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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER I. I sAII. AS SECOND MATE IN THK SARACEN. i will, pass by all the explanations concerning the reasons of my going to sea, as I do not desire to forfeit your kind jxitience by letting this story stand. Enough if I say that after I hud been fairly well grounded in English, arithmetic, and the Ike. which plain education I have never wearied of improving by reading everything good that came in my way, I was bound apprentice to a respectable man Mined Joshua Cox. of Whitby, and served ,v time in his vessel, the Laughing Susan, ibrave, nimble brigantine. \\Y traded to Riga, Stockholm, and Rahie ports, and often to Rotterdam, where, having a quick ear, which has some.,..H-,« served me for playing upon the addle for my mates to dance or sing to, I iicked up enough of Dutch to enable me to hold my own in conversing with a Hollander, or Hans Butter-box as these people used to be called : that is to say, I had sufficient word-* at command to qualify me to follow what was said and to answer -o as to be intelligible ; the easier, •ince, uncouth as that language is, there is jo much of it resembling ours in sound that many words in it might easily pass for portion." of our tongue grossly and ludicrously articulated. Why I mention this •rill hereafter appear. When my apprenticeship term was expired, I made two voyages as second mate, and then obtained an appointment to that post in a ship named the Saracen, for a voyage to the East Indies. This was anno 1796.° I was then two-and-twenty years of a tall, well-built young , fellow with ■«iwny hair, of the mariner s complexion ::om the high suns I had sailed under and the hardening gales I had stared into, with lark blue eyes rilled with the light of an easy and naturally merry heart, white teeth, very regular, and a glad expression, a- though, forsooth, I found something gay amf to like in all that I looked at. Indeed, it was a saying with my mother that "GefF' (meaning Geoffrey), that "Geffs appearance was as though a very little joke would set the full measure of his Miirit? overflowing." The master of the Saracen was one Jacob Skevington, and the mate's name Christopher Hall. We sailed from Gravesend—tor with Whitby I was now done—in the month of April, 1796. We were told to look to ourselves when we should arrive in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope, for it was rumoured that the Dutch, with the help of the French,-were likely to send a squadron to recover Cape Town, that had fallen into the hands of the British in the previous September. However, at the time of our lifting anchor off Graveaend, the Cape Settlement lav on the other side of the globe; whatever danger there might bo there, was too remote to cast the least taint shadow upon us ; besides, the sailor was so used to the perils of the enemy and the chase, that nothing could put an element of uneasiness into his plain, shipboard life, short of the assurance of his own or his captain's eyes that the sail that had hauled his wind and was fast growing upon the sea-line was undeniably an enemy's *hip, heavily armed, and big enough to cannonade him into staves. So with resolved spirits, which many of us had cheered and heartened by a few fcrewell drams—for of all parts of the sea- J faring life the saying good-bye to those we j love, and whom the < Jod of Heaven alone j knows whether we shall ever clasp to our ' breasts again, is the hardiest—we plied I the capstan with a will, raising the anchor j to a chorus that fetched an echo from the | river"? banks up and down the Re. r f.ch ; and ' then sheeting home our topsails, dragging up the halliards with piercing, far-sounding s-ong*, we gathered the weight of the pleasant sunny wind into those spacious hollows, and in a few minutes had started upon our long journey. CHAPTER 11. WE MEET AND SPEAK THE LOVELY NANCY — SNOW. For days and flays after we had cleared the Channel and entered upon those deep waters, which, off soundings sway in brilliant, blue billows, sometimes paling *ito faint azure or weltering in dyes as purely dark as the violet, according as the mood of the sky is, nothing whatever of consequence befell. We were forty of a company. Captain Skevington was a stout hut sedate sailor, who had used the sea for m any years, and had confronted so many perils "there was scarce an ocean danger you rould name about which he could not t:i lk from personal experience. He was, likewise, a man of education and intelligence, with a manner about him at times not very intelligible, though his temper was always excellent and his skill as a seaman

