JACK MANLY.

BY JAMES GRANT

Price 2s. each, Fancy Boards.

THE ROMANCE OF WAR.
THE AIDE-DE-CAMP.
THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS.
BOTHWELL.
JANE SETON; OR, THE KING'S ADVOCATE.
PHILIP ROLLO.
LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH.
MARY OF LORRAINE.
OLIVER ELLIS; OR, THE FUSILIERS.
LUCY ARDEN; OR, HOLLYWOOD HALL.
FRANK HILTON; OR, THE QUEEN'S OWN.
THE YELLOW FRIGATE.
HARRY OGILVIE; OR, THE BLACK DRAGOONS.
ARTHUR BLANE.
LAURA EVERINGHAM; OR, THE HIGHLANDERS OF GLENORA.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD.
LETTY HYDE'S LOVERS.
THE CAVALIERS OF FORTUNE.
SECOND TO NONE.
THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE.
THE PHANTOM REGIMENT.
THE GIRL HE MARRIED.
FIRST LOVE AND LAST LOVE.
DICK RODNEY.
THE WHITE COCKADE.
THE KING'S OWN BORDERERS.
LADY WEDDERBURN'S WISH.
ONLY AN ENSIGN.
JACK MANLY.
THE ADVENTURES OF ROB ROY.
THE QUEEN'S CADET.

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS.
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.

JACK MANLY;

His Adventures by Sea and Land.

by

JAMES GRANT,

AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "OLIVER ELLIS,"
ETC. ETC.

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET.

LONDON:
RAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I. [WHY I WENT TO SEA]
II. [ADVENTURE IN A CASK]
III. [THE NARROWS OF ST. JOHN]
IV. [THE BRIG "LEDA"]
V. [KIDD THE PIRATE]
VI. [THE "BLACK SCHOONER"]
VII. [THE CHASE]
VIII. [OUR REVENGE SCHEMED]
IX. [OUR REVENGE EXECUTED]
X. [THE SEAL-FISHERS]
XI. [COMBAT WITH A SEA-HORSE]
XII. [ON AN ICEBEEG]
XIII. [ON THE ICEBERG—THE MASSACRE AT HIERRO]
XIV. [ESCAPE FROM THE ICEBERG]
XV. [UNDER WEIGH ONCE MORE]
XVI. [BESET WITHOUT HOPE]
XVII. [THE DEATH-SHIP]
XVIII. [LEAVES FROM THE LOG]
XIX. [THE GRAVES ON THE STARBOARD BOW]
XX. [ADRIFT ON THE DEAD FLOE]
XXI. [CAPE FAREWELL]
XXII. [THE MUSK-OX]
XXIII. [THE FOUR BEARS]
XXIV. [WOLMAR FYNBÖE]
XXV. [ADIEU TO THE REGION OF ICE]
XXVI. [A SHARK]
XXVII. [THE FATAL VOYAGE OF THE HEER VAN ESTELL]
XXVIII. [THE FATAL VOYAGE—HOW THEY CAST LOTS]
XXIX. [ADVENTURE WITH A WHALE]
XXX. [LOSS OF THE "LEDA"]
XXXI. [THE CRY]
XXXII. [THE TWELFTH DAY]
XXXIII. [WHAT FOLLOWED]
XXXIV. [THE SAILOR'S POST-OFFICE]
XXXV. [MS. LEGEND OF EL CABO DOS TORMENTOS]
XXXVI. [LEGEND CONTINUED—THE CATASTROPHE]
XXXVII. [LEGEND CONCLUDED—THE SEQUEL]
XXXVIII. [WE LAND IN AFRICA]
XXXIX. [THE KING OF THE SNAKE RIVER]
XL. [THE GABON CLIFF]
XLI. [HOW THE CAPTAIN PERISHED]
XLII. [AMOO]
XLIII. [THE RESCUE OF HIS CHILD]
XLIV. [THE GRATITUDE OF HIS WIFE]
XLV. [FLIGHT]
XLVI. [FLIGHT CONTINUED]
XLVII. [THE WOOD OF THE DEVIL]
XLVIII. [RETAKEN]
XLIX. [THE CARAVAN]
L. [WE REACH THE CAPITAL]
LI. [AN OLD FRIEND IN A NEW PLACE]
LII. [HARTLY'S STORY]
LIII. [THE FEMALE GUARDS]
LIV. [ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE AGAIN]
LV. [THE FORMOSA]
LVI. [A PERILOUS JOURNEY]
LVII. [PURSUIT AGAIN—CONCLUSION]

JACK MANLY.

CHAPTER I.
WHY I WENT TO SEA.

It was the evening of the sixteenth of March.

Exactly six months had elapsed since I left my father's snug villa at Peckham, with its walls shrouded by roses and honeysuckle; and now I found myself two thousand three hundred miles distant from it, in his agent's counting-room, in the dreary little town of St. John, in Newfoundland, writing in a huge ledger, and blowing my fingers from time to time, for snow more than ten feet deep covered all the desolate country, and the shipping in the harbour was imbedded in ice at least three feet in thickness; while the thermometer, at which I glanced pretty often, informed me that the mercury had sunk twelve degrees below the freezing point.

While busily engrossing quintals of salted fish, by the thousand, barrels of Hamburg meal and Irish pork, chests of bohea, bales of shingles, kegs of gunpowder, caplin nets, anchors and cables, and Indian corn from the United States, with all the heterogeneous mass of everything which usually fill the stores of a wealthy merchant in that terra nova, I thought of the noisy world of London, from which I had been banished, or, as tutors and guardians phrased it, "sent to learn something of my father's business—i.e., practically to begin life as he had begun it;" and so I sighed impatiently over my monotonous task, while melting the congealed ink, from time to time, on the birchwood fire, and reverting to what March is in England, where we may watch the bursting of the new buds and early flowers; where the birds are heard in every sprouting hedge and tree, and as we inhale the fresh breeze of the morning, a new and unknown delight makes our pulses quicken and a glow of tenderness fill the heart—for then we see and feel, as some one says, "what we have seen and felt only in childhood and spring."

"Belay this scribbling business, Jack," said a hearty voice in my ear; "come, ship on board my brig, and have a cruise with me in the North Sea. I shall have all my hands aboard to-morrow."

I looked up, threw away my pen, closed the gigantic ledger with a significant bang, and shook the hand of the speaker, who was my old friend and schoolfellow, Bob Hartly, whose face was as red as the keen frost of an American winter evening could make it, albeit he was buttoned to the throat in a thick, rough Flushing coat, and wore a cap with fur ear-covers tied under his chin—a monk-like hood much worn in these northern regions during the season of snow.

"I don't think your cruise after seals and blubber will be a very lively affair, Bob," said I, rubbing my hands at the stove, on which he was knocking the ashes of his long Havannah.

"Lively! if it is not more lively than this quill-driving work, may I never see London Bridge again, or take,

'Instead of pistol or a dagger, a
Desperate leap down the falls of Niagara!'"

"I am sick of this Cimmerian region!" said I, stamping with vexation at his jocular mood, when contrasted to my own surly one.

"Cimmerian—ugh! that phrase reminds me of school-times, and how we used to blunder through Homer together, for he drew all his images of Pluto and Pandemonium from the dismal country of the Cimmerii. By Jove! I could give you a stave yet from Virgil or Ovid, hand over hand, on the same subject; but that would be paying Her Majesty's colony a poor compliment."

"Well, Bob, I am sick of this place, in which evil fate, or rather bad luck, has buried me alive—this frozen little town of wood and tar, without outlet by sea or land in winter, without amusement, and, at this time, seemingly without life."

"It forms a contrast to London, certainly," said Hartly, assisting himself, uninvited, to the contents of a case-bottle of Hollands which stood near; "but there is a mint of money to be made in it."

"The first English folks who came here were reduced to such straits, we are told, that they killed and ate each other; and those who returned were such skeletons that their wives and mothers did not know them."

Hartly laughed loudly, and said—

"But that was in the time of King Henry VIII., and people don't eat each other here now. But to resume what we were talking about——"

"Old Uriah Skrew, my father's agent, and I are on the worst terms; he keeps a constant watch over me. I go from my desk to bed, and from bed to my desk—so passes my existence."

"Why not slip your cable and run, then?"

