The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 14, 1897, Page 18

18 FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 1897 e k) W [ imsiwa CHAPTER I MR. AND MISS VANDERHOLT. This story belongs to the year 1848 and was regarded by the genera- tious of that and a succeeding time as the most miraculous of all the recorded deliverances from death at sea. It may be thus told: i Montagu Vanderholt sat at breakfast with his daughter, Violet, one morning in September. Vanderholt’s house was one of a fine terrace close to Hyde Park. He was a rich man, a retired Cape merchant, and his life had been as checkered as Trelawney’s, with nothing of romance and noth- ing of imagination in it. He was the son of honest parents of Dutch ex- traction, and had run away to sea when about 12 years old. He got a ship, was three years absent, and on his return found both his father and mother dead. He went again tosea and, fortunately for him, was shipwrecked in the neighborhood of S8imons Bay. The sur- vivors made thir way to Capetown and presently yonng Vanderholt got a joband afterward a position. He then became a master, until, after some eight or ten years of heroic perseverance, attended by much good luck, behold Mr. Vanderholt full blown into a colonial merchant prince- How much he was worth when he made up his mind to settie in England after the death of his wife and when he had disposed of his affairs so as to leave himself as free a man as ever he had been when he was common Jack Swab really signifies nothing. It is certain he had plenty, and plenty is enough even for a merchant prince of Duich extraction. Violet was Vanderhoit’s only daughter, and be loved her exceedingly. Bhe was not beautiful, but she was fair to see, with a pretty figure and an arch gay smile, Mr. Vanderholt and his daughter had been conversing in the break- fast-room for some time on matters of no concern to us, who are to follow their fortunes. Presently he fastened his gaze upon the picture of a rushing schooner which hung on the wall. “Iam going to tell you what I bave made up my mind to do,” he said. “‘Yes, and there she is,” interrupted the girl with a sweep of her hand at the picture. ‘“‘But Ireally don’t think, father, that you need such an extensive change.” ¢My doctors are of my opinion. I require nothing less than three months of the sea breeze, and all the climates that I can pack into that -time.” *And George?’ said Miss Vanderholt, her voice a little colored by vexation. *He may arrive home and find us absent, and there will be no- body in the worid to tell bim where we are; whether we are alive or dead, ana when we may be expected back.” “George won’t come home till June next,” said Mr. Vanderholt. “There is no chance of it. Meaawhile I mean to escape the winter by heading direct for the equator and back.” “Shall you take any friends with you?” “Not even a dog,”” answered Mr. Vanderholt. It was easily seen by the expression of Miss Vanderholt’s face that she was thinking of George. Finding her father had ceased to speak she exclaimed, “Who will be the captain?? “I shall ask my friend Fairbanks to recommend a man to me. He of all the ship-owners that I am acquainted with is certain to know of a good man.” : “Will he belong to the royal navy ?”’ o. nen he will not be a gentleman.” Vanderholt looked at her intently. down his beard and said: 2 ‘‘He will be a sailor, and if he is a sailor he will be a man. Cowbine these two things and you produce an expression of human existence beyond the achievement of the most illustrious lineage and the most ancient college.” Miss Violet Vanderholt, being acquainted with her father’s characier and knowing that he rarely changed his mina, went to her room, where in peace she occupied a full hour in writing a long letter to George. And who was George? One had but to peep over the girl’s shoulder to discover. “My own darling George,” she began, and this sort of thing is commonly accepted as the language of love. Captain George Parry was an officer in the Honorable East India Company’s service. When he was last at home he had met Miss Violet, haunted her closely, exhibited him- self in & variety of ways as deeply in love with her. Wonderful to relate, Montagu Vanderhol: took 2 fancy to the young man, and when Ensign Parry called to ask his