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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Willis the Pilot, by Adrien Paul
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Willis the Pilot
+
+Author: Adrien Paul
+
+Translator: Henry Frith
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14172]
+[Most recently updated: May 21, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Karen Dalrymple and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIS THE PILOT ***
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WILLIS THE PILOT,
+
+A Sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson:
+
+OR,
+
+ADVENTURES OF AN EMIGRANT FAMILY
+WRECKED ON AN UNKNOWN COAST OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
+
+INTERSPERSED WITH
+
+TALES, INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL, AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF
+NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+BOSTON:
+LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
+NEW YORK:
+LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM.
+1875.
+
+
+LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY
+At the Office of the American Stereotype Company,
+PHOENIX BUILDING, BOSTON.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY KILBURN & MALLORY
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The love of adventure that characterises the youth of the present day,
+and the growing tendency of the surplus European population to seek
+abroad the comforts that are often denied at home, gives absorbing
+interest to the narratives of old colonists and settlers in the
+wonderful regions of the New World. Accordingly, the work known as the
+_Swiss Family Robinson_ has long enjoyed a well-merited popularity,
+and has been perused by a multitude of readers, young and old, with
+profit as well as pleasure.
+
+A Swiss clergyman resolved to better his fortune by emigration. In
+furtherance of this resolution, he embarked with his wife and four
+sons--the latter ranging from eight to fifteen years of age--for one
+of the newly-discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean. As far as the
+coast of New Guinea the voyage had been favorable, but here a violent
+storm arose, which drove the ill-fated vessel out of its course, and
+finally cast it a wreck upon an unknown coast. The family succeeded in
+extricating themselves from the stranded ship, and landed safely on
+shore; but the remaining passengers and crew all perished. For many
+years these six individuals struggled alone against a variety of
+trials and privations, till at length another storm brought the
+English despatch-boat _Nelson_ within reach of their signals. Such is
+a brief outline of the events recorded in the _Swiss Family Robinson_.
+
+The present volume is virtually a continuation of this narrative. The
+careers of the four sons--Frank, Ernest, Fritz, and Jack--are taken up
+where the preceding chronicler left them off. The subsequent
+adventures of these four young men, by flood and field, are faithfully
+detailed. With these particulars are mingled the experiences of
+another interesting family that afterwards became dwellers in the same
+territory; as are also the sayings and doings of a weather-beaten
+sailor--Willis the Pilot.
+
+The scene is laid chiefly in the South Seas, and the narrative
+illustrates the geography and ethnology of that section of the
+Far-West. The difficulties, dangers, and hardships to be encountered
+in founding a new colony are truthfully set forth, whilst it is shown
+how readily these are overcome by perseverance and intelligent labor.
+It will be seen that a liberal education has its uses, even under
+circumstances the least likely to foster the social amenities, and
+that, too, not only as regards the mental well-being of its
+possessors, but also as regards augmenting their material comforts.
+
+In the _Swiss Family Robinson_ the resources of Natural History have
+been largely, and perhaps somewhat freely, drawn upon. This branch of
+knowledge has, therefore, been left throughout the present volume
+comparatively untouched. Nevertheless, as it is the aim of the
+narrator to combine instruction with amusement, the more elementary
+phenomena of the Physical Sciences have been blended with the current
+of the story--thus garnishing, as it were, the dry, hard facts of
+Owen, Liebig, and Arago, with the more attractive, groupings of life
+and action.
+
+The reader has, consequently, in hand a _mélange_ of the useful and
+agreeable--a little for the grave and a little for the gay--so that,
+should our endeavors to impart instruction prove unavailing, _en
+revanche_ we may, perhaps, be more successful in our efforts to amuse.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Colony--Reflections on the Past--Ideas of Willis the Pilot--Sophia
+Wolston
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+To what extent Willis the Pilot had Ideas on certain Subjects--The
+Knights of the Ocean
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Wherein Willis the Pilot proves "Irrefragably" that Ephemerides die of
+Consumption and Home-Sickness--The Canoe and its Young ones--The
+Search after the Sloop--Found--The Sword-Fish--Floating Atoms--Admiral
+Socrates
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A Landscape--Sad Houses and Smiling Houses--Politeness in China--Eight
+Soups at Dessert--Wind Merchants--Another Idea of the Pilot's--Susan,
+vice Sophia
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Allotment of Quarters--A Horse Marine--Travelling Plants--Change of
+Dynasty in England--A Woman's Kingdom--Sheep converted into
+Chops--Resurrection of the Fried Fish--A Secret
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The Queen's Doll--Rockhouse to Falcon's Nest--The
+Wind--Grasses--Admiral Homer--The Three Frogs--Oat Jelly--Esquimaux
+Astronomy--An Unknown
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The Search for the Unknown--Three Fleets on Dry Land--The
+Indiscretions of a Sugar Cane--Larboard and Starboard--The supposed
+Sensibility of Plants--The Fly-trap--Vendetta--Root and Germ--Mine and
+Countermine--The Polypi--Oviparous and Viviparous--A Quid pro Quo
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Inhabitant of the Moon, Anthropophagian or Hobgoblin?--The Lacedemonian
+Stew of Madame Dacier--Utile Dulci--Tête-à-tête between Willis and
+his Pipe--Tobacco versus Birch--Is it for Eating?--Mosquitoes--The
+Alarm--Toby--The Nocturnal Expedition--We've got him
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Chimpanzee--Imperfect Negro, or Perfect Ape--The Harmonies of
+Nature--A Handful of Paws--A Stone Skin--Seventeen Spectacles on one
+Nose--Animalculæ--Pelion on Ossa--Ptolemy--Copernicus to
+Galileo--Metaphysics and Cosmogonies--A live Tiger
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The Pioneers--Excursion to Coromandel--Hindoo Fancies--A Caged
+Hunter--Louis XI and Cardinal Balue--A Furlong of News--Carnage--The
+Baronet and his seventeen Tigers--Fifty-four feet of Celebrity--Sterne's
+Window--Promenade of the Consciences--Emulation and Vanity
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+On the Watch--Fecundity of Plants and Animals--Latest News from the
+Moon--A Death-Knell every Second--The Inconveniences of being too near
+the Sun--Narcotics--Willis contralto--Hunting turned upside
+down--Electric Clouds--Partialities of Lightning--Bells and
+Bellringers--Conducting Rods--The Return--The Two Sisters--Toby
+becomes a Dragoman
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Man proposes, but God disposes--The Choice of a
+Profession--Conqueror--Orator--Astronomer--Composer--Painter--Poet--Village
+Curate--The Kafirs--Occupations of Women--The Alpha and Omega of the
+Sea
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Herbert and Cecilia--The little Angels--A Catastrophe--The
+Departure--Marriage of the Doge with the Adriatic--Sovereigns of the
+Sea--Dante and Beatrix--Eleonora and Tasso--Laura and Petrarch--The
+Return--Surprises--What one finds in Turbots--A Horror--The
+Price of Crime--Ballooning--Philipson and the Cholera--A
+Metamorphosis--Adventure of the Chimpanzee--Are you Rich?
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The Tears of Childhood and Rain of the Tropics--Charles'
+Wain--Voluntary Enlistment--A Likeness Guaranteed--The World at
+Peace--Alas, poor Mary!--The same Breath for two Beings--The first
+Pillow--The Logic of the Heart--How Fritz supported Grief--A Grain of
+Sand and the Himalaya
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+God's Government--King Stanislaus--The Dauphin son of Louis XV.--The
+shortest Road--New Year's Day--A Miracle--Clever Animals--The
+Calendar--Mr. Julius Cæsar and Pope Gregory XIII.--How the day after
+the 4th of October was the 15th--Olympiads--Lustres--The Hegira--A
+Horse made Consul--Jack's Dream
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Separation--Guelphs and Ghibelines--Montagues and
+Capulets--Sadness--The Reunion--Jocko and his Education--The
+Entertainments of a King--The Mules of Nero and the Asses of
+Poppæa--Hercules and Achilles--Liberty and Equality--Semiramis and
+Elizabeth--Christianity and the Religion of Zoroaster--The Willisonian
+Method--Moral Discipline versus Birch
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Where there's a Will there's a Way--Mucius Scævola--What's to be
+done?--Brutus Torquatus and Peter the Great--Australia, Botany Bay,
+and the Flying Dutchman--New Guinea and the Buccaneer--Vancouver's
+Island--White Skins--Danger of Landing on a Wave--Hanged or
+Drowned--Route to Happiness--Omens
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Bacon and Biscuit--Let Sleeping Dogs Lie--The Paternal Benediction--An
+Apparition--A Mother not easily deceived--The Adieu--The Emperor
+Constantine--hoc signo vinces--The Sailor's Postscript--Cæsar and his
+Fortunes--Recollections--Mrs. Becker plucks Stockings and Knits
+Ortolans--How delightful it is to be Scolded--The Bodies vanish, but
+the Souls remain
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Eighteen Hundred and Twelve--The _Mary_--Count Ugolino--The Sources of
+Rivers--The Alps demolished--No more Pyrenees--The First Ship--Admiral
+Noah--Fleets of the Israelites--The Compass--Printing--Gunpowder--Actium
+and Salamis--Dido and Æolus--Steam--Don Garay and Roger Bacon--Melchthal,
+Furst, and William Tell--Going a-pleasuring--Upset versus blown up--A
+Dead Calm--The Log--Willis's Archipelago--The Island of Sophia--The Bread
+Fruit-tree--Natives of Polynesia--Striped Trowsers--Abduction of
+Willis--Is he to be Roasted or Boiled?--When the Wine is poured out,
+we must Drink it
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Jupiter Tonans--The Thunders of the Pilot--Worshippers of the
+Far West--A late Breakfast--Rono the Great--A Polynesian
+Legend--Manners and Customs of Oceanica Mr. and Mrs. Tamaidi--Regal
+Pomp--Elbow Room--Katzenmusik--Queen Tonico and the Shaving
+Glass--Consequences of a Pinch of Snuff--Disgrace of the Great
+Rono--Marins--Coriolanus--Hannibal--Alcibiades--Cimon--Aristides--A
+Sop for the Thirsty--Air something else besides Oxygen and
+Hydrogen--Maryland and Whitechapel--Half-way up the Cordilleras--Human
+Machines--Star of the Sea, pray for us!
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+Lying-to--Heart and Instinct--Sparrows viewed as
+Consumers--Migrations--Posting a Letter in the
+Pacific--Cannibals--Adventures of a Locket
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+The Utility of Adversity--An Encounter--The _Hoboken_--Bill alias Bob
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+In which Willis shows, that the term Press-gang means something else
+besides the Gentlemen of the Press
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+Another Idea of the Pilot's--The _Boudeuse_
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+Delhi--William of Normandy and King John--Isabella of Bavaria and Joan
+of Arc--Poitier and Bovines--History of a Ghost, a Gridiron, and a
+Chest of Guineas
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Willis falls in with the Sloop on terra firma, instead of at the
+bottom of the Sea, as might have been expected--Admiral Cicero--The
+Defunct not yet Dead
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Captain Littlestone is found, and the Rev. Mr. Wolston is seen for the
+first time
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+Willis proves that the only way to be free is to get sent to
+Prison--An Escape--A Discovery--Promotions--Somnambulism
+
+
+Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE COLONY--REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST--IDEAS OF WILLIS THE PILOT--SOPHIA
+WOLSTON.
+
+
+The early adventures of the Swiss family, who were wrecked on an
+unknown coast in the Pacific Ocean, have already been given to the
+world. There are, however, many interesting details in their
+subsequent career which have not been made public. These, and the
+conversations with which they enlivened the long, dreary days of the
+rainy season, we are now about to lay before our readers.
+
+Becker, his wife, and their four sons had been fifteen years on this
+uninhabited coast, when a storm drove the English despatch sloop
+_Nelson_ to the same spot. Before this event occurred, the family had
+cleared and enclosed a large extent of country; but, whether the
+territory was part of an island or part of a continent, they had not
+yet ascertained. The land was naturally fertile; and, amongst other
+things that had been obtained from the wreck of their ship, were
+sundry packages of European seeds: the produce of these, together with
+that of two or three heads of cattle they had likewise rescued from
+the wreck, supplied them abundantly with the necessaries of life. They
+had erected dwellings here and there, but chiefly lived in a cave near
+the shore, over the entrance to which they had built a sort of
+gallery. This structure, conjointly with the cave, formed a commodious
+habitation, to which they had given the name of _Rockhouse_. In the
+vicinity, a stream flowed tranquilly into the sea; this stream they
+were accustomed to call _Jackal River_, because, a few days after
+their landing, they had encountered some of these animals on its
+banks. Fronting Rockhouse the coast curved inwards, the headlands on
+either side enclosing a portion of the ocean; to this inlet they had
+given the name of _Safety Bay_, because it was here they first felt
+themselves secure after having escaped the dangers of the storm. In
+the centre of the bay there was a small island which they called
+_Shark's Island_, to commemorate the capture of one of those monsters
+of the deep. Safely Bay, had, a second time, acquired a legitimate
+title to its name, for in it Providence had brought the _Nelson_
+safely to anchor.
+
+By unwearying perseverance, indefatigable industry, and an untiring
+reliance on the goodness of God, Becker and his family had surrounded
+themselves with abundance. There was only one thing left for them to
+desire, and that was the means of communicating with their kindred;
+and now this one wish of their hearts was gratified by the unexpected
+appearance of the _Nelson_ on their shore. The fifteen years of exile
+they had so patiently endured was at once forgotten. Every bosom was
+filled with boundless joy; so true it is, that man only requires a ray
+of sunshine to change his most poignant griefs into smiles and
+gladness.
+
+The first impressions of their deliverance awakened in the minds of
+the young people a flood of projects. The mute whisperings that
+murmured within them had divulged to their understandings that they
+were created for a wider sphere than that in which they had hitherto
+been confined. Europe and its wonders--society, with its endearing
+interchanges of affection--that vast panorama of the arts and of
+civilization, of the trivial and the sublime, of the beautiful and
+terrible, that is called the world--came vividly into their thoughts.
+They felt as a man would feel when dazzled all at once by a spectacle,
+the splendor of which the eyes and the mind can only withstand by
+degrees. They had spelt life in the horn-book of true and simple
+nature--they were now about to read it fluently in the gilded volume
+of a nature false and vitiated, perhaps to regret their former
+tranquil ignorance.
+
+Becker himself had, for an instant, given way to the general
+enthusiasm, but reflection soon regained her sway; he asked himself
+whether he had solid reasons for wishing to return to Europe, whether
+it would be advisable to relinquish a certain livelihood, and abandon
+a spot that God appeared to bless beyond all others, to run after the
+doubtful advantages of civilized society.
+
+His wife desired nothing better than to end her days there, under the
+beautiful sky, where, from the bosom of the tempest, they had been
+guided by the merciful will of Him who is the source of all things.
+Still the solitude frightened her for her children. "Might it not,"
+she asked herself, "be egotism to imprison their young lives in the
+narrow limits of maternal affection?" It occurred to her that the
+dangers to which they were constantly exposed might remove them from
+her; to-day this one, to-morrow another; what, then, would be her own
+desolation, when there remained to her no bosom on which to rest her
+head--no heart to beat in unison with her own--no kindly hand to
+grasp--and no friendly voice to pray at her pillow, when she was
+called away in her turn!
+
+At length, after mature deliberation, it was resolved that Becker
+himself, his wife, Fritz and Jack, two of their sons, should remain
+where they were, whilst the two other young men should return to
+Europe with a cargo of cochineal, pearls, coral, nutmegs, and other
+articles that the country produced of value in a commercial point of
+view. It was, however, understood that one of the two should return
+again as soon as possible, and bring back with him any of his
+countrymen who might be induced to become settlers in this land of
+promise, Becker hoping, by this means, to found a new colony which
+might afterwards flourish under the name of _New Switzerland_. The
+mission to Europe was formally confided to Frank and Ernest, the two
+most sedate of the family.
+
+Besides the captain and crew, there was on board the ship now riding
+at anchor in the bay a passenger, named Wolston, with his wife and two
+daughters. This gentleman was on his way to join his son at the Cape
+of Good Hope, but had been taken seriously ill previous to the
+_Nelsons_ arrival on the coast. He and his family were invited on
+shore by Becker, and had taken up their quarters at Rockhouse.
+Wolston was an engineer by profession, but his wife belonged to a
+highly aristocratic family of the West of England; she had been
+brought up in a state of ease and refinement, was possessed of all the
+accomplishments required in fashionable society, but she was at the
+same time gifted with strong good sense, and could readily accommodate
+herself to the circumstances in which she was now placed. Her two
+daughters, Sophia the youngest, a lively child of thirteen, and Mary
+the eldest, a demure girl of sixteen, had been likewise carefully, but
+somewhat elaborately, educated. Attracted no less by the hearty and
+warm reception of the Swiss family, than determined by the state of
+his health and the pure air of the country, Wolston resolved to await
+there the return of the sloop, the official destination of which was
+the Cape of Good Hope, where it had to land despatches from Sidney.
+
+Captain Littlestone, of H.B.M.'s sloop _Nelson_, had kindly consented
+to all these arrangements; he agreed to convey Ernest and Frank Becker
+and their cargo to the Cape, to aid them there with his experience,
+and, finally, to recommend them to some trustworthy correspondents he
+had at Liverpool. He likewise promised to bring back young Wolston
+with him on his return voyage.
+
+Everything being prepared, the departure was fixed for the next day:
+the sloop, with the blue Peter at the fore, was ready, as soon as the
+anchor was weighed, to continue her voyage. The cargo had been stowed
+under hatches. Becker had just given the farewell dinner to Captain
+Littlestone and Lieutenant Dunsley, his second in command. These two
+gentlemen had discreetly taken their leave, not to interrupt by their
+presence the final embraces of the family, the ties of which, after so
+many long years of labor and hardship, were for the first time to be
+broken asunder.
+
+During the voyage, Wolston had formed an intimacy with the boatswain
+of the _Nelson_, named Willis, and he, on his side, held Wolston and
+his family in high esteem. Willis was likewise a great favorite with
+his captain--they had served in the same ship together when boys;
+Willis was known to be a first-rate seaman; so great, indeed, was his
+skill in steering amongst reefs and shoals, that he was familiarly
+styled the "Pilot," by which cognomen he was better known on board
+than any other. At the particular request of Wolston, who had some
+communications to make to him respecting his son, Willis remained on
+shore, the captain promising to send his gig for him and his two
+passengers the following morning.
+
+Whilst Wolston was busy charging the pilot with a multitude of
+messages for his son, Mrs. Becker was invoking the blessings of Heaven
+upon the heads of her two boys; praying that the hour might be
+deferred that was to separate her from these idols of her soul. Becker
+himself, upon whom his position, as head of the family, imposed the
+obligation of exhibiting, at least outwardly, more courage, instilled
+into their minds such principles of truth and rules of conduct as the
+solemnity of the moment was calculated to engrave on their hearts.
+
+The dial now marked three o'clock, tropical time. Willis, wiping, with
+the cuff of his jacket, a drop that trickled from the corner of his
+eye, laid hold of his seal-skin sou'-wester as a signal of immediate
+departure. Ernest and Frank were bending their heads to receive the
+parting benediction of their parents, when suddenly a fierce torrent
+of wind shook the gallery of Rockhouse to its foundation, and uprooted
+some of the bamboo columns by which it was supported.
+
+"Only a squall," said Willis quietly.
+
+"A squall!" exclaimed Becker, "what do you call a hurricane then?"
+
+"Oh, a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
+close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this
+begins to look very like the real article."
+
+Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful than
+its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
+dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
+against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
+lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain,
+but veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what
+the cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are
+to the gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river
+had converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and
+buildings appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse
+nearly impossible.
+
+However much of a colorist Willis might be, he could not have painted
+a storm with the eloquence of the elements that had cut short his
+observation.
+
+"You will not attempt to embark in weather like this?" inquired Mrs.
+Becker anxiously.
+
+"My duty it is to be on board," replied the Pilot.
+
+"The craft that ventures to take you there will get swamped twenty
+times on the way," observed Becker.
+
+"The worst of it is, the wind is from the east, and evidently carries
+waterspouts with it. These waterspouts strike a ship without the
+slightest warning, play amongst the rigging, whirl the sails about
+like feathers--sometimes carry them off bodily, or, if they do not do
+that, tear them to shreds and shiver the masts. In either case, the
+consequences are disagreeable."
