The evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every appearance of a gale from the westward, and the weather had become so thick and boisterous, that the lieutenant of the watch had ordered the look-out at the mast-head down on deck. The man, on his way down, had gone into the maintop to bring away some things he had placed there in going aloft, and was in the act of leaving it, when he sung out,—“A sail on the weather-bow.”

“What does she look like?”

“Can’t rightly say, sir; she is in the middle of the thick weather to windward.”

“Stay where you are a little.—Jenkins, jump forward, and see what you can make of her from the foreyard.”

Whilst the topman was obeying his instructions, the look-out again hailed “She is a ship, sir, close-hauled on the same tack——the weather clears, and I can see her now.”

The wind, ever since noon, had been blowing in heavy squalls, with appalling lulls between them. One of these gusts had been so violent as to bury in the sea the lee-guns in the waist, although the brig had nothing set but her close-reefed main-topsail, and reefed foresail. It was now spending, its fury, and she was beginning to roll heavily, when, with a suddenness almost incredible to one unacquainted with these latitudes, the veil of mist that had hung to windward the whole day was rent and drawn aside, and the red and level rays of the setting sun flashed at once, through a long arch of glowing clouds, on the black hull and tall spars of his Britannic Majesty’s sloop, Torch. And, true enough, we were not the only spectators of this gloomy splendour; for, right in the wake of the moon-like sun, now half sunk in the sea, at the distance of a mile or more, lay a long warlike-looking craft, apparently a frigate or heavy corvette, rolling heavily and silently in the trough of the sea, with her masts, yards, and the scanty sail she had set, in strong relief against the glorious horizon.

Jenkins now hailed from the foreyard—“The strange sail is bearing up, sir.”

As he spoke, a flash was seen, followed, after what seemed a long interval, by the deadened report of the gun, as if it had been an echo, and the sharp, half-ringing half-hissing sound of the shot. It fell short, but close to us, and was evidently thrown from a heavy cannon, from the length of the range.

Mr Splinter, the first lieutenant, jumped from the gun he stood on.

“Quartermaster, keep her away a bit”—and dived into the cabin to make his report.

Captain Deadeye was a staid, stiff-rumped, wall-eyed, old first lieutenantish-looking veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney cut, broad skirts, long waist, and standup collar, over which dangled either a queue, or a marlinspike with a tuft of oakum at the end of it,—it would have puzzled Old Nick to say which. His lower spars were cased in tight unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the coal-skuttle tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings from his coat-flaps in bad weather; he was, in fact, the “last of the sea-monsters,” but, like all his tribe, as brave as steel, and, when put to it, as alert as a cat.

He no sooner heard Splinter’s report, than he sprung up the ladder, brushing the tumbler of swizzle he had just brewed clean out of the fiddle into the lap of Mr Saveall, the purser, who had dined with him, and nearly extinguishing the said purser, by his arm striking the bowl of the pipe he was smoking, thereby forcing the shank half-way down his throat.

“My glass, Wilson,” to his steward.

“She is close to, sir; you can see her plainly without it,” said Mr Treenail, the second lieutenant, from the weather nettings, where he was reconnoitring.

After a long look through his starboard blinker, (this other skylight had been shut up ever since Aboukir,) Deadeye gave orders to “clear away the weather-bow gun;” and as it was now getting too dark for flags to be seen distinctly, he desired that three lanterns might be got ready for hoisting vertically in the main-rigging.

“All ready forward there?”

“All ready, sir.”

“Then hoist away the lights, and throw a shot across her forefoot I fire!” Bang went our carronade, but our friend to windward paid no regard to the private signal; he had shaken a reef out of his topsails, and wars coming down fast upon us.

It war clear that old Blowhard had at first taken him for one of our own cruisers, and meant to signalize him, “all regular and shipshape,” to use his own expression. Most of us, however, thought it would have been wiser to have made sail, and widened our distance, a little, in place of bothering with old fashioned manoeuvres, which might end in our catching a tartar; but the skipper had been all his life in line-of-battle ships, or heavy frigates; and it was a tough job, under, any circumstances, to persuade him of the propriety of “up-stick-and-away,” as we soon felt to our cost.

The enemy, for such he evidently was, now all at once yawed, and indulged us with a sight of his teeth; and there he was, fifteen ports of a side on his maindeck, with the due quantum of carronades on his quarterdeck and forecastle; whilst his short lower masts, white canvass, and the tremendous hoist in his topsails, showed him to be a heavy American frigate; and it was equally certain that he had cleverly hooked us under his lee, within comfortable range of his long twenty-fours. To convince the most unbelieving, three jets of flame, amidst wreaths of white smoke, now glanced from his main-deck; but in this instance, the sound of the cannon was followed by a sharp crackle and a shower of splinters from the foreyard.

It was clear we had got an ugly customer—poor Jenkins now called to Treenail, who was standing forward near the gun which had been fired “Och, sir, and it’s badly wounded we are here.”

The officer was a Patlander, as well as the seaman. “Which of you my boy?” the growing seriousness of the affair in no way checking his propensity to fun,—“Which of you,—you, or the yard?”

“Both of us, your honour; but the yard badliest.”

“The devil!—Come down, then, or get into the top, and I will you looked after presently.”

The poor fellow crawled off the yard into the foretop, as he was ordered, where he was found after the brush, badly wounded by a splinter in the breast.

Jonathan, no doubt “calculated,” as well he might, that this taste of his quality would be quite sufficient for a little eighteen-gun sloop, close under his lee; but the fight was not to be so easily taken out of Deadeye, although even to his optic it was now high time to be off.

“All hands make sail, Mr Splinter; that chap is too heavy for us. Mr Kelson,” to the carpenter, “jump up and see what the foreyard will carry. Keep her away, my man,” to the seaman at the helm. “Crack on, Mr Splinter, shake all the reefs out,——set the fore-topsail, and loose topgallant-sails;—stand by to sheet home; and see all clear to rig the booms out, if the breeze lulls.”

In less than a minute we were bowling along before it; but the wind was breezing up again, and no one could say how long the wounded foreyard would carry the weight and drag of the sails. To mend the matter, Jonathan was coming up hand over hand with the freshening breeze, under a press of canvass; it was clear that escape was next to impossible.