leave to consider himself engaged, he was a: tounded by the cheerful “Certainly, with pleasure, if you are both satis- fied,” which greeted him. The interview terminated to the satisfaction of both gentlemen. In due time Ensign Parry returned to India, and now, as Captain Parry, he ‘was expected home in June, 1849, but 1n one or two lstters to Violet he had expressed a hope that he would be able to get home by amuch earlier date. It had been settled that they would be married soon after his arri val in England. And :his was the posture of affairs as regarded Captain Parry and Miss Vanderholt. The young lady, seating herself, dipped heTl pen and wrote. No more is worth noticing in this youns lady’s letter to her sweet- beart; but it may be worth stating here, however, that in the year of this tale letters dated in England took some four months, sometimes five months, and perhaps six months to reach the people who were waiting for them in India. On the afternoon of this same day Mr. Vanderholt enteréd his car- riage end drove into the city. He alighted at the offices of a firm of ship- owners in Fenchurch street, and was immediately confronted by the very person he had called to see. They shook hands. ©I want ten minutes with you, Fairbanks.” ‘“*As long as you please, Mr. Vanderholt. Always happy to be of ser- vice to you.” Mr. Vanderholt was rendered a little uneasy by Mr. Fairbanks' looks of expectation, and began somewhat in & hurry, lest his friend’s antici- pation should grow. P . “It is a very trifling matter I have called to see you about, Fairbanks. - It concerns a skipper for my boat, the Mowbray. For some time past I have been out of sorts, and have resolved to get clear of England during the winter. I have a fine boat laid up in the¥hames. Sue is 180 tons, and I caiculate, counting the cook and the fellow for the cabin, thata skipper, a mate and eight hands would suffice me. Do you know of a #ood skipper?” Mr. Fairbanks brought his fingers together in an attitude of prayer, and said he thought that by dint of inquiry he might be able to find one. “What pay ?” said he. “Ten pounds a month,’” answered Mr. Vanderholt. man.” *Do you take any company with you?” “Only my daughter.” “I believe,” said Mr. Fairbanks, “that I know the man for you. He had charge of a ship of ours, the Sandyfoot. It was but yesterday that I nodded to bim outside these offices. If you take him you will carry a ro. mance in pilot cloth to sea with you. This fellow—you will not believe what I am going to tell you when you see him—was in love with a girl. He broke with her in a quarrel, and went to sea, and by & homeward ship wrote to ask her forgiveness and to keep her heart whole for him, and he would shortly return. He was swept overboard ina storm, picked up floating in a buoy by a three-masted schooner, and carried to China, On his arrival home be found his sweetheart had gone out of her mind. She recovered by degrees under his influence, and they were to be married. They proceeded together to church and at the altar she went mad again. Of course the paison refused to officiate, and a few weeks later the poor thing died.” 5 *“What is the name of our friend ?” inquired Mr. Vanderholt, who bad listened without much interest to this romantic story. “Thomas Glew.” “Originally a nickname meant to stick,” said Mr, Vanderholt drily. +'Send him (0 me. You will oblige me by doing so.” His face relaxed. He combed “I want a good might have been cast in light bronze, that might have served as a ship’s figurehead in that metal so roasted had it been in its days, so hard set was it. as thougb fresh from the pickle of the harness cask. The flesh of the countenance had that sort of tension-which does not admit of much or perhaps any plav of emotion. The man might expel a laugh from his throat, but was he physically equal to a smile? He held a round hat and was soberly attired in blue cloth. He looked swiftly and lightly around him, but seemed unmoved by the splendor of the apartment into which he had been shown. He sent a keen, gray seawardly glance at Miss Van- derholt and fastened his gaze with an expression of attention upon her father. Miss Vanderholt viewed him with curiosity and disappointment. “Captain G ew?"’ sa1d Mr. Vanderholt. “That's my name, sir,”” answered the captain, in a voice