparently belonging to that country--both of them. This impression was confirmed by some articles of travelling gear, trunks and portmanteaus of English manufacture, scattered over the floor. But the apartment was in the second storey of a second-class boarding-house in the city of New York.

The explanation is easy enough. The amiable couple had but lately landed from an Atlantic steamer. The "O.K." of the Custom House chalk was still legible on their luggage.

Looking upon the pair of strange travellers--more especially after listening to what they have said--one skilled in the physiognomy of English life would have made the following reflections:--

The man has evidently been born "a gentleman," and as evidently brought up in a bad school. He has been in the British army. About this there can be no mistake; no more than that he is now out of it. He still carries its whisker, though not its commission. The latter he has lost by selling out; but not until after receiving a hint from his colonel, or a "round robin" from his brother officers, requesting him to "resign." If ever rich, he has long since squandered his wealth; perhaps even the money obtained for his commission. He is now poor.

His looks proclaim him an adventurer.

Those of the woman carry to a like conclusion, as regards herself. Her air and action, the showy style of her dress, a certain recklessness observable in the cast of her countenance, bring the beholder, who has once stood alongside "Rotten Row," back to the border of that world-renowned ride. In the fair Fan he sees the type of the "pretty horse-breaker"--the "Anonyma" of the season.

It is an oft-repeated experience. A handsome man, a beautiful woman, both equally heart-wicked, inspiring one another with a transient passion, that lasts long enough to make man and wife of them, but rarely outlives the honeymoon. Such was the story of the couple in question.

The stormy scene described was far from being the first. It was but one of the squalls almost daily occurring between them.

The calm succeeding such a violent gust could not be continuous. A cloud so dark could not be dissipated without a further discharge of electricity.

It came; the last speaker, as if least satisfied, resuming the discourse.

"And supposing you _had_ married your lady--I know whom you mean--that old scratch, Lady C--, what a nice time the two of you would have had of it! She could only have kissed you at the risk of losing her front teeth, or swallowing them. Ha! ha! ha!"

"Lady C--be hanged! I could have had half a score of titled ladies; some of them as young, and just as good-looking, is you!"