DICK RODNEY;

OR,

THE ADVENTURES OF AN ETON BOY.

BY

JAMES GRANT.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. [THE ETON BOY]
II. [CAPTAIN ZEERVOGEL]
III. [THE THREE WARNINGS]
IV. [HOW I GOT ADRIFT]
V. [USELESS REGRETS]
VI. [THE EUGENIE]
VII. [THE SCOTCH MATE'S YARN]
VIII. [VOYAGE CONTINUED]
IX. [A HURRICANE DRIVES US TO THE FORTUNATE ISLES]
X. [I GO ASHORE]
XI. [HOW TOM WAS TATTOOED]
XII. [DANGEROUS COMPANY]
XIII. [THE VENTANA]
XIV. [SEQUEL TO OUR ADVENTURE]
XV. [THE ANCHOR A-PEAK]
XVI. [AN INCIDENT]
XVII. [ANTONIO EL CUBANO]
XVIII. [THE WATER-SPOUT]
XIX. [CUBA]
XX. [AN EVIL SPIRIT]
XXI. [WE CROSS THE LINE]
XXII. [THE CUBANO UNMASKED]
XXIII. [CONFERENCE OF THE CREW]
XXIV. [I CONFRONT THE CUBANO]
XXV. [I RESCUE THE MATE]
XXVI. [THE REQUITAL]
XXVII. [THE THUNDERBOLT]
XXVIII. [CAST AWAY]
XXIX. [DISCOVER LAND]
XXX. [THE ISLAND OF ALPHONSO]
XXXI. [WE BUILD A HUT]
XXXII. [A WILD BOAR]
XXXIII. [A NEW PERPLEXITY]
XXXIV. [THE MYSTERY INCREASES]
XXXV. [THE MYSTERY SOLVED]
XXXVI. [A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW]
XXXVII. [THE FATA MORGANA]
XXXVIII. [MAROONED]
XXXIX. [A NEW DANGER]
XL. [THE REVOLVER AGAIN]
XLI. [A WATERLOGGED VESSEL]
XLII. [THE OLD SPANISH BOOK]
XLIII. [SANGRE POR SANGRE]
XLIV. [THE SAN ILDEFONSO]
XLV. [WE SAIL FOR EUROPE]
XLVI. [THE HOMEWARD VOYAGE]
XLVII. [A MUTINY]
XLVIII. [SEQUEL TO THE MUTINY]
XLIX. [THE COAST OF AFRICA]
L. [SANTA CRUZ]
LI. [THE OLD DRAGON TREE OF CAORA]
LII. [VALLEY OF THE DIAMOND]
LIII. [THE LAST OF ANTONIO EL CUBANO]
LIV. [CONCLUSION]

DICK RODNEY;

OR,

THE ADVENTURES OF AN ETON BOY.

CHAPTER I.
THE ETON BOY.

In the relation of the following adventures I do not mean to illustrate the principle maintained by some writers, that by an inevitable course of events in life, that becomes fate, which at first was merely choice; but rather to show how, by a remarkable combination of circumstances (to a great extent beyond my own control), I was involved in a series of perils and perigrinations, such as rarely fall to the lot even of those who have the most restless of dispositions.

That my temperament was, and is still, something of this nature, I must confess; and the reading of my leisure hours—books of wild adventure by field and flood (I have devoured them all from the volumes of dear old Daniel Defoe, to those of the Railway Library), filled my mind with vague longings and airy fancies, for greater achievements than our periodical regatta, or the ranks of our Eton Rifle Volunteer Corps were likely to afford, although I deemed myself by no means an undistinguished member of the latter.

I had been for the usual time an "oppidan" at Eton; but, though standing high in favor of the Reverend M. A. with whom I was boarded, of the Vice Provost, and other functionaries, I had, unfortunately and unwisely, spent too much of my time with the boxing gloves and fencing foils; at cricket in the playing fields; in rowing on the river—that old traditional amusement of our Etonians; in training for the great 4th of June, the College Regatta day; and in erratic excursions to Windsor and elsewhere—to hope for transference to Cambridge.

This had long been the dearest wish of my father, poor man! but in his letters to me the names of Walpole, Canning, Fox, Wellington, Hallam, and other alumni of our great seminary, were rehearsed again and again without effect; and he never failed to remind me, in the words of old Lembarde, that it is always to Cambridge "the scole of Eton sendeth her ripe fruite."

I had earned the unpleasant reputation of being an idler, though by no means one; and this was oddly enough confirmed, when one day I narrowly escaped drowning in the same pool, if not among the same weeds, where George, Earl Waldegrave, an Eton boy in his tenth year, perished so long ago as 1794, when bathing in the Thames, near a field called the Brocas.

"Existence," says a certain writer, "appears to me scarcely existence, without its struggles and its successes. I should ever like to have some great end before me, for the striving to attain amid a crowd of competitors, would make me feel all the glory of life."

With such vague ideas floating before me, I returned from Eton last year, and found myself at my father's house, the old and secluded Rectory of Erlesmere, in a very undecided frame of mind as to the future, and the profession I should adopt.

My father, as before, urged King's College as a proper preparation for any profession.

My mother hinted that our name had shone in the navy, and cast a glance at a large portrait which hung in the dining-room. It represented George Lord Rodney, the castigator of the Spaniards, in a full bob-wig and white satin breeches, boarding the leading ship of the Caracca fleet, amid a whirlwind of torn rigging, smoke, and cannon-balls, forming a background by no means hilarious.

But my father pooh-poohed this. I was already far too old for the time at which the navy is entered—to wit, the mature years of thirteen.

Then my aunt Etty, who still curled her hair in the fashion of thirty years ago, recommended the army with a pensive air; for she had been engaged to a young sub, who was killed at—I must not say where, for it was a great many years ago, and Aunt Etty is unmarried still; but her views, though warmly seconded by sisters Dot and Sybil (who saw military balls and pic-nics in perspective), did not accord with mine, for I had spent two years or more in our Eton rifle corps, and the monotony of the drill—especially that boring curriculum of Hythe position (I went through the musketry class), worried me, as I wilfully deemed myself able to sight my weapon and bring down either a Frenchman or a pheasant without it.

At Aunt Etty's suggestion, my father would shake his white head, and say, quoting the author of Ecclesiasticus,—

"'There are two things which grieve my heart to see: a man of war that suffereth from poverty, and men of understanding that are not set by.' The sword, Etty, is but a poor inheritance; better send Dick to the counting-house of his uncle, Rodney and Co., in London."

But I trembled at this suggestion, as it did not accord with my own brilliant views in any way and so months passed idly away.

I missed the manly amusements of Eton, and the hilarity of my class-fellows; and though loving well my home and family, when the novelty of my return and of perfect freedom passed away, I longed for a change of scene—a stirring occupation—an active employment.

Is destiny stronger than intention?

I should hope not; yet for a time I was almost inclined to think so, after the terrible episode by which I was suddenly torn from my home, and cast upon that world which, hitherto, I had viewed through the sunny medium of my day-dreams and romances alone.

Our Rectory is situated a mile distant from the sea, of which an ample view can be had from the upper windows. Behind the house grows a coppice of mighty oaks, the gnarled arms of which bear loads of rustling foliage that form long leafy dells, through which the sun can scarcely penetrate in summer,—trees so old that the mind becomes lost in attempting to conceive what was there before they grew, or who planted them, and of all that has passed in the changing world, of all that have been born, have lived long lives, died, and been laid in their silent graves, since these old oaks were acorns, twigs, and saplings!

The Rectory of Erlesmere is an antique mansion, with projecting oriel windows, the mullions of which are almost hidden by ivy, woodbine, and honeysuckle. One portion terminates in a steep dove-cot gable, the other in a kind of tower, wherein, says tradition, an old rector of former times defended himself against the puritans, and valiantly blazed away with a matchlock through some narrow slits, in which the martins now built their nests in peace, and over which the China roses grew undisturbed; while against the strong old wall my sisters Sybil and Dot had their fernery, to them an object of great solicitude and interest, as they were very learned in the science of all manner of leaves, blades, and twigs, and knew their mysterious names.

