There was a warship at this time stationed in the Firth, the _Seahorse_, Captain Palliser.

It chanced she was cruising in the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding for sunk dangers.

Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles to east of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the Wildfire Rocks and Satan's Bush, famous dangers of that coast.

And presently, after having got her boat again, she came before the wind and was headed directly for the Bass.

This was very troublesome to Andie and the Highlanders; the whole business of my sequestration was designed for privacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering ashore, it looked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse.