another matter, with a sea like this running, and a cloud over the moon every other minute. I soon see that swimming wouldn't 'old out much longer, and I must try something helse. Now, Sir, what I'm a-telling you may be some use to you some day, if you have to stay a couple of hours in the water. If you can swim about as well as most men can, you can tell 'ow long a man's strength would last him 'ereaways to-night. Besides, I was spending my breath, when I rose on a sea, in 'ollering,—and you can't swim and 'oller. So I tried a trick I learned, when a boy, on the Cornish coast, where I was born, Sir;—it's one worth knowing. I doubled back my feet hunder me till my 'eels come to the small of my back, and I could float as long as I wanted to, and, when I rose on a wave, 'oller. They 'eard me, it seems, and pulled round for me, but it was an hour before they found me, and my strength was nigh to gone. I couldn't 'oller no more, and was about giving up. But they picked up the cook, and he told 'em he knowed it was Mr. Brown's voice, and begged 'em to keep on. The last I remember was, as the steamer burned a blue light for her boats, when they caught a sight of me in the trough of the sea. I saw them too, and gave a last screech, and then I don't remember hanythink, Sir, till Cookie was 'elping 'aul (Mr. Brown always dropped his aspirates as he grew excited) me into the boat. Now, just you remember what I've been a-telling you about floating."—"Forrard there! Stand by to clew up and furl the main to'gall'n-s'l! Couple of you come aft here and brail up the spanker! Lively, men, lively!"—And Mr. Brown was no longer my Scheherazade.
When I got back to the shelter of the wheel-house, I found the captain and old Roberts still comfortably braced up in opposite corners and yarning away. There was nothing to be done but to watch the ship and the wind, which promised in due time to be a gale, but as yet was not even a reefing breeze. They had got upon a standing topic between the two,—vessels out of their course. The second night out, we had made a light which the captain insisted was a ship's light, but old Roberts declared was one of the lights on the coast of Maine,—Mount Desert, or somewhere thereabouts. He was an old shipping-merchant, had been many a time across the water in his own vessels, and thought he knew as much as most men. So, whenever other subjects gave out, this, of vessels drifted by unsuspected currents out of their course, was unfailing. They were at it now.
"When I was last in Liverpool," said the captain, "there was a brig from Machias got in there, and her captain came up to Mrs. McKinney's. He told us that it was thick weather when he got upon the Irish coast, and he was rather doubtful about his reckoning; so he ordered a sharp look-out for Cape Clear. According to his notion, he ought to be up with it about noon, and, as the sun rose and the fog lifted a little, he was hoping to sight the land. Once or twice he fancied he had a glimpse of it, but wasn't sure,—when the mate came aft and reported that they could hear a bell ringing. 'Sure enough,' he said, 'there was the toll of a bell coming through the mist.'
"'That's some ship's bell,' said he to the mate; 'only it's wonderful heavy for a ship, and it can't be a church-bell on shore, can it?'
"And while they were arguing about it, a cutter shot out of the fog and hailed if they wanted a pilot.
"'Pilot!' says the Down-Easter,—'pilot!—where for? No, thank ye, not yet,—I can find my way up George's without a pilot. What bell's that?'
"'Rather think you can, Captain; but you'll want a pilot here;—that's the bell on the floating light off Liverpool.'
"'What!' says the captain,—have I come all the way up Channel without knowing it? I've been on the look-out for Cape Clear ever since daybreak, and here, by ginger, I've overrun my reckoning three hundred miles.'"
"Well," said old Roberts, "one of my