as decisiveas his walk and air. *“I was asked to call upon you by Mr. Fairbanks.” “Right. Sit down. I had a good many years of it myself, but did not reach the quarterdeck,” said Mr. Vanderholt. *““My end was plumb with the foretop.” The captain seated himself, but did not smile, nor did he look as if he wantad to. . summer precision and fine weather finish of that sort of craft. The nau- tical eye does not love fine feathers. The hour was 11:30. A number of seamen, appareled with some regard to uniformity of attire, lounged in the bows, s aring Greenwich way, or at the familiar scene of docks t'other side the river. They looked rough, of the genuine merchant-sailor type; raggedly hairy, defiant in stare, in fold of arm, resolve in their several postures. They wore round hats and jackets, and the beli-ended, blue cloth trousers of the jacks of that day. 3 On {ho guarter deck walked Captain Glew and the mate, who had signed articies for the run, Mr. Tweed. This was a short, bearty, plump man. His grog-blossomed, jovial face suggested a suppressed boisterous- ness of spirits; you felt that in him lay the voice for the back parlor of the “Free and Easy.” The owner of the vessel and party were expected on board shortly. bink he ought to be pleased,” said Captain Glew, comingto a stand at the binnacle, and throwing a Jock over the little ship ana then upaloft. **Nothing handsomer sails out of the Thames this year.” «She is sweet enough for a pennon,’’ said Tweed. I wish she was mine. I'd like to go a-pirating in a vessel of thissort. No I wouldn’t either.” I'd go a-slaving. A hundred and eighty tons. I reckon you could stow away 600 blacks in her'tween decks.” ] sometimes wish I'd been born a hundred years sooner,’”” said Cap- tain Glew. “I would have been a pirate. The ocean was thick with booty, and you got an estate with very little risk. The dogs came to the gibbet because they never would be satisfied.” g “Piracy gave the sailor a good chance,” said the mate with a groggy look at the hands loungingforward. £ “Here I am grateful for this £30 job,” growled the captain. ““The wife and young 'uns may now eat and drink for three monihs, and for three months the thought of to-morrow morning shan’t keep me awake. Holly Jemmy! Butit's on the quarter deck where the heartsof stoneare wanted. To those iellows forward the gettifig a ship’s as easy as an oath. Do you or I get ships as easy as swear?”’ _ “No, not by all that I’'m worth,”’ answered Tweed. *Captain, I have followed the sea for twenty years, and 1’ll tell you how it stands with me now. In my cabin you'l find a sea chest. It's painted green. Green. it should be. It’s the color of my life. In that sea chest is all that I own in the world, saving a matter of £30 stowed away ashore. Tweaty years of the sea and nothing but a bloomed green sea chest to show forit!” ex- claimed Tweed, with so much blood in his face that his grog-blossoms made him look as if he had burst into a dangerous rash. Forward the seamen growled in talk indistinguishable to the quarter- deck walkers. “What sort of boss is th’ old man going to turn out?'’ exclaimed one of the seamen, starting aft. *I don't like his looks. But when once I've signed a vessel’s articles I'm for outweathering the skipper if he was the devil himself, He'll get no change out of Josépt Dabb, and it’s truly hex- traordinary, bullies, that Joseph Dabb should be my name.’ “I was spliced three weeks a.0,”’ exclaimed a red-headed seaman* «I’m a-missing of Sally, my jovs. I feel gallus like going home again.’ He eyed the land about the West India Docks, and extended his arms amia a rumble of laugnter and much spitting of yellow froth over the bows. +I don’t expect to see my ole ’ooman again,” exclaimed a seaman standing upright, with his arms folded. *If she don’t die she’il make tracks, and, foreseeing of that, I sold off my household furniture yester- day.” “Where's this vessel bound to?"” said another man. ‘“ THEY’VE BEEN A-YARNING ABOUT US HALF MY TRICK,” SAID DABB. “Magniy years at sea, Captain Glew?” “Thirty, sir.” *Did you run away. as I did, from home?” “No. I was put apprentice by my father, who had charge of a bethe] and was a man of education.” “‘Did Mr. Fairbanks expiain what I wanted to see you about?” “Yes, sir. I believe you'll find me a suitable man. I confess I'd like the job. I know the Mowbray.” . Mr. Vanderholt's face lichted up. “I was off her in a wherry not above a fortnight ago, and we stopped to admire her. I never saw prettier lines.” “I am quite satisfied,”” said Mr. Vanderholt. “Now let us settle the matter straight away off. That is my way of zoing to work. 1’m not for easing away handsomely; I'm for letting go with a run. We shall want £ ma?