the times in worldly knowledge, possessing the faults and virtues of an earlier age. With both of these in some excess, his chivalry is unimpeachable, and a sense of honour that would not disgrace the noblest chapters of knighthood is to be found nerving the blue-streaked arms and swelling the brawny chests that man the forecastle.
Slap-Jack knew enough of his late-discovered mother's position to be familiar with the name of the Marquise and the situation of Montmirail West. As he was the only seaman belonging to 'The Bashful Maid' who had been tempted beyond the precincts of the port, this knowledge was shared by none of his shipmates. Captain George himself, postponing his shore-going from hour to hour, while he had work in hand, little dreamed he was within two leagues of Cerise. Beaudésir had never repeated his visit to the town; and every other man in the brigantine was too much occupied by duty or pleasure—meaning anchor-*watch on board, alternated by rum and fiddlers ashore—to think of extending his cruise a yard further inland than the nearest drinking-house.
On Slap-Jack, therefore, devolved the task of rescuing the Marquise and her daughter from the grasp of "that big black swab," as the foretop-man mentally denominated him, whom he longed ardently to "pitch into" on the spot. He understood the position. His mother's sea-song was addressed to no inattentive nor unwilling ears. He saw the difficulties and, indeed, the dangers of his undertaking; but the latter he despised, while the former he resolved to overcome; and he never lay out upon a yard to reef topsails in the fiercest squall with a clearer brain or a stouter heart than he now summoned to his aid on behalf of the ladies whom his mother loved so well.
Creeping from his hiding-place, he listened anxiously to the retreating foot-fall of the blacks, and even waited several minutes after it had died away to assure himself the coast was clear. Discovery would have been fatal; for armed though he was with a cutlass and pistols, thirteen to one, as he sagely reflected, was long odds; and "if I should be scuttled," thought he, "before I can make signals, why, what's to become of the whole convoy?" Therefore he was very cautious and reflective. He pondered, he calculated,