Close by is our old Rectory church, with its brass-mounted tombs of the Middle Ages, and its black oak pews of the Puritan times, where every Sunday and holiday the rays of light fell through the painted windows on the bowed heads of the country people while my father preached.

Beyond the house and church stretches a fair green English lawn, whereon a herd of deer are grazing, with the summer sunshine falling on their smooth dapple coats as they toss their antlers; and, when scared by the whistle of the distant railway train, they glide away to the oak coppice, that is older than the days of the Tudors or Stuarts.

That coppice and the sea-shore, but especially the latter, were my favorite resorts. Daily I wandered by the beach, listening to the surge that chafed upon the layers of pebbles, shells, and seaweed, thinking of Danish Canute and his servile courtiers, or filled by those vague, solemn, and pleasing thoughts, which the sight of an object so mighty and mysterious as the boundless ocean creates within us.

The monotonous sound of wave after wave, as they broke on the flat beach, made me think of lands and shores, of people, cities, and adventures far, far away from our quiet old ivy-clad Rectory and its daily routine. Thus, every piece of drift wood, every strange fishbone and mouldered piece of timber which the ocean cast at my feet, became a source of interest for the mind to ruminate upon.

I remember the masts of a sunken vessel being discovered one morning, about two miles from the shore, and they were long a source of speculation to me. A mystery hovered about these rotting spars, these slimy ropes that waved in the sea breeze, and the hull that lay amid the rocks and weeds so far down below.

What was her story, what the fate of her crew, none could guess, as no bodies ever came ashore with the tide.

When a ship appeared at the horizon, my eye followed her until her sails melted into the distant haze, and then it seemed as if spirit and fancy pursued her together upon the world of waters.

Generally we saw only coasters creeping along, or colliers bound for the Thames, with their dingy canvas, their black sides, and encumbered decks; but more than once we were favored by seeing a British line-of-battle ship in all her glory—one of the channel squadron, no doubt—with her squared yards, her flush decks, her snow-white hummocks in the nettings—the ports triced up, and the triple tier of sixty-eights or thirty-twos peering through them; the scarlet ensign floating at her gaff peak; the officers lounging on the poop, the red-coated marines at their posts; and high over all, the long whip-like pennant streaming on the air, from the mainmast head.

Such a sight, under a splendid sunshine, when the summer sea was only rippled by a gentle breeze, to catch which every inch of canvas was spread to the yard-heads, might make the coldest heart quicken; and it certainly made me think of my mother's wishes, and of old Rodney in his bob-wig and ruffles, scrambling at the head of his boarders, sword in hand, up the carved and gilded side of the Spanish galleon—of Boscawen and Benbow, Captain Cook, and Robinson Crusoe; for the real and the ideal were all blended together in my wayward mind.

CHAPTER II.
CAPTAIN ZEERVOGEL.

Two miles from the Rectory is the village or small seaport of Erlesmere.

It is a sunshiny little place, having a row of fishermen's houses, that are covered by woodbine and honeysuckle, amid which, and over which, are quantities of brown nets and black bladders, drying in the breeze.

Garlands of red-floats are tossed upon the same breeze, as they are strung in lines across the little street; and others, that are painted yellow, nestle, like great pumpkins, amid the luxuriant masses of leaves which cover the picturesque little dwellings. Boats of all sizes and rusty anchors encumber the little street, which is paved with round stones; while oars, spare yards, and masts stand against the walls and eaves in all directions.

Swarms of red-cheeked children gambol amid this nautical débris; and they bring such quantities of shells and pebbles from the sea-beach that there are as many in the street as on the shore.

One of the leading features in the fisher-village of Erlesmere is a little public house, at the ivy-covered porch of which a group of burly weather-beaten fellows in long boots, striped shirts, and red nightcaps, and constantly smoking, drinking, and "taking squints to seaward" through an old battered telescope, "served" round with spun-yarn. Near it is a small dock-yard, where their boats are built, tarred, and painted, and where a passing coaster may have a trivial repair effected, and occasionally be hove down.

This dock is inclosed by a low ruinous wall, but, of course, is open toward the sea. It is full of well-seasoned logs, queer odds and ends of trees—it is redolent of tar and bilge, and is knee-deep in chips and shavings. Its only ornament is a flag-staff, whereon an old union jack is displayed on national holidays; for we are very loyal people in Erlesmere, no penny newspaper having ever found its way there to create disunion among us. We have no traditions that go beyond the days of Nelson, Howe, and Duncan; and one old fellow, the patriarch of the village, remembers well that sunny morning in the last days of 1805, when a great squadron was seen standing slowly up-channel, with all their ensigns half hoisted, for the hero of Trafalgar lay dead in the cabin of the Victory!

It happened, only last year, that a small Dutch schooner of some fifty tons was laid down on the gridiron at Erlesmere dock, for the purpose of being repaired. This was an event of some importance, and the whole nautical population cheerfully lent a hand in unloading her, and securing the cargo, which consisted of apples and Tergou cheeses; while her skipper, Captain Zeervogel, and the six men who composed his crew, became for the time the lions and oracles of the smoking-room and porch of the ivy-covered tavern, where it was tacitly agreed that nothing should be said about Lord Duncan, or "the licking he gave these Dutch lubbers off the Texel," in our grandfathers' days.

I had never seen a Dutch craft before; thus the quaint aspect of this schooner, with her deep waist, her bow and stern which were so clumsy in their form and strength, so exactly alike, and tilted up till she resembled a cheese cut in half—her leeboards, her brown oak planks, all bright with varnish, and her little cabin windows encircled by alternate stripes of red, green, and white paint, all made her, to me, a source of wonder; and I was daily on board, having obtained a free entry, after the bestowal of some schnaps (i.e., gin and water) upon the captain, Jan van Zeervogel, who told me many a strange tale of the North Sea, for he was a pleasant and communicative old fellow, having, as he told me, a wife and children, who kept his farm on the isle of Wolfersdyck, near South Beveland, while he tempted the dangers of the ocean to dispose of its agricultural produce.

One night, while the schooner was still on the gridiron, but when her repairs were nearly completed, I was with him in the little dungeon which he called his cabin; darkness had set in, and the hour was late—later than I ought to have been aboard—for we kept early hours at the Rectory; but the novelty of the situation, the old Dutchman's stories, the fumes of his meerschaum, and the effect of some peaches, which he gave me from a large gallipot, wherein his wife had preserved them in brandy, rendered me careless as to how the time passed.

"So, Captain Zeervogel," said I, "you are a farmer as well as a mariner?"

"Yes, a schiffer as well as a boor, a plougher alike of the land and sea," he replied, in good English. "I have a farm" (he pronounced it varrm, and so on, using consonants in a mode with which I shall not afflict the reader), "at Wolfersdyck, which is one of the most pleasant of the Zealand isles, and is about six miles long. It was larger once, but when the dykes broke, the sea swallowed up a great portion of it. About three hundred years ago the sea burst over all Beveland, and for many a year nothing of it was visible above the water, but the vanes and tops of the church steeples, with the sea-gulls and petrels perching on them.* So, you see, master, as soon as we come to anchor in the Zuid-vliet, and have our fore and aft canvas in the brails, my horses come from their stables, we run a hawser ahead, and thereby they tow the schooner through a little canal right into my own farm-yard, where my wife, my children, my house-dog—even the pigs, cocks and hens await and welcome us. There we load her, and victual the crew forward and the cabin aft, with the produce of my own land. My brother, who kept the Schiffer Huys on the shore of the Zuid-vliet, used to manage all that for me. But good Adrian is gone now—he died under strange and terrible circumstances, heaven rest him!"

* This was in 1532.

The usually jolly Dutch captain emitted a sigh and a mighty puff of smoke together. He applied once more to a square-case bottle of schiedam, and then became silent—even sad.