(e. and we shall want a crew. Can Itrust you to see to this busi- ness?” “You'can, sir.” “Let the crew be bluewater men, Mowbray."’ ‘‘Right, sir. And tke voyage, I understand, is to be a cruise in the North Atlantic.” “It is to be a run to the equator and home.” “It seems such an odd place to steer for,” said Miss Vanderholt, break- ing the silence for the first time, : *'It’s as determinable as a rock, anyhow,” exclaimed Mr. Vanderholt. I want to be able to report 8 wonder when we return.” Here his Dutch countenance pnton the air of good-humored cunning with which he usu- ally prefaced a joke. ‘“There isabouta quarter of a mile of equatoris water which possesses a remarkable property. Sink an object in it and you draw it up gilt. If we strike this wonderiul patch of sea we will giid the Mowbray' from ‘waterway to truck, boats, ground tackle, everything shall be resplendent, and we shall be the marvel of London as we sail up the Thames.” Mr. Vanderholt watched Captain Glew to see how he relished this sort of thing. The skipper exclaimed aasterely: “It's a track of water writ- ten of in books for the marines. It's not to be found at sea, sir.” : _ “We must strike it, man, 'so that we may return covered with glory.” ~ He iooked at his daughter, clearly enjoying his own imagination, and Captain Glew uttered a hollow laugh and stood up. I w:1l visit the vessel to-morrow, sir, and report. I will bring my pavers along with me—"' “No need,” interrupted Mr. Vanderbilt. ‘‘Mr. Fairbanks’ introduce tion is enough.” 3 ’r:e man made a nautical bow to the father and aaughter and de- parted. I like him,” said Mr. Vanderholt, turning in hischair so as to resume his letter-writing. “But I guess the crew will find him & taut hand.’” “What is a taut hand?” inquired his daughter. “A man who breeds mutinies,” he answered. He looked thoughtful 1 shall want real sailors aboard the Next morning at about 11 o’clock Mr. Vanderholt was in his study for & few moments as though visited by some tragic memories; then tak- writing some letters. His daughter sat with him reading a newspaper. A man servant opened the door and said a seafaring gentleman was in the 'all and had called by request. Oa a silver salver iay Mr. Fairbanks’ card and Mr. Vanderholt afier glancing at the card told the fooiman to show Captain Glew in. There entered soon with 8 quick, resolved quarterdeck stride but powerfully built man, s hiort i-backed by ocean duties, with a face that ing up his pen he went on writing letters. CHAPTER II . DOWN RIVER. On the morning of November 21, ‘1848, anchor abreast of Greenwich, - . - - e the schooner Mowbray lay at The schooner looked handsomer than a yacht, because shelacked the I signed for a cruise,” answered some one. “‘Something was said about the equator,”” exclaimed another. “The equator’s ho coast,” said the red-neaded man. Just then a large white boat was seen to be approaching the Mow- bray from the direction of Greenwich, and in a few minutes she was alongside—a boat full of ladies and gentlemen. The party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Vanderholt and a few friends who had accompanied them to Greenwich to see them off. Vanderholt shiook hands with bis captain, nodded to the mate and cast a look of approval in the direction of the forecastle. He seemed in high spirits. His eves smiled deep in their little sockets, and the fresh and friendly wind blew his beard into twenty expressions of kindly laughter. He was rigged out for the sea. No Minories’ slopshop could have furnished him with a salter aspect. The seamen on the forecastle oyed Lim, and murmured one to another. They seemed to recognize their own vocation in the man, yet viewed him doub'fully, as dogs watch with suspicion the dog in Punch and Judy. His daughter was handsomeiy draped in velvet and fur, and wore a turban-shaped bat that was as good for the deck as for her looks. In a minute