“Clear away the larboard guns!” I absolutely jumped off the deck with astonishment—who could have spoken it? It appeared such downright madness to show fight under the very muzzles of the guns of an enemy, half of whose broadside was sufficient to sink us. It was the captain, however, and there was nothing for it but to obey.

In an instant, the creaking and screaming of the carronade slides, the rattling of the carriage of the long twelve-pounder amidships, the thumping and punching of handspikes, and the dancing and jumping of jack himself, were heard through the whistling of the breeze, as the guns were being shotted and run out. In a few seconds all was still again, but the rushing sound of the vessel going through the water, and of the rising gale amongst the rigging.

The men stood clustered at their quarters, their cutlasses buckled round their waists, all without jackets and waistcoats, and many with nothing but their trowsers on.

“Now, men, mind your aim; our only chance is to wing him. I will yaw the ship, and as your guns come to bear, slap it right into his bows. Starboard your helm, my man, and bring her to the wind.” As she came round, blaze went our carronades and long-gun in succession, with goodwill and good aim, and down came his foretop-sail on the cap, with all the superincumbent spars and gear; the head of the topmast had been shot away. The men instinctively cheered. “That will do; now knock off, my boys, and let us run for it. Keep her away again; make all sail.”

Jonathan was for an instant paralysed by our impudence; but just as we were getting before the wind, he yawed, and let drive his whole broadside; and fearfully did it transmogrify us. Half an hour before we were as gay a little sloop as ever floated, with a crew of 120 as fine fellows as ever manned a British man-of-war. The iron-shower sped—ten of the hundred and twenty never saw the sun rise again; seventeen more were wounded, three mortally; we had eight shot between wind and water, our maintop-mast shot away as clean as a carrot, and our hull and rigging otherwise regularly cut to pieces. Another broadside succeeded; but by this time we had bore up thanks to the loss of our after sail, we could do nothing else; and what was better luck still, whilst the loss of our maintop-mast paid the brig off on the one hand, the loss of head-sail in the frigate brought her as quickly to the wind on the other; thus most of her shot fell astern of us; and, before she could bear up again in chase, the squall struck her, and carried her maintop-mast overboard.

This gave us a start, crippled and bedevilled though we were; and as the night fell, we contrived to lose sight of our large friend. With breathless anxiety did we carry on through that night, expecting every lurch to send our remaining topmast by the board; but the weather moderated, and next morning the sun shone on our bloodstained decks, at anchor off the entrance to St George’s harbour.

I was the mate of the watch, and, as day dawned, I had amused myself with other younkers over the side, examining the shot holes and other injuries sustained from the fire of the frigate, and contrasting the clean, sharp, well-defined apertures, made by the 24-pound shot from the long guns, with the bruised and splintered ones from the 32-pound carronades; but the men had begun to wash down the decks, and the first gush of clotted blood an water from the scuppers fairly turned me sick. I turned away, when Mr Kennedy, our gunner, a good steady old Scotchman, with whom I was a bit of a favourite, came up to me—“Mr Cringle, the Captain has sent for you; poor Mr Johnstone is fast going, he wants to see you.”

I knew my young messmate had been wounded, for I had seen him carried below after the frigate’s second broadside; but the excitement of a boy, who had seldom smelled powder fired in anger before, had kept me on deck the whole night, and it never once occurred to me to ask for him, until the old gunner spoke.

I hastened down to our small confined berth, where I saw a sight that quickly brought me to myself. Poor Johnstone was indeed going; a grapeshot had struck him, and torn his belly open. There he lay in his bloody hammock on the deck, pale and motionless as if he had already departed, except a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, and a convulsive contraction and distension of his nostrils.

His brown ringlets still clustered over his marble forehead, but they were drenched in the cold sweat of death. The surgeon could do nothing for him, and had left him; but our old captain—bless him for it—I little expected, from his usual crusty bearing, to find him so employed—had knelt by his side, and, whilst he read from the Prayer-book one of those beautiful petitions in our Church service to Almighty God, for mercy to the passing soul of one so young, and so early cut off, the tears trickled down the old man’s cheeks, and filled the furrows worn in them by the washing up of many a salt spray. On the other side of his narrow bed, fomenting the rigid muscles of his neck and chest, sate Mistress Connolly, one of three women on board—a rough enough creature, Heaven knows! in common weather; but her stifled sobs showed that the mournful sight had stirred up all the woman within her. She had opened the bosom of the poor boy’s shirt, and untying the riband that fastened a small gold crucifix round his neck, she placed it in his cold hand. The young midshipman was of a respectable family in Limerick, her native place, and a Catholic—another strand of the cord that bound her to him. When the Captain finished reading, he bent over the departing youth and kissed his cheek. “Your young messmate just now desired to see you, Mr Cringle, but it is too late, he is insensible and dying.” Whilst he spoke, a strong shiver passed through the boy’s frame, his face became slightly convulsed, and all was over!

The Captain rose, and Connolly, with a delicacy of feeling which many might not have looked for in her situation, spread one of our clean mess tablecloths over the body. “And is it really gone you are, my poor dear boy!” forgetting all difference of rank in the fulness of her heart. “Who will tell this to your mother, and nobody here to wake you but ould Kate Connolly, and no time will they be giving me, nor whisky—Ochon! ochon!”

But enough and to spare of this piping work. The boatswain’s whistle now called me to the gangway, to superintend the handling up, from a shore boat alongside, a supply of the grand staples of the island—ducks and onions. The three Mudians in her were characteristic samples of the inhabitants. Their faces and sins, where exposed, were not tanned, but absolutely burnt into a fiery-red colour by the sun. They guessed and drawled like any buckskin from Virginia, superadding to their accomplishments their insular peculiarity of always shutting one eye when they spoke to you. They are all Yankees at bottom; and if they could get their 365 Islands—so they call the large stones on which they live—under weigh, they would not be long in towing them into the Chesapeake.

The word had been passed to get six of the larboard-guns and all the shot over to the other side, to give the brig a list of a streak or two a-starboard, so that the stage on which the carpenter and his crew were at work over the side, stopping the shot holes about the water line, might swing clear of the wash of the sea. I had jumped from the nettings, where I was perched, to assist in unbolting one of the carronade slides, when I slipped and capsized against a peg sticking out of one of the scuppers. I took it for something else, and d——d the ring-bolt incontinently. Caboose, the cook, was passing with his mate, a Jamaica negro of the name of John Crow, at the time. “Don’t d——n the remains of your fellow-mortals, Master Cringle; that is my leg.” The cook of a man-of-war is no small beer; he is his Majesty’s warrant-officer, a much bigger wig than a poor little mid, with whom it is condescension on his part to jest.