+
+"A reason for you to be thankful you are safe on shore with us!"
+remarked Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"It is all very well for you, Mrs. Wolston, and you, Mrs. Becker, to
+talk in that way; your business in life is that of wives and mothers.
+But what will the Lords of the Admiralty say, when they hear that the
+sloop _Nelson_ was wrecked whilst Master Willis, the boatswain, was
+skulking on shore like a land-rat?"
+
+"Oh, they would only say there was one useful man more, and a victim
+the less," replied Fritz.
+
+"Why, not exactly, Master Fritz; they would say that Willis was a
+poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely
+condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation
+when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I
+want is the use of your canoe."
+
+"What! brave this storm in a wretched seal-skin cockle-shell like
+that?"
+
+"Would it not be offending Providence," hazarded Mary Wolston, "for
+one of God's creatures to abandon himself to certain death?"
+
+"It would, indeed," added Mrs. Wolston; "true courage consists in
+facing danger when it is inevitable, but not in uselessly imperiling
+one's life; there stops courage, and temerity begins."
+
+"If it is not pride or folly. I do not mean that with reference to
+you, Willis," hastily added Wolston; "I know that you are open as day,
+and that all your impulses arise from the heart."
+
+"That is all very fine--but I must act; let me have the canoe. I want
+the canoe: that is my idea."
+
+"Having lived fifteen years cut off from society," gravely observed
+Becker, "it may be that I have forgotten some of the laws it imposes;
+nevertheless, I declare upon my honor and conscience--"
+
+"Let me have the canoe, otherwise I must swim to the ship."
+
+"I declare," continued Becker, "that Willis exaggerates the
+requirements of his duty. There are stronger forces to which the human
+will must yield. It is one thing to desert one's post in the hour of
+danger, and another to have come on shore at the express desire of a
+superior officer, when the weather was fine, and nothing presaged a
+storm."
+
+"If there is danger," continued the obstinate sailor, whom the united
+strength of the four men could scarcely restrain, "I ought to share
+it; that is my duty and I must."
+
+"But," said Wolston, "all the boatswains and pilots in the world can
+do nothing against hurricanes and waterspouts; their duty consists in
+steering the ship clear of reefs and quicksands, and not in fighting
+with the elements."
+
+"There is one thing you forget, Mr. Wolston."
+
+"And what is that, Willis?"
+
+"It is to be side by side with your comrades in the hour of calamity,
+to aid them if you can, and to perish with them if such be the will of
+Fate. At this moment, poor Littlestone may be on the point of taking
+up his winter quarters in the body of a shark. But there, if the
+sloop is lost while I am here on shore, I will not survive her; all
+that you can say or do will not prevent me doing myself justice."
+
+At this moment Jack, who had disappeared during this discussion,
+unobserved, came in saturated to the skin with water, and in a state
+difficult to describe. Like the boots of Panurge, his feet were
+floating in the water that flowed from the rim of his cap.
+
+"What is this?" exclaimed his mother. "You wilful boy, may I ask
+where, in all the world, you have been?"
+
+"I have just come from the bay. O father and mother! O Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston! O Master Willis! if you had only seen! The sea is furious;
+sometimes the waves rise to the skies and mingle with the clouds, so
+that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends.
+It is frightful, but it is magnificent!"
+
+"And the sloop?" demanded Willis.
+
+"She is not to be seen; she is no longer at anchor in the bay."
+
+"Gone to the open sea, to avoid being driven ashore," said Wolston.
+"Captain Littlestone is not the man to remain in a perilous position
+whilst there remained a means of escape; besides, nothing that
+science, united with courage and presence of mind, could do, would
+have been neglected by him to save his ship."
+
+"In addition to which," observed Becker, "if he had found himself in
+positive danger, he would have fired a gun; and in that case, though
+we are not pilots, every one of us would have hastened to his
+assistance."
+
+"You see, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "God comes to ease your mind;
+were we to allow you to go to the sloop now, the thing is simply
+impossible."
+
+"I have my own idea about that," insisted Willis, whilst he kept
+beating a tatoo on the isinglass window panes.
+
+Whilst thus chafing like a caged lion, Wolston's youngest daughter
+went towards him, and gently putting her hand in his, said,
+"Sweetheart" (for so she had been accustomed to address him), "do you
+remember when, during the voyage, you used to look at me very closely,
+and that one evening I went boldly up to you and asked you why you
+did so?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Sophia, I recollect."
+
+"Do you remember the answer you gave me?"
+
+"Yes, I told you that I had left in England, on her mother's bosom, a
+little girl who would now be about your own age, and that I could not
+observe the wind play amongst the curls of your fair hair without
+thinking of her, and that it sometimes made my breast swell like the
+mizen-top-sail before the breeze."
+
+"Yes, and when I promised to keep out of your sight, not to reawaken
+your grief, you told me it was a kind of grief that did you more good
+than harm, and that the more it made you grieve, the happier you would
+be."
+
+"All true:" replied the sailor, whose excitement was melting away
+before the soft tones of the child like hoar frost in the sunshine.
+
+"Then I promised to come and talk to you about your Susan every day;
+and did I not keep my word?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Sophia; and it is only bare justice to say that you
+gracefully yielded to all my fatherly whims, and even went so far as
+to wear a brown dress oftener than another, because I said that my
+little Susan wore that color the last time I kissed her."
+
+"Oh, but that is a secret, Willis."
+
+"Yes, but I am going to tell all our secrets--that is an idea of mine.
+You then went and learned Susan's mother's favorite song, with which
+you would sometimes sing me to sleep, like a great baby that I am, and
+make me fancy that I was surrounded by my wife and daughter, and was
+comfortably smoking my pipe in my own cottage, with a glass of grog at
+my elbow."
+
+Willis said this so earnestly, that the smile called forth by the
+oddness of the remark scarcely dared to show itself on the lips of the
+listeners.
+
+"Very well," resumed the little damsel, "if you are not more
+reasonable, and if you keep talking of throwing your life away, I will
+never again place my hand in yours as now; I shall not love you any
+more, and shall find means of letting Susan's mother know that you
+went away and killed yourself, and made her a widow."
+
+Men can only speak coldly and appeal to reason--logic is their panacea
+in argument. Women alone possess those inspirations, those simple
+words without emphasis, that find their way directly to the heart, and
+for which purpose God has doubtless endowed them with those soft, mild
+tones, whose melodies cause our most cherished resolutions to vanish
+in the air; like those massive stone gates we have seen in some of the
+old castles in Germany, that resist the most powerful effort to push
+them open, but which a spring of the simplest construction causes to
+move gently on their formidable hinges.
+
+Willis was silent; but no openly-expressed submission could have been
+more eloquent than this mute acquiescence.
+
+In the meantime the tempest raged with increased fury, the winds
+howled, and the water splashed; it appeared at each shock as if the
+elements had reached the utmost limit of the terrific; that the sea,
+as the poet says, had lashed itself into exhaustion! But, anon, there
+came another outburst more terrible still, to declare that, in his
+anger as in his blessings, the All-Powerful has no other limit than
+the infinite.
+
+"If it is not in the power of human beings to aid the crew of the
+_Nelson_," said Mrs. Becker kneeling, "there are other means more
+efficacious which we are guilty in not having sought before."
+
+Every one followed this example, and it was a touching scene to behold
+the rough sailor yield submissively to the gentle violence of the
+child's hand, and bend his bronzed and swarthy visage humbly beside
+her cherub head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+TO WHAT EXTENT WILLIS THE PILOT HAD IDEAS ON CERTAIN SUBJECTS--THE
+KNIGHTS OF THE OCEAN.
+
+
+The storm continued to rage without intermission for three entire
+days. During this interval, not only was it impossible to send the
+canoe or pinnace to sea, but even to venture a step beyond the
+threshold, so completely had the tempest broken up the burning soil,
+the thirst of which the great Disposer of all things had proportioned
+to the deluges that were destined to assuage it.
+
+All had at length yielded to bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, for
+the seeming eternity of these three days and three nights had been
+passed in prayer, and in the most fearful apprehensions as to the fate
+of the _Nelson_ and her crew.
+
+Nothing in the horizon as yet indicated that the thunders were tired
+of roaring, the clouds of rending themselves asunder, the winds of
+howling, or the waves of frantically beating on the cliffs.
+
+Towards evening the ladies had retired to the sick-room with a view of
+seeking some repose. Becker, Willis, and the young men bivouacked in
+the hall, where some mattresses and bear-skins had been laid down.
+Here it was arranged that, for the common safety, each during the
+night should watch in turn. But about two in the morning, Ernest had
+no sooner relieved Fritz than, fatigue overcoming his sense of duty,
+the poor fellow fell comfortably asleep, and he was soon perfectly
+unconscious of all that was passing around him.
+
+Becker awoke first--it was broad daylight. "Where is Willis?" he
+cried, on getting up.
+
+"Holloa!" exclaimed Fritz, running towards the magazine, "the canoe
+has disappeared!"
+
+In an instant all were on their feet.
+
+"Some one of you has fallen asleep then," said Becker to his children;
+"for when the pilot watched I watched with him, and never lost sight
+of him for a moment."
+
+"I am the culprit," said Ernest; "and if any mischief arises out of
+this imprudence, I shall never forgive myself. But who could have
+dreamt of any one being foolhardy enough to attempt the rescue of a
+ship in a nutshell that scarcely holds two persons?"
+
+"I pray Heaven that your sleepy-headedness may not result in the loss
+of human life! You see, my son, that there is no amount of duty, be it
+ever so trifling in importance, that can be neglected with impunity.
+It is the concurrent devotion of each, and the sacrifices of one for
+another, that constitutes and secures the mutual security. Society on
+a small, as on a large scale, is a chain of which each individual is a
+link, and when one fails the whole is broken."
+
+"I will go after him," said Ernest.
+
+"Fritz and I will go with you," added Frank.
+
+"No," said Ernest; "I alone am guilty, and I wish alone to remedy my
+fault--that is, as far as possible."
+
+"I could not hide the canoe," observed Fritz, "but I hid the oars, and
+I find them in their place."
+
+"That, perhaps, will have prevented him embarking," remarked one of
+the boys.
+
+"A man like Willis," replied Becker, "is not prevented carrying out
+his intentions by such obstacles; he will have taken the first thing
+that came to hand; but let us go."
+
+"What, father, am I not then to go alone, and so bear the penalty of
+my own fault?"
+
+"No, Ernest, that would be to inflict two evils upon us instead of
+one; it is sufficient that you have shown your willingness to do so.
+Besides, three will not be over many _to convince_ Willis, even if yet
+in time."
+
+"And mother? and the ladies?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"I shall leave Frank and Jack to see to them; a mere obstinate freak,
+or a catastrophe, it will be time enough, when over, to inform them of
+this new idea of the Pilot's."
+
+"It is something more than an idea this time," remarked Jack.
+
+Just as Becker and his two sons were issuing from the grotto, the
+report of a cannon-shot resounded through the air.
+
+Awoke and startled by the explosion, Becker's wife and Mrs. Wolston
+came running towards them. As for the girls, their guardian angel had
+too closely enveloped them in its wings to admit of their sleep being
+disturbed.
+
+"The sloop on the coast!" said Frank; "for the sound is too distinct
+to come from a distance."
+
+"Unless Willis has got upon Shark's Island," objected Fritz, running
+towards the terrace, armed with a telescope. "Just so; he is there, I
+see him distinctly; he is recharging our four-pounder."
+
+"God be praised! you relieve my conscience of a great burden," said
+Ernest, placing his hand on his breast.
+
+"He is going to discharge it," cried Fritz--boom. Then a second shot
+reverberated in the air.
+
+"If Captain Littlestone be within hearing of that signal, he will be
+sure to reply to it." said Becker. "Listen!"
+
+They hushed themselves in silence, each retaining his respiration, as
+if their object had been to hear the sound of a fly's wing rather than
+the report of a cannon.
+
+"Nothing!" said Becker sadly, at the expiration of a few minutes.
+
+"Nothing!" reiterated successively all the voices.
+
+"How in all the world did Willis contrive to get transported to
+Shark's Island?" inquired Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Simply, wife, by watching when asleep, whilst one of our gentlemen
+slept when he watched."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Ernest, "and if you would not have me blush before
+Mrs. Wolston, you will not insist upon an explanation of the mystery."
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," she replied, "is not so exacting as you seem to think,
+Master Ernest--the only difference that her presence here should make
+amongst you is that you have two mothers instead of one."
+
+"That is," said Mrs. Wolston smiling, "if Mrs. Becker has no
+objections to dividing the office with me."
+
+"Shall I not have compensation in your daughters?" said Mrs. Becker,
+taking her by the hand.
+
+"Still," interrupted Fritz, "I cannot yet conceive how Willis managed
+to reach Shark's Island in a wretched canoe, without oars, through
+waves that ought to have swallowed him up over and over again."
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Jack; "what use has a pilot for oars?"
+
+"There is a question! You, who modestly call yourself the best
+horseman on the island, how would you do, if you had nothing to ride
+upon?"
+
+"I could at least fall back upon broomsticks," retorted the
+imperturbable Jack. "Besides, in Willis's case, the canoe was the
+steed, the oars the saddle--nothing more."
+
+"We shall not stay here to solve the riddle," said Becker; "the storm
+seems disposed to abate; and the more that it was unreasonable to face
+certain destruction in a vain endeavor to assist a problematical
+shipwreck, the more it is incumbent upon us now to go in quest of the
+_Nelson_."
+
+"But the sea will still be very terrible!" quickly added Mrs. Becker.
+
+"If all danger were over, wife, the enterprise would do us little
+credit. It is our duty to do the best we can, according to the
+strength and means at our command. Fritz, Ernest, and Jack, go and put
+on your life-preservers--we shall take up Willis in passing."
+
+"I must not insist," said Mrs. Becker; "the sacrifice would, indeed,
+be no sacrifice, if it could be easily borne; and yet--"
+
+"Remember the time, wife, when I was obliged, in order to secure the
+precious remains of our ship, to venture with our eldest sons on a
+float of tubs, leaving you exposed, alone with a child of seven, to
+the chance of eternal isolation!"
+
+"That is very true, husband: I am unjust towards Providence, which has
+never ceased blessing us; but I am only a weak woman, and my heart
+often gets the better of my head."
+
+"To-day I leave Frank with you; but, instead of your being his
+protector, as was the case fifteen years ago, he will be yours. Then
+there is Mrs. Wolston, her daughters, and husband, quite a new world
+of sympathies and consolations, by which our island has been so
+miraculously peopled."
+
+"Go then, husband, and may God bring back in safety both the pinnace
+and the _Nelson_!"
+
+"By the way, Mrs. Wolston, how does our worthy invalid get on? We live
+in such a turmoil of events and consternations, that I must beg a
+thousand pardons for not having asked after him before."
+
+"His sleep appears untroubled; and, notwithstanding all the terrors of
+the last few days, I entertain sanguine hopes of his immediate
+recovery."
+
+"You will at least return before night?" said Mrs. Becker to her
+husband.
+
+"Rely upon my not prolonging my stay beyond what the exigencies of the
+expedition imperiously require."
+
+"Good gracious! what are these?" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston as the three
+brothers entered, equipped in seal-gut trowsers, floating stays of the
+same material, and Greenland caps.
+
+"The Knights of the Ocean," replied Jack gravely, "who, like the
+heroes of Cervantes, go forth to redress the wrongs done by the
+tempest, and to break lances--oars, I mean--in favor of persecuted
+sloops."
+
+Mrs. Becker herself could scarcely refrain from smiling.
+
+Such is the power of the smile that, in season or out of season, it
+often finds its way to the most pallid lips, in the midst of the
+greatest disasters and the deepest grief. It appears as if always
+listening at the door ready to take its place on the slightest notice.
+This diversion had the good effect of mixing a little honey with--if
+the expression may be used--the bitterness of the parting adieus.
+Becker took the lead in hiding his sorrow; the three young
+Greenlanders tore themselves from the maternal embrace, and
+affectionately kissed the hand held out to them by Mrs. Wolston.
+
+Then, between those that departed and those that remained behind,
+there was nothing more than the ties of recollection, the common
+sadness, and the endless links of mutual affection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES "IRREFRAGABLY" THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OF
+CONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS--THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES--THE
+SEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP--FOUND--THE SWORD-FISH--FLOATING ATOMS--ADMIRAL
+SOCRATES.
+
+
+When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought he
+saw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.
+
+"A sea monster!" he cried, levelling his musket; "I discovered it, and
+have the right to the first shot."
+
+"No, sir," said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotive
+telescope, "I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or wound
+my canoe."
+
+"Nonsense, it moves."
+
+"Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you not
+observe this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?"
+
+"Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has been
+hatching," and Jack again levelled his rifle.
+
+"Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he could
+dispense with the canoe?"
+
+"Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord,
+which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."
+
+"The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite
+of surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."
+
+"Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "what
+does a pilot care about surf and breakers?"
+
+Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a
+bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no
+way suffered from the storm.
+
+The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making
+the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet
+by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately,
+"starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had
+not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.
+
+At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a
+quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and
+cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a
+steam engine.
+
+Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of
+the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was
+soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she
+pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. He
+headed along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had first
+observed the _Nelson_ was fairly doubled; some days before this point
+was called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire the
+term of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designation
+was in embryo.
+
+Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat
+rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last
+leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other
+circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the
+direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and
+covered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profound
+desolation.
+
+"Willis! Willis!" cried Jack, "I shall tell Sophia."
+
+But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, nor
+the sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Willis
+continued immovable.
+
+Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm the
+more they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted to
+wear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to his
+own reflections.
+
+The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but the
+sun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, and
+the air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.
+
+"I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is the
+direction the storm must have driven the sloop."
+
+"The sea is very capricious," suggested Fritz.
+
+"True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind."
+
+"Unfortunately," said Jack, "it is not on sea as on land, where the
+slightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; a
+word dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, but
+here it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the _Nelson_ pass this
+way?'"
+
+"Fire a shot," said Ernest; "it may perhaps be heard, now that the air
+is less humid."
+
+The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fire
+to a strip of mimosa bark, with which he touched the piece, and the
+report boomed across the waters.
+
+Willis raised his head and listened anxiously, but soon dropped it
+again, and resumed his former attitude of hopeless despair.
+
+"It may be," said Ernest, "that the _Nelson_ hears our signal, though
+we do not hear hers."
+
+"How can that be?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Why, very easily. Sound increases or diminishes in intensity
+according as the wind carries it on or retards it."
+
+"What, then, is sound, that the wind can blow it about, most learned
+brother?"
+
+"It is a result of the compression of the air, that from its
+elasticity extends and expands, and which causes a sort of trembling
+or undulation, similar to that which is observed in water when a stone
+is thrown into it."
+
+"And you may add," said Becker, "that bodies striking the air excite
+sonorous vibrations in this fluid; thus it rings under the lash that
+strikes it with violence, and whistles under the rapid impulsion of a
+switch: it likewise becomes sonorous when it strikes itself with force
+against any solid body, as the wind when it blows against the cordage
+of ships, houses, trees, and generally every object with which it
+comes in contact."
+
+"I can understand," replied Jack, "how this sonorous effect is
+produced on the particles of air in immediate contact with the object
+struck; but how this sound is propagated, I do not see."
+
+"Very likely; but still it travels from particle to particle, in a
+circle, at the rate of three hundred and forty yards in a second."
+
+"Three hundred and forty yards in a second!" said Willis, who was
+beginning by degrees to recover his self-possession. "Well, that is
+what I should call going a-head."
+
+"And by what sort of compasses has this speed been measured, Master
+Ernest?"
+
+"The first accurate measurement, Master Jack, was made at Paris in
+1738. There are there two tolerably elevated points, namely,
+Montmartre and Montlhéry--the distance between these, in a direct
+line, is 14,636 _toises_. Cannons were fired during the night, and the
+engineers on one of the elevations observed that an interval of
+eighty-six seconds and a half elapsed between the flash and the report
+of a cannon fired on the other."
+
+"That half-second is very amusing," said Jack laughing; "if there had
+been only eighty or eighty-six net, one might still be permitted to
+entertain some doubts; but eighty-six and a half admits nothing of the
+kind. But why not three-quarters or six-eighths, they would do as
+well?"
+
+"What is more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirous
+of obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of no
+value? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of no
+signification to you?"