"Strange circumstances?" said I, echoing his words; "may I inquire what they were?"

"Ugh, myn brooder! I almost shudder when I think of them!"

My curiosity was naturally excited, and I added—

"Was he drowned?"

"No, no—worse."

"Killed?"

"I cannot say; he died by my hand on that cabin floor; and yet he did not, for he perished of a marsh fever ashore."

I thought that the brain of Captain Jan Van Zeervogel was disordered, or at least was becoming affected by the contents of his bottle of schiedam; but he resumed:

"Though I am not one who is much used to looking astern in the voyage of life, or back through the mists of time and memory, I will tell you this strange story, Mr. Rodney, as it happened to me."

The captain carefully refilled the brown bowl of his large pipe, lit it with equal deliberation, and after a few whiffs, during which his keen, gray eyes were bent on the cabin floor, he fixed them on the rudder case, and then commenced his tale.

CHAPTER III.
THE THREE WARNINGS.

"I must preface my story by telling you that my brother Adrian and I were twins, and possessed to the full that mysterious affinity and affection which are said to exist between those who are born thus. When Adrian's arm was broken by the sail of a windmill, I was cruising off the coast of Mexico, yet I was sensible of a shock and of a benumbed feeling in my right elbow which puzzled the doctors for many days; yet it passed away as Adrian's hurt became well, and until my return home I knew not what had affected me.

"It happened also that when I was nearly drowned by falling from the foretopsail yard, in a dark night during a gale in the Pentland Firth, Adrian was almost choked in his sleep through dreaming that the dykes had broken, and that the waves were suffocating him. I merely mention these two instances out of many that occurred, to illustrate what I mean.

"Our brotherly love for each other was strong; all the stronger, perhaps, because of this strange mystery, which we could neither account for, nor escape from—nor had we the desire to do so.

"Well, I had been with this schooner on what we considered an unusually long voyage—so far as Bristol, with a cargo of my own grain, cheese, and apples. I sold them well, but failed to get a return freight; and after being damaged in a gale, which forced us to run under a jury foremast into Havre de Grace for repairs, we bore up for home, and after a six months' absence came to anchor, in a dark night, when the wind was blowing fresh, in the Zuid-vliet.

"We were close in shore—so close that I could see over the level land the light that burned in my own comfortable kitchen; and long I remained on deck looking at it, for I knew that my dear wife and all our little ones were there, and that in the corner of the deep-arched fireplace my brother Adrian would be smoking his long pipe, and giving our youngest boy, little Jan, a ride on his foot.

"They would be talking of me—of the schooner and her crew, who were all neighbors,—little thinking we were so near them, and that our anchor had fast hold of the soil of Wolfersdyck.

"My heart yearned to join them; but the hour was late, the night was dark, and there was a heavy sea rolling round the point of North Beveland and meeting the East Scheldt, so there was such a swell, that every time the schooner's head was lifted, I thought the chain cable would part, or we would drag our anchor.

"I abandoned all intention of going ashore for that night. I smoked a pipe, took a glass of schiedam, saw all made snug aloft and on deck, and read a chapter of the Bible to my crew. We returned thanks to Him who holds the great deep in the hollow of his hand, for bringing us safely home—for we are pious in our own quiet way, we Dutch folks—and then, save the watch, we all turned in for the night.

"I had been asleep in the larboard berth, there, for about an hour, when I awoke suddenly with an undefinable sensation of terror, and the conviction that some one was in the cabin near me.

"'Who is there?' I called aloud; but receiving no answer, and hearing only the creaking of the ship's timbers as she strained on the chain cable, and the gurgle of the sea alongside, I dropped asleep, but only to wake again with a start, a shiver, and the same conviction that some one was near me!

"Drawing back that little curtain on the brass rod, I looked out.

"Through the two little stern windows the moon was shining, but with sudden gleams of weird, wan light, as the schooner rose and sunk on the long rollers of the heavy ground swell. The cabin lamp swung to and fro in the skylight, thus I could see plainly enough the figure of a man clad like a Dutch peasant, standing near the table at which we are now seated, but I could not discern his features, as his back was toward me.

"My first thought was of thieves, and that some schelms from the shore had ventured on board, and overpowered the anchor watch.

"Snatching a cutlass from the cleat at the bulkhead, I sprang out of bed; but at that moment the figure disappeared like a shadow!

"Surprised and disordered by this incident, I hastened on deck. All was still on board. The fore and aft canvas was tight in its brails; the chain-cable was taut as the schooner's head lay to the slow, deep current of the Scheldt; the watch were walking to and fro; the wind was yet blowing freshly, and the moon was on the wane behind the slender spires, the great windmills, and the flat, dark shore of Beveland; but I could see at Wolfersdyck the ruddy light that still shone from the window of my own farm-kitchen.

"At such a time this seemed strange. Why were they not all a-bed?

"I looked at my watch. The hour was eleven; so, believing that the figure I had seen was merely the effect of fancy, I descended to the cabin, once more turned in, and fell asleep, the more readily that I had sniffed the night breeze which came from the land and sea together.

"But I could not have been sleeping more than ten minutes when I awoke with a nervous start, and with the same undefinable sensation of terror. Again I looked into the cabin, and there, in the moonlight, stood the same man, or figure of a man, near the table!

"Anger now replaced my first emotion of alarm; and starting from bed, I hurled an iron marlin spike at the person, exclaiming—

"'Take that, whoever you are!'

"The man seemed to fall just as the light in the cabin lamp sank low. I rushed toward him, and then, as his prostrate form turned slowly round, the dim light of the waning moon fell steadily through the cabin window on his face; and oh, what saw I then?

"The features of Adrian—of my brother—but pale, ghastly, pinched, and damp with the dews of death; his eyes glazing with a terrible expression of combined affection and reproach, as they met mine, and then the whole seemed to melt away; the lamp went out, and the moonlight passed away too, as the schooner's stern fell round with the ebb tide—the usual time of death.

"I was alone—alone in the dark cabin—with terror in my heart, and a cold perspiration on my brow.

"I rushed on deck. The light still burned in the kitchen window, but to me it seemed brighter than before.

"'Lower the boat,' I exclaimed, 'for I must instantly go ashore. There is something wrong at home, lads.'

"Fortunately the sea and wind had gone down together, and we might venture to land safely now; thus the boat with two men in her, was ready almost before I was dressed.

"I was soon ashore, and hastened to my own house, where, as none knew we were at anchor in the Zuid-vliet, my arrival was quite unexpected.

"I found my household astir—the rooms all lighted up as for a festival; but, alas, what a festival it was! My wife threw herself into my arms, and wept, and our red-cheeked little ones clung about me in their night dresses, as I was led to the room of my good brother Adrian, who was then in his death agony.

"'Adrian,' I exclaimed, throwing myself on my knees at his bedside, 'tell me how fares it with you?'*

* This story is nearly similar to one which a friend related to me as having occurred in his own family not long ago.

"He turned his ghastly face toward me with the same expression of affection and reproach, which I had seen in the face of the vision in my cabin, and at that moment his last breath passed away; the jaw fell, his head turned on one side, and a mortal pallor spread over his features.

"How such things come to pass I can no more say than where a hurricane begins, or where it ends; I relate but the events as they happened.

"My brother was dead, and I became stupefied!

"I was afterwards told that a fatal fever had seized him, and that he had been given over by the doctor to the grim king at the very time we had come to anchor in the Zuid-vliet. On a further comparison of notes, we found that he had fallen into a trance at each time I had been awakened in my cabin; and that at the moment I had thrown the marlinspike (you may see the mark of it there on the cabin floor), he had uttered my name with a cry of agony; but Heaven rest him," added the captain, once more filling the bowl of his meerschaum, "he lies at rest now in the old burying-ground of Smouts Kerk."