It seems to be a sort of rule, that no old sailor who has not lost a limb, or an eye at least, shall be eligible to the office; but as the kind of maiming is so far circumscribed that all cooks must have two arms, a laughable proportion of them have but one leg. Besides the honour, the perquisites are good; accordingly, all old quartermasters, captains of tops, etc. look forward to the cookdom, as the cardinals look to the popedom; and really there is some analogy between them, for neither are preferred from any especial fitness for the office. A cardinal is made pope because he is old, infirm, and imbecile,—our friend Caboose was made cook because he had been Lord Nelson’s coxswain, was a drunken rascal, and had a wooden leg; for, as to his gastronomical qualifications, he knew no more of the science than just sufficient to watch the copper where the salt junk and potatoes were boiling. Having been a little in the wind overnight, he had quartered himself, in the superabundance of his heroism, at a gun where he had no business to be, and in running it out, he had jammed his toe in a scupper hole, so fast that there was no extricating him; and notwithstanding his piteous entreaty “to be eased out handsomely, as the leg was made out of a plank of the Victory, and the ring at the end out of one of her bolts,” the captain of the gun finding, after a stout pull, that the man was like to come home in his hand without the leg, was forced “to break him short off,” as he phrased it, to get him out of the way, and let the carriage traverse. In the morning when he sobered, he had quite forgotten where the leg was, and how he broke it; he therefore got Kelson to splice the stump with the but-end of a mop; but in the hurry it had been left three inches too long, so he had to jerk himself up to the top of his peg at every step. The Doctor, glad to breathe the fresh air after the horrible work he had gone through, was leaning over the side speaking to Kelson. When I fell, he turned round and drew Cookee’s fire on himself. “Doctor, you have not prescribed for me yet.”

“No, Caboose, I have not; what is wrong?”

“Wrong, sir? why, I have lost my leg, and the Captain’s clerk says I am not in the Return!—Look here, sir, had Doctor Kelson not coopered me, where should I have been?—Why, Doctor, had I been looked after, amputation might have been unnecessary; a fish might have done, whereas I have had to be spliced.”

He was here cut short by the voice of his mate, who had gone forward to slay a pig for the gunroom mess. “Oh, Lad, oh!—Massa Caboose!—Dem dam Yankee!—De Purser killed, massa!—Dem shoot him troo de head!—Oh, Lad!”

Captain Deadeye had come on deck. “You John Crow, what is wrong with you?”

“Why, de Purser killed, Captain, dat all.”

“Purser killed?—Doctor, is Saveall hurt?”

Treenail could stand it no longer. “No, sir, no; it is one of the gunroom pigs that we shipped at Halifax three cruises ago; I am sure I don’t know how he survived one, but the seamen took a fancy to him, and nicknamed him the Purser. You know, sir, they make pets of any thing, and every thing, at a pinch!”

Here John Crow drew the carcass from the hog-pen, and sure enough a shot had cut the poor Purser’s head nearly off. Blackee looked at him with a most whimsical expression; they saynno one can fathom a negro’s affection for a pig. “Poor Purser! de people call him Purser, sir, because him knowing chap; him cabbage all de grub, slush, and stuff in him own corner, and give only de small bit, and de bad piece, to de older pig; so Captain.”

Splinter saw the poor fellow was like to get into a scrape. “That will do, John Crow—forward with you now, and lend a hand to cat the anchor.—All hands up anchor!” The boatswain’s hoarse voice repeated the command, and he n turn was re-echoed by his mates. The capstan was manned, and the crew stamped, round to a point of wart most villainously performed by a bad drummer and a worse fifer, in as high glee as if those who were killed had been snug and well in their hammocks on the berth-deck—, in place of at the bottom of the sea, with each a shot at his feet. We weighed, and began to work up, tack and tack, towards the island of Ireland, where the arsenal is, amongst a perfect labyrinth of shoals, through which the Mudian pilot conned the ship with great skill, taking his stand, to our no small wonderment, not at the gangway or poop, as usual, but on the bowsprit end, so that he might see the rocks under foot, and shun them accordingly, for they are so steep and numerous, (they look like large fish in the clear water,) and the channel is so intricate, that you have to go quite close to them. At noon we arrived at the anchorage, and hauled our moorings on board.

We had refitted, and been four days at sea, on our voyage to Jamaica, when the gunroom officers gave our mess a blow-out.

The increased motion and rushing of the vessel through the water, the groaning of the masts, the howling of the rising gale, and the frequent trampling of the watch on deck, were prophetic of wet jackets to some of us; still, midshipman-like, we were as happy as a good dinner and some wine could make us, until the old gunner shoved his weather beaten phiz and bald pate in at the door. “Beg pardon, Mr Splinter, but if you will spare Mr Cringle on the forecastle for an hour until the moon rises.”

(“Spare, quotha, is his Majesty’s officer a joint stool?”)

“Why, Mr Kennedy, why? here, man, take a glass of grog.”

“I thank you, sir. It is coming on a roughish night, sir; the running ships should be crossing us hereabouts; indeed more than once I thought there was a strange sail close aboard of us, the scud is flying so low, and in such white flakes; and none of us have an eye like Mr Cringle, unless it be John Crow, and he is all but frozen.”

“Well, Tom, I suppose you will go”—Angelice, from a first lieutenant to a mid—“Brush instanter.”

Having changed my uniform, for shag-trowsers, pea-jacket, and south-west cap, I went forward, and took my station, in no pleasant humour, on the stowed foretopmast-staysail, with my arm round the stay. I had been half an hour there, the weather was getting worse, the rain was beating in my face, and the spray from the stem was flashing over me, as it roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters. I turned my back to the weather for a moment, to press my hand on my strained eyes. When I opened them again, I saw the gunner’s gaunt high-featured visage thrust anxiously forward; his profile looked as if rubbed over with phosphorus, and his whole person as if we had been playing at snap-dragon. “What has come over you, Mr Kennedy?—who is burning the bluelight now?”

“A wiser man than I am must tell you that; look forward, Mr Cringle—look there; what do your books say to that?”