+
+"Your brother is perfectly right, Jack; you are not always successful
+in your jokes."
+
+"Other experiments have been made since then," continued Ernest, "and
+the results have always been the same, making allowances for the wind,
+and a slight variation that is ascribed to temperature."
+
+"To confirm the accuracy of this statement, the speed of light would
+have to be taken into consideration."
+
+"True; but the velocity of light is so great, that the instant a
+cannon is fired the flash is seen."
+
+"Whatever the distance?"
+
+"Yes, whatever the distance. Bear in mind that the rays of the sun
+only require eight minutes to traverse the thirty-four millions of
+leagues that extend between us and that body. Hence it follows that
+the time light takes to travel from one point to another on the earth
+may be regarded as _nil_."
+
+"That is something like distance and speed," remarked Willis, "and may
+be all right as regards the sun, but I should not be disposed to admit
+that there are any other instances of the same kind."
+
+"Very good, Master Willis; and yet the sun is only a step from us in
+comparison to the distance of some stars that we see very distinctly,
+but which are, nevertheless, so remote, that their rays, travelling at
+the same rate as those of the sun, are several years in reaching us."
+
+Willis rose abruptly, whistling "the Mariner's March," and went to
+join Fritz, who was steering the pinnace.
+
+At this _naïve_ mark of disapprobation on the part of the Pilot,
+Becker, Ernest, and Jack burst involuntarily into a violent peal of
+laughter.
+
+"Laugh away, laugh away." said Willis; "I will not admit your
+calculations for all that."
+
+The sky had now assumed an opal or azure tint, the wind had gradually
+died away into a gentle breeze, the waves were now swelling gently and
+regularly, like the movements of the infant's cradle that is being
+rocked asleep. Never had a day, opening in the convulsions of a
+tempest, more suddenly lapsed into sunshine and smiles: it was like
+the fairies of Perrault's Tales, who, at first wrapped in sorry rags,
+begging and borne down with age, throw off their chrysalis and appear
+sparkling with youth, gaiety, and beauty, their wallet converted into
+a basket of flowers, and their crutch to a magic wand.
+
+"Father" inquired Fritz, "shall we go any farther?"
+
+Since the weather had calmed down, and there was no longer any
+necessity for exertion, the expedition had lost its charm for the
+young man.
+
+"I think it is useless; what say you, Willis?"
+
+"Ah," said the latter, taking Becker by the hand, "in consideration of
+the eight days' friendship that connects you even more intimately with
+Captain Littlestone than my affection for him of twenty years'
+standing, keep still a few miles to the east."
+
+"If the sloop has been driven to a distance by the storm, and is
+returning towards us, which is very likely, I do not see that we can
+be of much use."
+
+"But if dismasted and leaky?"
+
+"That would alter the case, only I am afraid the ladies will be uneasy
+about us."
+
+"But they were half prepared, father."
+
+"Jack is right," added Fritz, whose energies were again called into
+play by the thought of the _Nelson_ in distress; "let us go on."
+
+"Besides, on the word of a pilot, the sea will be very calm and gentle
+for some time to come: there is not the slightest danger."
+
+"And what if there were?" replied Fritz.
+
+"Well, Willis, I shall give up the pinnace to you till dark," said
+Becker, "and may God guide us; we shall return to-night, so as to
+arrive at Rockhouse early in the morning."
+
+"Hurrah for the captain!" cried Willis, throwing a cap into the air.
+
+The evolutions of a cap, thrown up towards the sky or down upon the
+ground, were very usual modes with Willis of expressing his joy or
+sorrow.
+
+This homage rendered to Becker, he hastened to let a reef out of the
+sheet, and the pinnace, for a moment at rest, redoubled its speed,
+like post-horses starting from the inn-door under the combined
+influence of a cheer from the postillion and a flourish of the whip.
+
+"There is a cockle-shell that skips along pretty fairly," said Willis;
+"but it wants two very important things."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"A caboose and a nigger."
+
+"A caboose and a nigger?"
+
+"Yes, I mean a pantry and a cook; a gale for breakfast is all very
+well, one gets used to it, it is light and easily digested; but the
+same for dinner is rather too much of a good thing in one day."
+
+"I observed your thoughtful mother hang a sack on one of your
+shoulders, which appeared tolerably well filled--where is it?"
+
+"Here it is," said Jack, issuing from the hatchway; "here are our
+stores: a ham, two Dutch cheeses, two callabashes full of Rockhouse
+malaga, and there is plenty of fresh water in the gourds; with these,
+we have wherewithal to defy hunger till to-morrow."
+
+"Capital!" said Willis.
+
+This time, however, a cap did not appear in the air, as the last one
+had not been seen since the former ovation.
+
+"Let us lay the table," said Jack, arranging the coils of rope that
+crowded the deck. "Well, you see, Willis, we want for nothing on board
+the pinnace, not even a what-do-you-call-it?"
+
+"A caboose, Master Jack."
+
+"Well, not even a caboose."
+
+"Quite true; and if the _Nelson_ were in the offing, I would not
+exchange my pilot's badge for the epaulettes of a commodore; but,
+alas! she is not there."
+
+"Cheer up, Willis, cheer up; one is either a man or one is not. What
+is the good of useless regrets?"
+
+"Very little, but it is hard to be yard-armed while absent at my time
+of life--and afterwards--your health, Mr. Becker."
+
+"That would be hard at any age, Willis; but I rather think it has not
+come to that yet."
+
+"When it has come to it, there will be very little time left to talk
+it over."
+
+"Did you not say, brother, that the _Nelson_ might hear our signals
+without our hearing hers? If so, there is a chance for Willis yet."
+
+"Certainly, Jack, because she has the wind in her favor to act as a
+speaking-trumpet, whilst we had it against us acting as a deafener."
+
+"Is there any other influence that affects sound besides the wind?"
+
+"Yes, I have already mentioned that temperature has something to do
+with it. Sound varies in intensity according to the state of the
+atmosphere. If, for example, we ring a small bell in a closed vessel
+filled with air, it has been observed that, as the air is withdrawn by
+the pump, the sound gradually grows less and less distinct."
+
+"And if a vacuum be formed?"
+
+"Then the sound is totally extinguished."
+
+"So, then," objected Willis, "if two persons were to talk in what you
+call a vacuum, they would not hear each other?"
+
+"Two persons could not talk in a vacuum," replied Ernest.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because they would die as soon as they opened their mouths."
+
+"Ah, that alters the case."
+
+"If, on the contrary, a quantity of air or gas were compressed into a
+space beyond what it habitually held, then the sound," continued
+Ernest, "would be more intense than if the air were free."
+
+"In that case a whisper would be equal to a howl!"
+
+"You think I am joking, Willis; but on the tops of high mountains,
+such as the Himalaya and Mont Blanc, where the air is much rarified,
+voices are not heard at the distance of two paces."
+
+"Awkward for deaf people!"
+
+"Whilst, on the icy plains of the frozen regions, where the air is
+condensed by the severe cold, a conversation, held in the ordinary
+tone, may be easily carried on at the distance of half a league."
+
+"Awkward for secrets!"
+
+"And how does sound operate with regard to solid bodies?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"According to the degree of elasticity possessed by their veins or
+fibres."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"That is, solid bodies, whose structure is such that the vibration
+communicated to some of their atoms circulates through the mass, are
+susceptible of conveying sound."
+
+"Give us an instance."
+
+"Apply your ear to one end of a long beam, and you will hear
+distinctly the stroke of a pin's head on the other; whilst the same
+stroke will scarcely be heard through the breadth of the wood."
+
+"So that, in the first case, the sound runs along the longitudinal
+fibres where the contiguity of parts is closer, than when the body is
+taken transversely?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"And across water?"
+
+"It is heard, but more feebly."
+
+For some time Fritz had been closely observing with the telescope a
+particular part of the horizon, when all at once he cried, "This time
+I see him distinctly; he is bearing down upon us."
+
+"Who? the sloop?" cried Willis, starting up and letting fall the glass
+he had in his hand.
+
+"What an extraordinary pace! he bounds into the air, then plumps into
+the water, then leaps up again, just like an India-rubber ball, that
+touches the ground only to take a fresh spring!"
+
+"Impossible, Master Fritz; the _Nelson_ tops the waves honestly and
+gallantly; but as to leaping into the air, she is a little too bulky
+for that."
+
+"Ah, poor Willis, it is not the _Nelson_ that is under my glass at
+present, but an enormous fish, ten or twelve feet in length."
+
+"Oh, how you startled me!"
+
+"Father! Ernest! prepare to fire! Jack, the harpoon! he is coming this
+way."
+
+Fritz stood at the stern of the pinnace, his rifle levelled, following
+with his eyes the movements of the monster; when within reach, he
+fired with so much success and address that he hit the creature on the
+head. It then changed its course, leaving behind a train of blood.
+
+"Let us after him, Willis; quick!"
+
+The Pilot turned the head of the pinnace, and Jack immediately threw
+his harpoon.
+
+"Struck!" cried he joyfully.
+
+By the hissing of the line, and then the rapid impulsion of the
+pinnace, it was felt that the monster had more strength than the craft
+and its crew together.
+
+Ernest and his father fired at the same time; the ball of the former
+was lost in the animal's flesh, that of the latter rebounded off a
+horny protuberance that armed the monster's upper lip.
+
+Fritz had time to recharge his rifle; he levelled it a second time,
+and the ball went to join the former; but, for all that, the pinnace
+continued to cleave the water at a furious rate.
+
+Becker seized an axe and cut the rope.
+
+"Oh, father, what a pity! such a splendid capture for our museum of
+natural history!"
+
+"It is a sword-fish, children; a monster of a dangerous species, and
+of extreme voracity. If, by way of reciprocity, the fish have a museum
+at the bottom of the sea, they will have some fine specimens of the
+human race that have become the prey of this creature; and it may be
+that we were on the way to join the collection."
+
+"Did you observe the formidable dentilated horn?"
+
+"It is by means of this horn or sword, from which it takes its name,
+that it wages a continual war with the whale, whose only mode of
+escape is by flourishing its enormous tail; but the sword-fish, being
+very agile, easily avoids this, bounds into the air as Fritz saw it
+doing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierces
+him with its sword."
+
+"By the way, talking about the whale," said Jack, "all naturalists
+seem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation,
+that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs,
+or very small fishes--what, in that case, becomes of the history of
+Jonah?"
+
+"It is rather unfortunate," replied Becker, "that the whale has been
+associated with this miracle. There is now no possibility of
+separating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in the
+Greek translation of the Chaldean text, there is _Ketos_--in the
+Latin, there is _Cete_--and both these words were understood by the
+ancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale in
+particular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even a
+horse, without mangling it."
+
+"I have heard," said Jack, "of navigators who have landed on the back
+of a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island."
+
+"There is nothing impossible about that," observed Willis.
+
+"One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monster
+who has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming to
+be in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed to
+move all the quicker for the dose."
+
+"Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. The
+carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a
+whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the
+way to shorten the period."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train of
+waggons, "these fellows have no cares."
+
+"And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do you
+suppose that it dies of grief?"
+
+"Who knows, Master Jack?"
+
+"The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think," said Becker;
+"it commences by living three years under water in the form of a
+maggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a horny
+covering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, four
+or five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the month
+of August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw off
+a jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns,
+and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect;
+then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe,
+it dies--hence it is called the day-fly, its existence being
+terminated by the shades of night."
+
+"I was certain of it," said Willis.
+
+"Certain of what?"
+
+"That it died of grief at being on land. When one has been accustomed
+to the water, you see, under such circumstances life is not worth the
+having."
+
+"The day-fly," continued Becker, "is an epitome of those men who
+spend a life-time hunting after wealth and glory, and who perish
+themselves at the moment they reach the pinnacle of their ambitious
+desires. Whence I conclude, my dear children, that there are nothing
+but beginnings and endings of unhappiness in this world, and that true
+felicity is only to be hoped for in another sphere."
+
+"What a curious series of transformations! First an aquatic insect,
+next amphibious, then throwing away the organs for which it has no
+further use, and becoming provided with those suited to its new
+state!"
+
+"Yes, my dear Fritz; and yet those complicated and beautiful
+operations of Nature have not prevented philosophers from asserting
+that the world resulted from _floating atoms_, which, by force of
+combination, and after an infinity of blind movements, conglomerate
+into plants, animals, men, heaven, and earth."
+
+"I am only a plain sailor," said Willis "yet the eye of a worm teaches
+me more than these philosophers seem to have imagined in their
+philosophy."
+
+"Such a system could only have originated in Bedlam or Charenton."
+
+"No, Ernest, it is the system of Epicurus and Lucretius. Without going
+so far back, there are a thousand others quite as ridiculous, with
+which it is unnecessary to charge your young heads."
+
+"All madmen are not in confinement, and it may be that Epicurus and
+Lucretius had arrived at those limits of human reason, where genius
+begins in some and folly in others."
+
+"It is not that, Fritz; but if men, says Malebranche somewhere,[A] are
+interested in having the sides of an equilateral triangle unequal, and
+that false geometry was as agreeable to them as false philosophy, they
+would make the problems equally false in geometry as in morality, for
+this simple reason, that their errors afford them gratification,
+whilst truth would only hurt and annoy them."
+
+"Very good," observed Willis; "this Malebranche, as you call him, must
+have been an admiral?"
+
+"No, Willis, nothing more than a simple philosopher, but one of good
+faith, like Socrates, who admitted that what he knew best was, that he
+knew nothing."
+
+The sun had gradually disappeared in the midst of purple tinged
+clouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then a
+simple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays,
+sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,[B] like the adieu we
+receive at the turning of a road from a friend who is leaving us.
+
+There was a festival in the sky that night; the firmament brought out,
+one by one, her circlet of diamonds, till the whole were sparkling
+like a blaze of light; the pinnace also left a fiery train in her
+wake, caused partly by electricity and partly by the phosphorescent
+animalculae that people the ocean.
+
+"Willis," said Becker, "I leave it entirely to you to decide the
+instant of our return."
+
+The Pilot changed at once the course of the boat, without attempting
+to utter a word, so heavy was his heart at this unsuccessful
+termination of the expedition.
+
+"It will be curious," observed Fritz, "if we find the _Nelson_, on our
+return, snugly at anchor in Safety Bay."
+
+"I have a presentiment," said Jack; "and you will see that we have
+been playing at hide-and-seek with the _Nelson_."
+
+Willis shook his head.
+
+"Are there not a thousand accidents to cause a ship to deviate from
+her route?"
+
+"Yes, Master Ernest, there are typhoons, and the waterspouts of which
+I spoke to you before. In such cases, ships often deviate from their
+route, but generally by going to the bottom."
+
+Willis concluded this sentence with a gesture that defies description,
+implying annihilation.
+
+"Remember Admiral Socrates, Willis," said Jack; "_what I know best is,
+that I know nothing_, and avow that God has other means of
+accomplishing his decrees besides typhoons and waterspouts."
+
+"My excellent young friends, I know you want to inspire me with hope,
+as they give a toy to a child to keep it from crying, and I thank you
+for your good intentions. Now, for three days you have, so to speak,
+had no rest, and I insist on your profiting by this night to take some
+repose; and you also, Mr. Becker; I am quite able to manage the
+pinnace alone."
+
+"Yes providing you do not play us some trick, like that of this
+morning, for instance."
+
+"All stratagems are justifiable in war. Master Ernest had fair warning
+that I had an idea to work out. Besides, a prisoner, when under
+hatches, has the right to escape if he can: under parole, the case is
+quite different."
+
+"Well, Willis, if you give me your simple promise to steer straight
+for New Switzerland, and awake me in two hours to take the bearings--"
+
+"I give it, Mr. Becker."
+
+The three Greenlanders then descended into the hold, for tropical
+nights are as chilly as the days are hot, and Becker, rolling himself
+up in a sail, lay on deck.
+
+In less than five minutes they were all fast asleep, and Willis paced
+the deck, his arms crossed, and mechanically gazing upon a star that
+was mirrored in the water.
+
+"Several years to come to us, and that at the rate of seventy thousand
+leagues a second--that is _a little_ too much."
+
+Then he went to the rudder, his head leaning upon his breast, and
+glancing now and then with distracted eye at the course of the boat,
+buried in a world of thought, sad and confused, doubtless beholding in
+succession visions of the _Nelson_, of Susan, and of Scotland.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] "Search after Truth," book ix.
+
+[B] The twilight is entirely owing to this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A LANDSCAPE--SAD HOUSES AND SMILING HOUSES--POLITENESS IN CHINA--EIGHT
+SOUPS AT DESSERT--WIND MERCHANTS--ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S--SUSAN,
+VICE SOPHIA.
+
+
+Towards five o'clock next morning everything about Rockhouse was
+beginning to assume life and motion--within, all its inhabitants were
+already astir--without, little remained of the recent storm and
+inundation except that refreshing coolness, which, conjointly with the
+purified air, infuses fresh vigor, not only into men, but also into
+every living thing. The citrous, the aloes, and the Spanish jasmines
+perfumed the landscape. The flexible palms, the tall bananas, with
+their unbrageous canopy, the broad, pendant-leaved mangoes, and all
+the rank but luxuriant vegetation that clothed the land to the water's
+edge, waved majestically under the gentle breeze that blew from the
+sea. The Jackal River unfolded its silvery band through the roses,
+bamboos, and cactii that lined its banks. The sun--for that luminary
+plays an important part in all Nature's festivals--darted its rays on
+the soil still charged with vapor. Diamond drops sparkled in the cups
+of the flowers and on the points of the leaves. In the distance,
+pines, cedars, and richly-laden cocoa-nut trees filled up the
+background with their dark foliage. The swans displayed their
+brilliant plumage on the lake, the boughs of the trees were alive with
+parroquets and other winged creatures of the tropics. Add to the
+charms of this scene, Mrs. Becker returning from the prairie with a
+jar of warm, frothy milk--Mrs. Wolston and Mary busied in a
+multiplicity of household occupations, to which their white hands and
+ringing voices gave elegance and grace--Sophia tying a rose to the
+neck of a blue antelope which she had adopted as a companion--Frank
+distributing food to the ostriches and large animals, and admit, if
+there is a paradise on earth, it was this spot.
+
+Compare this scene with that presented by any of our large cities at
+the same hour in the morning. In London or Paris, our dominion rarely
+extends over two or three dreary-looking rooms--a geranium, perhaps,
+at one of the windows to represent the fields and green lanes of the
+country; above, a forest of smoking chimneys vary the monotony of the
+zig-zag roofs; below, a thousand confused noises of waggons, cabs, and
+the hoarse voices of the street criers; probably the lamps are just
+being extinguished, and the dust heaps carted away, filling our rooms,
+and perhaps our eyes, with ashes; the chalk-milk, the air, and the
+odors are scarcely required to fill up the picture.
+
+Breakfast was spread a few paces from Mr. Wolston's bed, whom the two
+young girls were tending with anxious solicitude, and whose sickness
+was almost enviable, so many were the cares lavished upon him.
+
+"You are wrong, Mrs. Becker," said Mrs. Wolston, "to make yourself
+uneasy, the sea has become as smooth as a mirror since their
+departure."
+
+"Ah, yes, I know that, my dear Mrs. Wolston, but when one has already
+undergone the perils of shipwreck, the impression always remains, and
+makes us see storms in a glass of water."
+
+"I am certain," remarked Mr. Wolston, "the cause of their delay is a
+concession made to Willis."
+
+"Very likely he would not consent to return, unless they went as far
+as possible."
+
+"By the way, madam," said Mary, "now that you have got two great girls
+added to your establishment, I hope you are going to make them useful
+in some way--we can sew, knit, and spin."
+
+"And know how to make preserves," added Sophia.
+
+"Yes, and to eat them too," said her mother.
+
+"If you can spin, my dears, we shall find plenty of work for you; we
+have here the Nankin cotton plant, and I intend to dress the whole
+colony with it."
+
+"Delightful!" exclaimed Sophia, clapping her hands; "Nankin dresses
+just as at the boarding-school, with a straw hat and a green veil."
+
+"To be sure, it must be woven first," reflected Mrs. Becker; "but I
+dare say we shall be able to manage that."
+
+"By the way, girls," said Mrs. Wolston, "have you forgotten your
+lessons in tapestry?"
+
+"Not at all, mamma; and now that we think of it, we shall handsomely
+furnish a drawing-room for you."
