A Sea Yarn.

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 793, 10 March 1894, Page 4

A Sea Yarn.

The 'Bhyme of the Three Sealers,' by Budyard Kipling, in the Christmas number of the Pall Mall Gaaette, is a stirring piece of versification. It is the story

4 Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight, When the Baltic ran from the Northern

Light And the Stralsund fought the two.'

There was a season in the year when sealhunting in Behring Sea was poaching, nevertheless the boats went out to ' filch ' ; 'and some be Soot, but the worst God wot, and the boldest thieves be Yank.' The first to arrive on the ground was the Baltic, and while the crew was herding and driving the young seal, the Northern Light arrived in the fog, rigged up like a cruiser, with • a stove pipe stuck from her starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore. ' There were 1500 skins abeaoh when the newcomer ' drove into the bay and the sea mist drove with her.' The Baltic at once weighed anchor and ran, ' for a stove pipe seen through the closing mist shows like a four-inch gun.' The Northern Light proceeded to help herself to the abandoned booty, only to be interrupted in her turn.

They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear, When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghoßt-white and very near.

Her flag she showed and her guns she showed, three of them, back, abeam, And a funnel gray with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam.

There was no time to man the bars, they knooked the shackle free, And the Northern Light stood out again, goose-winged to open sea.

(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Eußsian law To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in. your jaw.)

They had not run a mile from shore— they heard no shots behind — When the Bkippar smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind.

Bluffed— raised out on a bluff,' said he, for if my name's Tom Hal), You must Bet a thief to catch a thief and a thief has caught us all !

By^very butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine, The hand that spilled the wind from her sail waß the hand of Reuben Paine !

He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar, and, faith, he has taked her well — But I'd know the Stralsund deckhouse yet from here to the booms o' Hell.

* Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier, But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here — The day that you came here, my hid, to scare us from our seal With your funnel made o' your painted cloth, and your guns o' rotten deal !

* Bing and blow for the Baltic now, and head her back to the bay, For we'll come into the game again with a double hand to play !'

They rang and blew the sealers' call— the poaching cry of the sea — And they raised the Baltic out of the mist, and an angry boat was she ; And blind they groped through the whirlwhite, and blind to the bay again, Till they heard the swing of the Stralaund's boom, and the clank of her mooring chain. They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts, And : — ' Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts P'

A dog- toothed laugh laughed Reuben Paine and bared his flenching knife. ' Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man will give for his life, But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo port to see. And there's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-three.

* So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holes to fill, And I'll be good to your seal this catch, many as I shall kill. Get out of this before you foul — the fog's as blind as a pup, And fog or clear, you'll not come here to hold the Stralsnnd up !'