It appearing to me, that we are touching on serious times, and Bluewater being rich already, I destroyed the devise in his favour, and made a new one, this very morning.

As you are my executor, as usual, it may be well to let you know it." "Dick, you have not been mad enough to cut off the head of your own family--your own flesh and blood, as it might be--to leave the few thousands you own, to this mad adventurer in Scotland!" Bluewater smiled at this evidence of the familiarity of his friend with his own way of thinking and feeling; and, for a single instant, he regretted that he had not put his first intention in force, in order that the conformity of views might have been still more perfect; but, putting a hand in his pocket he drew out the document itself, and leaning forward, gave it carelessly to Sir Gervaise.
"There is the will; and by looking it over, you will know what I've done," he said.

"I wish you would keep it; for, if 'misery makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows,' revolutions reduce us, often, to strange plights, and the paper will be safer with you than with me.

Of course, you will keep my secret, until the proper time to reveal it shall arrive." The vice-admiral, who knew that he had no direct interest in his friend's disposition of his property, took the will, with a good deal of curiosity to ascertain its provisions.

So short a testament was soon read; and his eye rested intently on the paper until it had taken in the last word.