equal to every call made upon it. We carried six twelve-pounders and four brass swivels and a plentiful store of small arms - and ammunition. Our ship was rive years s old, a good sailor, handsomely found in all 2 respects of sails and tackling, so that any I prosjx-ct we might contemplate of falling 1 in with privateers and such gentry troubled 3 us- little ; since with a brave ship and r nimble heels, high hot hearts, English - cannon and jolly British beef for the work-. 3 ing of them, the mariner need never doubt i that the Lord will own him wherever he 1 may go and whatever he may do. We crossed the Equator in longitude thirty degrees west, then braced up to the * trade wind that heeled us with a brisk > gale in rive degrees south latitude, and we ' skirted the sea in that great African bight i 'twixt (.'ape Palmae and the Cape of Good t Hope, formerly called, and very properly, - I think, the Ethiopic Ocean ; for though to - be sure it is all Atlantic Ocean, yet, me- -■ thinks, it is as fully entitled to a distinctive i apellation as is the Bay of Biscay, that, is ) equally one sea with that which rolls into > it. ■ One morning in -July, we being then ; somewhat south of the latitude of the ' island of St. Helena/a seaman, who was on ' the topsail-yard, hailed the deck, and cried out that there was a sail right ahead. ! We waited with much expectation and some anxiety for the stranger to approach near enough to enable us to gather her character, or even her nationality ; for the ' experienced eye will always observe a 1 something in the ships of the Dutch and I French nations to distinguish the flags they belong to. It was soon evident that she was standing directly for us, shown by the speed with which her sails rose ; but when her hull was fairly exposed, Captain Skevington, after a careful examination of her, declared her to be a vessel of about one hundred tons, probably a snow—her mainmast being in one with her foremast —and so we stood on, leaving it to her to be if she chose. After a little the English ensign was seen to flutter at her fore-topgallant m:usthead. To this signal we instantly replied ; by hoisting our colour; and shortly after midday, arriving abreast of each other, we : backed our topsail yard, ?he doing the like: and so we lay steady upon the calm sea, and so close that we could see the faces of her people over the rail, and hear the sound, though not the words, of the ' voice of the master giving his orders. It was Captain Skevington's intention to board her, as he suspected she was from the Indies, and capable therefore of giving us some hints concerning the Dutch, into whose ; waters, in a manner of speaking, we were now entering; accordingly the jolly boat was lowered and pulled away for the stranger, that proved to be the snow, Lovely Nancy, of Plymouth—name of cruel omen ; ' as I shall always deem it, though I must j > ever love the name of Nancy as being that : j of a fair-haired sister who died in her j I fifteenth year. , 1 I know not why I should have stood look- , ; ing very longingly at that Plymouth ship i whilst our captain was on board her ; for ' though to be sure we had now been at sea ! since°April,whilst she was homeward bound, ; yet I was well satisfied with the Saracen and I ! all on board. I was glad to be getting a i living and earning in wages money enough j j to put away ; my dream being to save so ; ! much as would procure me an interest in a | i ship, for out of such slender beginnings j I have sprung many renowned merchant : i princes in this country. But so it was. ; i My heart yearned for that snow as though j j I had a sweetheart on board. Even Mr. I Hall, the mate, a plain, literal, practical j eeaman, with as much sentiment in him as you may find in the first Dutchman you meet in the Amsterdam fish-market, even he noticed my wistful eyes, and clapping me on the back, cried out: " Why, Fenton, my lad, I believe you'd be glad to" go home in that little waggon ! yonder if the captain would let ye." "I believe I would, sir," 1 replied ; "and I yet if I could, I don't know that I would, either." He laughed and turned away, ridiculing what he reckoned a piece of lady-like sentiment ; and that it was no more, I daresay I was as sure as he, though I wished the depression at the devil, for it caused me to feel, whilst it was on me, as though a con- I siderable slice of my manhood had slipped j away overboard. CHAPTER 111. •j THk'cIAJT.UN AND I TALK OF THE DEATHSHIP, After three-quarters of an hour, or there- j abouts, Captain Skevington returned ; we j then trimmed to our course again, and, ere i long, the Plymouth snow was astern of us | rolling her spread of canvas in a saluting way that was like a nourish of farewell.