"Skrew being a partner in the firm," I continued, warming at the idea of my own rights and fancied wrongs, "cares for nothing but making money from the riches of the sea, and thinks only of cargoes of fish to be bartered in Lent, at Cadiz, for fruit and wine, oil, seals, and blubber; and really in this cold season——"

"Ah, but summer is coming," interrupted Bob, drily.

"Summer! How is the year divided here?"

"Into nine months of winter and three of bad weather."

"A pleasant prospect! If I were once again at Peckham——"

"Well, Jack, I have a grudge at old Uriah Skrew, for, like a swab, he played me a scurvy trick about a cargo I had consigned to your father and him, from Cadiz, last year—a trick by which I lost all my profit and tonnage.

"Likely enough; this ledger is Uriah's bible—and his God——"

"Is gold! So I care not a jot if, for the mere sake of provoking him, I lend you a hand to give him the slip, for a few months at least. Ship with me to-morrow—as a volunteer, passenger, or whatever you please."

"I shall," said I, throwing my pen resolutely into the fire.

"Your hand on it! I like this. Get your warmest toggery sent on board; you'll need it all, I can tell you! I can give you a long gun, and bag for powder and slugs; and then, with a bowie-knife in your belt, a seal-skin cap with long flaps, and a stout pea-jacket, you will make as smart a seal fisher as ever sailed through the Narrows! By this time to-morrow you may be forty miles from your ledger, running through the North Sea with a flowing sheet. By Jove, I know a jolly old Esquimau who lives at Cape Desolation under an old whaleboat. He will be delighted to make your acquaintance, and give you a feed of sea weed and blubber that will make your mouth water, though we eat it when the mercury is frozen in the bulb."

This cheerful prospect of Arctic hospitality might have persuaded me to remain where I was, but soured by the treatment I experienced from Mr. Skrew, who misrepresented my conduct and habits to my family at home, and tired of the monotony of his counting-room, I looked forward with eagerness to an anticipated escape.

How little could I foresee the consequences of my impatience, folly, and wayward desire for rambling! Ere a month was past, I had repented in bitterness my boyish repugnance for steady application and industrious habits.

My friend, Robert Hartly, who was eight years my senior, was master and owner of the Leda, a smart brig of two hundred and fifty tons register—a craft in which he had invested all his savings. Last year he had lost a wife and two children, whom he tenderly loved; he had come to St. John from Cadiz, missed a freight and been frozen-in, and now, with all a sailor's restlessness and dread of being idle, even for a month or two, he had resolved to sail for the spring seal fishery, as a change of scene, and a trip which he hoped would not prove unprofitable, as his vessel was one of a class far superior to those which usually venture into the region of ice, being well found, well manned, coppered to the bends, and, in short, the perfection of a British merchant brig.

"By the bye," said he, "talking of powder and slugs, we may need both, for other purposes than shooting seals."

"How?" I asked.

"I mean if we came athwart the Black Schooner which has been prowling and plundering about the coast for the last six weeks."

"Are there more news of her?"

"No; but here is a placard given to all shipmasters yesterday," said he, unfolding a paper surmounted by the royal arms, and running in the name of "His Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief over the Island of Newfoundland and its Dependencies," offering 5001. to the crew of any ship that would capture "the vessel known as the Black Schooner," &c. "She is a queer craft," continued Hartly, "and said to be a slaver, bankrupt, and out of business; though Paul Reeves, my mate, maintains that she is the Adventure galley. which sailed from London in the time of King William III., and that her crew are the ghosts of Kidd and his pirates; but ghosts don't steal beef and drink brandy."

Hartly's father had been in the navy; thus he had received a good and thorough nautical education, but early in life had been left to work his way in the world; so he made the watery portion thereof his home and means of livelihood. He was a handsome, hardy, and cheerful young fellow, and the beau idéal of a thorough British seaman.

On the third finger of his left hand he wore a curious ring of base metal, graven with runes of strange figures. This was the gift of an old woman to whom he had rendered some service when in Iceland, and who had promised, that while he wore it, he could never be drowned; consequently Hartly was too much imbued with the superstition of his profession to part with it for a moment.

"But how am I to elude old Skrew, and get on board," said I, after we had concluded all our arrangements, over a glass of hot brandy-punch, in Bob's lodgings in Water-street.

"True—the brig lies frozen-in at the end of his wharf, the hatches are all locked, and the hands ashore."

"If he sees me on board, there will be an end of our project, for I have no wish to quarrel with him in an unseemly manner; but merely to 'levant' quietly, leaving a letter to announce where I am gone, and when I may, perhaps, return."

"All right—I have it! I'll send an empty cask to Skrew's store to-morrow. Paul Reeves, the mate, and Hammer, the carpenter, will head you up in it, and so you may be brought on board unknown to all save them—ay, under the very nose of old Uriah. Will that suit you?"

"Delightfully!" said I, clapping my hands. The whole affair had the appearance of an adventure, and though there were a hundred ways by which I might have joined the brig, when the cutting-out of the sealing fleet took place next day, like a young schoolboy—for in some respects I was little more—I accepted the strange proposal of going on board in a cask, and retired to bed, to dream of adventures on the high seas; for being young, healthy, and active, I could always have pleasant dreams without studying the art of procuring them—an art on which Dr. Franklin wrote so learnedly in the last century.

CHAPTER II.
ADVENTURE IN A CASK.

On the next day (17th of March), when the fleet of adventurers departs for the spring seal fishery, the little seaport town of St. John's presents an unusual aspect of bustle and gaiety. On that anniversary, at least one hundred vessels, having on board three thousand seamen, batmen, and gunners, sail to seek their fortune in the ice-fields; but on the day I am about to describe, the number of craft and their crews far exceeded this.

The day was clear and sunny, not a speck of cloud was in the sky, whose immensity of blue made the eye almost ache, while the intense brilliance of the snow, which covered the hills and the whole scenery, made them seem to vibrate in the sunshine, and caused a species of blindness, especially on entering any apartment, however large or well-lighted; for after being out of doors in that season and region for an hour or so, a house usually seems totally dark for a time.

For some days previous there had been that species of drizzle which is termed locally "a silver thaw," thus, all the houses of the town, the roofs, walls, and chimneys; the trees, the shipping in the frozen harbour, every mast, yard, and inch of standing or running rigging, were thickly coated with clear ice, which sparkled like prisms in the sunshine, making them seem as if formed of transparent crystal. Then, there was a glittering in the frosty atmosphere, as if it was composed of minute particles, while the intensity of the cold made one feel as if a coarse file were being roughly applied to one's nose or cheekbones on facing the west, the point whence the wind came over the vast and snow-covered tracts of untrodden and unexplored country which stretch away for three hundred miles towards the Red Indian Lake and the Bay of Exploits.

The keepers of stores and shops—who in St. John are usually dressed like seamen, in round jackets and glazed hats—with all idlers, were pouring through every avenue and thoroughfare, and spreading over the harbour. All the ships displayed their colours, and the sound of music, as bands perambulated the ice, rang upon the clear and ambient air, mingled with the musical jingle of the sleigh bells, as the more wealthy folks, muffled and shawled to the nose, galloped their horses with arrow-like speed from side to side of the harbour.

The latter and the town (but especially the grog-shops) were crowded by the seal fishermen, who had come in from all parts of the coast, and bore bundles of clothing slung over their backs, each having his carefully selected club wherewith to smite the young seals on the head, and also to be used as a gaff or ice-hook. Many of these men were also armed with long sealing-guns, which are twice the size and weight of an ordinary musket, and resemble the huge, unwieldy gingals of the East Indians, having flintlocks of a clumsy fashion.

They are generally loaded with coarse-grained powder and pieces of lead, termed slugs, to shoot the old seals, who frequently prove refractory, and dangerous when defending their young.

Those fishers who are thus armed as gunners rank before the mere clubmen, and receive a small remuneration, or are remitted some of the "berth money" which is usually paid to the storekeeper or merchant who equips the vessel for the ice; "the outfitting," says one who is well-informed on these matters, "being always defrayed by the receipt of one-half the cargo of seals, the other half going to adventurers, with these and other deductions for extra supplies." But, as Captain Hartly fitted out his own vessel and shipped his own crew, gunners, and batmen at stipulated salaries, he expected to reap the whole profits of the expedition.