there was a little crowd of well-dressed gentlemen and ladies standing on the quarterdeck gazing around them and aloft, with Mr. ‘Vanderholt laughing with the wind in his beard and Miss Vi gazing somewhat pensively at the full scene of life on the schooner. J& was the right sort of morning for a start for the ocean. Tha brisk breeze covered the surface of the river with sliding shapes, coming and going. A large Indiaman, newly arrived, with the rust of four months o brine draining down her chain plate bolts, her sheathing green as grass, with a quivering of weeds here and there, lay off the docks opposite. Her house flag flew stately from ‘the loity masthead; stately and proud, too, she floated, tall and squaré, 8he seemed alive and conscious of victory. The lights of her cabin windows shook throuzh the ripples in long darts of silver. A chorus of thirty hurricane voices swept down the wind, and there came out of that inspiriting windlass song of sailors who had brougt their lofty ship home the whole spirit of the ocean into the living, brimming picture of river. Mr. Vanderholt’s friends walked about the decks of the Mowbray, vraising the schooner highly. There was much handshaking, and all the usual assurances of friend- ship agitated by leave taking. Nevertheless, when the company were in their boat going ashore, one of the gentlemen who had spoken softly, but now no longer whispered, exclaimed : : I think Vanderholt must be a seltish old cuckoo to carry away his daughter to the ocean with no other company but his own grumbling self and Captain Glew.”” = I would not be sailing to the equator in that schooner for £1000,” said a lady. *I should have to bp run away with to do such a tning,” and she leered sweetly at a gentleman opposite her. " On board the schooner they lost no time getting her under way. Before the length of Blackwell Reach had been measured the schooner was clothed, her seamen coiling down, some attending the sheets, every. thing quiet and comfortable. Te captain stood beside the tiller conning the little vessel. He was qualified as a pilot for the Thames, and boaated that he could smell his way upand down it in the dark, and truly per. hape the nose in some parts of this noble river would be as good as the lead or 8 buoy to tell a'man where he was. Glew canght the eye of Mr, ‘Vanderbolt, who, approaching him, said: s “I am very well pleased. You have chosen well. company of seamen.”’ This s a good A CHAPTER IIL ON THE EVE. It was five days later; in that time the Mowbray had drawn 400 miley closer to the equator, still leaving a wide expanse of water to be measure, The weather had been a constant tropic beauty. The heave o_!'rlu- Atlang swell had the wild and solemn indvlence of the South Pacific fold in ity run. Mr. Vanderholt’s Tace was crimson with tne sea. He certainly looked extremely well. So, too, did his dauzhter. ‘The sun bad caug| her, spite of a diligent use of her pa 1, and swift flights from bis scorc ing eye to the shelter of the awning, and had delicately spangled the fair flesh of her face with some goiden freckles, which somebow gave an archness to her looks and a whiter flash to her teeth, wnen the play of sed them. o ::l‘: :Ixnr::!erholt came on deck when the sun was gone, though all the west was swimming and waving in the fast waning crimson of the tropics. A number of stars nad appesred ih the east. Mr. Vanderholt looked at them with delight, for they Teminded him of the twirkling of the sky in i mer trees. 3 'mdAy;lnaTunt air of wind was blowing. Now that the sun was gone the breeze seemed to fan over the pulwark rail with the fragrance of a land of flowers. It was a sweetness that made you think of the Arabian zale of the poet, but the African land was leagues and leagues and leagues dis- tant, and that sweet breath, therefore, was old ocean’s own. The schooner, with every stitch of canvas upon her, saving the fore- topmost studding-sail, to the setting of whicih Mr. Vanderholt had an objection, glided through the gathering dusk to the music of broken waters, Miss Vanderholt sat in the cabin under the lamp. She was read- ing, and appeared 10 be interested. Mr. Vanderholt filled his pipe from a vouch whose size corresponded with the bowl it waslo feed. While ne did this he looked about him. Glew stood between him and