It was a dark and stormy night,—a very dark night indeed. No dog's mouth, whether terrier, mastiff, or Newfoundland, was ever so dark as that night. The hatches had been battened down, and every aperture but one, by which any of the great, curly-pated, leaping waves could jump into the vessel, had been closed.

What vessel? the reader may perhaps inquire. Well, that being a piece of reasonable curiosity,—although I do wish, as a general thing, that readers would not be so impatient,—I will gratify it, and answer the inquirer's question; and, indeed, would have told him all about it in five minutes if he would but have given me time.

What vessel? asks the reader. Why, a little, heavy-looking, fore-and-aft, one-masted ship, somewhat tubbish in form, which had battled with a not very favorable gale during a long stormy day, and had, as the sun went down, approached the coast of France, it might be somewhat too close for safety. The atmosphere in the cabin below was hot and oppressive. How indeed could it be otherwise, when not one breath of air, notwithstanding all the bullying and roaring of Boreas, had been able to get in during the whole day? But such being the case, and respiration in the little den being difficult, the only altogether terrestrial animal—sailors are, of course, amphibious—which that vessel contained had forced his way up to the deck through the only narrow outlet which had been left open.

The amphibia have always a considerable dislike and some degree of contempt for all land-animals, and the five sailors, with their skipper, who formed all the crew so small a craft required, would probably have driven below the intruder upon their labors, had they had time, leisure, or light to notice him at all. But for near two hours he stood at the stern on the weather side of the ship, holding on by the bulwarks, wet to the skin, with his hat blown off and probably swimming back toward Old England, and his hands numbed with cold and with hard grasping.

There is something in the very act of holding on tight which increases the natural tenacity of purpose that exists in some minds, and, if I may use a very vulgar figure, thickens the glue. At the end of the two hours, one of the sailors, who had something to do at the stern in a great hurry, ran up to the spot where the only passenger was clinging and nearly tumbled over him. Then, of course, he cursed him, as men in a hurry are wont to, and exclaimed, "Get down below! What the devil are you doing up here, where you are in everybody's way? Get down, I say!"

"I will not," was the reply, in a quiet, and even sweet, but very resolute, voice.

"Then I'll knock you overboard, by ——!" said the seaman, adding an oath which did not much strengthen the threat in the ears to which it was addressed.

"You cannot, and you dare not try," answered the other. But then the voice of the skipper, who had been working hard at the tiller, was heard exclaiming, "Let him alone, Tom;" and he beneficently called down condemnation not only upon the eyes but upon all the members of his subordinate. "Mind your own work, and let him alone."

Now, it may be worth while to ask what sort of a personage was this, whom the somewhat irascible Master Tom threatened to knock overboard, and who replied with so little reverence for the threat. He could not be a very formidable person, at least in appearance,—a very necessary qualification of the assertion; for I have known very formidable snakes the most pitiful-looking reptiles I ever beheld; and some of the most dangerous men ever seen, either on the same stage of life where we are playing our parts with them, or on the wider boards of history, have been the least impressive in person, and the meanest-looking of creatures. But, as I was saying,—for it is too late to finish that sentence now,—the single passenger could not be very formidable in appearance; for Tom was probably too wise and too experienced to engage in what he considered even an equal struggle on so dark a night, while the wind was blowing a gale, and the little craft heeling gunwale to. Yet he could not be one without some powers, internally if not externally, which rendered him fully as careless of consequences as the other. Well, he was only a lad of some five feet eight or nine in height, slight-looking in form, and dressed in a common sailor's jacket. But in a leathern belt round his waist was a large caseknife, on the handle or hilt of which, while he continued to hold on to the rail of the bulwark with his left hand, he clasped the fingers of his right in a very resolute and uncompromising manner. We all know that bowie-knives, in one land at least, are very useful companions, and in all lands very formidable weapons. Now, the knife in the lad's black leather belt was not at all unlike a bowie-knife, and not in the least less formidable. There was the slight insinuating curve, the heavy haft, the tremendously long blade, the razor-like edge, and the sharp, unfailing point; so that it is not improbable that the youth's confidence was mightily strengthened by the companionship of such a serviceable friend, although he was not half the size of his adversary and not above a third of his weight. Boys, however, are always daring; and he could not at the utmost have passed much more than seventeen years on the surface of this cold earth.

Now, all this account would have been spared the beloved reader had not a trait of character at the outset of the career of any personage, in a poem, novel, romance, or tale, been worth half a volume of description afterward. It would have been spared, indeed, simply because the little incident ended just where we have left it. Tom, the sailor, though a reckless, ill-conditioned fellow, was obedient to the voice of his commander, and, after having boused the boom a little to the one side or the other of the vessel,—which side I neither know nor care,—he returned to the bow, muttering a few objurgations of the youth, implying that if it had not been for him they would never have come upon that d——d voyage at all, and that probably they all would go to the bottom for having such a Jonah on board.

The truth is, Tom had left his sweetheart at Plymouth.

As soon as he was gone, the skipper called the lad a little nearer and said, "Tom says true enough, Master Ned. You were better below on every account. I don't see what you want to come up for on such a night as this."

"Because I do not want to be smothered, Captain Tinly," replied Master Ned. "I had rather be frozen than stewed; rather be melted by the water like a piece of salt or sugar than baked like a pasty. Besides, what harm do I do here? I am in no one's way, and that sea-dog could do his work as well with me here as without me. But I'll tell you what, captain, we are getting into smoother water. Some land is giving us a lee. We ought soon to see a light."

"Why, were you ever here before, youngster?" asked the master.

"Ay, twice," said the boy; "and I know that when the sea smooths down as it is now doing, we cannot be far from the island; and you will soon see the lantern."