+
+"But where are the tables and chairs to come from?" inquired Mrs.
+Becker.
+
+"Oh, the gentlemen will see to them."
+
+"And the room, where is that to be?"
+
+"There is the gallery, is there not?"
+
+"And the wool for the carpet?"
+
+"Have you not sheep?"
+
+"That is true, children; you speak as if we had only to go and sit
+down in it."
+
+"The piano, however, I fear will be wanting, unless we can pick up an
+Erard in the neighboring forest."
+
+"True, mamma, all the overtures that we have had so much trouble in
+learning will have to go for nothing."
+
+"But," said Mrs. Becker, "by way of compensation, there is the
+vegetable and fruit garden, the pantry, the kitchen, the dairy, and
+the poultry yard; these are all my charges, and you may have some of
+them if you like."
+
+"Excellent, each shall have her own kingdom and subjects."
+
+"It being understood," suggested Mrs. Wolston, "that you are not to
+eat everything up, should the fruit garden or pantry come under your
+charge."
+
+"That is not fair, mamma; you are making us out to be a couple of
+cannibals."
+
+"You see," continued Mrs. Wolston, "these young people have not the
+slightest objection to my parading their accomplishments, but the
+moment I touch their faults they feel aggrieved."
+
+"I am persuaded," rejoined Mrs. Becker laughing, "that there are no
+calumniators in the world like mothers."
+
+"Therefore, mamma, to punish you we shall come and kiss you."
+
+And accordingly Mrs. Wolston was half stifled under the embraces of
+her two daughters.
+
+"I am certainly not the offender," said Mrs. Becker, "but I should not
+object to receive a portion of the punishment; these great
+boys--pointing to Frank--are too heavy to hang on my neck now; you
+will replace them, my dears, will you not?"
+
+"Most willingly, madam; but not to deprive them of their places in
+your affection."
+
+"In case you should lose that, Master Frank," said Mrs. Wolston, "you
+must have recourse to mine."
+
+"But now, my friends, what do you say to going down to the shore to
+meet the pinnace, and perhaps the _Nelson_?" said Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Sophia; "and I will stay at home to wait upon father."
+
+"No," said Mary; "I am the eldest--that is my right."
+
+"Well, my children, do not quarrel about that," said Wolston; "I feel
+rather better; and I dare say a walk will do me good. Perhaps, when I
+get tired, Frank will lend me his arm."
+
+"Better than that," hastily added Frank; "I shall saddle Blinky; and
+lead him gently, and you will be as comfortable as in an arm-chair."
+
+"What is that you call Blinky?"
+
+"Oh, one of our donkeys."
+
+"Ah, very good; I was afraid you meant one of your ostriches, and I
+candidly admit that my experiences in equitation do not extend to
+riding a winged horse."
+
+"In that case," said Mrs. Becker, "to keep Blinky's brother from being
+jealous, I, shall charge him with a basket of provisions; and we shall
+lay a cloth under the mangoes, so that our ocean knights, as Jack will
+have it, may have something to refresh themselves withal as soon as
+they dismount."
+
+The little caravan was soon on the march; the two dogs cleared the
+way, leaping, bounding, and scampering on before, sniffing the bushes
+with their intelligent noses; then, returning to their master, they
+read in his face what was next to be done. Mary walked by the side of
+Blinky, amusing her father with her prattle. Sophia, with her
+antelope, was gambolling around them, the one rivalling the other in
+the grace of their movements, not only without knowing it, but rather
+because they did not know it. The two mothers were keeping an eye on
+the donkey; whilst Frank, with his rifle charged, was ready to bring
+down a quail or encounter a hyena.
+
+Some hours after the pinnace hove in sight, the voyagers landed, and
+received the warm congratulations of those on shore. When Willis had
+secured the boat, he took a final survey of the coast, penetrating
+with his eyes every creek and crevice.
+
+"Is there no trace of the _Nelson_?" inquired Wolston.
+
+"None!"
+
+"Well, I had all along thought you would find it so; the wind for four
+days has been blowing that it would drive the _Nelson_ to her
+destination. Captain Littlestone, being charged with important
+despatches, having already lost a fortnight here, has, no doubt, taken
+advantage of the gale, and made sail for the Cape, trusting to find us
+all alive here on his return voyage."
+
+"Yes," said the Pilot, "I know very well that you have all good
+hearts, and that you are desirous of giving me all the consolation you
+can."
+
+"Would you not have acted, under similar circumstances, precisely as
+we suppose Captain Littlestone to have done?"
+
+"I admit that the thing, is not only possible, but also that, if
+alive, it is just what he would have done. I trust, if it be so, that
+when he gets into port he will report me keel-hauled?"
+
+"Keel-hauled?"
+
+"Yes, I mean dead. It is a thousand times better to pass for a dead
+man than a deserter."
+
+"The wisest course he could pursue, it appears to me, would be to hold
+his tongue--probably you will not be missed."
+
+"Ah! you think that her Majesty's blue jackets can disappear in that
+way, like musk-rats? But no such thing. When the captain in command at
+the station hails on board, every man and boy of the crew, from the
+powder-monkey to the first-lieutenant, are mustered in pipe-clay on
+the quarter-deck, and there, with the ship's commission in his hand,
+every one must report himself as he calls over the names.
+
+"Then the captain will tell the simple truth."
+
+"Well, you see, truth has nothing at all to do with the rules of the
+service, the questions printed in the orderly-book only will be asked,
+and he may not have an opportunity of stating the facts of the case;
+besides, discipline on board a ship in commission could not be
+maintained if irregularities could be patched up by a few words from
+the captain. When it is found that I had been left on shore, the
+questions will be, 'Was the _Nelson_ in want of repairs?' 'No.' 'Did
+she require water?' 'No.' 'Provisions?' 'No.' 'Then Willis has
+deserted?' 'Yes.' And his condemnation will follow as a matter of
+course."
+
+"In that case, the Captain would be more to blame than you are."
+
+"So he would, and it is for that reason I hope he will be able to show
+by the log that I was seized with cholera, tied up in a sack, and duly
+thrown overboard with a four-pound shot for ballast."
+
+"I cannot conceive," said Becker, "that the discipline of any service
+can be so cruelly unreasonable as you would have us believe."
+
+"No, perhaps you think that just before the anchor is heaved, and the
+ship about to start on a long voyage, the cabin boys are asked whether
+they have the colic--that lubbers, who wish to back out have only to
+say the word, and they are free--that the pilot may go a-hunting if he
+likes, and that the officers may stay on shore and amuse themselves in
+defiance of the rules of the service? In that case the navy would be
+rather jolly, but not much worth."
+
+When Willis was once fairly started there was no stopping him.
+
+"Dead," he continued; "that is to say, without a berth, pay, or even a
+name, nothing! My wife will have the right to marry again, my little
+Susan will have another father, and I shall only be able to breathe by
+stealth, and to consider that as more than I deserve. You must admit
+that all this is rather a poor look-out a-head."
+
+"Really, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "you seem to take a pride in
+making things worse than they are, conjuring up phantoms that have no
+existence."
+
+"It is true, madam. I may be going upon a wrong tack. Judging from all
+appearances, the sloop, instead of being on her way to the Cape, is
+tranquilly reposing at the bottom of the sea. But it is only death for
+death; hanged by a court-martial or drowned with the sloop, it comes,
+in the end, to the same thing."
+
+"I dare say, Willis, had there really been an accident, and you had
+been on board, you would not have felt yourself entitled to escape?"
+
+"Certainly not, madam; unless the crew could be saved, it would look
+anything but well for the pilot to escape alone."
+
+Willis, however, to do him justice, seemed trying to smother his
+grief; and, in the meanwhile, the two girls had been spreading a pure
+white cloth on a neighboring rock, cutting fruit plates out of the
+thick mangoe leaves, cooling the Rockhouse malaga in the brook, and
+giving to the repast an air of elegance and refinement which had the
+effect of augmenting the appetite of the company. The viands were not
+better than they had been on many similar occasions, but they were now
+more artistically displayed, and consequently more inviting.
+
+Who has not remarked, in passing through a street of dingy-looking
+houses, one of them distinguished from the others by its fresh and
+cheerful aspect, the windows garnished with a luxuriant screen of
+flowers, with curtains on either side of snowy whiteness and elaborate
+workmanship? Very likely the passer-by has asked himself, Why is this
+house not as neglected, tattered, and dirty as its wretched neighbors?
+The answer is simple; there dwells in this house a young girl, blithe,
+frolicsome, and joyous, singing with the lark, and, like a butterfly,
+floating from her book to her work-box--from her mother's cheek to her
+father's, leaving an impress of her youthfulness and purity on
+whatever she touches.
+
+For a like reason the _al fresco_ dinner of this day had a charm that
+no such feast had been observed to possess before.
+
+"We are not presentable," said Fritz, referring to his seal-gut
+uniform.
+
+"Ah," replied Mrs. Wolston, "it is your costume of war, brave knights;
+and, for my part, I admire you more in it than in the livery of Hyde
+Park or Bond Street."
+
+"In that case," said Ernest, "we shall do as they do in China."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Well, the most profound remark of respect a host can pay to his
+guests, is to go and dress after dinner."
+
+"Just when they are about to leave?"
+
+"Exactly so, madam."
+
+"That is very decidedly a Chinese observance. Are they not somewhat
+behind in cookery?"
+
+"By no means, madam; on the contrary, they have attained a very high
+degree of perfection in that branch of the arts. It is customary, at
+every ceremonious dinner, to serve up fifty-two distinct dishes. And
+when that course is cleared off, what do you think is produced next?"
+
+"The dessert, I suppose."
+
+"Eight kinds of soup, never either one more or one less. If the number
+were deficient, the guests would consider themselves grossly insulted,
+the number of dishes denoting the degree of respect entertained by the
+host for his guests."
+
+"I beg, Mrs. Wolston," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "that you will not
+estimate our esteem for you by the dinner we offer you."
+
+"Well," replied Mrs. Wolston in the same tone, "let me see; to be
+treated as we ought to be, there are fifty-seven dishes wanting,
+therefore we must go and dine at home. John, call my carriage."
+
+At this sally they all laughed heartily, and even Willis chimed in
+with the general hilarity.
+
+"Then, after the soups," continued Ernest, "comes the tea, and with
+that the dessert, as also sixty square pieces of silver paper to wipe
+the mouth. It is then that the host vanishes, to reappear in a
+brilliant robe of gold brocade and a vest of satin."
+
+"These people ought all to perish of indigestion."
+
+"No; they are moderate eaters, their dishes consist of small saucers,
+each containing only a few mouthfuls of meat, and, as for Europeans,
+the want of forks and spoons--"
+
+"What! have they no forks?"
+
+"Not at table--nor knives either; but, on the other hand, they are
+exceedingly expert in the use of two slender sticks of ivory, which
+they hold in the first three fingers of the right hand, and with which
+they manage to convey solids, and even liquids, to their mouths."
+
+"Ah! I see," said Jack; "the Europeans would be obliged, like Mrs.
+Wolston, to call their carriage, in spite of the fifty-two saucers of
+meat: it puts me in mind of the stork inviting the fox to dine with
+her out of a long-necked jar."
+
+"We are apt to judge the Chinese by the pictures seen of them on their
+own porcelain, and copied upon our pottery," said Becker; "but this
+conveys only a ludicrous idea of them. They are the most industrious,
+but at the same time the vainest, most stupid, and most credulous
+people in the world; they worship the moon, fire, fortune, and a
+thousand other things; people go about amongst them selling wind,
+which they dispose of in vials of various sizes."
+
+"That is a trade that will not require an extraordinary amount of
+capital."
+
+"True; and besides, as they carry on their trade in the open air, they
+have no rent to pay."
+
+"Their bonzes or priests," continued Becker, "to excite charity,
+perambulate the streets in chains, sometimes with some inflammable
+matter burning on their heads, whilst, instead of attempting to purify
+the souls of dying sinners, they put rice and gold in their mouths
+when the vital spark has fled. They have a very cruel mode of
+punishing renegade Lamas: these are pierced through the neck with a
+red-hot iron."
+
+"What is a Lama, father?"
+
+"It is a designation of the Tartar priests."
+
+For some time Willis had been closely examining a particular point in
+the bay with increasing anxiety; at last he ran towards the shore and
+leapt into the sea. Becker and his four sons were on the point of
+starting off in pursuit of him.
+
+"Stop," said Wolston, "I have been watching Willis's movements for the
+last ten minutes, and I guess his purpose--let him alone."
+
+Willis swam to some object that was floating on the water, and
+returned in about a quarter of an hour, bringing with him a plank.
+
+"Well," he inquired, on landing, "was I wrong?"
+
+"Wrong about what?" inquired Wolston.
+
+"The _Nelson_ is gone."
+
+"The proof, Willis."
+
+"That plank."
+
+"Well, what about the plank?"
+
+"I recognise it."
+
+"How, Willis?"
+
+"How! Well," replied the obstinate pilot, "fish don't breed planks,
+and--and--I scarcely think this one could escape from a dockyard, and
+float here of its own accord."
+
+"Then, Willis, according to you, there are no ships but the _Nelson_,
+no ships wrecked but the _Nelson_, and no planks but the _Nelson's_.
+Willis, you are a fool."
+
+"Every one has his own ideas, Mr. Wolston."
+
+Towards evening, when they were on their way back to Rockhouse, Sophia
+confidentially called Willis aside, and he cheerfully obeyed the
+summons.
+
+"Pilot," said she, "I have made up my mind about one thing."
+
+"And what is that, Miss Sophia?"
+
+"Why, this--in future, when we are alone, as just now, you must call
+me Susan, as you used to call your own little girl when at home, not
+Miss Susan."
+
+"Oh, I cannot do that, Miss Sophia."
+
+"But I insist upon it."
+
+"Well, Miss Sophia, I will try."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Miss Sus--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Susan, I mean."
+
+"There now, that will do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ALLOTMENT OF QUARTERS--A HORSE MARINE--TRAVELLING PLANTS--CHANGE OF
+DYNASTY IN ENGLAND--A WOMAN'S KINGDOM--SHEEP CONVERTED INTO
+CHOPS--RESURRECTION OF THE FRIED FISH--A SECRET.
+
+
+After some days more of anxious but fruitless expectation, it was
+finally concluded that either the _Nelson_ had sailed for the Cape,
+or, as Willis would have it, she had gone to that unexplored and dread
+land where there were neither poles nor equator, and whence no mariner
+was ever known to return. It was necessary, therefore, to make
+arrangements for the surplus population of the colony--whether for a
+time or for ever, it was then impossible to say. At first sight, it
+might appear easy enough to provide accommodation for the eleven
+individuals that constituted the colony of New Switzerland. It is true
+that land might have been marked off, and each person made sovereign
+over a territory as large as some European kingdoms; but these
+sovereignties would have resembled the republic of St. Martin--there
+would have been no subjects. What, then, would they have governed? it
+may be asked. Themselves, might be answered; and it is said to be a
+far more difficult task to govern ourselves than to rule others.
+
+Though space was ample enough as regards the colony in general, it was
+somewhat limited as regards detail. To live _pêle-mêle_ in Rockhouse
+was entirely out of the question. Independently of accommodation, a
+thousand reasons of propriety opposed such an arrangement. Whether or
+not there might be another cave in the neighborhood, hollowed out by
+Nature, was not known; if there were, it had still to be discovered.
+Chance would not be chance, if it were undeviating and certain in its
+operations. To consign the Wolstons to Falcon's Nest or Prospect
+Hill, and leave them there alone, even though under the protection of
+Willis, could not be thought of; they knew nothing of the dangers that
+would surround them, and as yet they were ignorant of the topography
+of the island. It was, therefore, requisite that both families should
+continue in proximity, so as to aid each other in moments of peril,
+but without, at the same time, outraging propriety, or shackling
+individual freedom of action. Under ordinary circumstances, these
+difficulties might have been solved by taking apartments on the
+opposite side of the street, or renting a house next door. But, alas!
+the blessings of landlords and poor-rates had not yet been bestowed on
+the island.
+
+One day after dinner, when these points were under consideration,
+Willis, who was accustomed to disappear after each meal, no one knew
+why or whereto, came and took his place amongst them under the
+gallery.
+
+"As for myself," said the Pilot, "I do not wish to live anywhere.
+Since I am in your house, Mr. Becker, and cannot get away honestly for
+a quarter of an hour, I must of course remain; but as for becoming a
+mere dependant on your bounty, that I will not suffer."
+
+"What you say there is not very complimentary to me," said Mr.
+Wolston.
+
+"Your position, Mr. Wolston, is a very different thing: besides, you
+are an invalid and require attention, whilst I am strong and healthy,
+for which I ought to be thankful."
+
+"You are not in my house," replied Becker "any more than I am in
+yours; the place we are in is a shelter provided by Providence for us
+all, and I venture to suppose that such a host is rich enough to
+supply all our wants. I am only the humble instrument distributing the
+gifts that have been so lavishly bestowed on this island."
+
+"What you say is very kind and very generous," added Willis, "but I
+mean to provide for myself--that is my idea."
+
+"And not a bad one either," continued Becker; "but how? You are
+welcome here to do the work for four--if you like; and then, supposing
+you eat for two, I will be your debtor, not you mine."
+
+"Work! and at what? walking about with a rifle on my shoulder; airing
+myself, as I am doing now under your gallery, in the midst of flowers,
+on the banks of a river: or opening my mouth for quails to jump down
+my throat ready roasted--would you call that work?"
+
+"Look there, Willis--what do you see?"
+
+"A bear-skin."
+
+"Well, suppose, by way of a beginning, I were to introduce you to a
+fine live bear, with claws and tusks to match, ready to spring on you,
+having as much right to your skin as you have to his--now, were I to
+say to you, I want that animal's skin, to make a soft couch similar to
+the one you see yonder, would you call that work?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Very good, then; it is in the midst of such labors that we pass our
+lives. Before we fell comfortably asleep on feather beds, those
+formidable bones which you see in our museum were flying in the air;
+the cup which I now hold in my hand was a portion of the clay on which
+you sit; the canoe with which you ran away the other day was a live
+seal; the hats that we wear, were running about the fields in the form
+of angola rabbits. So with everything you see about you; for fifteen
+years, excepting the Sabbath, which is our day of rest and recreation
+as well as prayer, we have never relapsed from labor, and you are at
+liberty to adopt a similar course, if you feel so disposed."
+
+"No want of variety," said Jack; "if you do not like the saw-pit, you
+can have the tannery."
+
+"Neither are very much in my line," replied Willis.
+
+"What then do you say to pottery?"
+
+"I have broken a good deal in my day."
+
+"Yes, but there is a difference between breaking it and making it."
+
+"What appears most needful," remarked Fritz, "is, three or four acres
+of fresh land, to double our agricultural produce."
+
+"Is land dear in these parts?" inquired Mrs. Wolston, smiling.
+
+"It is not to be had for nothing, madam; there is the trouble of
+selecting it."
+
+"And the labor of rendering it productive," added Ernest.
+
+"But how do you manage for a lawyer to convey it?"
+
+"I was advising Ernest to adopt that profession," said Mrs. Becker;
+"wills and contracts would be in harmony with his studious
+temperament."
+
+"At present, the question before us," said Becker, "is the allotment
+of quarters; in the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, with the young
+ladies, will continue to occupy our room."
+
+"No, no," said Wolston "that would be downright expropriation."
+
+"In that case the matter comes within the sphere of our lawyer, and I
+therefore request his advice."
+
+To this Ernest replied, by slowly examining his pockets; after this
+operation was deliberately performed, he said, in a _nisi prius_ tone,
+"That he had forgotten his spectacles, and consequently that it was
+impossible for him to look into the case in the way its importance
+demanded, otherwise he was quite of the same opinion as his learned
+brother--his father, he meant."
+
+"And what if we refuse?" said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"If you refuse, Mrs. Wolston, there is only one other course to
+adopt."
+
+"And what is that, Master Frank?"
+
+"Why, simply this," and rising, he cried out lustily, "John, call Mrs.
+Wolston's carriage."
+
+"Ah, to such an argument as that, there can be no reply; so I see you
+must be permitted to do what you like with us."
+
+"Very good," continued Becker; "then there is one point decided: my
+wife and I will occupy the children's apartment."
+
+"And the children," said Jack, "will occupy the open air. For my own
+part, I have no objection: that is a bedroom exactly to my taste."