In addition to the project I had in view, I was particularly anxious to witness the gaiety of this the only and yearly colonial gala day—the shipping of the crews, (who always proceed in procession along the ice,) with the cutting-out and departure of the sealers; but old Mr. Uriah Skrew, with his clean-shaven face and small cunning eyes, was in the counting-room betimes, and piled work upon me thick and fast, to anticipate any application for a day's leave.

"May I not go out for an hour, sir, and see what is going on in the harbour?" I asked, gently.

"No, sir," he replied, sharply; "such nonsense only leads to idleness—idleness to dissipation, and dissipation to ruin! That is the sliding-scale, young man——"

"Oh! my good sir, you are too severe."

"Severe! Mr. Jack Manly!——"

"Well, sir?"

"I have always been kind and indulgent to you."

"Kind—hum."

"Yes; more kind and indulgent than your father, my worthy partner, wishes—and more than he would be."

"Query?"

"What do you mean by 'query'?" he demanded in a bullying tone, for he intensely disliked me, fearing that I should soon be admitted into the firm.

"Because I have my doubts on the subject, and your refusal to grant me leave to-day confirms my opinion of you, Mr. Skrew."

"Very well; enough of this, not a word more, or by the first ship for Europe I will write what you'll wish had not been written. Not a word more."

"I am mute as a fish."

"Engross these papers—but, first, go to the store on the wharf, and tell the keeper to speak with me; and look sharp!"

I put on my cap and left the counting-room, feeling assured that many a day would elapse ere I stood within it again, as I caught a glimpse of Paul Reeves, mate of the Leda, and two seamen, loitering outside; but near the window, wherein stood my desk, under the leaf of which I deposited a letter addressed to Mr. Skrew, informing him, in the parlance of Bob Hartly, that "I had slipped my cable and gone to sea."

"Captain Hartly's friend, sir?" said the mate, touching his hat, and winking knowingly.

"Yes."

"All right, sir! here is the cask, step in, and Tom Hammer, our carpenter, and his mate, will head you up in it comfortably in less than a minute."

"No one is near?" said I, anxiously glancing round the courtyard.

"Not a soul, sir: in you go, on with the head, Tom, and be quick, for the ice channel is cutting fast to the fairway; the jib and foretopsail are loose, and the lashings all but cast off."

The counting-room of Messrs. Manly and Skrew stood within a courtyard, which was entered by a gateway from Water-street; and from this court—which was formed by four large wooden stores, all pitched, tarred, and now coated with snow and ice—a path led down to the wharf, at the end of which, as at the end of all the others that jutted into the harbour, a mercantile flag was displayed from a mast. In this court were piles of old barrels, hampers, boxes, an anchor, a spare topmast or so, half buried under the usual white mantle, on which a flock of poor little snowbirds were hopping and twittering drearily.

"Do you feel snug, sir?" inquired Paul Reeves, through the bunghole.

"Yes; but please to lose no time in getting me through the crowd on the wharf, and on board the Leda" I replied, in a somewhat imploring tone of voice; for the cask, though a roomy one, was the reverse of comfortable, and already I longed to stretch myself.

"The Leda lies just outside the Bristol clipper."

"She that was overhauled and plundered, and had three of her crew shot by the Black Schooner?"

"Yes, sir," replied Reeves, as the two seamen hoisted up the cask; and I soon became aware by the clamour around me that I was being conveyed down to the wharf, where Mr. Skrew, in a full suit of Petersham and sables, was walking to and fro till his sledge arrived.

"Hallo, what have you fellows got in the cask?" he demanded as I was borne past him.

"Some of the captain's stores, sir," replied Reeves.

"His grandmother's best featherbed," added the carpenter.

"Very good," said Uriah, as I was deposited almost on his gouty toes.

Men often stumbled against my cask, and swore at it or pushed it aside. Once a fellow seated himself on it, and kicked with his heels till I was nearly deranged, and the impulse to scare him by a shout became almost irrepressible. For a time, I dreaded that it might be tumbled off the wharf into the sludge and broken ice alongside!

Ere long the wharf was cleared; I heard the clanking of the gates, as the keeper, by order of Mr. Skrew, locked them, doubtless to exclude me therefrom on this great gala day; and then followed the jangling of bells, as he stepped into his sledge, and departed upon the ice. Thus I was left to my own reflections on the solitary wharf.

Before this, a great commotion had taken place at the extremity thereof, as the Bristol clipper by some mismanagement ran foul of the Leda, and the usual volleys of threats, oaths, and orders incident to such collisions in harbour were exchanged from the decks and rigging of both vessels, while, by using boat-hooks aloft and fenders below, the crew strove to keep the rigging clear and the hulls apart.

Amid this unexpected hurly-burly, I was forgotten in my cask!

The wharf stood near the western extremity of the town, which lies along the basin of the harbour. The sounds in my vicinity seemed all to die away, as the crowd along the shore and upon the ice followed the ships, which in succession were warped along their ice-channels into the fairway, and each was greeted by a tremendous cheer as the sails fell, their head canvas filled, and they broke into blue water; but hours seemed to elapse, without a person coming near the horrible cask in which I was imprisoned, and the agonies I endured are beyond description!

The sense of oppression and of being cramped amounted to intense bodily torture; thus a perspiration alternately burning hot and icy cold burst over me. The interior of this now detested prison seemed hot as a furnace; yet there was in my soul a deadly fear of perishing by cold, as I should assuredly do, if left all night on the locked wharf, in such a climate, with the thermometer at twelve degrees below the freezing point!

How fruitlessly I repented me of the silly project of thus escaping, and alternately longed to be back again in Skrew's snug counting-room, or on board the departing brig—of being anywhere, instead of being thus "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," and forgotten. A terror of being conveyed on board, and left, perhaps, in the hold—left undiscovered till dead of suffocation, gave me wild energy; madly I strove to kick or beat out the head of the cask; but my legs were powerless, as if suffering from paralysis, for my aching knees were wedged under my chin, and I might as well have attempted to escape from a block of adamant.

Faintness and delirium were fast coming over me! I screamed like a madman; but my hoarse voice was lost in the hollow of the cask. Though a perspiration bathed all my aching limbs, my tongue clove to my palate, and soon became hot and dry. Starry lights seemed to flash and dance before me in the darkness; my brain reeled; then I gasped, as sense and pulsation ebbed together, and after enduring three hours (as I afterwards learned) of such agony as those who were confined in the stone chests of the Venetians, or in the iron cages which Louis XI. placed in the Bastille, alone could have known—I fainted.

CHAPTER III.
THE NARROWS OF ST. JOHN.

On recovering, I found myself in the cabin of the Leda, with Captain Hartly hanging over me, and chafing my hands and temples, in anxiety and solicitude, with hartshorn and vinegar; for being a kind-hearted fellow, he was seriously alarmed.

In these friendly offices he was ably assisted by Cuffy Snowball, his black cook, who burned several grey goose-quills under my nose, and who brought me a rummer full of brandy-punch steaming hot from the galley. On swallowing this, which they forced me to do at two draughts, I became considerably revived and invigorated.

"Why did you leave me there, Hartly—it might have been, to die?" I asked, reproachfully.

"I did not leave you, my dear boy, at least not a moment longer than we could help," he replied. "It cost us no small trouble to get clear of that lubberly barque. I wish the Black Schooner had sunk her, when athwart her hawse! We had to clap on all hands to warping into the fairway, and once there, we had to keep constantly forging a-head, as other craft were crowding into the channel astern of us."

"Then I was pretty near being left till the wharf-keeper came next morning. My heaven! I should have been stiff enough by that time!"

"I sent Paul Reeves and Hans Peterkin to bring off the cask on a sledge, and you may imagine the fright we were in on finding you cramped up and lifeless as a pickled herring!"

"Oh, Hartly," said I, "the torture I endured was frightful! I now repent of my undertaking, and wish myself back again."

"Repent—bah! It has been a stupidly managed job, but it is over now, and there is an end of it. Take another sip of the hot brandy-and-water, and come on deck; we are abreast of the Crow's Nest now, and in ten minutes more will be in blue water; then hurrah for the ice-fields!"

I followed him on deck, and found that we were, as he said, abreast of a high sugar-loaf shaped rock, crowned by a little battery named the Crow's Nest, and that around us a very exciting scene was passing.