""£ ' i Whilst the jolly-boat was being hoisted, the captain stood gazing at the snow with a very thoughtful face, and then burying i his hands in his pockets, he took several i turns up and down the deck with his head j bowed, and his whole manner not a little grave. He presently went to the mate, and talked with him, but it looked as though Mr. Hall found little to raise concern in what the captain said, as he often smiled, and once or twice broke into a laugh that seemed to provoke a kind of remonstrance from the master, who yet acted as though he were but half in earnest too ; but they j stood too far away for. me to catch a j syllable of their talk. It was my watch below at eight o'clock that evening. I was sitting alone in the i cabin, sipping a glass of rum and water, \ ready to go to bed when 1 had swallowed the dose. There was but one lamp, hang- j from a midship beam, and the cabin was i somewhat darksome. The general gloom was deepened by the bulkhead being of a ! sombre, walnut colour, without any relief i —such as probably would have been furnished had we carried passengers—from | table-glass or silver, or such furniture. 1 j mention these matters because they gave their complexion to the talk I am now to | repeat. j Presently, down into this interior, through j the companion hatch, comes Captain Skev- j ington. I drained my glass and rose to j withdraw. ! "Stop a minute, Fenton," says he; ; " what have you been drinking there ?" j I told him. " Another drop can't hurt you," said he ; j " you have four hours to sleep it oft' in." j With which he called to the boy to j bring him a bottle of brandy from his j cabin. He bid me help myself whilst he ! lighted a pipe of" tobacco, and then said : \ '■The master of the snow we met to-day warns us to keep a bright look-out for the j Dutch. He told me that yesterday he spoke ! an American ship that was short of Hour, and learnt from the Yankee—though how Jona- j than got the news I don't know—that there's j a Dutch squadron making for the Cape, in ! charge of Admiral Lucas, and that among the snips is the Drodrechtof sixty-six guns, I and two forty-gun frigates." j "But should we fall in with them will ; they meddle with us, do you think, sir," j said I. " Beyond question," he answered. j " Then," said I, *'there is nothing for it j but to keep a sharp look-out. We have I ' smart heels, anyway. ' He smoked his pipe with a serious face as ! I though not heeding me ; then, looking at me i j steadfastly, he exclaimed : j " Fenton, you've been a bit of a reader | ;in your time, I believe. Did your appetite ; ' that way ever bring you to dip into magic, | i necromancy, the Black Art, and the like of | j such stuff?" j He asked me this with a certain strange- { ness of expression in his eyes, and I thought ;it proper to fall into his humour. So I rei plied that in the course of my reading I j ' might have come across hints of such things, but that I had given them too little attention to qualify me to reason about them or to form an opinion. ! "I recollect when I was a lad," said he, \ i passing my answer by, so to speak, "hear- i ing an old lady that was related to my I mother tell of a trick that was formerly J practised and credited, too ; a person stood i at a grave and invoked the dead, who made j answer." i I smiled, thinking that only an old woman I ; would talk thus. j '. " Stop !" cried he, but without temper. ; " She said it was common for a necroman- j cer to invoke and obtain replies ; but that though answers were returned, they were i not spoken by the dead, but by the Devil. The proof being that dea'ih is a separation ( of the soul from the body, that; the immor- ; tal soul cannot inhabit the corpse that is i mere dust, that therefore the dead cannot f speak themselves, but that the voices which | seem to proceed for them are uttered by the ( Evil One." l " Why the Evil One?" said I. f ' Because he delights in whatever is out j ' of nature, and in doing violence to the har- ' monious fabric of the universe." i " That sounds like a good argument, sir," | ' said I, still smiling. ' " But." continued he, " suppose the case i Of men now living, though by the laws of i nature they should have died long since. I Would you say that they exist as a corpse | ; does when invoked— is, by the posses- j i sion and voice of the Devil, or that they are i informed by the same souls which were in < them when they uttered their first cry in this life ?" i