+
+"Spacious," remarked Ernest.
+
+"Well-aired," suggested Fritz.
+
+"Hangings of blue, inlaid with stars of gold," observed Frank.
+
+"Any thing else?" inquired Becker.
+
+"No, father, I believe the extent of accommodation does not go beyond
+that."
+
+"Therefore I have decided upon something less vast, but more
+comfortable for you; you will go every night to our _villa_ of
+Falcon's Nest."
+
+"On foot?"
+
+"On horseback, if you like and under the direction of Willis, whom I
+name commander-in-chief of the cavalry."
+
+"Of the cavalry!" cried the sailor; "what! a pilot on horseback?"
+
+"Do not be uneasy, Willis," replied Jack, "we have no horses."
+
+"Ah, well, that alters the case."
+
+"But then we have zebras and ostriches."
+
+"Ostriches! worse and worse."
+
+"Say not so, good Willis; when once you have tried Lightfoot or
+Flyaway, you would never wish to travel otherwise: they run so fast
+that the wind is fairly distanced, and scarcely give us time to
+breathe--it is delightful."
+
+"Thank you, but I would rather try and get the canoe to travel on
+land."
+
+"Ah, Willis," said Fritz, "that would be an achievement that would do
+you infinite credit--if you only succeed."
+
+"Will you allow me to make a request, Mrs. Becker?"
+
+"Listen to Willis," said Jack, "he has an idea."
+
+"The request I have to urge is, that you will permit me to encamp on
+Shark's Island, and there establish a lighthouse for the guidance of
+the _Nelson_, in case she should return."
+
+"What! the commander-in-chief of cavalry on an island?"
+
+"No, not of the cavalry, but of the fleet; it is only necessary for
+Mr. Becker to change my position into that of an admiral, which will
+not give him much extra trouble."
+
+"I shall do so with pleasure, Willis."
+
+"In that case, since I am an admiral, the first thing I shall do, is
+to pardon myself for the faults I committed whilst I was a pilot."
+
+"Capital!" said Ernest, "that puts me in mind of Louis XII., who, on
+ascending the throne, said that it was not for the King of France to
+revenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans."
+
+"What, then, is to become of the boys? I intended to make you their
+compass--on land, of course."
+
+"The boys," cried the latter, "are willing to enlist as seamen, and
+accompany the admiral on his cruise."
+
+"You will spin yarns for us, Willis, will you not?"
+
+"Well, my lads, if you want a sleeping dose, I will undertake to do
+that."
+
+"But there are objections to this arrangement," Mrs. Becker hastily
+added.
+
+"What are they, mother?"
+
+"In the first place, a storm might arise some fine night--one of those
+dreadful hurricanes that continue several days, like the one that
+terrified us so much lately--and then all communication would be cut
+off between us."
+
+"You could always see one another."
+
+"How so, Willis?"
+
+"From a distance--with the telescope."
+
+"Then," continued Mrs. Becker, "you would be a prey to famine, for
+though the telescope, good Master Willis, might enable you to see our
+dinner--from a distance--I doubt whether that would prevent you dying
+of starvation."
+
+"We might easily guard against that, by taking over a sufficient
+quantity of provisions with us every night, and bringing them back
+next morning."
+
+"But could you carry over my kisses, Willis, and distribute them
+amongst my children every morning and evening, like rations of rice?"
+
+"If the arrangement will really make you uneasy, Mrs. Becker, I give
+it up," said Willis, polishing with his arm the surface of his
+oil-skin sou'-wester.
+
+"Not at all, Willis. It is for me to give up my objections. Besides, I
+observe Miss Sophia staring at me with her great eyes; she will never
+forgive me for tormenting her sweetheart."
+
+"Ah! since I have been staring at you, I have only now to eat you up
+like the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood," and in a moment her slender
+arms were clasped round Mrs. Becker's neck.
+
+"Good," said Becker, "there is another point settled--temporarily."
+
+"In Europe," observed Wolston, "there is nothing so durable as the
+temporary."
+
+"In Europe, yes, but not here. To-morrow morning we shall select a
+tree near Falcon's Nest, and in eight days you shall be permanently
+housed in an aerial tenement close to ours, so that we may chat to
+each other from our respective balconies."
+
+"That will be a castle in the air a little more real than those I have
+built in Spain."
+
+"Then you have been in Spain, papa?"
+
+"Every one has been less or more in the Spain I refer to. Sophy--it is
+the land of dreams."
+
+"And of castanets," remarked Jack.
+
+"Then my sweetheart will be alone on his island, like an exile?"
+
+"No, Miss Sophia, we are incapable of such ingratitude. After enjoying
+the hospitality of Willis in Shark's Island, he will surely deign to
+accept ours at Falcon's Nest; so, whether here or there, he shall
+always have four devoted followers to keep him company."
+
+The Pilot shook Fritz by the hand, at the same time nearly dislocating
+his arm.
+
+"I wonder why God, who is so good, has not made houses grow of
+themselves, like pumpkins and melons?" said Ernest.
+
+"Rather a lazy idea that," said his father; "our great Parent has
+clearly designed that we should do something for ourselves; he has
+given us the acorn whence we may obtain the oak."
+
+"Nevertheless, there are uninhabited countries which are gorged with
+vegetation--the territory we are in, for example."
+
+"True; but still no plant has ever sprung up anywhere without a seed
+has been planted, either by the will of God or by the hands of man.
+With regard, however, to the distribution of vegetation in a natural
+state, that depends more upon the soil and climate than anything else;
+wherever there is a fertile soil and moist air, there seeds will find
+their way."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"The seeds of a great many plants are furnished with downy filaments,
+which act as wings; these are taken up by the wind and carried immense
+distances; others are inclosed in an elastic shell, from which, when
+ripe, they are ejected with considerable force."
+
+"The propagation of plants that have wings or elastic shells may, in
+that way, be accounted for; but there are some seeds that fall, by
+their own weight, exactly at the foot of the vegetable kingdom that
+produces them."
+
+"It is often these that make the longest voyages."
+
+"By what conveyance, then?"
+
+"Well, my son, for a philosopher, I cannot say that your knowledge is
+very profound; seeds that have no wings borrow them."
+
+"Not from the ant, I presume?"
+
+"No, not exactly; but from the quail, the woodcock, the swallow, and a
+thousand others, that are apparently more generous than the poor ant,
+to which Æsop has given a reputation for avarice that it will have
+some trouble to shake off. The birds swallow the seeds, many of which
+are covered with a hard, horny skin, that often resists digestion;
+these are carried by the inhabitants of the air across rivers, seas,
+and lakes, and are deposited by them in the neighborhood of their
+nests--it may be on the top of a mountain, or in the crevice of a
+rock."
+
+"True, I never thought of that."
+
+"There are a great many philosophers who know more about the motions
+of stars than these humbler operations of Nature."
+
+"You are caught there," said Jack.
+
+"There are philosophers, too, who can do nothing but ridicule the
+knowledge of others."
+
+"Caught you there," retaliated Ernest.
+
+"It was in this way that a bird of the Moluccas has restored the clove
+tree to the islands of this archipelago, in spite of the Dutch, who
+destroyed them everywhere, in order that they might enjoy the monopoly
+of the trade."
+
+"Still, I must fall back upon my original idea; by sowing a brick, we
+ought to reap a wall."
+
+"And if a wall, a house," suggested another of the young men.
+
+"Or if a turret, a castle," proposed a third.
+
+"Or a hall to produce a palace," remarked the fourth.
+
+"There are four wishes worthy of the four heads that produced them!
+What do you think of those four great boys, Mrs. Wolston?"
+
+"Well, madam, as they are wishing, at any rate they may as well wish
+that chinchillas and marmots wore their fur in the form of boas and
+muffs, that turkeys produced perigord pies, and that the fish were
+drawn out of the sea ready roasted or boiled."
+
+"Or that the sheep walked about in the form of nicely grilled chops,"
+suggested Becker.
+
+"And you, young ladies, what would you wish?"
+
+Mary, who was now beyond the age of dolls, and was fast approaching
+the period of young womanhood, felt that it was a duty incumbent upon
+her to be more reserved than her sister, and rarely took part in the
+conversation, unless she was directly addressed, ceased plying her
+needle, and replied, smiling,
+
+"I wish I could make some potent elixir in the same way as gooseberry
+wine, that would restore sick people to health, then I would give a
+few drops to my father, and make him strong and well, as he used to
+be."
+
+"Thank you for the intention, my dear child."
+
+"And you, Miss Sophia? It is your turn."
+
+"I wish that all the little children were collected together, and that
+every papa and mamma could pick out their own from amongst them."
+
+Here Willis took out his pocket-handkerchief and appeared to be
+blowing his nose, it being an idea of his that a sailor ought not to
+be caught with a tear in his eye.
+
+"Now then, Willis, we must have a wish from you."
+
+"I wish three things: that there had not been a hurricane lately, that
+canoes could be converted into three masters, and that Miss Sophia may
+be Queen of England."
+
+"Granted," cried Jack.
+
+And laying hold of a wreath of violets that the young girl had been
+braiding, he solemnly placed it on her head.
+
+"You will make her too vain," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Ah mamma, do not scold," and gracefully taking the crown from her own
+fair curls, she placed it on the silvery locks of her mother; "I
+abdicate in your favor, and, sweetheart, I thank you for placing our
+dynasty on the throne. Mary, you are a princess."
+
+"Yes," she replied, "and here is my sceptre," holding up her spindle.
+
+"Well answered, my daughter, that is a woman's best sceptre, and her
+kingdom is her house."
+
+"Our conversation," said Becker, "is like those small threads of water
+which, flowing humbly from the hollow of a rock, swell into brooks,
+then become rivers, and, finally, lose themselves in the ocean."
+
+"It was Ernest that led us on."
+
+"Well, it is time now to get back to your starting-point again. God
+has said that we shall earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, and
+consequently that our enjoyments should be the result of our own
+industry; that is the reason that venison is given to us in the form
+of the swift stag, and palaces in the form of clay; man is endowed
+with reason, and may, by labor, convert all these blessings to his
+use."
+
+"Your notion," said Mr. Wolston, "of drawing the fish out of the sea
+ready cooked, puts me in mind of an incident of college life which,
+with your permission, I will relate."
+
+"Oh yes, papa, a story!"
+
+"There was at Cambridge, when I was there, a young man, who, instead
+of study and sleep, spent his days and nights in pistol practice and
+playing on the French horn, much to the annoyance of an elderly maiden
+lady, who occupied the apartments that were immediately under his
+own."
+
+"These are inconveniences that need not be dreaded here."
+
+"Our police are too strict."
+
+"And our young men too well-bred," added Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Not only that," continued Mr. Wolston, "this young student, who never
+thought of study, had a huge, shaggy Newfoundland dog, and the old
+lady possessed a chubby little pug, which she was intensely fond of;
+now, when these two brutes happened to meet on the stairs, the large
+one, by some accident or other, invariably sent the little one rolling
+head over heels to the bottom; and, much to the horror of the old
+lady, her favorite, that commenced its journey down stairs with four
+legs, had sometimes to make its way up again with three."
+
+"I always understood that dogs were generous animals, and would not
+take advantage of an animal weaker than themselves; our dogs would not
+have acted so."
+
+"Well, perhaps the dog was not quite so much to blame in these affairs
+as its master; besides, in making advances to its little friend, it
+might not have calculated its own force."
+
+"Yes, and perhaps might have been sorry afterwards for the mischief it
+had done."
+
+"Very likely; still the point was never clearly explained, and,
+whether or no, the elderly lady could not put up with this sort of
+thing any longer; she complained so often and so vigorously, that her
+troublesome neighbor was served in due form with a notice to quit. The
+young scapegrace was determined to be revenged in some way on the
+party who was the cause of his being so summarily ejected from his
+quarters. Now, right under his window there was a globe belonging to
+the old lady, well filled with good-sized gold fish. His eye by chance
+having fallen upon this, and spying at the same time his fishing-rod
+in a corner, the coincidence of vision was fatal to the gold-fish;
+they were very soon hooked up, rolled in flour, fried, and gently let
+down again one by one into the globe."
+
+"I should like to have seen the old lady when she first became aware
+of this transformation!"
+
+"Well, one of the fish had escaped, and was floating about, evidently
+lamenting the fate of its finny companions."
+
+"It was very cruel," observed Mary.
+
+"Elderly ladies who have no family and live alone are very apt to
+bestow upon animals the love and affection that is inherent in us
+all."
+
+"Which is very much to be deprecated."
+
+"Why so, Master Frank?"
+
+"Are there not always plenty of poor and helpless human beings upon
+whom to bestow their love? are there not orphans and homeless
+creatures whom they might adopt?"
+
+"There are; but it requires wealth for such benevolences, and the
+goddess Fortune is very capricious; whilst one must be very poor
+indeed that cannot spare a few crumbs of bread once a day. Besides,
+admitting that this mania is blamable when carried to excess, still it
+must be respected, for it behoves us to reverence age even in its
+foibles."
+
+Frank, whose nature was so very susceptible, that a single grain of
+good seed soon ripened into a complete virtue, bent his head in token
+of acquiescence.
+
+"Now the old lady loved these gold-fish as the apples of her eyes, and
+her astonishment and grief, in beholding the state they were in, was
+indescribable."
+
+"And yet it was a loss that might have been easily repaired."
+
+"Ah, you think so, Jack, do you? If you were to lose Knips, would the
+first monkey that came in your way replace him in your affections?"
+
+"That is a very different thing--I brought Knips up."
+
+"No; it is precisely the same thing. She had the fish when they were
+very small, had seen them grow, spoke to them, gave each of them a
+name, and believed them to be endowed with a supernatural
+intelligence."
+
+"Therefore, I contend the student was a savage."
+
+"Not he, my friend, he was one of the best-hearted fellows in the
+world: hasty, ardent, inconsiderate, he resisted commands and threats,
+but yielded readily to a tear or a prayer. As soon as he saw the
+sorrowful look of the old woman, he regretted what he had done, and
+undertook to restore the inhabitants of the globe to life."
+
+"With what sort of magic wand did he propose to do that?"
+
+"All the inhabitants of the house had collected round the old lady and
+her globe, endeavoring to console her, and at the same time trying to
+account for the phenomenon; some ascribed the transformation to
+lightning, others went so far as to suggest witchcraft. Our scapegrace
+now joined the throng, took the globe in his hands, gravely examined
+his victims, and declared, with the utmost coolness that they were not
+dead. 'Not dead, sir! are you sure?' 'Confident, madam; it is only a
+lethargy, a kind of coma or temporary transformation, that will be
+gradually shaken off; I have seen many cases of the same kind, and, if
+proper care be taken as to air, repose, and diet, particularly as
+regards the latter, your fish will be quite well again to-morrow.'"
+
+"Did she believe that?"
+
+"One readily believes what one wishes to be true; besides, in
+twenty-four hours, all doubt on the subject would be at an end; added
+to which, the young man was ostensibly a student of medicine, and had
+the credit in the house of having cured the washerwoman's canary of a
+sore throat."
+
+"Well, how did he manage about the fish?"
+
+"Very simply; he went and bought some exactly the same size that were
+not in a lethargy; he then, at the risk of breaking his neck or being
+taken for a burglar, scaled the balcony, and substituted them for the
+defunct. Next morning, when he called to inquire after his patients,
+he found the old lady quite joyful."
+
+"Had she no doubts as to their identity?"
+
+"Well, one was a little paler and another was a trifle thinner, but
+she was easily persuaded that this difference might arise from their
+convalescence. The young man immediately became a great favorite; and
+the old lady would rather have shared her own apartments with him,
+than allow him to quit the house; he consequently remained."
+
+"What, then, became of the pistols and the French horn?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"From that time on there sprung up a close friendship between the two;
+he was induced by her to convert his weapons of war into
+pharmacopoeas. Always, when she made some nice compound of jelly and
+cream, he had a share of it; he, on his side, scarcely ever passed her
+door without softening his tread; and both himself and his dog
+managed, eventually, to acquire the favor of the old lady's pug."
+
+"He appears to have been one of those medical gentlemen WHO profess to
+cure every conceivable disease by one kind of medicine."
+
+"And who generally contrive to remove both the disease and the patient
+at the same time."
+
+"You mistake the individual altogether; he is now one of the most
+esteemed physicians in London, remarkable alike for his skill and
+benevolence. It is even strongly suspected by his friends that he is
+not a little indebted for his present eminent position to his first
+patients--the canary and the gold-fish."
+
+It was now the usual hour for retiring to rest. After the evening
+prayer, which Mary and Sophia said alternately aloud, Willis and the
+four brothers prepared to start for Shark's Island, to pass their
+first night in the store-room and cattle-shed that had been erected
+there. Of course they could not expect to be so comfortable in such
+quarters as at Rockhouse or Falcon's Nest; but then novelty is to
+young people what ease is to the aged. Black bread appears delicious
+to those who habitually eat white; and we ourselves have seen
+high-bred ladies delighted when they found themselves compelled to
+dine in a wretched hovel of the Tyrol--true, they were certain of a
+luxurious supper at Inspruck. So grief breaks the monotony of joy,
+just as a rock gives repose to level plain.
+
+Whilst the pinnace was gradually leaving the shore, loaded with
+mattresses and other movables adapted for a temporary encampment,
+Jack signalled a parting adieu to Sophia, and, putting his fingers to
+his lips, seemed to enjoin silence.
+
+"All right, Master Jack," cried she.
+
+"What is all this signalling about?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"A secret," said the young girl, leaping with joy; "I have a secret!"
+
+"And with a young man? that is very naughty, miss."
+
+"Oh, mamma, you will know it to-morrow."
+
+"What if I wanted to know it to-night?"
+
+"Then, mamma, if you insisted--that is--absolutely--"
+
+"No, no, child, I shall wait till to-morrow; keep it till then--if you
+can."
+
+"Sophia dear," said Mary to her sister, when their two heads,
+enveloped in snowy caps with an embroidered fringe, were reclining
+together on the same pillow, "you know I have always shared my
+_bon-bons_ with you."
+
+"Yes, sister."
+
+"In that case, make me a partner in your secret."
+
+"Will you promise not to speak of it?"
+
+"Yes, I promise."
+
+"To no one?"
+
+"To no one."
+
+"Not even to the paroquette Fritz gave you?"
+
+"No, not even to my paroquette."
+
+"Well, it is very likely I shall speak about it in my dreams--you
+listen and find it out."
+
+"Slyboots!"
+
+"Curiosity!"
+
+Like those delicate flowers that shrink when they are touched, each
+then turned to her own side; but it would have cost both too much not
+to have fallen asleep as usual, with their arms round each other's
+necks;--consequently this tiff soon blew over, and, after a prolonged
+chat, their lips finally joined in the concluding "Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE QUEEN'S DOLL--ROCKHOUSE TO FALCON'S NEST--THE
+WIND--GLASSES--ADMIRAL HOMER--THE THREE FROGS--OAT JELLY--ESQUIMAUX
+ASTRONOMY--AN UNKNOWN.
+
+
+Next morning, Sophia came running in with a sealed letter in her hand,
+which she opened and read as follows:--
+
+    "HEAD QUARTERS, SAFETY BAY, DAYBREAK.
+
+    "The Admiral commanding the Fleet stationed in Safety Bay to her
+    Most gracious Majesty Sophia, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
+
+    "May it please your Majesty,
+
+    "The crews of your Majesty's yachts, the _Elizabeth_ and the
+    _Morse_, are quite entire and in perfect health. The enemy having
+    kept at a respectful distance, we have not had as yet an
+    opportunity of proving our courage and devotion. Mr. Midshipman
+    Jack fell asleep on the carriage of a four-pounder, like Marshal
+    Turenne before his first battle; but, in all other respects, the
+    conduct of the officers has been most exemplary, and merits the
+    utmost commendation.
+
+    "It is the admiral's intention to push out a reconnaissance
+    towards the east, in the direction of Pearl Bay, which he has not
+    yet explored. If, however, your Majesty should regard this
+    expedition as likely to interfere with the good understanding that
+    subsists between that government and your own, it will be only
+    necessary to fire a gun, in which case we shall return to port.
+    Under other circumstances, the squadron will proceed with the
+    enterprise, and endeavor to obtain a collar for your Majesty's
+    doll."
+
+"For my doll!" exclaimed Sophia angrily; "when did Jack find out that
+I had a doll?"