the lingering scarlet, and his body, black as indigo, rose and fell. What was the matter? ‘It seemed to Mr. Vanderholt toat an. unnatural stillness was in the little vessel. He still preserved the forecastle faculties and carried the eye, while he could bend the ear of a railor. Eicht bells had been struck. The second dog weatch was therefore over. The watch below would or would not have gone to bed. All this Mr. Vanderbolt knew; but sobright, flushed dnd sweet a night, after the roasting and blinding glories of the day, migat well prove a temptation to the nands whose turn it was to take rest till midnight to linger, converse, to suck out yet another pipe of tobacco. But the silence forward was so deep that Vanderholt, harkening with his forefinger préssed upon his bowl of unlighted tobacco, thought it ominous. At intervals somebody away in the bows would speak. The voice was a growl, and it would be answered by a growl, and it seemed to the owner of the Mowbray that whoever it might be that broke the si- lence in the little ship made utterance with the throat of a sleeping mastiff. Mr. Vanderholt lighted his pipe, sested himself and called to Cnmui* Glew, whoimmediately crossed the deck. “The men seem very quiet, Glew.” “And a good job, 100, sir. This is a yacht and we've got a lady aboard,” “Ay, ay, man, that’s so. But, yacht or no yacht, lady or no lady, surely I'm the last man to be opposed to a little dog-wateh jollity when- ever my sailors bave a mind to it.”” The man at the wheel was not far off and Van derholt spoke low. “They’re a crew that want keeping under,”” said Captain Glew. “They’re not used to pleasure sailing of this sort. I singled them out my- self and had good hopes of them, and there’s no fault to be found with them as seamen. Thislight cruising job is fast spoiling them. They need the heavy work ofa full-rigged ship.” “If they find the job an easy one then I suppose they're satisfied?’ said Mr. Vanderbolt. “I'm very much afraid that there’s no kind treatment and no easy job under the sun that’s going to satisfy an English sailor,” said Captain Glew. “You're hard upon the calling, Glew. nas had to work hard and fare bard.” “8ir, if you'd been in command you’d know that I'm speaking the truth.” Here Miss Vanderholt came on deck. Captain Glew placed a chair for her peside her father. “What & heavenly sweet and silent night!” exclaimed the young lady. ¢‘Is that a ship on fire down there?"’ “It’s the moon rising, miss,” exclaimed Captain Glew. Her upper limb floated blood red on the sea line like a glowing ember- She sailed up large, swollen, stately, the face rusty, as though the lumi- nary had been some mighty casting in the African sands and was now being sent aloft, red-hot, by the thrust of its giant molders. At her coming the wind freshened in a damp gust, the schooner strained and the sound arose of water broken quickly into froth. “Glew and I have been talking about the men, Vi,” said Mr. Vander- holt, after contemplating for a few minutes the hot lunar dawn. “They don’t look a very happy crew,” answerea Miss Vanaerholt, “But heat will make people sullen. . The sailors have to work in the sun, and, after all, there is very little money for them to receive apiece when they reach home.” & Vanderholt laughed and said: ‘Quite as much as they shall get out of my pocket. Foqr pounds and £5 a month, Vi Why, I've been signing on when a fine young man for £2 5s, and glad to get it.”” “Are the crew dissatisfied ?” inquired Miss Violet. 4 «Well, I don’t mind owning to you, Mr. Vanderholt,” said the cap- tain, *“‘that they’ve been trying to make a trouble about the stores. But I wouldn’t allow it.” He swopped short with a vibratory note in his voice as though a piece of catgut had been twanged. “'The stores ought to be good,” said Mr. Vanderholt. was made payab:e to Mr. Lyons was a liberal one.” +Do they grumble at one thing more than another?’ said Miss Van- derholt. “Qh, first it’s pork, then it’s the beef. They’ll work their way right through till they come to the pickles,” said Glew, with a short nervous laugh. “This is the first time I've heard that the men are dissatisfied,’” ex- claimed Mr. Vanderholt. *What is the good of worrying you with folks’ troubles, sir? You're on a cruise for your heaith and the worries of the ship should be mine, not yours.’’ “It is well meant, Glew,” said Vanderholt a little uneasily. “‘They are a rough body of men, mind. 1 was long fed on pork and beef and my palate has memory enough to distinguish, I think. Tell Allan to-morrow to cook samples of both kinds and I will lunch off them.” This being so, Mr. Vanderholt smoked for a while in silence. The question of pork and beef and sailors’ grievances is uninteresting at all times, and peculiarly uninviting on a fine moonlight night. The sub- ject was dropped. Captain Glew moved off and father and daughter were alone in the moonlizht. The atmosphere was now misty with the silver of the satellite. She was niarly a full moon, and rammed her glory most abundantly. She made a fairy vision of- the Mowbray, etherealizing her into a fabric of white vapor and fountain-like lines as she leaned, purring at her cut= water from the delicate wind. It was 10 o'clock before they quitted the deck. A man siruck four balls on the forecastle. Immediately a figure arose from the deep shadow cast by the deckhouse on the deck. It was the seaman, Dabb, and he was immediately joined by three others of the crew. Dabb stood up and the whites of his eyes glistened in the reflected moonlight whitening off the edges of the stayforesail as he turned his gaze aft, where the figure of the captain walked. “They’ve been a-yarning about us half my trick,” said Dabb. “The captain said this pleasuring was a-spoiling of us.”” All four united in a low, dismal lavgh, which would have been a loud, defiant, mirthless roar but for the sleepers in the deckhouse hardby which they were talking. Sleep is counted a sacred thing at sea. ‘“‘Ay,”’ exclaimed one of the young men, who proved to be Mixe Scott, *“You lay a man’s going to be spoilt by the pleasuring that’s to e doune under him. What was suaic, Joe?” “That blarsted Dutchman talks in his beard. That and his i smothered up his voice. I couldn’t hear him. T’other was more cleslr. He spoke of sailors as had scutiled their ship, as had broke the captain’s heart by ruinating his voyage and made a widder of his wife by sending lh;mrl,drm. ‘T’other speaks, and then the cap’h says what's a sailor's love ike Bilence followed. “What did he mean by a sailor’s love?’ exclaimed the third man, Maul. “ls it a belaying-pin or a handspike? You’il find he’s a-trying to excite a disgnst against us sailors in the mind of that old Dutchman, so 80 that he may make a difficulty about paying us at the end of the voyage.” 'Ow d’ye know,” saia Dabb, “that it ain’t the Dutchman who's put the skipper up to lil-treating of us, reckoning upon sailing into the Thames with some of us in irons? D’yé mean to say—"' “Whisper, you crow.” “D’ye mean to say,” continued the man, lowering his voice, *'that the stores were shipped without the Dutchman knowing of their character? I’m a-beginning to smeil hell in this business,” Al this while the moon sbune sweetly and piercingly. A divine peace upon the sea, and the lignt noises of the wind were as fresh as dew on grass, with the sound as of the splashing of many fountains. In the cabin they talked of poetry, and one of the sailors forward was for cutting the captain’s heart out. The little royal and topgallant sails were half back; the luffs of the jibs were trembling. “Trim sail!"” sbouted Captain Clew, and he continued to bawias he walked slowly forward, “Brace forward the topsail yard. Ease away the weather braces. Getadragon your jib-sheets,” and it was clear by the manner in which he delivered thess orders to the men that he had been :;mnmg and thinking of them all the time they had been ta/king about im. All was quiet after this, The moon rolled down into the sea, the shadow of the earth~slipped ofi the eastern horizon and the schoogigr floated into another tropical morning, wide and high with cloudle: splendor. Nothing was in sight. The date was December 15, 1843. At10:30 the steward, a man named Gordon, who had been shipped {for cabin duty, but who had sailed on many occasions as an able seaman, 80 that his sympathies were wholly with the forecastle—this man went to the harness-cask and, mnlocking it, picked over some bpieces of meat, brine-whitened, and carried two smallcubes of the flesh forwara to the ©ook. % You're talking to a man who “The check that To be continued next Sundav.