" Why, sir," I answered, "seeingthat the I soul is immortal, there is no reason why it '< i should not go on inhabiting the clay it bei longs to, so long as that clay continues to J possess the physical power to be moved and controlled by it." " That's a shrewd view," said he, seemingly well-pleased. " But see here, my j lad ! our bodies are built to last three score and ten years. Some linger to a hundred ; but so few beyond, that every month of continued being renders them more and more a sort of prodigies. As the end of a long life : I approaches —say, alifeof ninety years—there : ; is such decay, such dry-rot, that the whole ! j frame is but one remove from ashes. Now, ■ suppose there should be men living who are I known to be at least a hundred and fifty ' j years old—nay, add an average of forty to \ each man and call them one hundred and ', ninety years old—but who yet exhibit, no :' signs of mortality : would not you say that I the bounds of Nature having been long since passed, their bodies are virtually corpses, imitating life by a semblance of soul that is properly the voice and posssession of the Devil ?" " How about Methusaleh, and others of those ancient times ?" " I'm talking of to-day," he answered, j " 'Tis like turning up the soil to work back ; into ancient history ; you come across ; tilings which there's no making anything of." " But what man is there now living who has reached to a hundred-and-ninety ?" cried I, still struck by his look, yet, in spite of that, wondering at his gravity, for there was a determination in his manner of reasoning that made me see he was in earnest. " Well," said he, smoking very slowly, " the master of that snow, one Samuel Bullock, of Rotherhithe, whom I recollect as mate of a privateer some time since, told me that when he was olf the Agulhas Bank, he made out a sale upon his .starboard bow, braced up, and standing west-sou'-west. There was something so unusual and surprising about her rig, that the probability of her being an enemy went clean out of his mind, and he held on, influenced by the sort of curiosity a man might feel who follows a sheeted figure at night, not liking the job, yet constrained to it by sheer force of unnatural relish. 'Twas the i first dogwatch ; the sun drawing down ; I ; but daylight was yet abroad when the I I stranger was within hail upon their still*- i ; board quarter, keeping a close luff, yet points off, on account of the antique fit of j her canvas. Bullock, as lie talked, fell a I a-trembling, though no stouter-hearted i man sails the ocean, and I could see the j memory of the thing working in him like a ; bloody conscience. He cried out, ' May i the bountiful God grant that my ship reaches home in safety?' "I said, 'What I vessel was she, think you ?' ' Why, capi tain,' says he, ' what but the Vessel which ! 'tis God's will should continue sailing about these seas?' I started to hear this, and asked if he saw any of the crew. He replied that only two men were to be seen —one steering at a long tiller on the poop deck, and the other pacing near him on the weather side. ' I seized the glass,'said he, 'and knelt down, that those I viewed should not observe me, and plainly catched the face of him who walked.'" " How did Bullock describe him, sir? , ' 1 said. '' He said he wore a great beard find was very tall, and that he was like a man that had died and that when dug up preserved his death-bed aspect; Ikj was like such a corpse artificially animated, and most terrible to behold from his suggestions of death-in-life. I pressed him to tell me more, but he is a i>erson scanty of words for the want of learning. However, his fears were the clearest relation he could give me of what he had seen." "It was the Phanton Ship he saw, you think, sir ?" said I. "I am sure. He bid me dread the sight of it more than the combined navies of the French and the Dutch. The apparition was encountered in latitude twenty miles south of thirty-six degrees. 'Tis a spectre to be shunned, Fenton, though it cost us every rag of sail we own to keep clear." "Then what you would say, Captain," said I, "is, that the people who work that ship have ceased to be living men by reason of their great age, which exceeds by many years our bodies' capacity of wear and tear; and that they are actually corpses influenced by the Devil—who is warranted by the same Divine permission we find recorded in the Book of Job, to pursue frightful and unholy ends." "It is the only rational view," he answered. "If the Phantom Ship be still afloat, and navigated by a crew, they cannot be men in the sense that this ship's company are men." " Well, sir," said I, cheerfully, " I reckon it will be all one whether they be fiends, or