The Leda was now in the fairway, or main channel, which was formed through the ice in the centre of the harbour, and into which there were cut more than fifty canals, or connecting links, along which the sealing ships were being warped from the various wharves at which they had been fitted out. All were gaily decked with their owners' private colours, and had their courses, or lower sails, cast loose, and were accompanied by crowds, who were conversing, laughing, and expressing their hopes of a successful fishery to the crews, whose voices rang cheerily as they tripped round the capstan or wrenched at the windlass, till they came abreast of the kedge anchor which was wedged in the ice; and then it was torn up, and carried off a-head towards the Narrows. when the cheering, warping, and tripping began anew.

Thousands of persons, many of them on skates, covered all the glassy expanse of the frozen harbour, which from some points of view appears land-locked, so closely do the mountains of rock converge at its entrance; and hundreds of sledges (Mr. Uriah Skrew's among the number), with round Russian bells at their horses' collars, or on the circular iron rod above their ears, with the drivers muffled in furs, swept to and fro; while bands of music playing the air invariable on this occasion, "St. Patrick's Day," marched alongside of the departing fleet.

Flags of every fashion—square, triangular, and swallow-tailed—were streaming everywhere; on the mastheads of the shipping, on the black-tarred mercantile stores, and on the dwellings of their owners—a passion for a display of bunting being one of the peculiarities of this our most northern colony in America.

The aspect of its capital, which covers the northern slope of the harbour, is rather pretty, though the country beyond is nearly as wild and as dreary as when, in the words of Hakluyt—"in the yeere of our Lord 1497, John Cabot a Venetian, and his son Sebastian, with an English fleet from Bristol, discovered that land which no man had before attempted, on 24th June, about five of the clocke, early in the morning. That island which lieth out before the land, he called of St. John, as I think, because it was discovered upon the day of John the Baptist."

During the brief summer, this harbour, the entrance of which is so narrow that two ships can scarcely pass in the dangerously deep mid-channel, is smooth as a mill-pond, and presents a lively scene, for there the smart Clyde-built clipper, the dark and battered Sunderland collier brig, the smart Yankee liner, with her gaudy stars and stripes, her snowy decks, and gear so taut; the Pomeranian, with her grass-green hull and fur-capped crew; the Dutch galliot, all brown varnish, and shaped like a half cheese, or like the old craft that bore the Crusaders to Palestine; the huge ship of Blackwall, redolent of guano, all blistered, rusted, and turned yellow by the sun of the fiery south; the sharp Spanish brig, which had run her cargo of slaves in South Carolina and escaped here, to go quietly home, with her brass nines hidden in the hold, and with fish in Lent for the pious at Cadiz or Oporto—during the brief season of summer, I say, all these had been here; but now when a snowy mantle covered the land, and black ice locked the harbour, its basin or bosom presented a very different scene.

Floundering through sludge and water, a thousand of those men who are England's real pioneers in the Far West—Irish emigrants—in long boots, were cutting the thick ice with ponderous saws, and pushing the blocks under the solid mass on either side, to form a fairway or clear channel for the shipping; and this channel, though at least twenty feet broad, would certainly be frozen hard and fast ere morning dawned.

On this occasion there passed out with us, as I have elsewhere stated, more than one hundred sail of sealing craft. There were brigs, brigantines, and schooners, ranging from fifty to two hundred and fifty tons, all following each other through the fairway, warping ahead, till beyond the Chain Rock, where they got into open water.

Many of the smaller craft are miserably adapted for the dangers they have to encounter, and thus are frequently crushed or lost in the ice by being swept off among the floes and fields to the far north, from whence they never return. Some, I have observed, had only a box lined with fire-brick placed on edge, lashed aft the foremast, for a caboose, and an iron cauldron on three legs placed therein for boiling the wretched mess of old salt pork and doughballs which form the daily food of the crew, who, with such apparatus, would be unable to cook anything in foul weather or a heavy sea.

The wind was southerly for a time, but gradually veered a little to the west as we neared the harbour mouth. After passing the Chain Rock, where a cable of Cyclopean aspect, that now lies a mass of rust thereon, was wont in times of war and alarm to be stretched across to the Pancake Rock to secure the harbour at night, we found ourselves in the deep water. With a loud cheer we brought the kedge anchor and hawser on board. Paul Reeves took the wheel; we sheeted home the foresail and gib, let fall the fore and main topsails, and brought the starboard tacks on board when we were clear of the Signal Hill, and the Dead Man's Bay—a dreary inlet of the sea—lay on our quarter.

This hill is a stern and precipitous mountain of sandstone and slate-rock, nearly six hundred feet in height, with batteries that rise over each other in tiers, to the highest, which is named "The Queen's." Opposite, towers an equally abrupt mountain of similar height and aspect, having at its base a little promontory defended by Fort Amherst.

The slender gut between is named the Narrows of St. John.

The breeze came more and more round upon our quarter as we ran past Signal Hill, ploughing through a somewhat heavy surf; past the Sugar Loaf, and a little creek where, in the clear summer sea, I have seen the guns of an ancient and forgotten wreck lying like black dots on the smooth white sand many fathoms below; for in these regions, when a brilliant sun shines upon the ocean, its waters become transparent to a wondrous depth; thus giant corals, dusky weeds, and the snow-white bones of mighty fish,

"With the rainbow hues of the sea-trees' bloom,"

may be seen distinctly at the depth of a hundred and fifty feet from the surface.

There, too, I have seen the bright yellow sea anemone, with its long fibrous leaves, that close and shrink into the rocks from view when touched.

Cape St. Francis, one of the eastern promontories of Avalon, was soon upon our beam; Cape Spear light had sunk into the waves astern, and night was coming down upon the wintry sea, when we hauled up a point or two to the north and west, and stood right away to the icy regions of the North; and that night merrily at supper we sang in the cabin—

"'Twas in the year of 'sixty-one,
Of March the seventeenth day,
That our gallant ship her anchor weighed
And to the North seas bore away,
Brave boys," &c.

CHAPTER IV
THE BRIG "LEDA."

We had twenty-four hands on board; twelve of these were landsmen, being gunners and batmen, half agriculturists and half fishermen, who, at times, in summer, left their families to till the scanty soil, while they fished in open boats among the countless creeks and bays which indent the peninsula of Avalon; and now in winter, when all out-of-door operations were suspended, and the land was buried under fourteen feet of frozen snow—and when the sea, even to the distance of two hundred miles, would soon be bound with ice, they became seal-fishers; and, like others, had shipped in the little fleet which, on St. Patrick's Day, always departed from this Iro-American isle for the stormy seas that lash the Labrador.

All these men were Irish and oft at sea; I have heard the poor fellows, when seated under the leech of the foresail, with the icy spray flying over them to leeward, singing the sweet or merry songs they had learned at their mothers' knee, in the brave old land they were fated never to see again—for the story of our crew is a sad one!

We had a negro, who was our cook (of course), Cuffy Snowball—I never heard him named otherwise; and his adventures had been somewhat singular.

Cuffy had been a warrior of Congo, and dwelt in a hut on the banks of the Zaire, where, by dint of "his spear and shaggy shield," he had amassed a wealth of baskets, gourds, carved calibashes, and wooden spoons from cowards who could not defend them. He could tell, with great simplicity, innumerable stories of his combats with other tribes, and with lions, leopards, buffaloes, crocodiles, and hippopotami; and in evidence of his prowess, he wore on his left arm a bracelet formed entirely of lions' teeth—which form a kind of "Order of Valour" in Congo. He had been very happy in his wigwam, till the daughter of a Chenoo or chief—a beautiful damsel, with her teeth painted blue and the bone of a shark through her nose—espied him one day, and desired to have him for her husband, as it is the right of these ladies to do.

The chosen, of whom she becomes absolute mistress and proprietress, dare not refuse, so poor Cuffy was married to the Chenoo; there were great rejoicings, and three prisoners of war were devoured at the marriage-feast.

But his sable fair one tired of him in a short time, and by certain artful means decoyed him one evening to the mouth of the Zaire, and there sold him into slavery.

The slave-ship was wrecked; but Cuffy got ashore on the island of Jamaica, where he was very much surprised to see some of his countrymen, dressed and armed like white men, in coats of a red colour, with light blue trousers; so he enlisted as a soldier in one of her Majesty's West India Regiments.

Ere long Cuffy was made a corporal; and though he ground his sharp teeth now and then when thinking of his wigwam in Congo, and the treacherous Chenoo his wife, he was very happy, for he had plenty of rice, yams, and sangaree, and as a corporal, carried his black snub nose very high indeed!