Soon after Captain Zeervogel concluded his narrative, I proposed to leave the schooner and return home; but he said, that as he intended to sleep that night on board, and as the crew were all ashore, he begged that I would have the kindness to remain in the cabin for a few minutes until he returned from the little tavern where they were located, as he had some orders to give.

"The tide will rise higher to-night than usual," he added. "I must have the schooner made more secure by additional warps, else there is no knowing what may happen."

I could not in courtesy refuse, though in no way disposed to remain in that gloomy little cabin, after the ghostly narrative I had just heard; but he trimmed the lamp anew, as if to make the place more cheery, and, without waiting for an answer, went on deck. I heard him descend the side-ladder; and, as he passed away, stumbling among the logs and chips of the little dockyard, I had the unpleasant conviction of being alone—alone in the confined scene of his wild story.

My watch told me it was now the time for supper and prayers at the Rectory, from which I had been too long absent. Then a vague emotion of alarm came over me, as I expected every instant to hear some unaccountable sound, or to see something that might terrify me; so, to gather "Dutch courage," I very unwisely took one or two more of Captain Zeervogel's peaches, which, as already stated, were preserved in brandy, and consequently were more potent in effect than the spirit itself.

Dearly did I pay the penalty of that act of indiscretion!

I listened intently, but heard no sound indicative of the captain's return. Once, there seemed to come a cry from a distance. My head began to swim and my eyelids to droop. The fumes of Zeervogel's long pipe, which pervaded and made closer the atmosphere of the little cabin, together with the effect of the peaches, proved too much for me.

I started to reach the companion ladder and ascend on deck; but my limbs seemed to become powerless—to yield under me, and I fell into a drowsy doze, with my head and arms on the cabin table.

The captain never returned; and long after, I ascertained that the poor man had been knocked down by some unruly "navvies," that the cry I heard had been his, that he had been robbed and left senseless in the street of the village, while I lay asleep in the cabin of the empty schooner, with the flood-tide rising rapidly about her.

CHAPTER IV.
HOW I GOT ADRIFT.

I had been asleep nearly four hours, when a fall on the cabin floor, as I slipped from the table, awoke me.

Stiff, cold, and benumbed, I started up, confused to find myself in the dark, and at first I knew not where.

I reeled, and fell twice or thrice in efforts to keep my feet for now the schooner was rolling from side to side—rolling and afloat!

"Home—let me hasten home," was my first thought. I scrambled up the companion ladder and reached the deck, to find water around me on every side, while the schooner being without ballast and light as a cork, lay almost on her beam ends, as she was careened by a heavy breeze that blew from the shore, the lights of which, probably Erlesmere, I could see about three miles distant.

A deadly terror filled my heart!

To swim so far was impossible; I dared not leave the schooner, even with a spar or any thing else that would float, as the wind and sea were evidently rising together, and to remain on board was almost as dangerous and hopeless. I had the risk of drowning by her capsizing, or lying on her beam ends in the water, and so foundering and going down.

A plank might start in her sheathing—she might even then be filling by some uncaulked leak! I had no idea of the state of her hold, and from many reasons feared she might sink before daybreak, and before my perilous situation could be discovered from the shore.

The waves were black as ink; the sky was moonless overhead, but the pale, white stars winked and twinkled, and were reflected in the trough of the ocean. Now, I could perceive foam cresting the tops of the waves, and knew that the breeze was increasing to a gale—a gale that was blowing from the land.

This added to my despair, for the lights I had seen soon disappeared, and the dark outline of the coast seemed to sink lower and to blend with the sea. Clutching the weather rigging, I could scarcely keep my feet, so slippery was the now wetted deck, and so cold and benumbed were my hands and arms by the chill atmosphere of the ocean, and by the salt spray which ever and anon flew over me in bitter briny showers.

I shouted, but the mocking wind bore my voice away to seaward. With despairing eyes I swept the dusky water, in the hope of seeing a vessel, a fishing boat, or the light of a steamer near; but gazed, with haggard glance, in vain.

I had no hope now but to wait for dawn of day; and when it came, where might I and the empty schooner be? Fortunately, her topmasts were struck, her fore-yard was lowered, and all her gear made tolerably snug. Her canvas, however, was only in the brails, and a portion of the fore-and-aft foresail having got loose, it was swelled out by the blast, and kept her head partially before the wind, thus accelerating the rate at which she was borne from the land, and being without trimming or ballast, she danced over the waves, as I have said, like a cork, but in momentary danger of capsizing and foundering. As dawn drew near, the cold increased so much, that though at the risk of being passed unseen by some coaster, I was fain to creep on my hands and knees to the companion hatch, and descend into the cabin.

It was darker now than ever, for the lamp had gone out.

The memory of the captain's weird story made me shudder. His words, "I was lying in the larboard berth—there, on the cabin floor, I struck the figure down," seemed ever in my ears, and the pale, spectral face he had portrayed, with the moonbeams streaming on its ghastly features and glazing eyes, were ever before me in the dark filling my young heart with a chilling horror.

"Oh to be ashore!" I exclaimed passionately, with clasped hands; "ashore, and free from this floating prison!"

I thought of my gentle and loving mother, and my soul seemed to die within me. The schooner would be missed by daybreak—the alarm would be given; her alarm would rapidly become irrepressible anxiety, which would soon turn to a despair that nothing could alleviate.

Sounds like thunder, or like tremendous blows, at times made me start. These were caused by billets of wood, mallets, or pieces of pig-iron, pitching about in the hold of the schooner, as she rolled, and lurched, and righted herself, to roll and lurch again.

For a time I cowered miserably in the dark cabin, until my childish fears overmatched reason, and I crept once more upon deck.

A regular gale was blowing now, and the schooner careened fearfully beneath it on her starboard side, while the bellying of that portion of the fore-and-aft foresail which had got loose aided in hurrying her faster out to sea.

The light of the coming day was spread in dull gray over the sky, imparting the same cold tint to the whitening waves. Land was still visible, but it seemed like a dark bank at the horizon. I supposed it to be about ten miles distant, but what part of the coast, or how far from Erlesmere, I knew not.

Now I began to be assailed by that illness, which terror and anxiety had hitherto but partially repressed—a violent sea-sickness in all its horror. Afraid of being washed from the deck over which the waves were breaking now, once more I crept in wretchedness below.

Before descending, I cast a despairing glance at the loosening sail which still caught the wind it was a source of increasing danger which dared not attempt to remedy, even had I strength to have done so, for the wet deck was now sloping like the roof of a house, and I would assuredly have fallen into the sea to leeward. After several feeble efforts, I succeeded in partially closing the companion hatch, for warmth and security, and descending, threw myself on the cabin floor, sick and despairing.

The lurching of the vessel, the closeness of the atmosphere, and general odor of the cabin, overpowered me at last; I became fearfully ill, and from being so, lapsed into unconsciousness, after enduring all the wretchedness induced by that ailment of the ocean. For the top of my head seemed about to fly off, its sides to be crushed in; there was a singing in my ears, an ache in my eyeballs; and then came that awful sinking of the pulses, of the body, of the soul itself, which thousands have endured in cases of aggravated sea-sickness, but none have been able to depict.

In short, after a paroxysm of illness and tears, I became totally unconscious of the peril and horror of my situation, and found a refuge in sleep.

CHAPTER V.
USELESS REGRETS.

I must have lain long thus. On recovering, I rose more stiff and more benumbed than ever, and with feeble steps ascended the companion ladder, and then a cry of despair escaped me.

The sky was clear and sunny, but whether with the light of a rising or a setting sun, I could not at first determine, morning and evening on the ocean being so much alike to an unpractised eye. Not a vestige of land was visible!

Sea and sky were around me; not a sail was in sight, and nothing living was near, save a few petrels tripping over the water, alongside of the fatal schooner.

Had I slept all night, and was this the dawn of a new day? Had I slept all day, and was this the approach of another night? I devoutly hoped not, as I most dreaded night upon the ocean; but the gradual sinking of the sun, and the increasing redness of the sky, ere long informed me that the time was evening. I now knew the west, and turned my haggard eyes to the south, for there the land and my home lay; but still the envious wind, though lighter now seemed to blow from that quarter.