j flesh and blood miraculously wrought to last unto the world's end, for it is a million to nothing that we don't meet her. The Southern Ocean is a mighty sea, a ship but a little speck, and once we get the Madagascar coast on our bow we shall be out of the Death Ship's preserves." i However, to my surprise, I found that he maintained a very earnest posture of mind in this matter. To begin with, he ; did not in the least question the existence jof the Dutch craft; he had never beheld ! her, but lie knew those who had, and re- ' lated tales of dismal issues of such encoun--1 tern. The notion that the crew were ; corpses, animated into a mocking similitude of life, was strongly infixed in his mind ; I and he obliged me to tell him all that I could remember of magical, ghostly, supernatural circumstances I had read about or heard of until I noticed it was half an , hour after nine, and that, at this rate, my watch on deck would come round before I had had a wink of sleep). However, though I went to my cabin, :it was nob to rest. I lay for nearly two '• hours wide awake. No doubt the depression 1 had marked in myself had exactly i fitted my mind for such fancies as the capj tain had talked about. It was indeed im- ! possible that I should soberly accepit his ■ extraordinary view touching the endevil- ; ment of the crew of the Death Ship>. MoreS over, I hope I am too good a Christian to believe in that Satyr which was the coinage of crazy fanatical heads in the Dark .Ages, that cheaply-imagined Foul Fiend created to terrify the weak-minded with a vision of split-hoofs, legs like a beast's, a barbed tail, flaming eyes, and nostrils discharging the sickening fumes of sulphur. But concerning the Phantom Ship herself — the Fliying Dutchman as she has been styled — 'tis a sp>ectre that has too often erased the path of the mariner to admit of its existence being questioned. If there be spirits on land, why not at sea too? There are scores who believe in apparitions, not on the evidence of their own eyes they may never have beheld such a sight -but on the testimony of witnesses sound in their religion and of unassailable integrity ; and why should we not accepjt the assur--1 ance of plain, honest sailors that there may be occasionally encountered off the j Agulhas Bank, and upon the southern and eastern coast of the African extremity, a ! wild and ancient fabric, rigged after a fashion long fallen into disuse, and manned by a crew figured as presenting something of the aspect of death in their unholy and monstrous vitality ? I turned this matter freely over in my mind as I lay in my littie cabin, my thoughts rinding a melancholy musical setting in the melodious sobbing of water washing p>ast under the op>en port, and snatching distressful impulses from the gloom about me, that was rendered cloud-like by the moon who was climing above our mastheads, and clothing the vast placid scene outside with the beauty of her icy light: and then at seven bells fell asleep, but was called half an hour later, at midnight, to relievo Mr. Hall, whose four hours' spell below had come round. CHAPTER IV. WE ARK CHASED AND NEARLY CAPTURED. We talked occasionally of the Phantom Ship) after this for a few days,, the Captain on one occasion, to my surprise, producing an old volume on magic and sorcery which it seems lie had, along Avith an odd collection of books, in his cabin, and arguing and reasoning out of it. But he never spoke of this thing in presence of the mate, who to be sure was m simple, downright man, without the least imaginable flavour of imagination to render sapid the lean austerity of his thoughts, and who, therefore, as you may suppose, as little credited the stories told of the Dutchman's ship as the Hebrew Jew believes in our Lord. Hence, as there were but the Captain and me to keep this shuttlecock of a fancy flying, it fluttered before long to the ground ; perhaps the quicker, because on the Sunday following our speaking with the Plymouth snow, there happened a p>iece of work sharp) and real enough to drive all ideas of visions and phantasms out of our heads. It was ten o'clock in the morning when a sail was descried broad on the larboard beam. It was not long, however, before we made out that the vessel down in the eastern quarter was steering large ; and at the time the appearance of her canvas assured us of this, she slackened away her larboard braces to head up for us, hauling upon a bowline with a suddenness that left her intention to parley with us questionless. We hoisted the English ensign and held on a bit, viewing her with an intentness that brought many of our eyes to a squint ; then the Captain, observing that she showed