From Jamaica his company was ordered to Trinidad, and the whole, a hundred in number, were shipped on board of a Yankee barque which had been freighted for the purpose. Her skipper, on seeing such a choice lot of tall and handsome young negroes, proposed to their captain (a reckless fellow, who was steeped to the lips in debt and all kinds of West Indian dissipation) to bear away for the Southern States of the Union, and there sell the whole as slaves. Singular as it may seem, the captain, who owed more money in Trinidad than he could ever hope to pay, accepted the proposal, and the soldiers of this company of H.M. West India Regiment, instead of garrisoning the isle where the "mother of the cocoa" blooms, were duly landed at Charleston in South Carolina, where they were all sold to the highest bidders. The skipper and captain put the money in their pockets, leaving the astonished lieutenant and ensign to get back to headquarters in Jamaica as they best could.

Cuffy's new master proved a severe one, and under his lash he often sighed for the rice, yams, and his quiet duty as sentinel under a sunshade, or the high authority he could wield as corporal over Scipio, Sambo, or Julius Cæsar, in the days when he was the white man's comrade; but one day Cuffy lost his temper, and gave his master a tap on the head with a sugar-hoe!

Then, without waiting to see whether or not he had killed him, he fled into the woods—crossed the Savannah river, and getting on board a British vessel became a sailor, and within one year thereafter, was shipped, as cook, on board the Leda.

The rest of our crew were all steady and hardy men, and Paul Reeves, the senior mate, was the model of an English sailor.

The wind had changed during the night; thus, when next day dawned, we were still in sight of Cape St. Francis—a snow-covered headland, which shone white and drearily, as the sun came up from the blue sea.

Hartly expressed some impatience at our progress as we trod to and fro aft the mainmast in the clear, cold, bracing air of the morning, while the odour of a hot breakfast, which Cuffy was preparing, came in whiffs from the galley.

"Never mind," said I; "the wind will soon change again—I can see by the clouds there are contrary currents overhead; and when once among the ice, we shall have great fun!"

"Fun! I don't know much about that," said Hartly, who, like every seaman, was put in a sulky mood by a foul wind.

"We shall have perils to encounter!"

"Perils may be fun to one so young as you, Jack," said Hartly, pausing thoughtfully; "however, in our trade, I have ever found that peril and profit go together. Think over all we have read of what Parry, Ross, Scoresby, Franklin, and Kane underwent in those regions of ice and snow; and I do not remember the word fun occurring once in their narratives."

"Well," said I, abashed by his monitory tone, "we shall have excitement, at all events."

"Both excitement and danger, I grant you," said he, as we resumed the usual quarter-deck step and trod to and fro again: "it is a well-paying speculation, a sealing expedition; and, by Jove! it would need to be so to compensate poor fellows for all they undergo in such a rigorous season, and in such seas as those which sweep round the frozen rocks and shores of Newfoundland and the drearier Labrador in the blustering month of March. Some crews are frozen in, far at sea, for months and months, till all perish of starvation; others are lost in detached parties on the ice-fields, in fogs, and are never found again. Some are swept out to sea on broken floes, or fall through holes in the ice, and are never more seen. Then the strongest ships are often crushed, as you would crush an egg upon an anvil, by the ice-fields, masses of which, perhaps a hundred miles in extent, are whirled, dashed, and split against each other by opposite currents, with a sound so frightful, that one might well imagine the last day was at hand, or that chaos had come again! Ah, we should have some profit, after encountering all that!"

"I should think so," said I while glancing at my watch, and reflecting that Mr. Uriah Skrew would, about this time, find the farewell letter I had left for him on my desk in the counting-room.

"But I do not say all this, Jack Manly, to cast you down," said Hartly, laughing; "for you will always be safe with me, as you know I never can be drowned, while wearing this ring."

"Do you really believe in it?" I inquired.

"Why, I don't know, Jack; but I should not like to lose it now: we sailors have strange fancies at times, but, with all our alleged superstition, are, I cannot help thinking, more religious than you landsmen. One who finds his daily bread upon the waters, and is for ever struggling with the wild elements by night and day, must at times think solemnly of the mighty Hand and Will that fashioned them out of thin air."

"But your ring?"

"She who gave it me was a strange old woman, whom we called Mother Jensdochter—a kind of Norna of the Fitful Head, who lived, or for aught I know, lives still, in a hut at the base of Mount Hecla, in Iceland. I was wrecked there, when on a voyage in the Princess, of Hull, bound for Archangel, five years ago. This witch occupied a regular Icelandic hut. It was built of wreck and drift wood, caulked with moss and earth, roofed with rafters of whale-ribs covered with turf, and having in the centre a hole for a chimney. Her bed was a mere box of seaweed, feathers, and down; but I seldom saw any house of a better kind in Iceland."

"Well?"

"She used to sell fair winds or foul, blessings or maledictions, as the matter might be, to the fishermen of the fiords. She would give, as the simple folks believed, a fair wind that would carry a craft as far as Cape Horn without lifting tack or sheet; or a curse that would sink the Royal Albert line-o'-battle ship, for a loaf of ground codfish, or a bottle of hockettle oil for the iron cruse that hung from her whalebone rafters; but she conceived a strong regard for me, because I had saved her miserable life in a snowstorm one night, and carried her in my arms—ugh! what a precious armful she was!—to her wigwam. She used to assure me that whenever there was a battle being fought anywhere in the world, the terrible mountain that overhung her dwelling vomited black ashes and stones; and then, as she sat at her door, with her long grey locks hanging over her fierce red eyes, she could see troops of infernal spirits carrying the souls of the damned, shrieking through the air, towards the flaming crater. The noise of the ice-floes dashed against the shore, she alleged to be the groans of others, who were doomed to endure excess of cold for eternity, even as those in Hecla were to endure excess of heat; and she had many other fancies wild enough to make a poor Jack Tar's hair stand up on end!

"Near her hut stood a conical knoll, covered with fine green grass, and thence named the Groenbierg. There, she asserted, by putting an ear to the ground, she could hear the large-headed gnomes and little bandy-legged dwarfs, who dwelt in it, busy at work, fashioning trinkets and curiously carved goblets—especially at Yule, where the clink of their tiny hammers rang like chime-bells on little anvils; and the puff of their bellows and forge could be heard, with the jingle of gold and silver coins, and opening and shutting of quaintly-carved and iron-bound treasure-chests, which they were shoving to and fro, and hiding in the bowels of the mountain. She fell asleep there one evening, and dreamed that the Grcenbierg opened, and there came forth a little man in a red cloak and pair of puffy breeches, with a white beard the entire length of his body (that is, about two feet,) and he bestowed this ring upon her, with a promise that whoever wore it was free from all danger hereafter. He then vanished into a mole-track on the hill-side. Mother Jensdochter awoke, and found the ring upon her finger, where it remained, until, in a burst of gratitude, she bestowed it on me, with the comfortable assurance (I give you the yarn, Jack, for what it is worth) that I 'could never be drowned while it remained on my finger.' Hans Peterkin—forward there!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Brace those foreyards sharper up; set the fore and main staysails and foretopmast staysail; and keep her a point or so further off the land.—And now, Jack, come below, for Cuffy has gone down with the bacon and coffee, piping hot, too."

Leaving Hans, the second mate, in charge of the deck, with orders to announce the slightest indication of a change of wind, we descended to breakfast with the appetites of hawks.

On this morning only two of our sealing companions were visible, and these were at the far horizon to the eastward; so as we were forced by change of wind to hug the land, we soon lost sight of them, and, ere noonday, were alone upon the sea.

CHAPTER V.
KIDD THE PIRATE.

We had scarcely lost sight of Cape St. Francis when the wind became light and variable, and one of those dense fogs peculiar to that region settled surely and slowly, densely and darkly, over land and sea. We shortened sail, and sent ahead the jolly-boat with four hands in her, to feel our way as it were; while Paul Reeves kept sounding ever and anon, for in that ocean of strong currents, with a slight wind from the eastward, and a shore of reefs and shoals upon our lee, every precaution was necessary.

The raw cold of a fog upon a wintry sea in that latitude of ice and snow must be felt to be understood. The clear bracing frost, however intense, may be endured; but this chill and murky dampness made one intensely miserable.

As we crept along, a strange sound reached us from time to time.

