And at the last reply a pair of bewitching dark eyes were turned upon that weather-beaten mariner; that is to say, in plain English, a young and rather pretty lady-passenger looked up at Captain Cope, and said,—
"Do tell us some of your sea-stories, Captain Cope,—do, please!"
"Why, Ma'am," replied he, "I've no stories. There's Smith of the 'Wittenagemot' can tell them by the hour; but I never could."
"Weren't you ever wrecked, Captain Cope?"
"No,—I can't say I ever was, exactly. I was mate of the 'Moscow' when she knocked her bottom out in Bootle Bay; but she wasn't lost, for I went master of her after that."
"Were you frightened, Captain Cope?"
"Well, no,—I can't say I was; though I must say I never expected to see morning again. I never saw any one more scared than was old Captain Tucker that night. We dragged over the outer bar and into Bootle Bay, and there we lay, the ship full of water, and everything gone above the monkey-rail. The only place we could find to stand was just by the cabin gangway. The 'Moscow' was built with an old-fashioned cabin on deck, and right there we hung, all hands of us. The old man he read the service to us,—and that wouldn't do, he was so scared; so he got the black cook, who was a Methodist, and made him pray; and every two minutes or so, a sea would come aboard and all in among us,—like to wash us clean out of the ship.
"After midnight the life-boat got alongside, and all hands were for scrambling aboard; but I'd got set in my notion the ship would live the gale out, and I wouldn't go aboard. Well, the old man was too scared to make long stories, and he tumbled aboard the life-boat in a hurry. The last words he said to me, as he went over the side, were,—'Good-bye, Mr. Cope! I never shall see you again!' However, he got up to the city, to Mrs. McKinney's, and there he found a lot of the captains, and he was telling them all how he'd lost his ship, and what a fool poor Cope was to stick aboard of her, and all that. When the morning came, the gale had broke, and the old man began to think he'd been in too much of a fright, and he'd better get the tug and go down to look after the ship.
"I was so knocked up, for want of sleep, and the gale and all, that, when they got down to us, my head was about gone. I don't remember anything, myself; but they told me, that, when they got aboard, I was poking about decks as if I was looking for something.
"'How are you, Mr. Cope?' sung out old Tucker. 'I never expected to see you again in this world.'