+
+"Is that, then, your secret?" inquired her mother.
+
+"Yes, mamma, Master Jack took a pigeon with him for the express
+purpose of playing me this trick."
+
+"And what is worse, included yourself in the conspiracy. Dreadful!"
+
+"Is it not--to speak of a young person of thirteen's doll?"
+
+"Say nearer fourteen, my dear."
+
+"Therefore, to punish your confederates, I shall fire a gun, and put a
+stop to their excursion," said Becker, turning to one of the
+six-pounders that flanked Rockhouse in the direction of the river.
+
+"Clemency being one of the dearest rights of the royal prerogative,"
+replied Sophia, "I shall pardon them, and I pray you not; to throw any
+obstacle in the way of their expedition."
+
+"Very good, your Majesty; but there are state reasons which should be
+allowed to overrule the impulses of your heart; those gentlemen have
+forgotten that we were to go and lay the first stone, or rather to
+cut, to-day, the first branch of your aerial residence at Falcon's
+Nest."
+
+Admiral Willis and his officers having obeyed the preconcerted signal,
+the whole party started on their land enterprise. One of the young men
+was harnessed to a sledge, containing saws, hatchets, a bamboo ladder
+that had formerly done duty as a staircase to the Nest, and everything
+else requisite for the contemplated project.
+
+Jack had already started when Sophia called him back, and he hastily
+obeyed the summons.
+
+"What are your Majesty's commands?"
+
+"Oh, nothing particular, only should you meet my doll in company with
+your go-cart, be pleased to pay my respects to them." Saying this, she
+made a low curtsy, and turned her back upon him.
+
+"Your Majesty's behests shall be obeyed," said Jack, and he ran off to
+rejoin the caravan.
+
+The sad ravages of the tempest presented themselves as they proceeded;
+tall chestnuts lay stretched on the ground, and seemed, by their
+appearance, to have struggled hard with the storm.
+
+"After all," inquired Frank, "what is the wind?"
+
+"Wind is nothing more than air rushing in masses from one point to
+another."
+
+"And what causes this commotion in the elements?"
+
+"The equilibrium of the atmosphere is disturbed by a variety of
+actions;--the diurnal motion of the sun, whose rays penetrate the air
+at various points; absorption and radiation, which varies according to
+the nature of the soil and the hour of the day; the inequality of the
+solar heat, according to seasons and latitude; the formation and
+condensation of vapor, that absorbs caloric in its formation, and
+disengages it when being resolved into liquid."
+
+"I never thought," remarked Willis, "that there were so many mysteries
+in a sou'-easter. Does it blow? is it on the starboard or larboard?
+was all, in fact, that I cared about knowing."
+
+"In a word, the various circumstances that change the actual density
+of the air, making it more rarefied at one point than another, produce
+currents, the force and direction of which depend upon the relative
+position of hot and cold atmospheric beds. Again, the winds acquire
+the temperature and characteristics of the regions they traverse."
+
+"That," observed Frank, "is like human beings; you may generally
+judge, by the language and manners of a man, the places that he is
+accustomed to frequent."
+
+"There are hot and cold winds, wet and dry; then there are the trade
+winds."
+
+"Ah, yes," cried Willis, "these are the winds to talk of, especially
+when sailing with them--that is, from east to west; but when your
+course is different, they are rather awkward affairs to get ahead of.
+The way to catch them is to sail from Peru to the Philippines."
+
+"Or from Mexico to China."
+
+"Yes, either will do; then there is no necessity for tacking, you have
+only to rig your sails and smoke your pipe, or go to sleep; you may,
+in that way, run four thousand leagues in three months."
+
+"Stiff sailing that, Willis."
+
+"Yes, Master Ernest, but it does not come up to your yarn about the
+stars, you recollect, ever so many millions of miles in a second!"
+
+"The trade winds, I was going to observe," continued Becker, "that
+blow from the west coast of Africa, carry with them a stifling heat."
+
+"That might be expected," remarked Frank, "since they pass over the
+hot sands of the desert."
+
+"Well, can you tell me why the same wind is cooler on the east coast
+of America?"
+
+"Because it has been refreshed on crossing the ocean that separates
+the two continents?"
+
+"By taking a glass of grog on the way," suggested Willis.
+
+"Yes; and so in Europe the north wind is cold because it carries, or
+rather consists of, air from the polar regions; and the same effect is
+produced by the south wind in the other hemisphere."
+
+"It is for a like reason," suggested Ernest, "that the south wind in
+Europe, and particularly the south-west wind, is humid, and generally
+brings rain, because it is charged with vapor from the Atlantic
+Ocean."
+
+"How is it, father, that the almanac makers can predict changes in the
+weather?"
+
+"The almanac makers can only foresee one thing with absolute
+certainty, and that is, that there are always fools to believe what
+they say. A few meteorological phenomena may be predicted with
+tolerable accuracy; but these are few in number, and range within very
+narrow limits."
+
+"Their predictions, nevertheless, sometimes turn out correct."
+
+"Yes, when they predict by chance a hard frost on a particular day in
+January, it is just possible the prediction may be verified; out of a
+multitude of such prognostications a few may be successful, but the
+greater part of them fail. Their few successes, however, have the
+effect with weak minds of inspiring confidence, in defiance of the
+failures which they do not take the trouble to observe."
+
+"At what rate does the wind travel?"
+
+"The speed of the wind is very variable; when it is scarcely felt, the
+velocity does not exceed a foot a second; but it is far otherwise in
+the cases of hurricanes and tornados, that sweep away trees and
+houses.
+
+"And sink his Majesty's ships," observed Willis.
+
+"In those cases the wind sometimes reaches the velocity of forty-five
+yards in a second, or about forty leagues in an hour."
+
+"Therefore," remarked Jack, "the wind is a blessing that could very
+well be dispensed with."
+
+"Your conclusions, Jack, do not always do credit to your
+understanding. The wind re-establishes the equilibrium of the
+temperature, and purifies the air by dispersing in the mass
+exhalations that would be pernicious if they remained in one spot; it
+clears away miasma, it dissipates the smoke of towns, it waters some
+countries by driving clouds to them, it condenses vapor on the frozen
+summits of mountains, and converts it into rivers that cover the land
+with fruitfulness."
+
+"It likewise fills the sails of ships and creates pilots," observed
+Willis.
+
+"And brings about shipwrecks," remarked Jack.
+
+"It conveys the pollen of flowers, and, as I had occasion to state the
+other day, sows the seeds of Nature's fields and forests. It is
+likewise made available by man in some classes of manufactures--mills,
+for example."
+
+"And it causes the simoon," persisted Jack, "that lifts the sand of
+the desert and overwhelms entire caravans; how can you justify such
+ravages?"
+
+"I do not intend to plead the cause of either hurricanes or simoons;
+but I contend that, if the wind sometimes terrifies us by disasters,
+we have, on the other hand, to be grateful for the infinite good it
+does. In it, as in all other phenomena of the elements, the evils are
+rare and special, whilst the good is universal and constant."
+
+Fritz, as usual, with the dogs and his rifle charged, acted as pioneer
+for the caravan, now and then bringing down a bird, sometimes adding a
+plant to their collection, and occasionally giving them some
+information as to the state of the surrounding country.
+
+"Father," said he, "I chased this quail into our corn-field; the grain
+is lying on the ground as if it had been passed over by a roller, but
+I am happy to say that it is neither broken nor uprooted."
+
+"Now, Jack, do you see how gallantly the wind behaves, prostrating the
+strong and sparing the weak? If you had been charged with the safety
+of the grain, no doubt you would have placed it in the tops of the
+highest trees."
+
+"Very likely; and, until taught by experience, everybody else would
+have done precisely the same thing."
+
+"True; therefore in this, as in all other things, we should admire the
+wisdom of Providence, and mistrust our own."
+
+"Whoever would have thought of trusting the staff of human life to
+such slender support as stalks of straw?"
+
+"If grain had been produced by forests, these, when destroyed by war,
+burned down by imprudence, uprooted by hurricanes, or washed away by
+inundations, we should have required ages to replace."
+
+"Very true."
+
+"The fruits of trees are, besides, more liable to rot than those of
+grain; the latter have their flowers in the form of spikes, often
+bearded with prickly fibres, which not only protect them from
+marauders, but likewise serve as little roofs to shelter them from the
+rain; and besides, as Fritz has just told us, owing to the pliancy of
+their stalks, strengthened at intervals by hard knots and the
+spear-shaped form of their leaves, these plants escape the fury of the
+winds."
+
+"That," said Willis, "is like a wretched cock-boat, which often
+contrives to get out of a scrape when all the others are swamped."
+
+"Therefore," continued Becker, "their weakness is of more service to
+them than the strength of the noblest trees, and they are spread and
+multiplied by the same tempests that devastate the forests. Added to
+this, the species to which this class of plants belong--the
+grasses--are remarkably varied in their characteristics, and better
+suited than any other for universal propagation."
+
+"Which was remarked by Homer," observed Ernest "who usually
+distinguishes a country by its peculiar fruit, but speaks of the
+earth generally as _zeidoros_, or grain-bearing."
+
+"There, Willis," exclaimed Jack, "is another great admiral for you."
+
+"An admiral, Jack?"
+
+"It was he who led the combined fleets of Agamemnon, Diomedes, and
+others, to the city of Troy."
+
+"Not in our time, I suppose?"
+
+"How old are you, Willis?"
+
+"Forty-seven."
+
+"In that case it was before you entered the navy."
+
+"I know that there is a Troy in the United States, but I did not know
+it was a sea-port."
+
+"There is another in France, Willis; but the Troy I mean is, or rather
+was, in Asia Minor, capital of Lesser Phrygia, sometimes called Ilion,
+its citadel bearing the name of Pergamos."
+
+"Never heard of it," said Willis.
+
+"To return to grain," continued Becker, laughing. "Nature has rendered
+it capable of growing in all climates, from the line to the pole.
+There is a variety for the humid soils of hot countries, as the rice
+of Asia; immense quantities of which are produced in the basin of the
+Ganges. There is another variety for marshy and cold climates--as a
+kind of oat that grows wild on the banks of the North American lakes,
+and of which the natives gather abundant harvests."
+
+"God has amply provided for us all," said Frank.
+
+"Other varieties grow best in hot, dry soils, as the millet in Africa,
+and maize or Indian corn in Brazil. In Europe, wheat is cultivated
+universally, but prefers rich lands, whilst rye takes more readily to
+a sandy soil; buckwheat is most luxuriant where most exposed to rain;
+oats prefer humid soils, and barley comes to perfection on rocky,
+exposed lands, growing well on the cold, bleak plains of the north.
+And, observe, that the grasses suffice for all the wants of man."
+
+"Yes," observed Ernest, "with the straw are fed his sheep, his cows,
+his oxen, and his horses; with the seeds, he prepares his food and
+his drinks. In the north, grain is converted into excellent beer and
+ale, and spirits are extracted from it as strong as brandy."
+
+"The Chinese obtain from rice a liquor that they prefer to the finest
+wines of Spain."
+
+"That is because they have not yet tasted our Rockhouse malaga."
+
+"Then of roasted oats, perfumed with vanilla, an excellent jelly may
+be made."
+
+"Ah! we must get mamma to try that--it will delight the young ladies."
+
+"And, no doubt, you will profit by the occasion to partake thereof
+yourself, Master Jack."
+
+"Certainly; but I would not, for all that, seek to gratify my own
+appetite under pretence of paying a compliment to our friends."
+
+"I know an animal," said Willis, "that, for general usefulness, beats
+grain all to pieces."
+
+"Good! let us hear what it is, Willis."
+
+"It is the seal of the Esquimaux; they live upon its flesh, and they
+drink its blood."
+
+"I scarcely think," said Jack, "that I should often feel thirsty under
+such circumstances."
+
+"The skin furnishes them with clothes, tents, and boats."
+
+"Of which our canoe and life-preservers are a fair sample," said
+Fritz.
+
+"The fat furnishes them with fire and candle, the muscles with thread
+and rope, the gut with windows and curtains, the bones with arrow
+heads and harness; in short, with everything they require."
+
+"True, Willis, in so far as regards their degree of civilization,
+which is not very great, when we consider that they bury their sick
+whilst alive, because they are afraid of corpses; that they believe
+the sun, moon, and stars to be dead Esquimaux, who have been
+translated from earth to heaven."
+
+Whilst chatting in this way, the party had imperceptibly arrived at
+Falcon's Nest, wherein they had not set foot for a fortnight
+previously.
+
+Fritz went up first, and before the others had ascended, came running
+down again as fast as his legs would carry him.
+
+"Father," he cried, in an accent of alarm, "there is a fresh litter of
+leaves up stairs, which has been recently slept upon, and I miss a
+knife that I left the last time we were here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SEARCH FOR THE UNKNOWN--THREE FLEETS ON DRY LAND--THE
+INDISCRETIONS OF A SUGAR CANE--LARBOARD AND STARBOARD--THE SUPPOSED
+SENSIBILITY OF PLANTS--THE FLY-TRAP--VENDETTA--ROOT AND GERM--MINE AND
+COUNTERMINE--THE POLYPI--OVIPAROUS AND VIVIPAROUS--A QUID PRO QUO.
+
+
+"Have any of you been at Falcon's Nest lately?" inquired Becker, when
+he had verified the truth of Fritz's intelligence.
+
+"None of us," unanimously replied all the boys.
+
+"You will understand that the question I put to you is, under the
+circumstances in which we are placed, one of the greatest moment. If,
+therefore, there is any unseemly joking, any trick, or secret project
+in contemplation, with which this affair is connected, do not conceal
+it any longer."
+
+All the boys again reiterated their innocence of the matter in
+question.
+
+Becker then called to mind the mysterious disappearance of Willis,
+and, although they were too short in duration to admit of his having
+been at Falcon's Nest, still he deemed it advisable to put the
+question to him individually.
+
+Willis declared that the present was the first time he had been in the
+vicinity of the Nest, and his word was known to be sacred.
+
+"There can be no mistake then," said Becker; "the traces are
+self-evident. This is altogether a circumstance calculated to give us
+serious uneasiness. Nevertheless, we must view the matter calmly, and
+consider what steps we should take to unravel the mystery."
+
+"Let us instantly beat up the island," suggested Fritz.
+
+"It appears to me," remarked Willis, "that the _Nelson_ has been
+wrecked after all, and that one of the men has escaped."
+
+"That," replied Ernest, "is very unlikely. All the crew knew that the
+island was inhabited, and consequently, had any one of them been
+thrown on shore, he would have come at once to Rockhouse, and not
+stopped here."
+
+"As regards the Captain or Lieutenant Dunsley," said Willis, "who were
+on shore, and could easily find their way, what you say is quite true;
+but the men were kept on board; and if we suppose that a sailor had
+been thrown on the opposite coast, he would not be able to determine
+his position in fifteen days."
+
+"Much less could he expect to find a villa in a fig-tree."
+
+"To say nothing of the light that has been kept burning recently on
+Shark's Island, nor of the buildings with which the land is strewn,
+nor the fields and plantations that are to be met with in all
+directions. For, although a swallow alone is sufficient to convey the
+seeds of a forest from one continent to another, still it requires the
+hand of man to arrange the trees in rows and furnish them with props."
+
+"Perhaps we may have crossed each other on the way; and the stranger,
+after passing the night here, has steered, by some circuitous route,
+in the direction of Safety Bay."
+
+"May it not have been a large monkey," suggested Jack, "who has
+resolved to play us a trick for having massacred its companions at
+Waldeck?"
+
+"Monkeys," replied Ernest, "do not generally open doors, and, seeing
+no bed prepared for them, go down stairs and collect material for a
+mattress. You may just as well fancy that the monkey, in this case,
+came to pass the night at Falcon's Nest with a cigar in its mouth."
+
+"Then he must have been dreadfully annoyed to find neither slippers
+nor a night-cap."
+
+"There is, unquestionably, a wide field of supposition open for us,"
+said Becker; "but that need not prevent us taking active measures to
+arrive at the truth. Our first duty is to care for the safety of the
+ladies; Mr. Wolston is still ailing and feeble, so that, if a stranger
+were suddenly to appear amongst them, they might be terribly
+alarmed."
+
+"There are six of us here," remarked Willis, "the cream of our sea and
+land forces; we could divide ourselves into three squadrons, one of
+which might sail for Rockhouse."
+
+"Just so; let Fritz and Frank start for Rockhouse."
+
+"And what shall we say to the ladies, father?" inquired the latter;
+"it does not seem to me necessary to alarm our mother, Mrs. Wolston,
+and the young ladies, until something more certain is ascertained."
+
+"Your idea is good, my son, and I thank you for bringing it forward;
+it is one of those that arise from the heart rather than the head."
+
+"We have, only to find a pretext for their sudden return," observed
+Ernest.
+
+"Very well," said Jack, "they have only to say it is too hot to work."
+
+"Just as if it were not quite as hot for us as for them. Your excuse,
+Jack, is not particularly artistic."
+
+"Might they not as well say they had forgotten a tool or a pocket
+handkerchief?"
+
+"Or, better still, that they had forgotten to shut the door when they
+left, and came back to repair the omission."
+
+"We shall say," replied Fritz, "that, finding there were twelve strong
+arms here to do what my father accomplished fifteen years ago by
+himself--for the assistance of us boys could not then be reckoned--we
+were ashamed of ourselves, and had returned to Rockhouse to make
+ourselves useful in repairing the damage to the gallery caused by the
+tempest."
+
+"Well, that excuse has, at least, the merit of being reasonable; and
+let it be so. Fritz and Frank will return to Rockhouse; Ernest and
+myself will continue the work in hand, and receive the friend or enemy
+which God has sent us, should he return to resume his quarters; Willis
+and Jack will investigate the neighborhood."
+
+"By land or water, Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"By land, Master Jack, for this cruise. I shall abandon the helm to
+you, for I know nothing of the shoals here-abouts."
+
+"If," continued Becker, "though highly improbable, any thing important
+should have happened, or should happen at Rockhouse, you will fire a
+cannon, and we will be with you immediately. Willis and Jack will
+discharge a rifle if threatened with danger; and we shall do the same
+on our side, if we require assistance."
+
+"It is a pity," remarked Jack, "that we had not two or three
+four-pounders amongst the provisions."
+
+"I scarcely regard this matter as altogether a subject for joking,"
+continued Becker, "and sincerely hope that all our precautions may
+prove useless. Take each of you a rifle and proceed with caution;
+above all, do not go far apart from each other; do not fire without
+taking good aim, and only in case of self-defence or absolute
+necessity; for this time it does not appear to be a question of bears
+and hyenas, but, as far as we are able to judge, one of our own
+species."
+
+Two of the squadrons then hauled off in different directions,
+carefully examining the ground as they went, beating up the thickets,
+and endeavoring to obtain some further trace of the stranger, in order
+to confirm those at Falcon's Nest.
+
+The squadron of observation, in the meanwhile set diligently to work.
+A tree having been selected at about fifteen paces from that already
+existing, it was necessary, as on the former occasion, to discharge an
+arrow carrying the end of a line, and in such a way that the cord
+might fall across some of the strongest branches; this done, the
+bamboo ladder was drawn up from the opposite side and held fast until
+Ernest had ascended and fastened it with nails to the top of the tree.
+
+Ernest then commenced lopping off the branches to the right and left,
+so as to form a space in the centre for their contemplated dwelling;
+whilst Becker himself below was making an entrance into the trunk,
+taking care to avoid an accident that formerly happened, by assuring
+himself that a colony of bees had not already taken possession of the
+ground. The gigantic fig-trees at Falcon's Nest being for the most
+part hollow, and supported in a great measure by the bark--like the
+willows in Europe when they reach a certain stage of their growth--it
+was easy to erect a staircase in the interior; still this was a work
+of time, and Becker had resolved in the meantime to give up the
+habitation already constructed to Wolston and his family, at least
+until such time as an entrance was attached to the new one that did
+not require any extraordinary amount of gymnastics.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A portion of the day had been occupied in these operations, when
+Willis and Jack returned to the camp.
+
+"We have seen no one," said the Pilot.
+
+"But," said Jack, "we are on the track of Fritz's knife."
+
+"Be good enough to explain yourself."
+
+"Well, father, at the entrance to the cocoa-nut tree wood we stumbled
+upon two sugar canes completely divested of their juice."
