"We had had full moon nearly the night before, and this night, I remember, 'twas the very pearl of moonlight—the water all of a ripple sparkling in it, almost as blue as by day; the sky full o' white light; and the moon as large as the capstan-head, but brighter than silver. You might ha' said you saw the very rays of it come down to the bellies of the sails, and sticking on the same plank in the deck for an hour at a time, as the ship surged ahead. Old Dido, the cook, had a fashion of coming upon deck of a moonlight night, in warm latitudes, to sleep on top o' the spars; he would lie with his black face full under it, like a lizard basking in the sun. Many a time the men advised him against it, at any rate to cover his face; for, if it wouldn't spoil, they said, he might wake up blind, or with his mouth pulled down to his shoulder, and out of his mind to boot. It wasn't the first time neither, sir, I've known a fellow moonstruck in the tropics, for 'tis another guess matter altogether from your hazy bit o' white paper yonder: why, if you hang a fish in it for an hour or two, 'twill stink like a lucifer match, and be poison to eat. Well, sir, that night, sure enough, up comes Dido with a rug to lie upon, and turns in upon the spars under the bulwarks, and in five minutes he was fast asleep, snoring with his face to the moon. So the watch, being tricky inclined ways on account of the breeze, took into their heads to give him a fright. One got hold of a paint-pot out of the half-deck, and lent him a wipe of white paint with the brush all over his face; Dido only gave a grunt, and was as fast as ever. The next thing was to grease his wool, and plaster it up in shape of a couple o' horns. Then they drew a bucket of water, and set it on the deck alongside, for him to see himself. When our watch came on deck, at eight bells, the moon was as bright as ever in the west, and the cook stretched out like Happy Tom on the spars, with his face slued round to meet it. In a little the breeze began to fall, and the light canvass to flap aloft, till she was all of a shiver, and the topsails sticking in to the masts, and shaking out again, with a clap that made the boom-irons rattle. At last she wouldn't answer her wheel, and the mate had the courses hauled up in the trails; 'twas a dead calm once more, and the blue water only swelled in the moonlight, like one sheet of rear-admiral's flags a-washing in a silver steep,—that's the likest thing I can fancy. When the ship lay still, up gets the black doctor, half asleep, and I daresay he had been laying in a cargo of Jamaica rum overnight: the bucket was just under his nose as he looked down to see where he was, and the moon shining into it. I heard him roar out, 'O de dibble!' and out he sprang to larboard, over the bulwarks, into the water. 'Man overboard, ahoy!' I sang out, and the whole watch came running from aft and forud to look over. 'Oh Christ!' says one o' the men, pointing with his finger—'Look.' Dido's head was just rising alongside; but just under the ship's counter what did we see but the black back-fin of the shark, coming slowly round, as them creatures do when they're not quite sure of anything that gives 'em the start. 'The shark! the shark!' said every one; 'he's gone, by ----' 'Down with the quarter-boat, men!' sings out the mate, and he ran to one of the falls to let it go. The young nigger, Jack, was amongst the rest of us; in a moment he off with his hat and shoes, took the cook's big carving-knife out of the galley at his back, and was overboard in a moment. He was the best swimmer I ever chanced to see, and the most fearless: the moonlight showed everything as plain as day, and he watched his time to jump right in where the shark's back-fin could be seen coming quicker along, with a wake shining down in the water at both fins and tail. Old Dido was striking out like a good un, and hailing for a rope, but he knew nothing at all of the shark. As for young Jack, he said afterwards he felt his feet come full slap on the fish's back, and then he laid out to swim under him and give him the length of his knife close by the jaw, when he'd turn up to bite—for 'twas what the youngsters along the Guinea coast were trained to do every day on the edge of the surf. However, curious enough, there wasn't another sign of this confounded old sea-tiger felt or seen again; no doubt he got a fright and went straight off under the keel; at any rate the boat was alongside of the cook and Jack next minute, and picked 'em both up safe. Jack swore he heard the chain at the shark's snout rattle, as he was slueing round his head within half a fathom of old Dido, and just as he pounced upon the bloody devil's back-bone; the next moment it was clear water below his feet, and he saw the white bells rise from a lump of green going down under the ship's bends, as large as the gig, with its belly glancing like silver. If so, I daresay the cook's legs would have stuck on his own hook before they were swallowed; but, anyhow, the old nigger was ready to believe in the devil as long as he lived. The whole matter gave poor Dido a shake he never got the better of; at the end of the voyage he vowed he'd live ashore the rest of his days, to be clear of all sorts o' devilry. Whether it didn't agree with him or not, I can't say, but he knocked off the hooks in a short time altogether, and left young Jack the most of his arnings, on the bargain of hailing by his name ever after. 'Twas a joke the men both in the Mary Jane and the old Rajah got up, when the story was told, to call the cook Dido Moonlight, because, after all, 'twas the death of him: and when Jack shipped with the rest of us here aboard of the Rajah, having seen Dido to the ground, why, all hands christened him over again Jack Moonlight; though to look at him now, I daresay, sir, you wouldn't well fancy how such things as black Jack's face and moonlight was logged together, unless the world went by contrairies!"
MOONLIGHT MEMORIES.
BY B. SIMMONS.
I.
They say Deceit and Change divide
The empire of this world below;
That, whelm'd by Time's resistless tide,
Love's fountain ebbs, no more to flow.
Dawn-brow'd Madonna, deem not so,
While to my truth yon Moon in heaven
I loved thee by, so long ago,
Is still a faithful "witness" given!
II.
All brightly round, that mellow Moon
Rose o'er thy bright, serene abode,
When first to win thy smiles' sweet boon
My tears of stormy passion flowed.
Where Woodburn's larches veil'd our road,
I sued thy cheek's averted grace,
And, while its lustre paled and glowed,
Drank the blest sunshine of thy face.
III.