“Oh ho! oh ho! Above! below!
Lightly and brightly they glide and go;
The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,
The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping!”

“Ah! well-a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young;
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.”

When Hardy had concluded his part of the tale, he stuck the stump of his cigar into the wine-glass of ashes, as if he had no farther use for either, moistened his throat with a bumper of tinta, and almost unconsciously passed his left arm around Harry Darcantel’s neck.

Stingo drank two bumpers, as if he had a particularly parched throat; but Paddy Burns and Tom Stewart, strange to relate, never wet their lips, and passed their hands in a careless way across their eyes, as if there were moisture enough there––as, indeed, there was; feeling, as they did, in the founts of their own generous natures, for their dear friend who sat opposite.

Piron’s head rested, face downward, on his outspread hands, and a few drops trickled through his close-pressed fingers, but they were not wine. And as he raised his head and looked around the board, where glowing, sympathizing eyes met his, he said, in a low, subdued voice,

“I trust I may thank Heaven for avenging the murder of our child!”

Even as he uttered these words, his gaze rested on the face of Darcantel; and striking the table with a blow that made the glasses jingle, he started back, as he had done on the frigate’s quarter-deck, and exclaimed,

“Great God! can it be possible that that boy was saved from the clutches of the drowned pirate!”

Not so fast, good Monsieur Piron––not so fast. Your boy was saved, and Captain Brand was not drowned. So keep quiet for a time, and you shall not only see that bloody pirate, but hear how he departed this life; only keep quiet!

Paddy Burns said, with a violent attempt at indignation, “Wirra, 227 ye spalpeen! is it thinking of old Clinker and his ’arthquake ye are?” While Tom Stewart ejaculated, “Heeh, mon! are you for breaking the commodoor’s decanters and wine-glasses, in the belief that ye are the eerthquak yersel?” Stingo, who was more calm, and a less excitable Creole, merely murmured, “Commodore, we want to hear more of what took place, and then what became of you for the past sixteen or seventeen years.”

“You shall hear more if you are not tired, gentlemen, though I have very little to add to what Hardy has already related of the ‘Centipede.’ Steward, let the servants turn in; and brew us, yourself, a light jorum of Antigua punch! Now, then,” said Commodore Cleveland, “I’m your man!