Oh! how deeply and earnestly, by thoughts unuttered, I prayed in my heart that it would change and blow toward the shore—any shore—or any part of the coast of England, and bring me so near that I might have a chance of escape of life and preservation by swimming—by putting to the test that skill and those powers of activity I had acquired at Eton, in the waters of the Thames.

The sea was comparatively smooth, but still the empty schooner rolled and lurched fearfully; the more so, that the fore-and-aft foresail was hanging so loosely in the brails.

A hundred years seemed to have elapsed since I had heard the dear voices and seen the loved faces of those I had left at home—of my father, my mother, of Dot, and of Sybil; while the events of my early schoolboy days seemed to have occurred but yesterday.

All time was chaos and confusion!

In my sorrow and despair, I never thought, unless with anger, of Jan van Zeervogel, the poor Dutch skipper, whose interests were so much involved with the loss or safety of his little schooner, with which the flood-tide had made so free. I thought only of my own danger, and my mother's sorrow for the mystery that would overhang my fate.

Now hunger assailed me, creating a new terror lest I should perish by want of food; and all I had read or heard of wrecks, rafts, and castaways crowded on my memory, to aggravate the real perils which surrounded me.

Once more I sought the cabin, and on finding an axe broke open what appeared to be a press or locker. Therein were several cups, bottles, and drinking glasses, placed in perforated shelves; but nothing eatable save a single hard and mouldy biscuit, which the rats abandoned on my approach, and nothing drinkable save the remains of the brandy in which the peaches had been preserved—and I viewed the jar with horror, as the primary cause of all my sufferings and dangers;—I say the remains, for it had fallen from the table and been broken to pieces; so nothing remained of its contents, except about a gill in a fragment, and the peaches which lay in the lee or lower side of the cabin.

What would I not have given for a single drop of pure cold water, to alleviate that choking thirst which is ever the sequel to sickness, excitement, and sorrow! But there was not a drop on board, as the scuttle-butt had broken its lashings, in one of the lurches of the schooner, and fallen overboard to leeward. So I soaked the mouldy biscuit in the brandy, ate it, and went on deck, in time to see the sun set at the watery horizon, from whence he cast a long and tremulous line of yellow splendor along the dancing waves, to where the schooner floated in her loneliness.

Night followed, and one by one the stars appeared in the mighty blue dome overhead; there was no moon as yet, and I thought of hoisting a light at the mainmast head, but where were a lantern and matches to be found?

I thought also of lifting the fore-hatch, to explore the fore-part of the schooner, but I felt too feeble and sick at heart; and now with the gloom of night the ghost-story of the Dutch skipper recurred to me.

Thirst was now becoming an agony, and I inhaled the dewy atmosphere in vain, for its property was saline, and seemed to make my sufferings greater; but happily it induced a drowsiness. I crept below, and seeking the bed in the captain's berth, drew the clothes over me and strove to sleep—and so weary was I, that sleep came.

I had now been two nights and a day on board this fatal craft. My parents and my sisters—what would their thoughts, their fears, their sorrow be!

In my sleep their voices came to my ear, and I felt my mother's kiss upon my cheek so palpably, that I started and nearly awoke.

Then old Eton came before me, with its sombre brick quadrangles, its bronze statue of King Henry the Sixth; the ancient college, with its rich buttresses and carved pinnacles, and the great window, past which the Thames sweeps on to London, between its green and lovely banks.

The old monastic hall, and then the Playing Fields in all their sunny greenness, shaded by their solemn old elm trees, recurred to me; then the seclusion of the library where I had spent many an hour; then came the voices of my old companions at cricket, or shouting as they urged their trim-built skiffs, with the murmur of the river, the familiar toll of the chapel bell, and the voices of the choristers, all mingling in my dreaming ear, as with a "drowsy hum."

Anon I seemed to hear the merry English chime of bells ringing in the old square tower of Erlesmere Rectory; but they sunk amid the hiss and gurgle of the bitter surf and the moan of the midnight sea.

Now, I thought how rapturously I could have clasped my dear mother's neck! How gladly I would have obeyed my poor father and gone wherever he wished me—even to my uncle's dingy counting-house in the City, there to spend the remainder of my existence, if fate so willed it, on a tripod stool, chin-deep among red-edged ledgers, invoices, telegrams, and dockets of papers.

I endeavored to remember all my parents had taught me in their prayers and precepts, and how often I had been reminded by the good old Rector that without the knowledge of Heaven not even a sparrow could fall to the ground; and I thought that surely I must be worth a whole army of sparrows.

From these dreams and ideas—I must have been half awake—I was roused by a violent lurch of the schooner.

On reaching the deck, I found that a gale had again come on, and that the sea was whitened with foam, amid which the sea-birds were blown wildly hither and thither; that the moon was now on the wane, and shed a cold, weird light between the black masses of flying scud, upon the tumbling billows and the empty schooner, which yet floated buoyantly enough. But she now careened fearfully to port. I foresaw that unless the masts were cut away, a capsize was inevitable, for the wild wind howled over the waste of seething water, and the schooner groaned and trembled as wave after wave thundered on her empty and resounding hull.

Notwithstanding my weakness, I endeavored to tighten the brailing of the fore and aft foresail; but how vain was the attempt! The moment I removed the rope from the belaying pin, it was torn from my hand; the whole sail fell heavily loose, and swelled out upon the wind. It flapped with a sound like thunder in the blast, and in a moment, the deck seemed to pass from under my feet, and I was struggling alone in the midnight sea.

To the horror of being drowned was now added that of being devoured by the fishes.

A cry to heaven escaped me, as I rose panting and almost breathless, and struck out to prolong existence. The sea repelled and buoyed me up, for it is by no means so easy to sink as many persons imagine.

The schooner, was lying now completely on her beam ends to port; her masts and half her deck, were in the water. It had filled the belly of the loosened sail, and served to keep her steady; but still the waves washed wildly over the hull. I knew she must soon fill and go down; yet so strong is the instinct of self-preservation, that I soon reached the foremast, climbed into the now horizontal rigging, and seated myself on the row of dead-eyes, through which the shrouds are rove, clutching them with wild tenacity, while drenched, cold, and despairing.

The spray flew over me, thick as rain, but bitter, heavy, and blinding.

How long I could have survived, I know not; but I felt as one in a dreadful dream, and acted with the decision and firmness with which we often seem to acquit ourselves amid the most fantastic situations created by the fancy in sleep.

Suddenly, amid the stupor that was coming over me, I heard a voice and saw a large brig looming between me and the pale waning moon. She was close by, with her courses, topsails, jib, and fore-and-aft mainsail set, but with her foreyard laid to the wind as she lay to. Then I heard the rattle of the blocks and tackle, as a boat descended from the stem davits with a splash into the sea.

"Cheerily, now, my lads, give way!" cried the voice I had heard before; "pull to windward round this craft, and overhaul her."

"There's a man in the fore-rigging!" cried another.

"Then stand by in the bow with the boat-hook."

I strove to speak, to shout; but my voice was gone.

"Spring into the sea," cried a voice; "do you hear me, you sir—you in the fore-rigging there? Jump in; we cannot sheer alongside a craft that pitches about like a cork in such a sea as this."

"Don't fear, my lad," cried others; "we'll pick you up."

But I was powerless, blinded by spray; and though unable to respond, clutched the rattlins with fatuous energy. Then strong hands were laid upon me, and I felt myself dragged into the boat.

"Shove off, shove off—give way! this craft will sink in a minute," cried some one; "give way for the brig!" and just as they turned the head of the boat toward their vessel, the Dutch schooner appeared to right herself; there was a crash as her deck burst up, and then a sob seemed to mingle with the air that was expelled from her hold as she filled and went down like a stone.