i no colours and was a big ship, put his helm up) for a run. i No sooner had we braced in our yards when the fellow behind us squared away too, and threw out lower and topmast stud-ding-sails with a rapidity that satisfied U3 she was a man-of-war, apparently a liner. This notion joined to the belief that she was a Dutchman, was start enough for us , all. Our small company were not likely to i hold their own against the disciplined masses of a two or three-decker, even though she should prove a Spaniard. Our guns were too few to do anything with tiers of batteries heavy enough to blow us out of the water. So, as there was nothing for it. but a fair trial of speed, we pprung to our work like hounds newly unleashed, got her dead before it, ran out studding-sail booms on both sides - , and sent the sails aloft soaking wet for the serviceableness of the weight the wetness would give ; and stationing men in the tops and crosstrees we whipped up) buckets of water to them, with which they drenched the canvas, till our cloths must have looked as dark as a collier's to the ship astern of us, It was very slow work at first, and we were thankful for that ; for every hour carried us nearer to the night into which , the moon now entered so late and glowed ' with so little power, even when she had floated high, that we eould count, after sundown, upon several hours of darkness ; but it was not long before it became evident to us all that, spite of the ceaseless wetting of our sails, the ship) in our wake was growing. Then, satisfied of her superiority, and convinced of our nationality, she let fly a ' forecastle gun at us, of the ball of which we saw nothing, and hoisted the Dutch colours at her fore-royal masthead, where, at all ' events, we could not fail to distinguish the flag. t " Confound such luck !" cries Skevington at this. " How can our apjple bows contend with those pyramids of sails there ? What's 1 to be done ?" he says, as if thinking aloud. " It's clear she's our master in running, and I fear she'll be more than a match on a 1 bowline— with the weather gage too ! And yet, by the thunder of Heaven, Mr. Hall, it does go against .the current of any sort of English blood to haul down that piece of ; bunting there," says he, casting his eyes at '• the px?ak where our flag was blowing, "to the command of a Dutchman's cannon !" " The wind's coming away more easterly," said the mate, with a slow turning of his . gaze into the quarter he mentioned, "and it'll be breezing up presently, if there's any I signification in the darker blue of the sea ! that way." It happened as he said ; but the Dutch- ' • man got the first slant of it, and you saw : j the harder pulling of his canvas in the ' rounded rigidity of light upon the cloths, I whilst the dusky line of the wind, followed by the flushings of the small seas, whose leaping heads it showered into spray, was yet approaching our languid ship, whose lower and heavy canvas often flapped in the weak air. j A coupile of shot came flying after us from i the man-of-war's bowchasers ere the breeze j swept to our spars ; and now the silvery line of white water her stem was heaving up and sending in a brilliant whirl past her was easy to be seen ; aye ! it was even piossible to make out the very lines of her reef-points upon the forecourse and topsail, whilst through the glass you could discern groups of men stationed upon her forecastle, and mark some quarter-deck figure now and again impatiently bound on to the rail and overhang it like a davit, with an arm round a backstay, in his eagerness to see how fast they were coming up with us. The excitement of this chase was deep in us when the Captain gave orders to train a couple of guns aft, and to continue firing at the pursuing craft; which was done, the powder-smoke blowing like prodigious ! glistening cobwebs into our canvas forward. Meanwhile the English colours flew hardily at our {)eak, whilst preventer guys were clapped on the swinging-booeis and other gear added to give strength aloft; for the wind was increasing as if by magic, the ribbed clouds had broken up, and large bodies of vapour were sailing overhead with many ivory-white shoulders crowding upon the horizon, and the strain upon the stud-ding-sail tacks was extremely heavy. But you saw that it was Captain Skevington's intention to make the Saracen drag what she could, not carry, and to let what chose blow away before he started a rope-yarn, whilst we had that monster astern there sticking to our skirts ; and by this time it was manifest that with real weight in the wind our heels were piretty nearly as keen as hers, which made us hope that should the breeze freshen yet we niigrifc eventually get away. Well, at three o'clock it was blowing downright hard, though the weather was fine, the heavens mottled, the clouds being compacted and sailing higher, stormy in