I looked forth, and saw, at the extreme end of the jib-boom, what I had read of, certainly, but never expected to see, a pale, greenish, glowworm coloured flame, of the size and shape of the frosted glass shade over the swinging lamp in the gunroom. It drew out and flattened as the vessel pitched and rose again, and as she sheered about, it wavered round the point that seemed to attract it, like a soapsud bubble blown from a tobacco pipe before it is shaken into the air; at the core it was comparatively bright, but gradually faded into a halo. It shed a baleful and ominous light on the surrounding objects; the cup of sailors on the forecastle looked like spectres, and they shrunk together, and whispered when it began to roll slowly along the spar towards where the boatswain was sitting at my feet. At this instant something slid down the stay, and a cold clammy hand passed round my neck. I was within an ace of losing my hold, and tumbling overboard. “Heaven have mercy on me, what’s that?”

“It’s that skylarking son of a gun, Jem Sparkle’s monkey, sir. You, Jem, you’ll never rest till that brute is made shark bait of.”

But Jackoo vanished up the stay again, chuckling and grinning in the ghostly radiance, as if he had been the “Spirit of the Lamp.” The light was still there, but a cloud of mist, like a burst of vapour from a steam boiler, came down upon the gale, and flew past, when it disappeared. I followed the white mass as it sailed down the wind; it did not, as it appeared to me, vanish in the darkness, but seemed to remain in sight to leeward, as if checked by a sudden flaw; yet none of our sails were taken aback. A thought flashed on me. I peered still more intensely into the night. I was now certain. “A sail, broad on the lee bow.”

The ship was in a buz in a moment. The Captain answered from the quarterdeck—“Thank you, Mr Cringle. How shall we steer?”

“Keep her away a couple of points, sir, steady.”

“Steady,” sung the man at the helm; and the slow melancholy cadence, although a familiar sound to me, now moaned through the rushing of the wind, and smote upon my heart as if it had been the wailing of a spirit.

I turned to the boatswain, who was now standing beside me—“Is that you or Davy Jones steering, Mr Nipper? if you had not been here bodily at my elbow, I could have sworn that was your voice.”

When the gunner made the same remark it startled the poor fellow he tried to take it as a joke, but could not. “There may be a laced hammock with a shot in it, for some of us ere morning.”

At this moment, to my dismay, the object we were chasing shortened, gradually fell abeam of us, and finally disappeared. “The Flying Dutchman.”

“I can’t see her at all now.”

“She will be a fore-and-aft-rigged vessel that has tacked, sir,” said the gunner. And sure enough, after a few seconds, I saw the white object lengthen, and draw out again abaft our beam.

“The chase has tacked sir,” I sung out; “put the helm down, or she will, go to windward of us.”

We tacked also, and time it was we did so, for the rising moon now showed us a large schooner under a crowd of sail. We edged down on her, when finding her manoeuvre detected, she brailed up her flat sails, and bore up before the wind. This was our best point of sailing, and we cracked on, the captain rubbing his hands—“It’s my turn to be the big un this time.” Although blowing a strong north-easter, it was now clear moonlight and we hammered away from bow guns, but whenever a shot told amongst the rigging, the injury was repaired as if by magic. It was evident we had repeatedly hulled her, from the glimmering white streaks along her counter and, across her stern, occasioned by the splintering of the timber, but it seemed to produce no effect.

At length we drew well up on her quarter. She continued all black hull and white sail, not a soul to be seen on deck, except a dark object, which we took for the man at the helm. “What schooner’s that?” No answer. “Heave-to, or I’ll sink you.” Still all silent. “Sergeant Armstrong, do you think you could pick off that chap at the wheel?” The marine jumped on the forecastle, and levelled his piece, when a musket-shot from the schooner crashed through his skull, and he fell dead. The old skipper’s blood was up. “Forecastle, there! Mr Nipper, clap a canister of grape over the round shot into the boat-gun, and give it to him.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” gleefully rejoined the boatswain, forgetting the augury and every thing else in the excitement of the moment. In a twinkling, the square foresail-topsail-topgallant-royal—and studdingsail haulyards were let go by the run on board of the schooner, as if they had been shot away, and he put his helm hard aport as, if to round to.

“Rake him, sir, or give him the stem. He has not surrendered. I know their game. Give him your broadside, sir, or he is off to windward of you like a shot.—No, no! we have him now; heave to, Mr Splinter, heave-to!” We did so, and that so suddenly, that the studdingsail booms snapped like pipe-shanks, short off by the irons. Notwithstanding, we had shot two hundred yards to leeward before we could lay our maintopsail to the mast. I ran to windward. The schooner’s yards and rigging were now black with men, clustered like bees swanning, her square-sails were being close furled, her fore and—aft sails set, and away she was, close-hauled and dead to windward of us.

“So much for undervaluing our American friends,” grumbled Mr Splinter.

We made all sail in chase, blazing away to little purpose; we had no chance on a bowline, and when our amigo had satisfied himself of his superiority by one or two short tacks, he deliberately hauled down his flying jib and gaff-topsail, took a reef in his mainsail, triced up the bunt of his foresail, and fired his long thirty-two at us. The shot came in at the third aftermost port on the starboard side, and dismounted the carronade, smashing the slide, and wounding three men. The second shot missed, and as it was madness to remain to be peppered, probably winged, whilst every one of ours fell short, we reluctantly kept away on our course, having the gratification of hearing a clear well-blown bugle on board the schooner play up “Yankee Doodle.”

As the brig fell off, our long-gun was run out to have a parting crack at her, when the third and last shot from the schooner struck the sill of the midship-port, and made the white splinters fly from the solid oak like bright silver sparks in the moonlight. A sharp piercing cry rose into the air—my soul identified that death-shriek with the voice that I had heard, and I saw the man who was standing with the lanyard of the lock in his hand drop heavily across the breech, and discharge the gun in his fall. Thereupon a blood-red glare shot up into the cold blue sky, as if a volcano had burst forth from beneath the mighty deep, followed by a roar, and a shattering crash, and a mingling of unearthly cries and groans, and a concussion of the air, and of the water, as if our whole broadside had been fired at once. Then a solitary splash here, and a dip there, and short sharp yells, and low choking bubbling moans, as the hissing fragments of the noble vessel we had seen fell into the sea, and the last of her gallant crew vanished for ever beneath that pale broad moon. We were alone, and once more, all was dark, and wild, and stormy. Fearfully had that ball sped, fired by a dead man’s hand. But what is it that clings black and doubled across that fatal cannon, dripping and heavy, and choking the scuppers with clotting gore, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the vessel, like a bloody fleece?