Though I had been so long unseen, I afterwards learned that at this time there were not less than fifteen sail in sight of the vessel which picked me up.

CHAPTER VI.
THE EUGENIE.

After being conveyed on board, hot brandy punch was readily administered to me; all my wet clothes were taken off, and I was put into a snug berth, the cosy warmth of which, together with the effect of the steaming punch—"a stiff nor'-wester," as I heard it called—and the toil and misery, mental and bodily, I had undergone, all conduced to give me a long and almost dreamless slumber. Thus the noon of the next day was far advanced before I awoke to the realities of life and a consideration of the awkward predicament in which I was placed.

I had been picked up by the Eugenie, a new brig of two hundred and fifty tons register, "coppered to the bends, and standing A1 at Lloyds," as I was informed by Samuel Weston, her master. He added that she had a crew of twelve hands, men and boys, exclusive of Marc Hislop, the mate, and Tattooed Tom, his assistant, and that the brig had the reputation of being one of the best sailing vessels out of London.

The morning was fine and warm; the skylight was open, and a pleasant current of air passed through the clean wainscotted cabin. A spotless white cloth was on the table, across which there were lashed certain bars of wood, technically termed a fiddle, to keep the plates and glasses from falling to leeward; and on looking from my curtained berth (for I was not permitted to rise), I saw the captain and mate at lunch over brandy and water, biscuits and cheese; and busy the while with charts and compasses, as they were comparing their nautical notes and observations.

The brig seemed to be running steadily through the water upon the starboard tack, and I could hear the gurgle of the sea under her counter, as it bubbled away in the wake astern—in fact, the sound seemed to be just a foot above my ear, realizing the terrible idea that there was "only a plank between me and eternity."

Captain Samuel Weston was a well-made man of the middle height, and somewhere about forty years of age. He was rather grave than jovial in manner, but pleasant, kind, and gentlemanly. There was nothing about him that particularly indicated the seaman, and he never used startling adjectives, or according to the proverbial idea interlarded his conversation with obscure nautical phraseology.

He wore a short pea-coat with brass buttons, and a straw hat. A handsome gold ring secured his necktie, and the fag-end of a cheroot was between his teeth. He was exactly portrayed thus in his colored calotype, which was framed and screwed into the bulkhead. Close by it was another of a lady, with a little boy, standing at the base of a column, which of course had a crimson curtain festooned behind it; and they, I had no doubt, were his wife and child. So Captain Samuel—or as he preferred to call himself—Sam Weston was more domestic in his tastes than those who usually live by salt water are supposed to be.

Neither was there any thing particularly nautical in the appearance of the mate, who was a smart and athletic young fellow, about five-and-twenty years of age, with somewhat of a Glasgow accent, keen gray eyes, and sandy-colored hair; and he it was (though I was not aware of it then, or for long after) who boldly plunged into the stormy sea, and swam to the foundering schooner, and finding that I could neither understand nor obey his instructions, had made a line fast to my waist, and thus conveyed me safely into the boat; so to this young Scotsman I owed my life and a debt of gratitude.

On perceiving that I was awake, a hand-bell was rung by the captain, and hot coffee, accompanied by the last slice of shore-bread that remained was brought to me by Billy, the cabin-boy, and then, after a time, I was requested to state what craft that was from which I had been taken, my name, and so forth, that Mr. Hislop might enter all the particulars among the "remarks" in his log-book.

I soon satisfied them as to all this.

"And where am I now?" I inquired.

"Pretty far out upon the open sea, my lad," replied the captain with a smile, as he threw the end of his cheroot into the empty grate.

"The open sea—still the open sea!" I reiterated with dismay, which I cared not to conceal.

"Yes; we saw the last glimpse of the rugged Start on the day before yesterday, and this morning, just an hour before picking you up, we bade good-by to old England, for the Lizard Light was bearing—you had the dead watch, Hislop; how did it bear?"

"About twelve miles off, on the weather quarter."

"How shall I return home?"

They both laughed as I despairingly made this inquiry.

"By the way you left it, I suppose; that is by water," said Captain Weston.

"You spoke of the Start; what is that?"

"A cape of the Channel, on the south-east coast of Devonshire, about nine miles to the southward of Dartmouth," he replied, while casting a casual glance at a chart which lay on the table.

I had thus, before being rescued so providentially, drifted more than a hundred miles from Erlesmere, and it was marvellous that the schooner had floated so far unseen.

"That lubberly old Dutchman, Zeervogel, should have made his craft secure, by mooring her so that the flood-tide could not have floated her off shore. But," added the captain, laughing, "he may have a clear case of barratry against you, if you ever return to England."

"Barratry—what is that?" I asked, with a bewildered air.

"A landshark's phrase for running away with a ship—carrying her out of her course—sinking or deserting her; or doing any thing by which she may be arrested, detained, or lost."

"But the schooner ran away with me."

"And the sea with you both. Well, what is to be done now? We are bound for the West Indies, but we may put you aboard the first craft that passes us, homeward-bound; or you are free to remain, if we cannot do better for you."

I thought of my mother, of my father, my two sisters; and my heart was so full of gratitude to Heaven for preserving me to the end, that I might see and embrace them all again, that I had no words to reply. After a time I exclaimed—

"Home, home!—let me go home to Erlesmere!"—weeping as I spoke, for the thought of them all made me a very child again.

The captain and mate exchanged glances of inquiry.

"It's no use piping your eye now, my lad," said the former, coming toward my berth; "but answer me quietly. You said that your name was Rodney?"

"Yes."

"And you spoke of Erlesmere; are you a son of old Dr. Rodney, the rector?"

"Do you know my father, then?" I exclaimed.

"Can't say exactly that I have the honor of being known to him; but I know of him, right well. Why, Master Rodney, I have sailed your uncle's ships many a time, and know his gloomy old office in the city, as well as the buoy at the Nore; so you are as safe and as welcome aboard the Eugenie as if in the old Rectory-house at home."

This was pleasant intelligence, at all events; but my earnest desire was to return—a design which was not fated to be speedily gratified.

"The pain which is first felt when the infant branch is first torn from the parent tree," says Southey, in a passage of great beauty, "is one of the most poignant we have to endure through life; there are other griefs which wound more deeply, which leave behind them scars never to be effaced, which bruise the spirit and sometimes break the heart,—but never, never do we feel so much the want of love, and the keen necessity of being loved, as when we are first launched from the haven of our boyhood, into the wide and stormy sea of life!"

I felt the wrench of this separation in all its intensity for a time, and longed for the means of returning home; but for several days we passed only outward bound vessels, or others which were at such a distance that the task of signalling and speaking with them would have delayed the Eugenie longer than Captain Weston could risk. Two that passed near us, when we showed our ensign, replied by displaying the tricolor of France or the red and yellow bars of Spain; so there was nothing for me now but to remain contentedly on board the Eugenie, which was bound for Matanzas with a solid cargo of steam machinery and coal.

The master had no doubt of getting a return freight direct for London; thus six or eight months might elapse before I could return to Ellesmere.

My wardrobe was now in the most deplorable condition; but Weston and Hislop, the first mate, kindly supplied me with all that was requisite—"clothes and shirts for running rigging," as the latter said, "with twenty sovereigns for mainstays, which were sure to be well kept, as we were on board ship."

I gradually became reconciled to the novelty of my situation; I looked forward hopefully to the time when the sorrow of those I had left behind would be alleviated, and began to enjoy to the utmost the prospect of a voyage in a spanking brig to the shores of Cuba.

CHAPTER VII.
THE SCOTCH MATE'S YARN.

Could I have anticipated all that was still before me, in the form of suffering and of peril—suffering enough to shatter a stronger frame and shake a stouter heart than mine—I would have returned in any vessel bound for any part of Europe, and trusted to Providence for the means of again reaching home, rather than have remained in the Eugenie.

But who can lift the veil which so happily hides the future from us?