complexion and moving slowly ; the sea had I grown hollow and was most gloriously i violet in colour, with plumes of snow, which I curled to the gale on the head of each liquid courser ; the sun was over our fore-top-i gallant yard-arm and showered down his i glory so as to form a golden weltering road I for us to steer beside. The ship behind ! catched his light and looked to be chasing lus on wings of yellow silk. But never since her keel had been laid had the Saracen been !so driven. The waters boiled up to the black-faced turban figure under the bow- ! sprit, and from aft I could sometimes i observe the glassy curve of the bow sea : arching, away for fathoms forward, showing i plain through the lieadrails. A couple of j hands hung grinding upon the wheel with : set teeth, and the .-sinews in their naked j arms stood out like cords; others were at the relieving-tackles ; and through it we pelted, raising about us a bubbled, spum- ■ ing, and hissing surface that might have 1 answered te the passage of a whirlwind, I repeatedly firing at the Dutch man-of-war ! Avhen the heave of the surge gave us the chance, and noticing the constant flash in ; his bows and the white smother that blew 1 along with him, though the balls of neither j appeared to touch the other of us. I "Yet, that we should have been ultimately ; overhauled and brought to a stand I fully J believe but for a providential disaster. For i no matter how dark and dusk may have drawn around at sundown, the Dutchman I was too close to us to miss the loom of the : great press of canvas we should be forced to ! carry ; at least so I hold ; and then, again, there was the consideration of the wind failing us with the coming of the stars, for we were still in the gentle parallels. But let all have been as it might; I had just noted the lightning-like wink of one of the : enemy'sfore-chasers, when to myamazement, i ere the ball of smoke could be shredded 1 into lengths by the gale, I observed the i whole fabric of the Dutchman's towering j fore-mast, with the great course, swelling I topsail, top-gallant ~sail and royal, and I the fore-topmast staysail and jibs melt away j as an icicle approached by flame; and in a I breath, it seemed, the huge ship swung I round, pitching and foaming after the j manner of a harpooned whale, with her J broadside to us, exhibiting the whole forepart of her most grievously and astonishingly wrecked. A mighty cheer went up from our decks j at the sight, and there was a deal of clapping of hands and laughter. Captain Skevington seized the telescope, and talked as he worked away with it. "A rotten foremast by the thunder of Heaven !" he cried, using his favourite adjuration ; "it could be nothing else. No shot our guns throw could work such havoc. By the height that's left standing the spar has fetched away close under the top. And the mess ! the mess !" For a whole hour after this we touched not a rope, leaving our ship to rush from the Dutchman straight as an arrow from a bow. But, Lord !—the storming aloft ! —the tierce straining of our canvas till tacks and guys, sheets and braces rang out upon the wind like the clanking of bells to a strain upon them tauter than that of harp strings ; the boiling noises of the seas all about our bow and under our counter, where the great bodies of the foam roared away into our wake, as the white torrent raves along its bed from the foot of a high cataract ! There was an excitement in this speed and triumph of escape from what must have proved a heavy inglorious disaster to us all which put fire into the blood, and never could I have imagined how sentient a ship is, how participent of what stirs the minds of those she carries, until I marked the magnificent eagerness of our vessel's flight —her headlong domination of the large billows which underran her, and the marble hard distention of her sails, reminding you of the tense cheeks, one who holds his breath in a run for his life. Distance and the sinking of the sun, and the shadows which throng sharply upon his heels in these climes, left the horizon in course bare to our most searching gaze. We then shortened sail, and under easy canvas we put our helm a lee, and stood northward on a bowline until midnight; when we rounded in upon out weather-braces and steered easterly, Captain Skevington suspecting that the Dutchman would make all haste to refit and head south under some jury contrivance, in the ex| pectation that as we were bound that way when he fell in with us, so we should haul to our course afresh when we lost sight of him. Yet in the end we saw him no more, and what ship he was I never contrived to learn : but certainly it was an extraordinary escape, though whether due to our shot, or to his foremast being rotten, or to its having been sprung and badly fished, or to some earlier wound during an engagement, must be left to conjecture. ITo he continued.