“Who is it that was hit at the gun there?”

“Mr Nipper, the boatswain, sir. The last shot has cut him in two.”

After this most melancholy incident we continued on our voyage to Jamaica, nothing particular occurring until we anchored at Port Royal, where we had a regular overhaul of the old Bark, and after this was completed, we were ordered down to the leeward part of the island to afford protection to the coasting trade. One fine morning, about a fortnight after we had left Port Royal, the Torch was lying at anchor in Bluefields Bay. It was between eight and nine; the land-wind had died away, and the sea-breeze had not set in—there was not a breath stirring. The pennant from the masthead fell sluggishly down, and clung amongst the rigging like a dead snake, whilst the folds of the St George’s ensign that hung from the mizzen-peak, were as motionless as if they had been carved in marble.

The anchorage was one unbroken mirror, except where its glass-like surface was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols of a skipjack, or the flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican; and the reflection of the vessel was so clear and steady, that at the distance of a cable’s length you could not distinguish the water-line, nor tell where the substance ended and shadow began, until the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a few moments broke up the phantom ship; but the wavering fragments soon reunited, and she again floated double, like the swan of the poet. The heat was so intense, that the iron stanchions of the awning could not be grasped with the hand, and where the decks were not screened by it, the pitch boiledout from the seams. The swell rolled in from the offing in long shining undulations, like a sea of quicksilver, whilst every now and then a flying fish would spark out from the unruffled bosom of the heaving water, and shoot away like a silver arrow, until it dropped with a flash into the sea again. There was not a cloud in the heavens, but a quivering blue haze hung over the land, through which the white sugar-works and overseers’ houses on the distant estates appeared to twinkle like objects seen through a thin smoke, whilst each of the tall stems of the cocoa—nut trees on the beach, when looked at steadfastly, seemed to be turning round with a small spiral motion, like so many endless screws. There was a dreamy indistinctness about the outlines of the hills, even in the immediate vicinity, which increased as they receded, until the Blue Mountains in the horizon melted into sky. The crew were listlessly spinning oakum, and mending sails, under the shade of the awning; the only exceptions to the general languor were John Crow the black, and jackoo the monkey. The former (who was an improvisatore of a rough stamp) sat out on the bowsprit, through choice, beyond the shade of the canvass, without hat or shirt, like a bronze bust, busy with his task, whatever that might be, singing at the top of his pipe, and between whiles confabulating with his hairy ally, as if he had been a messmate. The monkey was hanging by the tail from the dolphin-striker, admiring what John Crow called “his own dam ogly face in the water.”

“Tail like yours would be good ting for a sailor, jackoo, it would leave his two hands free aloft—more use, more hornament, too, I’m sure, den de piece of greasy junk dat hangs from de Captain’s taffril.—Now I shall sing to you, how dat Corromantee rascal, my fader, was sell me on de Gold Coast.

“Chocko, chocko,” chattered the monkey, as if in answer.

“Ah, you tink so—sensible honimal!—What is dat? shark?—Jackoo, come up, sir: don’t you see dat big shovel—nosed fis looking at you? Pull your handout of the water—Caramighty!”

The negro threw himself on the gammoning of the bowsprit to take hold of the poor ape, who, mistaking his kind intention, and ignorant of his danger, shrunk from him, lost his hold, and fell into the sea. The shark instantly sank to have a run, then dashed at his prey, raising his snout over him, and shooting his head and shoulders three or four feet out of the water, with poor Jackoo shrieking in his jaws, whilst his small bones crackled and crunched under the monster’s triple row of teeth.

Whilst this small tragedy was acting—and painful enough it was to the kind-hearted negro—I was looking out towards the eastern horizon, watching the first dark-blue ripple of the sea-breeze, when a rushing noise passed over my head. I looked up and saw a gawnaso, the large carrion-crow of the tropics, sailing, contrary to the habits of its kind, seaward over the brig. I followed it with my eye, until it vanished in the distance, when my attention was attracted by a dark speck far out in the offing, with a little tiny white sail. With my glass I made it out to be a ship’s boat, but I saw no one on board, and the sail was idly flapping about the mast.

On making my report, I was desired to pull towards it in the gig; and as we approached, one of the crew said he thought he saw some one peering over the bow. We drew nearer, and I saw him distinctly.

“Why don’t you haul the sheet aft, and come down to us, sir?”

He neither moved nor answered, but, as the boat rose and fell on the short sea raised by the first of the breeze, the face kept mopping and mowing at us over the gunwale.

“I will soon teach you manners, my fine fellow! give way, men” and I fired my musket, when the crow that I had seen, rose from the boat into the air, but immediately alighted again, to our astonishment, vulture-like with out-stretched wings, upon the head.

Under the shadow of this horrible plume, the face seemed on the instant to alter like the hideous changes in a dream. It appeared to become of a deathlike paleness, and anon streaked with blood. Another stroke of the oar—the chin had fallen down, and the tongue was hanging out. Another pull—the eyes were gone, and from their sockets, brains and blood were fermenting and flowing down the cheeks. It was the face of a putrefying corpse. In this floating coffin we found the body of another sailor, doubled across one of the thwarts, with a long Spanish knife sticking between his ribs, as if he had died in some mortal struggle, or, what was equally probable, had put an end to himself in his frenzy; whilst along the bottom of the boat, arranged with some show of care, and covered by a piece of canvass stretched across an oar above it, lay the remains of a beautiful boy, about fourteen years of age, apparently but a few hours dead. Some biscuit, a roll of jerked beef, and an earthen water-jar, lay beside him, showing that hunger at least could have had no share in his destruction but the pipkin was dry, and the small water-cask in the bow was staved, and empty.