So I turned my thoughts toward the West Indies with pleasure; I resolved not to be an idler or loblolly boy, and was allowed by Captain Weston to take my watches and share of deck duty with the rest of the crew; and at intervals, I worked hard at a Spanish grammar with Marc Hislop, who could read Don Quixote in the original, with a fluency that even my old tutor at Eton might have envied.

We were now clear of the Channel; and, after a hard battle with the wind and sea, we felt the long roll of the mighty Atlantic.

On the third night after my rescue, we encountered dark and cloudy weather, with a strong gale, which set all the cabin afloat. My watch was over, and I had just turned in, when I heard the voice of Captain Weston who was on deck, shouting through his trumpet to "close reef the maintopsail, hand the mainsail, foresail, and fore topsail. Look alive there, lads," he added, "or as sure as my name is Sam Weston, I'll give the colt to the last man off the deck!"

This threat, so unusual in one so good-natured, together with the bellowing of the wind, the flapping of the wetted canvas, the rattle of the blocks and cordage, and the laboring of the brig, which was so deeply laden that every timber groaned, all gave such indications of a rough night, that I sprang from my berth, and proceeded to dress again in haste.

To my astonishment, at that moment I heard the hoarse rattle of the chain cable, as it rushed with a roaring sound through the iron mouth of the hawse hole; then I was sensible of a violent shock, which made the brig stagger, and tumbled me headlong against the panelled bulk-head which separated the cabin from the after-hold.

Hislop, who had been dozing on the cabin-locker in his storm jacket, started up with alarm in his face.

"Have we come to anchor?" I asked.

"Anchor in more than three hundred fathoms of water?" he exclaimed, as he rushed on deck, whither I followed, and found that a very strange incident had occurred.

In the murky obscurity of the stormy night, a large Dutch lugger, in ballast apparently, and running right before the wind, with steering canvas set, came suddenly athwart us, and hooked the anchor from the cathead on our larboard bow—by some unwonted neglect it was not yet on board, nor had the cable been unbent—with her starboard fore-rigging, and thus bore away with it, until the chain came to bear, when there was a tremendous shock. Several feet of our bulwark were torn away, and two seamen, Tattooed Tom, and an old man-o'-war's man named Roberts, were nearly swept into the sea, where, in such a night, and amid the confusion of such an incident, they would inevitably have perished unaided.

Then we heard a shout, mingled with a crash upon the bellowing wind, as the Dutchman's foremast snapped by the board, and then, fortunately, our anchor tumbled from his side into the sea, where it swung at the whole length of the chain cable.

We manned both windlass and capstan—got the anchor, which was drifting, roused to the cathead, hoisted it on board, unbent the cable, and stowed it in the tier; but long ere all this was done, we had lost sight of our lubberly friend, who, when last seen, was tossing about like a log in the darkness, and drifting far astern of us. But for some defect in the pawls and notches of the windlass collar, I am doubtful if the chain would have run out so freely; but as to this I cannot say.

We had hard squalls and a sea that ran high until daybreak; there was lightning too; red and dusky, it seemed at times to fill the whole horizon. We could see for an instant the black summits of the waves as they rose and fell between us and the glare; and when it passed away, all again would be obscurity and gloom.

"More canvas must be taken off the brig, sir," suggested Hislop, looking aloft and then over the side, where the foam-flecked sea whirled past us.

"Well, in with the trysail, foretopsail, and maintopsail," ordered Weston.

As the light of dawn stole over the angry sea, through clouds of mingled mist and rain, the gale abated, and all but the watch went below.

"That lugger making off with our anchor," said Hislop, "reminds me of how, after we failed to run off with a whale, he fairly ran off with us."

"How?" said I, my teeth chattering as I tucked myself into bed again.

"You must know, that about ten years ago I was an apprentice aboard a small whaler, a ninety-ton schooner, out of Peterhead. We were returning in very low spirits after an unsuccessful voyage, and, by stress of weather, were forced toward the rocky and dangerous coast of Norway, where we came to anchor one evening in a solitary bay, among the rugged islets which stud the mouth of the Hardanger-fiord, to repair some trifling damages. As day broke, there was a shout raised by the watch on deck.

"'A whale!—a whale!—in the shoal water!'

"And there, sure enough, far up the bay, we saw one sporting and gambolling, blowing and diving; and though it was a kind of robbery, perhaps, we resolved to make a dash at him, for the place was lonely, and not a Norwegian eye upon us—not a house upon the shore, nor a man upon the mountains, so far as we could discern by our glasses.

"The boats were cleared, the harpoons prepared, the lines were coiled away in the tubs, and the schooner was hove short on her anchor; but just as we lowered the whaling-punts, down dived our fish, tail uppermost, and then we knew that he was searching for his favorite food, of which plenty is to be found in these Norwegian fiords."

"What is it?" said I.

"A kind of small salt-water snail, and the medusa, or sea-blubber. As you have been at Eton, you must have read all about it in Linnæus," continued our learned Scotch mate. "Just as the first boat was lowered, the schooner received a shock so violent that her masts strained almost to snapping; her bows were dragged down till her billet-head dipped in the water, and every thing and everybody on deck went toppling and tumbling forward in a heap about the windlass bitts. Then a shower of bloody spray fell over us as the craft righted again, but with such violence that the water splashed under the counter and over the quarter. Then she was torn through the sea at the rate of thirty knots an hour!

"We had scarcely time to form an idea, or to utter an exclamation, either of surprise or fear, when we saw, a cable's length right ahead, an immense whale, the same fish we were preparing to attack, rushing through the waves with railway speed, and dragging us after him by our anchor, of the flukes of which he had somehow run foul in his gambols down below."

"What! do you mean to say that the whale ran off with the schooner?" I exclaimed, in astonishment.

"Just as a scared dog runs away with a kettle at his tail. It was one of the blunt-headed cachalots, about sixty feet long. They are the most hideous fish of the whole whale species, having a head that is enormously thick, and one third of their entire size, the spout-hole being at the fore end of it.

"In less time than I have taken to tell you all this, we were dragged out of the fiord; its rocks of black basalt and its sombre pine woods lessened astern; its entrance seemed to close like a gate as it blended with the coast; and the schooner, with her loose foretopsail all aback against the mast, was dragged in the wind's eye (whales usually swim so) for more than twenty miles out to sea. Then the cachalot raised its mighty head about ten feet from the water, spouted a jet of froth into the air, and disappearing, sunk, leaving our anchor swinging or drifting in the deep water, at the full length of the chain cable."

"And how came all this about?" I asked, dubiously.

"Incredible as it may appear, this monstrous cachalot, while running along the sandy bottom of the bay, with mouth distended, in search of sea-blubber, had by some means uprooted our anchor, though five hundred weight, by his nether jaw, and so carried it off with eighty fathoms of cable, and us at the other end of it. And now, Dick Rodney, what do you think of that for a yarn?"

"I think with Polonius, in Hamlet," said I, yawning, and turning wearily in my berth, through the yolk or bull's-eye of which the gray light of day was now struggling.

"That it is very like a whale, eh?"

"Yes."

"And so do I," said Hislop, laughing; "but though a close laid yarn, it is a true one, nevertheless."

CHAPTER VIII.
VOYAGE CONTINUED.

I found the captain and mate of the Eugenie both pleasant and instructive companions.

The latter, like the generality of his countrymen, was well educated; he was tolerably read in classical lore, and knew all the current literature of the day; thus his little state-room was so crammed with books, that he had scarcely room to move in it. Like many other Scotchmen of humble birth or limited means, Marc Hislop had educated himself, beyond what schools or teachers could have done. Though usually quiet in disposition, he was sometimes impatient, and more than once I have seen him snatch from his pocket a colt (a piece of knotted rope eighteen inches long) for the special benefit of the ship-boys, of whom we had three on board.