+
+"Which proves--" said Ernest; but his remark was cut short by Jack,
+who continued--
+
+"Not a bit of it; a philosopher would have passed these two worthless
+sugar canes just as a place-hunter passes an overthrown minister, that
+is, as unworthy of notice."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"Well, I, the headless, the thoughtless, the stupid--for these are the
+epithets I am usually favored with--I took them up, scrutinized them
+carefully, and discovered--"
+
+"That they were sugar canes."
+
+"In the first instance, yes."
+
+"Very clever, that!"
+
+"And then that they had not been torn up--_they had been cut_."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, most wise and learned brother, that is all; and I leave you to
+draw the inferences."
+
+"I may add," observed the sailor, "that, as we were steering for the
+plantation, myself on the starboard and Jack on the larboard--"
+
+"On the what?"
+
+"Master Jack on the left and myself on the right."
+
+"That I pitched right over these canes without ever noticing them."
+
+"Which is not much to be wondered at; Willis has been so long at sea
+that he has no confidence in the solidity of the land; during our
+cruise, he kept a look-out after the wind, expecting, I suppose, that
+it would perform some of the wonderful things you spoke of this
+morning."
+
+"After all," observed Becker, "this is another link in the chain of
+evidence, and I congratulate Jack on his sagacity in tracing it."
+
+"But the affair is as much a mystery as ever."
+
+"True; and the solution may probably be awaiting us at Rockhouse."
+
+The united squadrons then started on their homeward voyage, Jack
+thrusting his nose into every bush, and carefully scanning all the
+stray objects that seemed to be out of their normal position.
+
+"If these plants and bushes had tongues," said Jack, "they could
+probably give us the information we require."
+
+"Do you think," inquired Ernest, "that plants and bushes are utterly
+without sensation?"
+
+"Faith, I can't say," replied Jack; "perhaps they can speak if they
+liked--probably they have an idiom of their own. You, that know all
+languages, and a great many more besides, possibly can converse with
+them."
+
+"I should like to know," said Becker, "why you two gentlemen are
+always snarling at each other; it is neither amusing nor amiable."
+
+"Ernest is continually showing me up, father, and it is but fair that
+I should be allowed to retort now and then. But to return to plants,
+Ernest; you say they have nerves?"
+
+"If they have," said Willis, "they do not seem to possess the bottle
+of salts that most nervous ladies usually have."
+
+"No," replied Ernest, "they have no nerves, properly so called; but
+there are plants, and I may add many plants, which, by their
+qualities--I may almost say by their intelligence--seem to be placed
+much higher in the scale of creation than they really are. The
+sensitive plant, for example, shrinks when it is touched; tulips open
+their petals when the weather is fine, and shut them again at sunset
+or when it rains; wild barley, when placed on a table, often moves by
+itself, especially when it has been first warmed by the hand; the
+heliotrope always turns the face of its flowers to the sun."
+
+"A still more singular instance of this kind was recently discovered
+in Carolina," remarked Becker; "it is called the _fly-trap_. Its round
+leaves secrete a sugary fluid, and are covered with a number of ridges
+which are extremely irritable: whenever a fly touches the surface the
+leaf immediately folds inwards, contracts, and continues this process
+till its victim is either pierced with its spines or stifled by the
+pressure."
+
+"It is probably a Corsican plant," observed Jack, "whose ancestors
+have had a misunderstanding with the brotherhood of flies, and have
+left the _Vendetta_ as a legacy to their descendants."
+
+"There is nothing in Nature," continued Ernest, "so obstinate as a
+plant. Let us take one, for example, at its birth, that is, to-day, at
+the age when animals modify or acquire their instincts, and you will
+find that your own will must yield to that of the plant."
+
+"If you mean to say that the plant will refuse to play on the flute or
+learn to dance, were I to wish it to do so, I am entirely of your
+opinion."
+
+"No, but suppose you were to plant it upside down, with the plantule
+above and the radicle below; do you think it would grow that way?"
+
+"Plantule and radicle are ambitious words, my dear brother; recollect
+that you are speaking to simple mortals."
+
+"Well, I mean root uppermost."
+
+"Right; I prefer that, don't you, Willis?"
+
+"Yes, Master Jack."
+
+"At first the radicle or root would begin by growing upwards, and the
+plantule or germ would descend."
+
+"That is quite in accordance with my revolutionary idiosyncracies."
+
+"You accused me just now of using ambitious words."
+
+"Well, I understand a revolution to mean, placing those above who
+should be below."
+
+"Nature then," continued Ernest, "very soon begins to assert her
+rights; the bud gradually twists itself round and ascends, whilst the
+root obeys a similar impulse and descends--is not this a proof of
+discernment?"
+
+"I see nothing more in it than a proof of the wonderful mechanism God
+has allotted to the plant, and is analogous to the movements of a
+watch, the hands of which point out the hours, minutes, and seconds of
+time, and are yet not endowed with intelligence."
+
+"Very good, Jack," said Becker.
+
+"Suppose," continued Ernest, "that the ground in the neighborhood of
+your plant was of two very opposite qualities, that on the right, for
+example, damp, rich, and spongy; that on the left, dry, poor, and
+rocky; you would find that the roots, after growing for a time up or
+down, as the case might be, will very soon change their route, and
+take their course towards the rich and humid soil."
+
+"And quite right too," said Willis; "they prefer to go where they will
+be best fed."
+
+"If, then, these roots stretched out to points where they would
+withdraw the nourishment from other plants in the neighborhood--how
+could you prevent it?"
+
+"By digging a ditch between them and the plants they threaten to
+impoverish."
+
+"And do you suppose that would be sufficient?"
+
+"Yes, unless the plant you refer to was an engineer."
+
+"Therein lies the difficulty. Plants are engineers; they would send
+their roots along the bottom of the ditch, or they would creep under
+it--at all events, the roots would find their way to the coveted soil
+in spite of you; if you dug a mine, they would countermine it, and
+obtain supplies from the opposite territory, and revenge themselves
+there for the scurvy treatment to which they had been subjected. What
+could you do then?"
+
+"In that case, I should admit myself defeated."
+
+"If," continued Ernest, "we present a sponge saturated with water to
+the naked roots of a plant, they will slowly, but steadily, direct
+themselves towards it; and, turn the sponge whichever way you will,
+they will take the same direction."
+
+"It has been concluded," remarked Becker, "from these incontestable
+facts, that plants are not devoid of sensibility; and, in fact, when
+we behold them lying down at sunset as if dead, and come to life again
+next morning, we are forced to recognise a degree of irritability in
+the vegetable organs which very closely resemble those of the animal
+economy."
+
+"In future," said Jack, "I shall take care not to tread upon a weed,
+lost, being hurt, it should scream."
+
+"On the other hand, they have not been found to possess any other sign
+of this supposed sensibility. All their other functions seem perfectly
+mechanical."
+
+"Ah then, father," exclaimed Jack, "you are a believer in my system!"
+
+"We make them grow and destroy them, without observing anything
+analogous to the sensation we feel in rearing, wounding, or killing an
+animal."
+
+"But the fly-trap, father, what of that?"
+
+"It is no exception. The fly-trap seizes any small body that touches
+it, as well as an insect, and with the same tenacity; hence, we may
+readily conclude that these actions, so apparently spontaneous, are in
+reality nothing more than remarkable developments of the laws of
+irritability peculiar to plants."
+
+"It does not, then, spring from a family feud, as Jack supposed?"
+remarked Willis.
+
+"Besides," continued Becker, "if plants really existed, possessing
+what is understood by the term sensation, they would be animals."
+
+"For a like reason, animals without sensation would be plants."
+
+"Evidently. Moreover, the transition from vegetable to animal life is
+almost imperceptible, so much so, that polypi, such as corals and
+sponges, were for a long time supposed to be marine plants."
+
+"And what are they?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Insects that live in communities that form a multitude of contiguous
+cells; some of these are begun at the bottom of the sea and
+accumulated perpendicularly, one layer being continually deposited
+over another till the surface is reached."
+
+"Then the coral reefs, that render navigation so perilous in unknown
+seas, are the work of insects?"
+
+"Exactly so, Willis."
+
+"Might they not as well consist of multitudes of insects piled heaps
+upon heaps?"
+
+"It is in a great measure as you say, Willis."
+
+"Not I--I do not say it--quite the contrary."
+
+"Well, Willis, you are at liberty to believe it or not, as you think
+proper."
+
+"I hope so; we shall, therefore, put the polypi with Ernest's stars
+and Jack's admirals."
+
+"So be it, Willis; but to resume the subject. There is a remarkable
+analogy in many respects between the lower orders of animals and
+plants, the bulb is to the latter what the egg is to the former. The
+germ does not pierce the bulb till it attains a certain organization,
+and it remains attached by fibres to the parent substance, from which,
+for a time, it receives nourishment."
+
+"Not unlike the young of animals," remarked Willis.
+
+"When the germ has shot out roots and a leaf or two, it then, but not
+till then, relinquishes the parent bulb. The plant then grows by an
+extension and multiplication of its parts, and this extension is
+accompanied by an increasing induration of the fibres. The same
+phenomena are observed as regards animals."
+
+"Curious!" said Willis.
+
+"Animals, however, are sometimes oviparous."
+
+"Oviparous?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, that is, they lay eggs; others are viviparous, producing their
+young alive. A few are multiplied like plants by cuttings, as in the
+case of the polypi."
+
+"Bother the polypi," said Willis, laughing, "since we have to thank
+them for destroying some of his Majesty's ships."
+
+"Then again," continued Becker, "both plants and animals are subject
+to disease, decay, and death."
+
+"But, father, if the analogies are remarkable, the differences are not
+less marked."
+
+"Well, Ernest, I shall leave you to point them out."
+
+"Without reckoning the faculty of feeling, that cannot be denied to
+the one nor granted to the other, the most striking of these
+distinctions consists in the circumstance that animals can change
+place, whilst this faculty is absolutely refused to plants."
+
+"If we except those," remarked Jack, "that insist upon travelling to
+the succulent parts of the earth, and are as indefatigable in digging
+tunnels as the renowned Brunel."
+
+"Then plants are obliged to accept the nourishment that their fixed
+position furnishes to them; whilst animals, on the contrary, by means
+of their external organs, can range far and near in search of the
+aliments most congenial to their appetites."
+
+"Which is often very capricious," remarked Willis.
+
+"Then, considered with regard to magnitude, the two kingdoms present
+remarkable distinctions; the interval between a whale and a mite is
+greater than between the moss and the oak."
+
+"Ho!" cried Jack, "there is Miss Sophia coming to meet us, Willis."
+
+"Perhaps they have news at the grotto."
+
+"Well," inquired the child, "have you seen them?"
+
+"Good," thought Becker, "our chatterers have not been able to hold
+their tongues; I am surprised at that as regards Frank."
+
+"We expected to have found them at Rockhouse."
+
+"To have found whom?"
+
+"The sailors from the wreck."
+
+"What wreck?"
+
+"The _Nelson_."
+
+"I sincerely hope that the _Nelson_ has not been wrecked."
+
+"In that case, whom do you refer to yourself, Miss Sophia?"
+
+"To your go-cart and my doll, Master Jack."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HABITANT OF THE MOON, ANTHROPOPHAGIAN OR HOBGOBLIN?--THE LACEDEMONIAN
+STEW OF MADAME DACIER--UTILE DULCI--TETE-A-TETE BETWEEN WILLIS AND HIS
+PIPE--TOBACCO VERSUS BIRCH--IS IT FOR EATING?--MOSQUITOES--THE
+ALARM--TOBY--THE NOCTURNAL EXPEDITION--WE'VE GOT HIM.
+
+
+Some days passed without anything having occurred to ruffle the
+tranquil existence of the island families. Every morning the _élite_
+of the sea and land forces continued to divide themselves into three
+squadrons of observation; one of which remained at Rockhouse on some
+pretext or other, whilst the other two were occupied in exploring the
+country, or in carrying on the works at Falcon's Nest.
+
+The mysterious stranger, whether shipwrecked seaman, savage, or
+hobgoblin, who kept all the bearded inhabitants of Rockhouse on the
+alert, had reappeared in his old quarters, where another litter of
+leaves had been miraculously strewn exactly in the same place the
+former had occupied.
+
+Beyond this, however, and sundry gashes here and there--of which
+Fritz's knife was clearly guilty, but which could not have been
+perpetrated without an accomplice--nothing had transpired to enable
+them to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to who or what this
+personage could be.
+
+Though the hypothesis was highly improbable, still Willis persisted in
+his theory of the shipwreck; he only doubted whether the individual on
+shore was a marine or the cabin-boy, an officer or a foremast man,
+and, if the latter, whether it was Bill, Tom, Bob, or Ned.
+
+Ernest rather inclined to think that the invisible stranger was an
+inhabitant of the moon, who, in consequence of a false step, had
+tumbled from his own to our planet.
+
+The warlike Fritz was impatient and irritated. He would over and over
+again have preferred an immediate solution of the affair, even were it
+bathed in blood, rather than be kept any longer in suspense.
+
+Frank, on the contrary, took a metaphysical view of the case; and,
+believing that Providence had not entirely dispensed with miracles in
+dealing with the things of this world, came to the conclusion that it
+was no earthly visitor they had to deal with; and he even went so far
+as to hint that prayer was a more efficacious means of solving the
+mystery than the methods his brothers were pursuing.
+
+Jack, coinciding in some degree with Ernest, shifted his view from an
+ape to an anthropophagian, and blamed the latter for not coming
+earlier; when he and his brothers were younger, and consequently more
+tender, they would have made a better meal, and been more easily
+digested.
+
+As to what opinion Becker himself entertained, with regard to the
+occurrence at Falcon's Nest that kept his sons in a feverish state of
+anxiety, and had awakened all the fears of the Pilot for the safety of
+his friends on board the _Nelson_, nothing could be clearly
+ascertained; in so far as this matter was concerned he kept his own
+counsel; and, to use an expression of Madame de Sevigné, "had thrown
+his tongue to the dogs."
+
+The close of the day had, as usual, collected all the members of the
+family round the domestic hearth; and it may be stated here that Mrs.
+Wolston, Mary, and Mrs. Becker alternately undertook the preparations
+of the viands for the diurnal consumption of the community. By this
+means, uniformity, that palls the appetite, was entirely banished from
+their dishes. One day they would have the cooked, or rather
+half-cooked, British joints of Mrs. Wolston and her daughter, varied
+occasionally, to the great delight of Willis, with a tureen of
+hotch-potch or cocky-leekie. The next there would be a display of the
+cosmopolite and somewhat picturesque cookery of Mrs. Becker; there was
+her famous peccary pie, with ravansara sauce, followed by her
+delicious preserved mango and seaweed jelly. Nor did she hesitate to
+draw upon the raw material of the colony now and then for a new hash
+or soup, taking care, however, to keep in view the maxim that
+prudence is the mother of safety--an adage that was rather roughly
+handled by the renowned French linguist, Madame Dacier, who, on one
+occasion nearly poisoned her husband with a Lacedemonian stew, the
+receipt for which she had found in Xenophon.
+
+Luckily Becker's wife did not know Greek, consequently he ran no risk
+of being entertained with a classic dinner; but he was often reminded
+by his thoughtful partner of Meg Dod's celebrated receipt: before you
+cook your hare, first--catch it.
+
+Sophia desired earnestly to have a share in the culinary government;
+but having shown on her first trial, too decided a leaning towards
+puddings and pancakes, her second essay was put off till she became
+more thoroughly penetrated with the value of the eternal precept
+_utile dulci_, which signifies that, before dessert it is requisite to
+have something substantial.
+
+As soon as they had finished their afternoon meal, Willis departed on
+one of his customary mysterious excursions; and Jack, who, like the
+birds that no sooner hop upon one branch than they leap upon another,
+had also disappeared. It was not long, however, before he made his
+appearance again; he came running in almost out of breath, and cried
+at the top of his voice,
+
+"I have discovered him!"
+
+"Whom?" exclaimed half a dozen voices.
+
+"The inhabitant of the moon?" inquired Ernest.
+
+"No."
+
+"I know," said Sophia playfully, "your go-cart and my doll."
+
+"No, I have discovered Willis' secret."
+
+"If you have been watching him, it is very wrong."
+
+"No, father; seeing some thin columns of smoke rising out of a
+thicket, I thought a bush was on fire; but on going nearer, I saw that
+it was only a tobacco-pipe."
+
+"Was the pipe alone, brother?"
+
+"No, not exactly, it was in Willis' mouth; and there he sat, so
+completely immersed in ideas and smoke, that he neither heard nor saw
+me."
+
+"That he does not smoke here," remarked Becker, "I can easily
+understand; but why conceal it?"
+
+"Ah," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you do not know Willis yet;--beneath that
+rough exterior there are feelings that would grace a coronet: he is,
+no doubt, afraid of leading your sons into the habit."
+
+"That is very thoughtful and considerate on his part."
+
+"He was always smoking on board ship, and it must have been a great
+sacrifice for him to leave it off to the extent he has done lately."
+
+"Then we shall not allow him to punish himself any longer; and as for
+the danger of contagion from his smoking here, that evil may perhaps
+be avoided."
+
+"Do not be afraid, father; it will not be necessary to establish
+either a quarantine or a lazaretto on our account."
+
+"Besides, any of the boys," said Mrs. Becker, "that acquire the habit,
+will, by so doing, voluntarily banish themselves from my levees."
+
+"It is an extraordinary habit that, smoking," observed Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Yes," said Becker; "and what makes the habit more singular is, that
+it holds out no allurements to seduce its votaries. Generally, the
+path to vice, or to a bad habit, is strewn with roses that hide their
+thorns, but such is not the case with smoking; in order to acquire
+this habit, a variety of disagreeable difficulties have to be
+overcome, and a considerable amount of disgust and sickness must be
+borne before the stomach is tutored to withstand the nauseous fumes."
+
+"In point of fact," observed Wolston, "if, instead of being made part
+and parcel of the appliances of a fashionable man, cigars and
+meershaums were classed in the pharmacopoeia with emetics and
+cataplasms, there is not a human being but would bemoan his fate if
+compelled to undergo a dose."
+
+"Just so," added Becker; "the great and sole attraction of tobacco to
+young people consists in its being to them a forbidden thing; the
+apple of Eve is of all time--it hangs from every tree, and takes
+myriads of shapes. If I had the honor of being principal of a college
+I should no more think of forbidding the pupils to use tobacco than I
+should think of commanding them not to use the birch for purposes of
+self-chastisement."
+
+"Perhaps you would be quite right."
+
+"Instead of lecturing them on the pernicious effects of tobacco, I
+should hang up a pipe of punishment in the class-room, and oblige
+offending pupils to inhale a fixed number of whiffs proportionate to
+the gravity of their delinquency."
+
+"An excellent idea," observed Wolston; "for it is often only necessary
+to show some things in a different light in order to give them a new
+aspect and value. This puts me in mind of an illustration in point;
+these two girls, when children, were the parties concerned, and I will
+relate the circumstance to you."
+
+"In that case," said Mary, "I shall go and feed the fowls."
+
+"And I," said Sophia, "must go and water the flowers."
+
+"Oh, then," cried Jack laughing, "it is another doll story, is it?"
+
+"No, Master Jack, it is not a doll story; and, besides, we girls were
+no bigger at the time than that."
+
+On saying this Sophia placed her two hands about a foot and a half
+from the floor and then the two girls vanished.
+
+"When Mary was about six years old," began Wolston, "a slight rash
+threatened to develope itself, and the doctor ordered a small blister
+to be applied to one of her arms. Now, there was likely to be some
+difficulty about getting her to submit quietly to this operation, so,
+after an instant's reflection, I called both her and her sister, and
+told them that the most diligent of the two should have a vesicatory
+put on her arm at night. 'Oh,' cried both the girls quite delighted,
+'it will be me, papa, I shall be so good. Mamma, mamma--such a
+treat--papa has promised us a vesicatory for to-night!'"
+
+"That was simplicity itself," said Mrs. Becker, laughing till the
+tears came into her eyes.
+
+"The day passed, the one endeavoring to excel the other in the
+quantity of leaves they turned over; and, from time to time, I heard
+the one asking the other in a low voice, 'Have you ever seen a
+vesicatory? What is it made of? Is it for eating? And each in turn
+regarded her arms, to judge in advance the effect of the marvellous
+ornament."
+
+"I should like much to have seen them."