"What is that?" I asked.

"The voices of the penguins," replied Hartly—"the Baccalao birds. We are off that island; and their cries are as good as fog-guns to people situated as we are. See! the fog lights a bit; and now there is the land about two miles off, on the lee bow!"

As he spoke, the dense bank of vapour which shrouded sea, land, and sky, parted for a few minutes; a gleam of brilliant sunshine fell upon the rough and precipitous rocks of the wild and desert isle named Baccalao, which, in summer and winter, are alike ever whitened by a species of guano, deposited there by the auks or penguins, which we could see hovering above them in countless myriads, uttering shrill cries while they soared, wheeled, and flew hither and thither, as if to warn us of our danger in being so near those treacherous reefs, which are a source of terror to mariners. Their dangers are only seen, however, by the daring egg-gatherers, who come from the mainland in summer, and sling themselves by ropes from the summit of the cliff, to rifle the nests; although these poor birds are specially under the protection of Government, by a proclamation, being sea-marks, or danger-signals (as we found them) in foul or foggy weather.

With some interest I surveyed the stern cliffs of Baccalao, as they were the first land seen by Cabot, the Grand Pilot of England, after ploughing the mighty Atlantic in his little caravel; and he named them in his joy La Prima Vista, though a "vista" grim enough.

"The shore is dark, dreary, and sterile," said I to Hartly.

"Yes," said he, "but there are many strange stories of treasure being buried there by the pirates in old times."

"Do you see that deep chasm in the rocks in the north end of the isle?" said Paul Reeves, lowering his voice impressively as he pointed to the land.

"Yes, it seems quite black among the snow."

"That is not snow, but the deposit of the Baccalao birds," said the mate. "In the old buccaneering times, the pirates are said to have buried their treasure there; and a cask branded with the King's broad arrow, and the name Adventure, was once found in it. Now all the world knows that the Adventure was the ship of the famous Captain Kidd, who cheated King William out of the finest craft in the English navy."

"How?" said I.

"Let us hear," added Hartly.

"At a time when all the seas about the coasts of North and South America and the West India Islands were swarming with buccaneer craft, manned by desperadoes of every country, who made war upon all ships that sailed the ocean and were unable to resist them, the Government of King William III. selected a mariner of doubtful reputation, named Captain William Kidd, who volunteered to root out those sea-hawks, who persecuted the thrifty traders of New Amsterdam."

"King William acted on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief."

"Exactly so, Jack," said Hartly, "for Kidd, though ostensibly a merchant-mariner, was something of a smuggler, and had done a little in the way of picarooning. He was always heard of in out-of-the-way places, departing on voyages no one knew whither, and coming from places never heard of before. Then he was always followed by a crew of well-armed, black-muzzled, drinking, swearing, tearing fellows, who were as flush of money as if they had been at the overhauling of Havannah. But go a-head, Paul."

"Well," resumed the mate, "in 1695 Kidd sailed down Channel in the Adventure galley, of forty-four guns, with a royal pennant flying, duly commissioned by King William to fight all buccaneers, and his crew were all selected by himself. But Master Kidd was barely off the Lizard when he hauled down the King's pennant, hoisted the skull and crossbones, and bore away for the East Indies. He burned two towns in Madeira, and after plundering and sinking every craft he could overmatch, reached the entrance of the Red Sea, where he captured a Queda merchantman, the cargo of which lined the pockets of himself and his followers to their complete satisfaction.

"Queda is a town of Asia, situated on the western coast of the peninsula of Malacca; and so Kidd was cunning enough to attempt passing-off this capture as a crusade against the enemies of Christianity; but, unfortunately for him, the ship was commanded by a Scotchman, and people did not believe in crusaders under Orange William.

"A year or two after this, he was cruising off the American coast, and in dread of the King's ships, which were all on the look-out for him, he ran north as far as Newfoundland, and was alleged to have buried on its coast all the treasure amassed on his long and rambling voyage; but where, no one could exactly say, until the old barrel head, marked Adventure, and bearing the King's broad arrow, found in yonder cavern, seemed to indicate Baccalao as being the place. Moreover, he is known to have run up Conception Bay in quest of the gold and silver rocks which Frobisher and Sir Humphrey Gilbert averred were to be seen there."

"Rocks of gold and silver!" said I, incredulously.

"They are only the fire-stones of the Red Indians, and emit sparks when struck together," said Hartly.[*]

[*] They were the solid iron pyrites which deceived the early navigators who visited these barren shores. In the "List of H.M. Royal Navy for 1701," we find among the "fifth-rates, the Adventure, 120 men, 44 guns."

"His treasure," continued the mate, "if he had any, was never found; though he was, for Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont, and Governor of New England, caught him one day in 1701, when swaggering about the streets of Boston, and sent him home to King William, who lost no time in hanging him. But he died as hard as he had lived, for the rope broke with his weight in Execution Dock, so he was reeved up again with a new one.

"He was hung in chains on the banks of the Thames, but his body disappeared in the night, and the sailors in London declared that he could neither be hanged nor chained, as he had a charmed life, having sold his poor soul to the devil. Be that as it may, on the same night, in 1701, my Lord Bellamont was found dead in his bed at Boston, and many affirmed that this event had some connexion with Kidd's mysterious disappearance from the gallows, as he was said to have been seen by some of his old shipmates near the dead Governor's house.

"Fishermen when jigging or trawling off Baccalao in the clear moonlight nights, often saw a solitary man sitting on the rocks at the mouth of yonder cavern, but his figure always seemed to melt away into the moonshine when any one approached; so a story went abroad that the island was haunted by the ghost of a drowned man. However, a stout fellow, named Tom Spiller, who was rather bolder than the rest, and who lived alone at Breakheart Point, where he had a little hut and stage for drying the fish he caught, went off to the island one night, when there was little cloud and a bright moon. The sea was calm, for there was but a puff of wind off the land from time to time.

"Tom Spiller was a brave and devil-may-care kind of fellow, whom I knew well, for he was an old man when I went to sea with him first as a boy, so I have often heard him tell the story without variation or leeway, or shaking out a new reef by way of a change.

"On approaching the island, he saw the solitary figure sitting on the rocks at the mouth of the deep black chasm, motionless, with his head resting, as it were, sorrowfully on the palm of his right hand, and his eyes fixed apparently on the sea that rippled to his feet, though it boiled and roared in white foam over the reefs that lay a few fathoms off outside.

"Tom steered his boat straight for the cave, and now, when the towering rocks of the desert isle were over his head, covered with thousands upon thousands of wild auks, screaming, whirling, and flapping their wings, as if to scare him away; when the deep black chasm in which the sea was gurgling and moaning yawned before him, and everything seemed so weird and wan in the pale moonlight, he did feel queer, and more so when the solitary man, instead of melting into thin air as usual, turned his white face towards him, and arose, just as he let go the halyards, lowered the brown flapping sail, and running his boat into the cave, adroitly noosed a rope over a large stone to moor her, and stepped ashore. Tom's heart was beating wildly and strangely, for he was determined to discover whether this figure, which he had so often seen from the sea, and which had so invariably eluded his brother fishermen, was man, ghost, or devil.

"He perceived that the stranger was clad in an old-fashioned dress, his coat having large metal buttons, broad pocket-flaps, and deep cuffs. He was ghastly pale, his glassy eyes glistened in the moonlight, and dark crimson blood was flowing from what appeared to be a pistol-shot in his left temple.

"'What seek you here?' he asked, in a voice so hollow that the terrified fisherman, who now repented sorely of his rashness, knew not whether the sound came from the spectre's white lips, from the depth of the dreary chasm, or from the sea. 'Speak,' continued the figure, with mournful earnestness; 'what seek you?'

"'To discover who and what you are,' said Tom.

"'May you never be what I was, or what I am,' replied the other, sadly.

"'But what are you?'

"'A restless spirit.'

"Tom's knees bent under him, for the pale eyes of that cold white visage seemed to pierce his soul.

"'A wretched spirit—left here by a fiend to guard his ill-gotten spoil—so begone, I charge you.'

"The fisherman shrank back on hearing these strange words, while the gloomy terrors of the scene—the screaming of the Baccalao birds that whirled in a cloud about him, the dashing of the waves upon the reef, and the mournful gurgle of the backwash within the vast cavern, with the weird glimpses of the moon as the white clouds sailed swiftly past her face—all combined to make this interview a dreadful one.