"Well, keep a sharp look-out, then," was the reply: "you can see better where you stand than I can, and it's so dark those fellows forward may miss it. A minute or two to-night may save or sink us."

"It matters not much which," answered the young man. A strange thought for one at the age when life is brightest! but there are cases when the disappointment of all early hopes—when the first grasp of misfortune's iron hand has been so hard that it seems to have crushed the butterfly of the heart even unto death,—when it is not alone the gay colors have been brushed off, the soft down swept away, but when Hope's own life seems extinguished.

Happily, it is but for a time. There is immortality in Hope. She cannot die; The fabled Phoenix of the ancients was but an emblem, like every other myth; and, if the painting of Cupid burning a butterfly over a flame was the image of love tormenting the soul, the Phoenix rising from her ashes was surely a figure of the constant resurrection of Hope. Ay, from her very ashes does she rise to brighter and still brighter existence, till, soaring over the cold Lethe of the grave, she spreads her wings afar to the Elysian fields beyond!

It is an old axiom, never to say "die;" and though there be those who say it, ay, and in a momentary madness give the word the form of action, did they but wait, they themselves would find that, though circumstances remained unchanged, the prospect as rugged or the night as dark, the sunshine of Hope would break forth again to cheer, or her star twinkle through the gloom to guide.

The boy felt what he said at the time, but it was only for the time; and there were years before him in which he never felt so again.

"Captain, there is a light surely toward the southwest," said the lad: "that must be the light at St. Martin's-on-Re. It seems very far off. We must be hugging the main shore too close."

"I don't see it," answered the skipper; "but there is one due east, or half a point north. What the devil is that?"

The boy ran across the deck nearly at the risk of his life; for though the sea and wind had both fallen, the little craft still pitched and heeled so much that he lost his footing and had wellnigh gone overboard. He held on, however, was up in a moment, and exclaimed, "Marans! The light in Maran's church! You'll be on the sands in ten minutes! Put about, put about, if you would save the ship!"

A great deal of hurry and confusion succeeded; and there was much unnecessary noise, and still more unnecessary swearing. The youth who had discovered the danger was the most silent of the party; but he was not inactive, aiding the captain with more strength than he seemed to possess, to bring the ship's head as near to the wind as possible. And the manoeuvre was just in time; for the lead at one time showed that they were just up the very verge of the sands at the moment when, answering the helm better than she did at first, she made way toward the west, and the danger was past. In half an hour—for their progress was slow—the light upon the Isle de Re could be distinctly seen, and one by one other lights and landmarks appeared, rendering the rest of the voyage comparatively safe.

Still the lad kept his place upon the deck, addressing hardly a word to any one, but watching with a keen eye the eastern line of shore, which was every now and then visible notwithstanding the darkness. The moon, too, began to give some light, though she could not be seen; for the clouds were still thick, and their rapid race across the sky told that, though the sea under the lea of the Isle de Re had lost all its fierceness, the gale was blowing with unabated fury.

The lad quitted his hold of the bulwarks and walked slowly to the captain's side, as if to speak to him; but the skipper spoke first. His professional vanity was somewhat mortified, or perhaps he was afraid that his professional reputation might suffer by the lad's report in the ears of those whose approbation was valuable to him; and consequently he was inclined to put a little bit of defensive armor on a spot where he fancied himself vulnerable.

"We had a narrow squeak of it just now, Master Ned," he said. "However, it was no fault of mine. I could not help it. It is twenty years since I was last at this d——d place, and the chart they gave me is a mighty bad one. Besides, those beastly gales we have had ever since Ushant might puzzle the devil,—and this dark night, too!"

"You've saved the ship, captain," answered the lad: "that is all we have to do with;" and then, perhaps thinking he might as well add something to help the good skipper's palliatives for wellnigh running the ship ashore, he added, "Besides, there is a strong current running,—what between the sands of Oleron and the point of Re, and the Pertuis d'Antioche—I do not know very well how it is; but I was so told by one of the men last time I was here."

"Ay, 'tis so, I dare say," answered the captain. "Indeed, it must be so; for we could never have got so far to the eastward without one of those currents. I wish to heaven some one would put them all down, for one can't keep them all in one's head, anyhow. You tell the duke, when you see him again, about the currents, Master Ned."

"What is the use of telling him any thing at all but that we got safe to Rochelle?" asked the lad. "If we get there—as there is now no doubt—he will ask no questions how; and if we don't, anybody may blame us who likes: it will make little difference to you or me."

The skipper was about to answer; but just at that moment a light broke suddenly out upon that longish point of land which a boat that keeps under the western shore of France has to double—as the reader very well recollects—before it can make the port of La Rochelle; and the boy as suddenly laid his hand on the captain's arm, saying, "Make for that light as near as you can, captain; keep the lead going; drop your anchor as close as you can, and send me ashore in a boat."

"Why, Master Ned, I was told to land you at Rochelle," replied the other.

"You were told to do as I bade you," answered the lad, as stoutly as if he had been a captain of horse,—adding the saving clause, "in every thing except the navigation of your vessel. I must be put ashore where you see that light. So send down for my bags, have the boat all ready, and when I am landed go on to Rochelle and wait till you hear more."

The captain of the vessel did not hesitate to obey. The ship ran speedily for the shore and approached perhaps nearer than was altogether safe; the boat was lowered to the water, and the lad sprang in without bidding adieu to any one. There was a heavy sea running upon the coast, and it required no slight skill and strength on the part of the two stout rowers to land him in safety; but he showed neither fear nor hesitation, though probably he knew the extent of the danger and the service better than any one; for, when he sprang out into the shallow water where the boat grounded, he gave each of the men a gold-piece, and then watched them with somewhat anxious eyes till they had got their boat through the surf into the open sea.