We had no sooner cast our grappling over the bow, and begun to tow the boat to the ship, than the abominable bird that we had scared settled down into it again, notwithstanding our proximity, and began to peck at the face of the dead boy. At this moment we heard a gibbering noise, and saw something like a bundle of old rags roll out from beneath the stem-sheets, and whatever it was, apparently make a fruitless attempt to drive the gallinaso from its prey. Heaven and earth, what an object met our eyes! It was a full-grown man, but so wasted, that one of the boys lifted him by his belt with one hand. His knees were drawn up to his chin, his hands were like the talons of a bird, while the falling in of his chocolate-coloured and withered features gave an unearthly relief to his forehead, over which the horny and transparent skin was braced so tightly that it seemed ready to crack. But in the midst of this desolation, his deep-set coal-black eyes sparkled like two diamonds with the fever of his sufferings; there was a fearful fascination in their flashing brightness, contrasted with the deathlike aspect of the face, and rigidity of the frame. When sensible of our presence he tried to speak, but could only utter a low moaning sound. At length—“Agua, agua”—we had not a drop of water in the boat. “El muchacho esta moriendo de sed—Agua.”

We got on board, and the surgeon gave the poor fellow some weak tepid grog. It acted like magic. He gradually uncoiled himself, his voice, from being weak and husky, became comparative strong and clear. “El hijo—Agua para mi Pedrillo—No le hace pari mi—oh la noche pasado, la noche pasado!” He was told to compose himself, and that his boy would be taken care of. “Dexa me verlo entonces, oh Dios, dexa me verlo”——and he crawled, grovelling on his chest, like a crushed worm, across the deck, until he got his head over the port sill, and looked down into the boat. He there beheld the pale face of his dead son; it was the last object he ever saw, “Ay de mi!” he groaned heavily, and dropped his face against the ship’s side—He was dead.

After spending several months in the service already alluded to, we were ordered on a cruise off the coast of Terra Firma.

Morillo was at this time besieging Carthagena by land, while a Spanish squadron, under Admiral Enrile, blockaded the place by sea; and it pleased the officer who commanded the inshore division to conceive, while the old Torch was quietly beating up along the coast, that we had an intention of forcing the blockade.

The night before had been gusty and tempestuous—all hands had been called three times, so that at last, thinking there was no use in going below, I lay down on the stern sheets of the boat over the stern—an awkward berth certainly, but a spare tarpaulins had that morning been stretched over the after part of the boat to dry, and I therefore ensconced myself beneath it. just before daylight, however, the brig, by a sudden shift of wind, was taken aback, and fetching stern-way, a sea struck her. How I escaped I never could tell, but I was pitched right in on deck over the poop, and much bruised, where I found a sad scene of confusion, with the captain and several of the officers in their shirts, and the men tumbling up from below as fast as they could—while, amongst other incidents, one of our passengers who occupied a small cabin under the poop, having gone to sleep with the stern port open, the sea had surged in through it with such violence as to wash him out on deck in his shirt, where he lay sprawling among the feet of the men. However, we soon got all right, and in five minutes the sloop was once more tearing through it on a wind; but the boat where I had been sleeping was smashed into staves, all that remained of her being the stem and stern-post dangling from the tackles at the ends of the davits.

At this time it was grey dawn, and we were working up in shore, without dreaming of breaking the blockade, when it fell stark calm. Presently the Spanish squadron, anchored under Punto Canoa, perceived us, when a corvette, two schooners, a cutter, and eight gunboats, got under weigh, the latter of which soon swept close to us, ranging themselves on our bows and quarters; and although we showed our colours, and made the private international signal, they continued firing at us for about an hour, without, however, doing any damage, as they had chosen a wary distance. At length some of the shot falling near us, the skipper cleared for action, and with his own hand fired a 32-pounder at the nearest gun-boat, the crew of which bobbed as if they, had seen the shot coming. This opened the eyes of the Dons, who thereupon ceased firing; and as a light breeze had now set down, they immediately made sail in pursuit of a schooner that had watched the opportunity of their being employed with us to run in under the walls, and was at this moment chased by a ship and a gun-boat, who had got within gun-shot and kept up a brisk fire on her. So soon as the others came up, all hands opened on the gallant little hooker who was forcing the blockade, and peppered away; and there she was, like a hare, with a whole pack of harriers after her, sailing and sweeping in under their fire towards the doomed city. As the wind was very light, the blockading squadron now manned their boats, and some of them were coming fast, when a raffle of musketry from the small craft sent them to the right about, and presently the chase was safely at anchor under the battery of Santa Catalina.

But the fun was to come-for by this time some of the vessels that held her in chase, had got becalmed under the batteries, which immediately opened on them cheerily; and down came a topgallant-mast here, and a topsail-yard there, and a studdingsail t’other place-and such a squealing and creaking of blocks and rattling of the gear, while yards braced hither and thither, and topping-lifts let go, and sheets let fly, showed that the Dons were in a sad quandary; and no wonder, for we could see the shot from the long 32-pounders on the walls, falling very thick all around several of them. However, at 4 P.M. we had worked up alongside of the Commodore, when the old skipper gave our friend such a rating, that I don’t think he will ever forget it.

On the day following our being fired at, I was sent, being a good Spaniard, along with the second lieutenant—poor Treenail—to Morillo’s headquarters. We got an order to the officer commanding the nearest post on shore, to provide us with horses; but before reaching it, we had to walk, under a roasting sun, about two miles through miry roads, until we arrived at the barrier, where we found a detachment of artillery, but the commanding officer could only give us one poor broken-winded horse, and a jackass, on which we were to proceed to headquarters on the morrow; and here, under a thatched hut of the most primitive construction, consisting simply of cross sticks and palm branches, we had to spend the night, the poor fellows being as kind as their own misery would let them.

Next morning we proceeded, accompanied by a hussar, through dreadful roads, where the poor creatures we bestrode sunk to the belly at every flounder, until about four p.m., when we met two negroes and found, to our great distress, that the soldier who was our guide and escort, had led us out of our way, and that we were in very truth then travelling towards the town. We therefore hove-about and returned to Palanquillo, a village that we had passed through that very morning, leaving the hussar and his horse sticking fast in a slough. We arrived about nightfall, and as the village was almost entirely deserted, we were driven to take up our quarters in an old house, that seemed formerly to have been used as a distillery. Here we found a Spanish lieutenant and several soldiers quartered, all of them suffering more or less from dysentery; and after passing a very comfortless night on hard benches, we rose at grey dawn, with our hands and faces blistered from musquitto bites, and our hair full of wood ticks, or garapatos. We again started on our journey to headquarters, and finally arrived at Torrecilla at two o’clock in the afternoon. Both the Commander-in-Chief Morillo, and Admiral Enrile, had that morning proceeded to the works at Boca Chica, so we only found El Senor Montalvo, the Captain-General of the Province, a little kiln-dried diminutive Spaniard. Morillo used to call him “uno muneco Creollo,” but withal he was a gentlemanlike man in his manners.