"Suddenly there was a sound of oars to seaward, the spirit seemed to become excited, and clasped his thin white hands.

"'See! see! he comes!' he exclaimed. 'Kidd the pirate! Kidd, my murderer! But he comes, blessed be God! to release me after a hundred years of restless watching and penance!'

"For you must know that this occurred, as Tom Spiller told me, in 1801.

"'Land ho!' cried a deep hoarse voice from the sea, while Spiller, overcome by terror, shrank behind a fragment of rock.

"'Hilloa!' answered the spirit, in nautical fashion.

"'Clouds and thunder! why the devil don't you show a light?' cried the strange voice, as a large barge full of men shot round a promontory, against which the waves were dashing in foam. On it came—on and on—at every stroke of the oars, till they were all triced up in true man-o'-war fashion as she sheered into the creek, and a man sprang on shore, uttering a tempest of oaths and maledictions.

"Tom Spiller now fancied that they were all dressed in the fashion of a hundred years ago, with deep square-skirted coats, long flowing perriwigs, and little three-cocked hats, and that all were pale, silent, and spectral; in short, it was a boat manned by unquiet spirits! Strangely enough, he felt less afraid of them all than of one, and continued to gaze at them like a person in a dream.

"The man who sprang ashore was a short, squat fellow of ferocious aspect; his battered visage was covered with cuts and patches of black plaster; a hellish spark glittered in each of his eyes. He wore a coarse perriwig with long curls, a three-cocked hat, an old-fashioned blue coat, covered with tarnished lace, and brass buttons; he had also a pair of brass-barrelled Spanish pistols, and a hanger sustained by a broad belt.

"Two ropes were knotted round his neck, which was bare, and pieces of rusty chain were dangling at his wrists and ankles. Then the marrow froze in the bones of Tom Spiller, for he knew that he looked upon William Kidd, the pirate, who had been twice hanged a hundred years before in Execution Dock.

"'Now, you canting, cowardly lubber, why the henckers didn't you hang out a light?' he bellowed in a hoarse voice.

"'I have been in the dark these hundred years,' replied the spirit, meekly.

"'Likely enough; seas and thunder! you were the faintest-hearted fellow in the Adventure.'

"'I suffered sorely at your hands since you captured the ship of Queda, of which I was captain, and made me a prisoner in yon galley.'

"'Bah!' thundered Kidd.

"'I have repented me of my sins in life,' said the spirit, mournfully.

"''Sblood and plunder!' shouted the other, with a diabolical laugh; 'I shot you through the head, as a canting Scotsman, on this night one hundred years ago, and buried you here—you know for what purpose.'

"'That my unquiet spirit might watch your buried treasure,' moaned the other.

"'Right,' chuckled the pirate; 'I shot you as I would have done my lord the Earl of Bellamont, though he was Governor of New England and Admiral of all the seas about it, for that long-snouted Dutch lubber, William of Orange, who sent him to lord it over the Yankees.'

"'I have waited and watched your treasure long, and now am anxious for the repose of the grave.'

"On hearing this, Kidd and his boat's crew laughed, and gnashed their teeth; but a few there were who wept and wailed heavily, and the sound of their lamentation was fearful as it mingled with the chafing of the surge.

"'I have some fine things stowed away here in Baccalao,' said Kidd; 'but I have some that are better still in the haunted Kaatskill Mountain, and at Tapaan Zee, up the Hudson.'

"The spirit-watcher groaned.

"'Since I saw you last, brother, I have been twice hanged and strung in chains on the banks of the Thames—ha! ha! at Gravesend Reach.'

"'Hanged!'

"'Yes, by all the devils in New Amsterdam!—HANGED! Hanged by order of him of pious, glorious, and immortal memory—by Orange Billy, who assassinated the De Witts in Holland, who murdered eighty men, women, and children in cold blood in Scotland; who abandoned his soldiers at Steinkirk; who boiled and burned women alive in London for coining a few brass halfpence; and who departed this life amid the prayers of canting hypocrites and lawn-sleeved parasites, on the 8th day of March, 1701! He roasts now, for some of his pranks, I can tell you! But heave a-head, brother! we must ship our cargo, and be off to-night for Cape Cod at New Amsterdam (or New York, as the folks call it now-a-days), ere the moon wanes or the tide falls. Where is the plunder?'

"The sad spirit-watcher pointed to a place which seemed to have opened in the rocky cavern; and there Tom Spiller could see, by the beams of the moon, heaps of gold and silver vessels, sparkling jewels and trinkets, with veritable pyramids of gold and silver coins of every nation and of every size, piled up in confusion.

"Bewildered by this sight, he permitted rather too much of his figure to be seen; for suddenly a yell of rage came from the spectre boat's crew; and Kidd, drawing one of the long brass pistols from his broad buff girdle, uttered a dreadful oath—

"'A spy!' he exclaimed; 'take that and perish!'

"He fired full at the head of Tom, who felt the ball pass through his brain like a red-hot arrow, and he sank upon the rocks—where he found himself lying stiff enough when he awoke next morning, and saw the Baccalao birds wheeling about in the sunshine."

"So the whole affair was only a dream!" said I.

"I cannot say," replied Reeves; "for strangely enough, an old Spanish pistol, with a strong smell of powder about it, and 'W. K.' on the butt, was lying on the rocks by his side. Tom lost no time, you may be assured, in jumping into his boat, and clapping on all sail to leave the island astern; but after that night the spirit was seen no more at the mouth of the cavern, for Kidd had come to release him, or to take away his treasure."

"And Tom Spiller?"

"Forsook his hut at Breakheart Point, and went to sea for many years: he felt unhappy, for the parsons say that folks always are so who have conversed with ghosts; but his mind dwelt for ever on the treasure in the cavern, and he never ceased to spin yarns about it, and express hopes that some, if not all that he saw, might yet remain. He returned to Breakheart Point about twenty years ago, an old and white-haired man; and one night, accompanied by three men armed with picks and shovels, sailed in search of the treasure; but they never reached the island, for a tempest came on and drove their boat to the northward. He tried to fetch Ragged Harbour, but was blown right across Conception Bay for more than thirty miles, and was drowned at La Cabo Bueno Vista, on a rock called, to this hour, Spiller's Point.

"As for Captain Kidd, he has never been seen since, though some folks hereabout say he commands the Black Schooner, which has overhauled so many of our merchantmen and escaped the Queen's cruisers. So that is my yarn, Mr. Manly."

"Steady, Paul, steady," said Hartly; "the fog has concealed your haunted island again."

"Steady it is, sir; but we had better take a pull at these larboard tacks, otherwise we may not be able to clear the three rocks that lie to the northward of Baccalao; and I think we can hear the breakers already!"

CHAPTER VI.
THE BLACK SCHOONER.

Long ere the mate's story was concluded, the dense fog—chilly, white, and drenching—had shrouded the dreary isle of Baccalao, and the voices of the penguins alone indicated its locality; but they became fainter, until we lost the sound altogether as we ran further to the north.

Now a furious snow-storm came on; thick and fast the white flakes fell ceaselessly aslant through a dark-grey sky upon the winter sea (for in that region there is no spring), covering the rigging, the decks, and storm-jackets of the watch, who shrank to leeward, while the wind, which blew keenly from the N.N.E., and thermometer, which had sunk very low, made me begin to reflect that there were more unpleasant places in the world than the counting-room of Mr. Uriah Skrew.

This snow-storm continued for three or four days, during which the whole seamanship of Hartly, Reeves, and Hans Peterkin was required to prevent the Leda being driven upon a lee shore. By chart and soundings they were constantly at work, to keep her off a land which was veiled in obscurity, for the wind was dead and strong against us; and frequently through the blinding snow, and grey hazy drift to leeward, we could hear the sullen booming of breakers, as they rolled in foam that froze upon the granite rocks and islets about Cape Freels.

This foul weather lasted for several days, and weary of beating fruitlessly to windward, when the storm abated, and the sky became again blue and serene, we found ourselves under easy sail, at the rate of four knots an hour or so, passing the Twillingate Isles, which lie between the Bay of Exploits and the vast Bay of Notre Dame. They were covered with snow, and are desolate, bleak, and little known, as on that part of the coast there are only about one hundred and fifty inhabitants—poor people—who, after fishing for cod and salmon in summer, quit their wigwams in winter to live in the sheltered woods, or sail south towards St. John. And now we began to get ready our boats and guns, and with telescopes to sweep the snow-clad shore for seals, and the open sea for ice-floes.