He was so learned on the theory and law of storms, with the practical exposition thereof, and could talk so fluently about straight, circular, and parallel winds, storm-waves, and storm-focuses, the height of a cyclone, and speed of a hurricane, that honest Sam Weston, the captain and Tom Lambourne, the second mate, wondered what it was all about; as they had weathered many a gale without ever caring a jot about the theory or law of them, or without ever troubling their brains about where the wind came from, and still less about where it went to.

Among other things, Hislop had a photographic apparatus, by which he took the aspect of the sea by moonlight and daylight, and all our likenesses, in groups or otherwise. Tattooed Tom Lambourne, who had once been adrift in the bush somewhere, and been decorated with certain ineffaceable marks by the natives, came out famously in these artistic efforts, as he was all over stripes, like a zebra or a New Zealander.

Calm weather and heavy rains succeeded the gale I have mentioned; but the Eugenie steadily kept her course, and two days after, when spanking along before a fine topgallant breeze, we picked up a bottle, which was descried by the watch, floating and bobbing in the water a few fathoms distant from the brig. She was at once hove in the wind, and Hislop went in the stern boat to bring the bottle on board.

As the most trivial incident becomes of interest on board of ship, where the daily occurrences are so few, and the circle of society so limited, considerable concern was excited by the appearance of this bottle, which seemed to have been freshly corked; and on its being broken, we found a scrap of paper—torn apparently from a notebook—whereon a hurried and agitated hand had pencilled this brief notice:

"The Mary, clipper ship, of Boston, 20th Nov., 1861, momentarily expected to go down—pumps worn out, and the leaks gaining—Captain and first mate, with all the boats, washed away—God help us!"

"The 20th of November? It was on that night we encountered the heavy gale," said Weston.

We had been on the skirt of the tempest, as Hislop maintained, while the Yankee ship had probably suffered all the fury of it. From the main-cross-trees Captain Weston swept the sea with his telescope, in vain, for any trace of her; so if that melancholy scrap of paper told truth, all was doubtless over long since with the Mary and her crew.

In the cabin that night, a conversation on the probabilities of her destruction or escape, led to a recurrence to the miraculous manner in which the unlucky Dutch schooner had floated so long with me; and I mentioned to Weston and Hislop the additional terrors I had endured by the effect of imagination, and a recollection of the strange incidents told me by Captain Zeervogel; but they ridiculed the story of the poor man, chiefly, I thought, because "it was the yarn of a Hollander."

"Though I am a Scotchman," began Hislop——

"And come of a people naturally superstitious," suggested Weston, parenthetically——

"As all large-brained races are," retorted the mate, while filling his clay pipe with tobacco.

"Well, what were you about to say?" asked Weston. "But first fill your glass and pass over the tobacco bag."

"I was simply about to reiterate that I don't believe in ghosts, or value them any more than I do the Yankee sea-serpent, a rope's end, or a piece of old junk; I never saw one, or knew a man who had seen one; but every one has heard of a man, that knew another man who saw, or believed he saw a ghost. It is at variance with the laws of nature, which are so ordered that no such erratic spirit can be."

"I don't know that," replied Weston; "earth and water have their inhabitants, so why not the air also?"

"And why not the fire?"

"There you go, right before the wind into the troubled sea of argument—you Scotchmen are all alike."

"Ghosts are at variance with the workings of Divine wisdom, and we all know what Jones of Nayland says thereupon."

"No we don't," said Weston; "who the deuce was he—what port did he hail from?"

"'He who cannot see the workings of a Divine wisdom in the order of the heavens, the change of the seasons, the flowing of the tides, the operations of the wind and other elements, the structure of the human body, the circulation of the blood, the instinct of beasts, and the growth of plants, is sottishly blind and unworthy the name of man.'"

"You hear him, Mr. Rodney," said Weston; "now he has got both his anchor and topsails a-trip; he can pay out whole speeches in this fashion, all at a breath, as fast as the chain-cable running through the hawse-pipe."

Being fresh from Eton, I was not going to let our learned Scotch mate have it all his own way, when Weston resumed,—

"If you will listen, you shall hear a strange story in which I bore a prominent part."

"As the ghost?" said I.

"No; but you will soon acknowledge whether or not I had cause for fear."

And after he had replenished his glass and pipe, Captain Sam Weston began in this manner:

"About fifteen years ago, I found myself at Matanzas, in Cuba, the same port we are bound for now—adrift, without a ship, and almost without a penny in my pocket, among foreigners, Spaniards, and mulattoes, mestees and quadroons, black, white, and yellow. I had gone there as second mate of a ship from Boston, but the tyranny of our skipper wellnigh drove me mad. During the voyage he had nearly killed three of our men for being slow in sending down the top-gallant yards on a squally night. He beat them till they were black and blue with a handspike, and kept them for forty-eight hours, lashed to ringbolts in the lee-scuppers, that the sea might break over them, as he said, and cure their sores.

"When I interfered to save a poor cabin boy, whom he had hung by the heels from the main-boom, and was scourging with a heavy colt till his back was covered with blood, he produced a bowie knife and revolver, threatening to 'shoot or rip me up.'

"Just at that moment we were passing a Spanish ship of war which was at anchor in the bay, about half a mile from us, and had the red and yellow jack of Castile and Leon flying at his gaff peak. One of the poor fellows who had been so severely beaten was then in the foretop, so I hailed him to make a signal of distress to the Spaniard.

"In a moment his blue shirt was off and placed on the lift of the foreyard. This meant, Mr. Rodney, that as merchant seamen we appealed to the man-o'-war for protection, and wanted an armed boat's crew. Thank Heaven, such an appeal is never made in vain by a poor Jack of any country to a British man-o'-war, but the lubberly Spaniards never noticed the signal, or if so, never heeded it.

"The Yankee skipper uttered a fierce laugh.

"'Douse that shirt and come down, you sir,' he thundered out; 'down instantly, or I will shoot you like a coon.'

"But, desperate with fear, the poor fellow now stood upon the yard, and while one hand grasped the topping lift, with the other he waved his shirt to the Spaniards. I heard the crack of a pistol, and next moment he fell a quivering mass upon the deck, stone dead, shot by the revolver.

"'That will teach you to make signals from my ship, you varmint,' snivelled the merciless skipper, giving the body a kick; 'and as for you,' he continued, addressing me, and ramming home his words with an oath; but before he could get further, I levelled him on the deck by a blow from a handspike, and tossed his knife and revolver overboard.

"His right arm was broken. There was a great row about all this before the Alcalde when we got into harbor; our bell was unshipped and our canvas unbent by a party of Spanish marines; but the captain crossed the Alcalde's hand with silver or gold, and there was an end of it. There was an end of my engagement too; for the Yankee weathered me about my salary, seized my chest, my quadrant, even an old silver watch which my mother gave me to make me comfortable, when I first went to sea, and then turned me out of the ship.

"So with nothing except a Mexican dollar in my pocket, but followed by my Newfoundland dog Hector, I found myself on a wet and dusky evening on the great quay of Matanzas, which faces the bay that opens into the Gulf of Florida.

"Low alike in spirit and funds, I had to endure being jostled by negro porters, scowled at by alguazils, ordered about by redcapped and blackbearded Spanish sentries, who were shirtless and tattered, and whose brown uniforms and red worsted epaulettes tainted the very sea-breeze with the odor of garlic and coarse tobacco.

"The sun had set behind clouds as red as blood. The bay was all of a deep brown tint, and the shores were black or purple. I was very sad at heart, and thought it hard that I, a British seaman, should be there an outcast, and all my kit reduced to the clothes on my back, in the very place where the same flag that Pococke and Albemarle hoisted on Havana, had brought all the Don Spaniards on their knees in old King George's time.

"However, that would neither find me supper or a bed. I lost or missed my Newfoundland dog Hector, and in the bitterness of my heart I banned the poor animal for ingratitude in leaving me. Just as I was looking about for a humble posada, where a moiety of my dollar might procure me a bed, a man stumbled against me.

"'Look alive, cucumber shanks,' said he angrily, in English.

"'Do you take me for a negro?' I asked, fiercely.