He received us very civilly; we delivered our despatches; and the same evening we made our bow, and having obtained fresh horses, set out on our return, and arrived at the village of Santa Rosa at nine at night, where we slept; and next morning continuing on our journey, we got once more safely on board of the old Brig at twelve o’clock at noon, in a miserable plight, not having had our clothes off for three days. As for me I was used to roughing it, and in my humble equipment any disarrangement was not particularly discernible, but in poor Treenail, one of the nattiest fellows in the service, it was a very different matter. He had issued forth on the enterprise, cased in tight blue pantaloons that fitted him like his skin, over which were drawn long well-polished Hessian boots, each with a formidable tassel at top, and his coat was buttoned close up to the chin, with a blazing swab on the right shoulder, while a laced cocked hat and dress sword completed his equipment. But, alas! when we were accounted for on board of the old Torch, there was a fearful dilapidation of his external man. First of all, his inexpressibles were absolutely tom into shreds by the briers and prickly bushes through which we had been travelling, and fluttered from his waistband like the stripes we see depending from an ancient Roman or Grecian coat of armour; his coat had only one skirt, and the bullion of the epaulet was reduced to a strand or two, while the tag that held the brim, or flaps of the cocked hat up, had given way, so that, although he looked fierce enough, stem on, still, when you had a sternview, the after part hung down his back like the tail of the hat of one of Landseer’s flying dustmen.

After this, we experienced, with little intermission, most dreadful weather for two weeks, until at length we were nearly torn in pieces, and the Captain was about abandoning his ground, and returning to Port Royal, when it came on to blow with redoubled violence. We struggled against it for twelve hours, but were finally obliged to heave-to, the sea all the while running tremendously high.

About noon on the day I speak of, the weather had begun to look a little better, but the sea had if any thing increased. I had just come on deck, when Mr Splinter sung out—“Look out for that sea, quartermaster!—Mind your starboard helm!—Ease her, man—ease her!”

On it came, rolling as high as the foreyard, and tumbled in over the bows, green, clear, and unbroken. It filled the deep waist of the Torch in an instant, and as I rose half smothered in the midst of a jumble of men, pigs, hencoops, and spare spars, I had nearly lost an eye by a floating boarding-pike that was lanced at me by the jauglet of the water. As for the boats on the booms, they had all gone to sea separately, and were bobbing at us in a squadron to leeward, the launch acting as commodore, with a crew of a dozen sheep, whose bleating as she rose on the crest of a wave came back upon us, faintly blending with the hoarse roaring of the storm, and seeming to cry, “No more mutton for you, my boys!”

At length the lee ports were forced out—the pumps promptly rigged and manned—buckets slung and at work down the hatchways; and although we had narrowly escaped being swamped, and it continued to blow hard, with a heavy sea, the men, confident in the qualities of the ship, worked with glee, shaking their feathers, and quizzing each other. But anon a sudden and appalling change came over the sea and the sky, that made the stoutest amongst us quail and draw his breath thick. The firmament darkened—the horizon seeme to contract—the sea became black as ink—the wind fell to a dead calm—the teeming clouds descended and filled the murky arch of heaven with their whirling masses, until they appeared to touch our mast-heads, but there was neither lightning nor rain, not one glancing flash, not one refreshing drop—the windows of the sky had been sealed up by Him who had said to the storm, “Peace, be still.”

During this deathlike pause, infinitely more awful than the heaviest gale, every sound on board, the voices of the men, even the creaking of the bulkheads, was heard with startling distinctness; and the water-logged brig, having no wind to steady her, laboured so heavily in the trough of the sea, that we expected her masts to go overboard every moment.

“Do you see and hear that, sir?” said Lieutenant Treenail to the Captain.

We all looked eagerly forth in the direction indicated. There was a white line in fearful contrast with the clouds and the rest of the ocean, gleaming on the extreme verge of the horizon—it grew broader—a low increasing growl was heard—a thick blinding mist came driving up a-stern of us, whose small drops pierced into the skin like sharp hail.

“Is it rain?”

“No, no—salt, salt.”

And now the fierce Spirit of the Hurricane himself, the sea Azrael, in storm and in darkness, came thundering on with stunning violence, tearing off the snowy scalps of the tortured billows, and with tremendous and sheer force, crushing down beneath his chariot wheels their mountainous and howling ridges into one level plain of foaming water. Our chainplates, strong fastenings, and clenched bolts, drew like pliant wires, shrouds and stays were torn away like the summer gossamer, and our masts and spars, crackling before his fury like dry reeds in autumn, were blown clean out of the ship, over her bows, into the sea.

Had we shown a shred of the strongest sail in the vessel, it would have been blown out of the bolt-rope in an instant; we had, therefore, to get her before the wind, by crossing a spar on the stump of the foremast, with four men at the wheel, one watch at the pumps, and, the other clearing the wreck. But our spirits were soon dashed, when the old carpenter, one of the coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the forehatch, pale as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming straight out in the wind. He did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft, towards the capstan, to which the Captain had lashed himself.

“The water is rushing in forward like a mill-stream, sir; we have either started a but, or the wreck of the foremast has gone through her bows, for she is fast settling down by the head.”

“Get the boatswain to father a sail then, man, and try it over the leak; but don’t alarm the people, Mr Kelson.”

The brig was, indeed, rapidly losing her buoyancy, and when the next heavy sea rose ahead of us, she gave a drunken sickening lurch, and pitched right into it, groaning and trembling in every plank, like a guilty and condemned thing in the prospect of impending punishment.

“Stand by, to heave the guns overboard.”

Too late, too late—Oh God, that cry!—I was stunned and drowning, a chaos of wreck was beneath me, and around me, and above me, and blue agonized gasping faces, and struggling arms, and colourless clutching hands, and despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp bite on the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the sinking vessel.

For life, for dear life, nearly suffocated amidst—the hissing spray, we reached the cutter, the dog and his helpless master.