It was about the hour of six; the sun had just set, and the western sky was all a-blaze with fiery-coloured light, which tinged with roseate hues the waves that rolled upon the bleak and snow-clad shore. Captain Hartly took the wheel, and Reeves stood anxiously close by the binnacle, for we had to weather a long, sharp, and lofty promontory which abutted like a wall of rock into the ocean, and round which there eddied a swift and dangerous current. The wind, though now off the land, was too light to enable us to make headway against the stream.

On the brig we had but little "way," and a general exclamation of satisfaction rose from the hitherto silent crew, when the Leda shaved—as they phrased it—past the promontory, and we saw a deep cove of blue water opening beyond it; but lo!

There lay at anchor a schooner—a long, low, sharply prowed and rakish-like craft—with her hull painted black as jet could be, and with a number of rough-looking fellows crowding along her gunwale. We were not three hundred yards apart.

"Reeves, take the wheel," cried Hartly, in an excited voice. "The glass, Cuffy, the spy-glass!" he added with sharp energy, snatching from the hands of Snowball the telescope which usually hung on two hooks in the companion; "a row of ugly dogs they are that man her. By Heaven, she is the Black Schooner!"

"The Black Schooner!" we all exclaimed with something of dismay in our varying tones; and I felt, that with Paul Reeves's grim legend about Captain Kidd fresh in our memory, we had some cause for alarm in meeting with this robber ship upon those solitary seas.

"Are you sure, Hartly?" I asked.

"Not a doubt of it! see, Reeves—she is a two-topsail schooner!"

"What does that mean?" said I.

"A brig without tops, in fact."

A kind of growling cheer, mingled with wild and insolent halloing, rose from her crew on beholding us suddenly come round the abrupt promontory, from the brow of which a fringe of gigantic icicles overhung the sea. A commotion was instantly observable on deck; a man in authority sprang up the companion-ladder, and we heard him in a loud and clear voice ordering sail to be instantly made on the schooner as we altered our course.

"Man the windlass-bars—up anchor—rouse it to the catheads with a will, my boys! Shake out everything fore and aft—every stitch that will draw. Stand by the jib and flying-jib halliards," he shouted.

After a pause, during which we heard the clanking of the windlass pauls, as her anchor was started, and would soon be a-cockbill, and dangling by its ring, we heard his voice again.

"Up with the jib and flying-jib now—sheets to starboard! Heave and away—presto! my Jack Spaniards. Stand by topgallant and topsail sheets and halliards. Bear a hand, you French devils! Well done, my Kentucky rowdies!"

In less than three minutes the swelling of the jib and other head-sails, as well as the motion of the schooner when her bows fell round, proved that she was under weigh. These orders, which were obeyed with skilful alacrity, seemed to indicate alike the mixed character of her crew and the hostility of their intentions.

"Ready a gun there forward! sheet home and hoist away, topsails and topgallant sails!"

This alarming order, uttered in a loud voice, rang distinctly upon the clear frosty air, and, on the other hand, Captain Hartly was not slow in his preparations to avoid her.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "this is the very craft we have heard so much about, and for the capture of which the Governor offers 500l. I have no wish to be caught by these fellows—see, they are shaking out a couple of reefs in her fore and aft mainsail already! Hands make all sail—Reeves, set everything that will draw—square away the after yards."

"Ay, ay, sir," said Reeves, jumping about and setting all the men to the yards, braces, and halliards; "port the smallest bit—keep her full—so—steady!"

"Maldito los Inglesos renegades!" ("Curse the English runaways!") cried a Spaniard, shaking his clenched hands at us over her starboard bow.

"Caramba!" cried another.

"Sangbleu!" added a Frenchman, "stop hare—lie to—or it vill be ze vorser for you."

"Will it, you rascally thief!" shouted Hartly, as his eyes flashed and his cheek glowed with excitement: "Manly, look alive, my lad! load all the double-barrelled rifles in the cabin. Snowball, get up the kegs of powder and slugs. We shall not be overhauled by a pirate without having a skirmish first."

"Luckily for us the wind is off the land, and it freshens too," said Reeves: "we shall beat her when running before the wind; but she would come up with us hand over hand on a taut bowline. It was on a wind she overtook the Bristol clipper."

In the red glow of the winter sunset, we saw the foam flying on each side of her sharp bows as the breeze freshened, and she rolled heavily from side to side; while the Leda, being square-rigged, had a greater spread of canvas, and caught more of the wind: thus, notwithstanding that our dangerous pursuer was built for sailing fast, as Paul Reeves foretold, she was no match for us, when running right before the wind.

Our crew, half of whom were only poor seal-fishers, became very much excited; but inspired by the example of Hartly, Reeves, and myself, they proceeded to load all the sealing guns and muskets, lest the schooner might lower her boats to overtake us and attempt to board.

The stern and confident order to get "ready a gun," was repeated more than once before we got beyond hearing; but as no gun was ever fired, we believed this to be a mere bravado to frighten us into shortening sail, till she might run alongside and board us, when a ruinous scene of plunder, if not of bloodshed, would be sure to ensue.

"She sails with the speed of an arrow," said I, while carefully loading and capping my rifle.

"This Black Schooner was one of the craft employed in protecting the French fishery of Miquelon, on the south side of the island," said Hartly; "but her crew mutinied, shipped some runaways of all countries and colours, and turned slavers. These rascals have committed several outrages hereabouts by sea and land, but have always escaped our cruisers, as she alternately shows a British, French, and Yankee ensign, and runs all kinds of paint-strokes along her bends."

On, on, we bore; and on, on, she came after us, with the still freshening breeze, the foam flying before her bows and ours; but ere long we were evidently half a mile apart.

She was a handsome clipper-like craft of about two hundred tons' burthen, coppered to the bends; her lower masts were long and heavy, so as to carry fore and aft sails of immense spread upon a wind, with a square sail, top and topgallant sail aloft.

"Massa Hartly—Massa Captain—look out!" exclaimed Cuffy Snowball, who had armed himself with a musket, and stood in soldier-fashion at "the ready," grinning over the taffrail at the rolling schooner.

"Look out for what?" said Hans Peterkin.

"Something make you all look white as de debbil."

"What do you mean by white," asked the carpenter, "when we all know the devil is black?"

"In my country him white, sare," replied Cuffy, angrily.

"Then," said Hartly, to keep up the spirits of his crew by jesting, "what colour do you think he is, Cuffy?"

"I tink him blue," replied the prudent negro; and then he added with a yell, "dere come something will make you look blue too, Massa!"

As he spoke, a puff of white smoke rose from the bow of the Black Schooner; the report of a musket rang in the air, and a conical rifle-ball whistled past the ear of Hartly, and sank with a heavy thud into the mainmast.

CHAPTER VII.
THE CHASE.

Cuffy Snowball fired his musket at our pursuer, whether with or without effect we know not; but, in reply, a confused discharge of firearms followed, and the balls pattered among the rigging, and knocked little splinters from our spars and gunwale.

"Now, my lads," said Hartly, "let fly at her with everything you have—sealing-guns and rifles!"

This order was executed with alacrity. We had four good rifles and ten long-barrelled and wide-muzzled sealing-guns, each of which sent ten or twelve slugs of lead whirring through the air at every discharge, and we blazed away right valiantly at the crowd of rascals in the schooner's bows; but so great was the distance between us, that I am certain our fire fell harmlessly into the sea—the rifle shots alone could have told with effect.

On first deliberately levelling my rifle (a fine Enfield, presented to me by my father on leaving Peckham) at a man in the starboard bow of the pirate, a strange sensation came over me!

I lowered my weapon and paused; but a shot that struck one of the davits at which the stern-boat hung, removed my momentary, and at that unpleasant crisis most unnecessary scruple.

I levelled again—fired and reloaded, and without considering whether or not I had killed a man, continued to pepper away with all the coolness and precision of Cuffy Snowball, the ex-corporal of H.M. West India Regiment.

"Run up our ensign, and let her rascally crew see it while there is light," said Hartly. "Paul Reeves, rig out the lower studding-sail booms forward, and bring aft those two carronades and the small anchor, to trim her more by the stern. Tom Hammer, see to this!"