For three miserable days, I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded, in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. The third fierce cloudless West Indian noon was long passed, and once more the dry burning sun sank in the west, like a red-hot shield of iron. In my horrible extremity, I imprecated the wrath of Heaven on my defenceless head, and shaking my clenched hands against the brazen sky, I called aloud on the Almighty, “Oh, let me never see him rise again!” I glared on the noble dog, as he lay dying at the bottom of the boat; madness seized me, I tore his throat with my teeth, not for food, but that I might drink his hot blood it flowed, and vampire-like, I would have gorged myself; but as he turned his dull, grey, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart stopped, and I fell senseless.

When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining and licking my hands and face. On the rude joists that bound the rafters of the roof together, rested a light canoe with its paddles, and over against me, on the wall, hung some Indian fishing implements, and a long-barrelled Spanish gun. Underneath lay a corpse, wrapped in a boat-sail, on which was clumsily written, with charcoal,—“The body of John Deadeye, Esq. late Commander of his Britannic Majesty’s Sloop, Torch.”

There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his shirt and trowsers, drenched, unshorn, and deathlike, was roasting a joint of meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian, stark naked, sat opposite to him, squatting on his hams, more like a large bull-frog than a man, and fanning the flame with a palm leaf. In the dark corner of the hut half a dozen miserable sheep shrunk huddled together. Through the open door I saw the stars in the deep blue heaven, and the cold beams of the newly risen moon were dancing in a long flickering wake of silver light on the ever-heaving bosom of the ocean, whilst the melancholy murmur of the surf breaking on the shore, came booming on the gentle night-wind. I was instantly persuaded that I had been nourished during my delirium; for the fierceness of my sufferings was assuaged, and I was comparatively strong. I anxiously enquired of the Lieutenant the fate of our shipmates.

“All gone down in the old Torch; and had it not been for the launch and our four-footed friends there, I should not have been here to have told it; but raw mutton, with the wool on, is not a mess to thrive on, Tom. All that the sharks have left of the Captain and five sea men came ashore last night. I have buried the poor fellows on the beach where they lay as well as I could, with an oar-blade for a shovel, and the bronze ornament there [pointing to the Indian] for an assistant.”

Here he looked towards the body; and the honest fellow’s voice shook as he continued.

“But seeing you were alive, I thought if you did recover, it would be gratifying to both of us, after having weathered it so long with him through gale and sunshine, to lay the kind-hearted old man’s head on its everlasting pillow as decently as our forlorn condition permitted.”

As the Lieutenant spoke, Sneezer seemed to think his watch was up, and drew off towards the fire. Clung and famished, the poor brute could no longer resist the temptation, but, making a desperate snatch at the joint, bolted through the door with it, hotly pursued by the Bull-frog.

“Drop the leg of mutton, Sneezer,” roared the Lieutenant, “drop the mutton-drop it, sir, drop it, drop it.” And away raced his Majesty’s officer in pursuit of the canine pirate.

After a little, he and the Indian returned, the former with the joint in his hand; and presently the dog stole into the hut after them, and patiently lay down in a corner, until the Lieutenant good-humouredly threw the bone to him after our comfortless meal had been finished.

I was so weak that my shipmate considerately refrained from pressing his society on me; and we, therefore, all betook ourselves to rest for the night.

To COMMODORE CHRISTOPHER NORTH.

DEAR OLD GENTLEMAN,

Your chief devil has got me into a terrible mess by a misprint in last Chapter—confound my cramp fist—regarding which Old Splinter (erst of the Torch,) has ever since quizzed me very nearly up to gunpowder mark.

To the matter—The said imp makes me say, in page 84, standing on the bowsprit, that “the spray from the stern was flashing over me, as it roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters.” Now, I don’t dispute the roaring of sterns-in season. But,—me, if you or any other man shall make Tom Cringle’s stern roar, out of season, on compulsion. I wrote STEM, the cutwater of the ship, the coulter as it were—the head of her, not the tail, as the devil would have it. And again, when the privateer hauls his wind suddenly to let the Torch shoot past him, and thereby gain the weather-gage, when old Splinter should sing out, as it was written—but, confound the fist once more “Give her the stem”—that is, run her down and sink her, the stem being the strongest part, as the stern is the weakest, he, Belzebub, judging, I presume, of the respective strength of the two ends from his own comparative anatomy, makes him say, “Give her the stern,” as if he were going to let drive at her with that end. “Poo, nonsense—it don’t signify.” But it does signify, old man.

To touch you more near—you yourself have been known to get fou and pugnacious on great occasions—the visit of royalty, for instance—it is on record. A mountain foreigner from Rossshire engages you, for some unknown insult, in single combat, and, leagued with John Barleycorn, (let us imagine an impossibility,) floors you by a peg on the gnomon—the wound is in the front—your snout is broken, but your honour is whole. Would it be so, were the Gael to allege, that “her mainsell had coupit you by a pig kick on her preach?” By all the gods, he of the laconic garment, the “thousand hill man,” would have been careering on a cloud after his “freen” Ossian, with the moon shining through him, within that very hour.

Still I would not have bothered you; but I know his Most Gracious Majesty King William, God bless him! (who can forget poor Burns’s “Tarry Breeks?”) either has noticed it, or will notice it, the instant he comes to that part of the Log. Now this, without explanation, is inconvenient, trowsers being likely to come as high up in these days as pantaloons, and I have some claim on him, seeing that my uncle, Job Cringle, some five-and-forty years ago, at Jamaica, in the town of Port Royal, had his headrails smashed, the neb of his nose (stem) bitten off by a bungo, and the end of his spine (stern-post), that mysterious point, where man ends, and monkey begins, grievously shaken in a spree at Kitty Finnans, in Prince William Henry’s company.

“Poo, nonsense.” Indeed!—Why, the very devil himself, the author of the evil, shall be convinced that there is much peril in the transposition of ends. I will ask him—“What is a sternutation?” (words being his weapons) “What is a sternutation?” He shall answer learnedly by the card—“A sneeze,” the nose or stem being the organ. Then he shall ask Jem Sparkle “What is a sternutation?”—You laugh, old gentleman; but your devil’s “mistack” looks every inch as queer to a sailor as our topman’s answer would sound to you.

Yours with all cordiality, notwithstanding,

“THOMAS CRINGLE.”