+
+"Night came, and I declared gravely that the eldest was fairly
+entitled to the prize. The latter jumped about with joy, and Sophia
+began to cry. 'Don't cry,' said Mary, 'if you are good, papa will,
+perhaps, give you one to-morrow, too,' Then the joyful patient,
+turning to me, said, 'On which arm, papa?' and I told her that the
+ceremony of placing it on must take place when she was in bed. To bed
+accordingly she went, the ornament was applied, she looked at it, was
+pleased with it, thanked me for it, and fell asleep as happy as a
+queen. But, alas! like that of many queens, the felicity did not last
+long; before morning, I heard her saying to her sister, in a doleful
+tone, 'Soffy, will you have my vesicatory?' 'Oh, yes, just lend it to
+me for a tiny moment.' At this I hurried to the spot, and, as you may
+readily suppose, opposed the transfer."
+
+"Poor Sophia!"
+
+"Yes; she was quite heart-broken, and said, sobbing, 'It is always
+Mary that gets everything, nobody ever gives anything to me.'"
+
+Next day, Willis laid hold of his sou'-wester, and was starting off on
+his customary pilgrimage, when Becker stopped him.
+
+"Willis," said he, "have you any objections to state what the
+engagements are, that require you to leave us at pretty much the same
+hour every day?"
+
+"I merely go for a walk, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You see I require to take a turn just after dinner for the sake of my
+health."
+
+"A habit that you contracted on board ship; eh, Willis?"
+
+"On board ship; yes Mr. Becker, that is to say--"
+
+"Just so," observed Mrs. Wolston; "and by the way, Willis, I regret
+that you do not smoke now; they say there is plenty of tobacco on the
+island."
+
+"Smoke!" cried Willis, raising his ears like a war-horse at the sound
+of the trumpet, "why so, Mrs. Wolston?"
+
+"Because we are dreadfully tormented with those horrid mosquitoes, and
+you might help us to get rid of them. You smoked at sea, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, madam; but then my constitution--"
+
+"Bah!" said Wolston, "I thought you were as strong as a horse,
+Willis."
+
+"Well, I have no cause to complain neither; but then they say tobacco
+would kill even a horse."
+
+"Of course, Willis, your health is a most necessary consideration."
+
+"Still for all that, if the mosquitoes really do annoy Mrs. Wolston, I
+should have no objection to take a whiff now and then."
+
+"You must not put yourself about though, on our account, Willis."
+
+"About; no, it would not put me about."
+
+"Very good; then it only remains to be seen whether there is a pipe in
+the colony."
+
+"Ah," said Willis, feeling his pockets, "yes, exactly--here is one."
+
+"Curious how things do turn up, isn't it, Willis?" said Becker; "but
+the mosquitoes would not be frightened away by the smoke, if applied
+at long intervals, so you will have to repeat the dose at least two or
+three times every day, always supposing it does not affect your
+constitution."
+
+"Sailors, you see," replied Willis, "are like chimneys, they always
+smoke when you want them, and sometimes a great deal more than you
+want them," And on turning round, he beheld Sophia holding a light,
+and a good-sized case of Maryland, which had been preserved from the
+wreck.
+
+Ever after that time the mosquitoes had a most persevering enemy in
+Willis; and, notwithstanding his health, his daily walks entirely
+ceased.
+
+For some time the Pilot and the four young men passed the night in a
+tent erected about midway between Rockhouse and the Jackal River. The
+apparent reason for this modification of their plans was the greater
+facility it afforded for their all meeting at daybreak, breakfasting
+together, and setting out for Falcon's Nest before the temperature
+reached ninety degrees in the shade, which junction could not be so
+easily effected with one party encamped at Rockhouse and the other
+bivouacked on Shark's Island, with an arm of the sea between them.
+
+The real motive, however, was that all might be within hail of each
+other, and prepared for every emergency, in the event of the stranger
+appearing in a more palpable shape, and assuming a hostile attitude.
+We say the stranger, because, judging from the indications, there was
+only one--still that did not prove that there might not be several.
+
+One night, as Fritz was lying with one eye open, he observed Mary's
+little black terrier suddenly prick up the fragments of its ears, and
+begin sniffing at the edge of the tent. This shaggy little cur was
+called Toby; it had accompanied the Wolstons on their voyage, and was
+Mary's exclusive property; but Fritz had found the way to the animal's
+heart as usual through its stomach, and Mary was in no way jealous of
+his attentions to her favorite, but rather the reverse.
+
+Fritz, feeling convinced by the actions of the dog, which was of the
+true Scotch breed, that something extraordinary was passing outside
+the tent, seized his rifle, hastened out, and was just in time to
+distinguish a human figure on the opposite bank of the Jackal River,
+which, on seeing him, took to its heels and disappeared in the forest.
+
+He was soon joined by the Pilot and his brothers; the dogs leaped
+about them, and the alarm became general throughout the encampment.
+Fritz re-established order, enjoined silence, and said,
+
+"I am determined this time to follow the affair up; who will accompany
+me?"
+
+"I will!" said all the four voices at once.
+
+"Scouting parties ought not to be numerous," said Fritz; "I will,
+therefore, take Willis, in case this mystification has anything to do
+with the _Nelson_."
+
+"And me," said Jack, "to serve as a dessert, in case the individual
+should turn out to be an anthropophagian."
+
+"Be it so; but no more. Frank and Ernest will remain to tranquilize
+our parents, in case we should not return before they are up."
+
+"And if so, what shall we say?"
+
+"Tell them the truth. We shall proceed direct to Falcon's Nest; and if
+the stranger--confiding in our habit of sleeping during the night--be
+there as usual, we shall do ourselves the honor of helping him to get
+up."
+
+"Providing he does not nightly change his quarters like Oliver
+Cromwell--not so much to avoid enemies, as to calm his uneasy
+conscience."
+
+"Well, we shall be no worse than before; we shall have tried to
+restore our wonted quietude, and, if we fail, we can say, like Francis
+I. at Pavia, '_All is lost except our honor_.'"
+
+Some minutes after this conversation, three shadows might have been
+seen stealing through the glades in the direction of Falcon's Nest.
+Nothing was to be heard but the rustling of the leaves--the deafened
+beating of the sea upon the rocks--and, to use the words of Lamartine,
+"those unknown tongues that night and the wind whisper in the air."
+The trees were mirrored in the rays of the moon, and the ground, at
+intervals, seemed strewn with monstrous giants; their hearts beat, not
+with fear, but with that feverish impatience that anticipates decisive
+results.
+
+When they arrived at the foot of the tree on which the aerial dwelling
+was situated, Fritz opened the door, and resolutely, but stealthily,
+ascended.
+
+Willis and Jack followed him with military precision.
+
+They reached the top of the staircase, and held the latch of the door
+that opened into the apartment.
+
+A train of mice, in the strictest incognito, could not have performed
+these operations with a greater amount of secretiveness. On opening
+the door they stood and listened.
+
+Not a sound. Jack fired off a pistol, and the fraudulent occupier of
+the room instantly started up on his feet. Fritz rushed forward, and
+clasped him tightly round the body.
+
+"Ho, ho, comrade," said he, "this time you do not get off so easily!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CHIMPANZEE--IMPERFECT NEGRO, OR PERFECT APE--THE HARMONIES OF
+NATURE--A HANDFUL OF PAWS--A STONE SKIN--SEVENTEEN THOUSAND SPECTACLES
+ON ONE NOSE--ANIMALCULÆ--PELION ON OSSA--PTOLEMY--COPERNICUS TO
+GALILEO--METAPHYSICS AND COSMOGONIES--ISAIAH--A LIVE TIGER.
+
+
+"The chimpanzé or chimpanzee," says Buffon, the French naturalist, "is
+much more sagacious than the _ourang outang_, with which it has been
+inaccurately confounded; it likewise bears a more marked resemblance
+to the human being; the height is the same, and it has the same
+aspect, members, and strength; it always walks on two feet, with the
+head erect, has no tail, has calves to its legs, hair on its head, a
+beard on its chin, a face that Grimaldi would have envied, hands and
+nails like those of men, whose manners and habits it is susceptible of
+acquiring."
+
+Buffon knew an individual of the species that sat demurely at table,
+taking his place with the other guests; like them he would spread out
+his napkin, and stick one corner of it into his button-hole just as
+they did, and he was exceedingly dexterous in the use of his knife,
+fork, and spoon. Spectators were not a little surprised to see him go
+to a bed made for him, tie up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, place
+it sideways on a pillow, tuck himself carefully in the bed-clothes,
+pretend to be sick, stretch out his pulse to be felt, and affect to
+undergo the process of being bled.
+
+The naturalist adds that he is very easily taught, and may be made a
+useful domestic servant, at least as regards the humbler operations of
+the kitchen; he promptly obeys signs and the voice, whilst other
+species of apes only obey the stick; he will rinse glasses, serve at
+table, turn the spit, grind coffee, or carry water. Add to his virtues
+as a domestic, that he is not much addicted to chattering about the
+family affairs, has no followers, and is very accommodating in the
+matter of wages.
+
+It was neither more nor less than a chimpanzee that Fritz had caught
+in the dark at Falcon's Nest.
+
+"Now then, old fellow," said he, "you will help us to clear up this
+mysterious affair."
+
+The caged stranger made no reply to this observation; Willis and Jack
+then questioned him, the one in English and the other in French.
+
+Still no reply.
+
+He did not submit, however, to be interrogated quietly; on the
+contrary, his struggles to get away were most vigorous, so much so
+that Fritz adopted the precaution of binding him.
+
+"If it had been one of our sailors," said Willis, "he would have
+recognized my voice long ago."
+
+"Who are you?" asked one.
+
+"Where do you come from?" inquired another.
+
+"Do not attempt to escape," said a third.
+
+"We mean you no harm; on the contrary, we are friends, disposed to do
+you good if we can."
+
+"If all his brothers and sisters are as talkative as himself,"
+remarked Jack, "they must be a very amusing sort of people."
+
+"He can walk at all events," said Fritz giving him a smart push.
+
+The chimpanzee fell flat on the floor.
+
+"It appears, sir, that you are determined to have your own way, we
+must therefore wait till daylight."
+
+An hour passed in polyglot expostulations with the stranger on the
+score of his obstinacy, but all to no purpose; to use a popular
+expression, he was as dumb as the Doges. He deigned, however, to empty
+at a single draught a calabash of Malaga that Willis gave him, but
+there his condescension stopped.
+
+The Pilot, who now encountered mosquitoes in all directions, made
+preparations for smoking; the light he struck, however, instead of
+clearing up the mystery, only perplexed them more and more; there lay
+their new companion, stretched on the ground, staring at them with a
+ludicrous grin.
+
+If, on the one hand, it occurred to them this man was an animal, on
+the other the animal was a man, and Buffon did not happen to be there
+at the time to assign him officially a place in the former kingdom.
+
+The next difficulty that presented itself was, how they were to get
+him along; when they broke in the onagra, they ran a prong through his
+ear; in reducing the buffalo to subjection, they did not feel the
+slightest compunction in thrusting a pin through the cartilage of his
+nose; then, in order to give elasticity to the legs of the ostrich,
+they yoked him to two or three other animals, and, willing or
+unwilling, he was compelled ultimately to yield obedience to the lords
+of creation. But whether the creature before them was a lower order of
+negro or a higher order of ape, there was too great a resemblance
+between the captured and the capturers to admit of any of these
+methods of impulsion being adopted. It was, therefore, stretched on a
+plank, like a nabob in his palanquin, that the chimpanzee made his
+first appearance at Rockhouse.
+
+When the cavalcade arrived there, all the family, with the exception
+of Ernest and Frank, were still asleep. The first thing they did was
+to clothe the creature they had captured in a sailor's pantaloons and
+jacket, with which he seemed rather pleased, and the result of this
+operation was, that he began to assume a less ferocious aspect, and
+behave more respectfully towards his captors. All the family had sat
+down to breakfast, when Fritz and Jack, taking him by the hands, led
+him gravely into the gallery. A cord was attached to his legs,
+allowing him to walk, but was so arranged that he could not run.
+
+On his appearance the young girls fled at once; and, more accustomed
+to drawing-rooms than the rude realities of savage life, Mrs.
+Wolston's first impulse was to do the same.
+
+"Goodness gracious!" she cried with an air of alarm, "what horror is
+that?"
+
+"That, madam, is precisely what we have been anxious for the last two
+or three hours to find out," replied Fritz.
+
+"Does the creature speak?"
+
+"Up till now, madam," replied Willis, "he has only opened his mouth to
+swallow my calabash of Malaga; beyond that, he has kept as close as a
+purser's locker."
+
+When the first shock had passed, and the company had regained their
+self-possession, Jack related, with his customary originality, the
+incidents of the nocturnal expedition, of which Fritz was the
+originator, leader, and hero. The ladies then, for the first time,
+were made acquainted with the doubts, fears, perplexities, and
+battues, which, out of gallantry, they had hitherto been kept in
+ignorance of. Becker then, having carefully investigated the creature,
+pronounced it to be (as we already know) a full-grown specimen of a
+kind of ape, called by the Africans "the wild man of the woods," and
+by naturalists the _jocko_ or chimpanzee.
+
+"It is naturally very savage," added Becker; "but this individual
+seems already to have received some degree of education."
+
+As a proof of this, the chimpanzee seated himself amongst them very
+much at his ease; he scanned the faces surrounding him with an air of
+curiosity, and seemed to search for a particular countenance that it
+annoyed him not to find. Some fruit and nuts that were given him put
+him in excellent humor.
+
+"He has, without doubt, been on board some ship, wrecked on the
+coast," said Wolston, "for I recollect having read that his kindred
+are only found in Western Africa and the adjacent islands; do you not
+recognize him, Willis, to belong to the _Nelson_, like the plank of
+the other day?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"So much the better."
+
+"We do not ship such cattle on board his Majesty's ships," added the
+Pilot.
+
+The girls, ashamed of their fear, now came peeping in at the door,
+and, seeing that nobody had been devoured, took refuge by the side of
+their mother.
+
+"Look here, father," said Ernest, feeling the creature's crania,
+after having facetiously begged pardon for the liberty, "its head is
+precisely like our own; that is very humiliating."
+
+"Yes, my son, but his tongue and other organs are also exactly like
+ours, yet he cannot utter a word. His head is of the same form and
+proportion, but he does not for all that possess human intelligence.
+Is this not a very striking proof that mere matter, though perfectly
+organized, neither produces words nor thought; and that it requires a
+special manifestation of the Divine will to call these attributes into
+existence?"
+
+"True; but, father, some writers say that apes have been observed to
+profit by fires lighted in the forest, and have gone and warmed
+themselves when the travellers left."
+
+"That, my son, is instinct, nothing more; the operation of keeping up
+a fire, by throwing a few branches upon it, is exceedingly simple, but
+their instinct has never been known to rise to that amount of
+intelligence."
+
+"You recollect, father, that heathcock we saw some years ago
+displaying his glossy plumage to the dazzled hens; is that not a
+well-marked proof of coquetry? and is not this coquetry an indication
+of something more than mere instinct?"
+
+"You will permit me to believe, my son, at least till the contrary has
+been proved, that these actions to which you refer have nothing at all
+to do with coquetry. Those brilliant colors are designed for a purpose
+other than that which you suppose; they serve as signals to keep the
+community together, or, in other words, they are a common centre round
+which the hens may revolve."
+
+"The transition from apes to heathcocks," remarked Jack, "appears to
+me somewhat abrupt."
+
+"Not so abrupt as you think, Master Jack," said Wolston; "those who
+take the trouble to study Nature, observe an admirable gradation and
+easy progression from a simple to a complex organization. There is no
+race or species that is not connected by a perceptible link with that
+which precedes and that which follows."
+
+"What relation is there, for example," inquired Jack, "between an
+oyster and a horse?"
+
+"No immediate relation certainly, but there are intermediate links by
+which the two are brought together: they may be regarded, however, as
+the opposite extremes of the brotherhood--the two poles in the chain
+of existence. A horse bears even less resemblance to a turnip than to
+an oyster; a relationship may, nevertheless, be traced, step by step,
+between them, dissimilar as they are. There is the polypus, that
+singular product of Nature, which, regarded in one light, performs all
+the functions of animal life, whilst, when regarded in another, it has
+the ordinary attributes of a plant; does this not clearly and
+distinctly mark the transition from the vegetable to the animal
+kingdom? Again, certain species of worms blend the animal with the
+insect tribe, those which are covered with a horny substance unite
+them with the crustaceae. These approach fish on the one hand, and
+reptiles on the other, whilst reptiles in some species become
+moluscs."
+
+"And what is a molusc?" inquired Willis.
+
+"The term _molusc_ is applied by naturalists to creatures which have
+no vertebrae, as for example, the cuttle fish and the oyster."
+
+"I believe _you_, Mr. Wolston; but if I had asked Ernest or Jack, they
+would have told me that it was a commodore or an admiral."
+
+"Reptiles, I was going to say, are connected at one end of the chain
+with moluscs by the slug, and at the other with fish by the eel. From
+flying-fish to birds the transition is by no means abrupt. The
+ostrich, whose legs are like goat's, and runs rather than flies,
+connects birds with quadrupeds; these again return to fish through the
+cetacea."
+
+"Yes, but the interval between such creatures and man is still great."
+
+"True; to connect the two would be a process replete with
+insurmountable difficulties, and only possible to creative power. The
+projecting snout would have to be flattened, and the features of
+humanity imprinted upon it--that head bent upon the ground would have
+to be directed upwards--that narrow breast would have to be flattened
+out--those legs would have to be converted into flexible arms, and
+those horny hoofs into nimble fingers."
+
+"To accomplish which," remarked Frank, "God had only to say, 'Let it
+be so.'"
+
+"Assuredly; and as there is nothing incongruous in Nature, as
+everything is admirably adapted for its purpose, as unity of design is
+perceptible in all things, as every effect proceeds from a cause, and
+becomes a cause in its turn of succeeding effects, so God has willed
+that there should be a chain of resemblance running through all his
+works, and the link that connects man with the animal kingdom--the
+highest type of the mammiferous race, and the nearest approach to
+humanity amongst the brutes--is the creature before you."
+
+As if to illustrate this position, and prove his title to the place
+awarded him, the chimpanzee quietly laid hold of Mr. Wolston's straw
+hat and stuck it on his crispy head.
+
+"He is, perhaps, afraid of catching cold," said Jack, thrusting a mat
+under his feet.
+
+"Compare birds with quadrupeds," continued Mr. Wolston, "and you will
+find analogies at every step. Does the powerful and kingly eagle not
+resemble the noble and generous lion?--the cruel vulture, the
+ferocious tiger?--the kite, buzzard, and crow preying upon carrion,
+hyenas, jackals, and wolves? Are not falcons, hawks, and other birds
+used in the chase, types of foxes and dogs? Is the owl, which prowls
+about only at night, not a type of the cat? The cormorants and herons,
+that live upon fish, are they not the otters and beavers of the air?
+Do not peacocks, turkeys, and the common barn-door fowl bear a
+striking affinity to oxen, cows, sheep, and other ruminating animals?"
+
+During these remarks, Jack's monkey, Knips, had found its way into the
+gallery, and, observing the newcomer, went forward to accost him as if
+an old friend; the latter, however, uttered a menacing cry, and was
+about to seize Knips with evidently no amiable design, but was
+prevented by the cords that bound his legs. Knips leaped upon the back
+of one of the boys, and there, as if on the tower of an impregnable
+fortress, commenced making a series of grimaces at the chimpanzee,
+these being the only missiles within reach that he could launch at his
+relation. The enemy retorted, and kept up a smart fire of like
+ammunition.
+
+"It appears," remarked Mrs Wolston, "that apes are something like men:
+the great and the little do not readily amalgamate."
+
+"We must make them amalgamate," said Jack, taking one of Knips's paws,
+whilst Ernest held that of the chimpanzee; thus they compelled them to
+shake hands, but with what degree of cordiality we are unable to
+state.
+
+"You ought to oblige them now to take an oath of fealty," said Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"Chimpanzee," said Jack, speaking for Knips, "I promise always to
+treat you in future with smiles, delicacies, and respect."
+
+"Knips," replied the wild man of the woods, through the organs of
+Ernest, "I promise to have for you only the most generous intentions;
+to share with you the nuts I may have occasion to crack, that is, by
+giving you the shells and keeping the kernel; I promise, moreover, not
+to immolate you at the altar of my just rage, unless it is impossible
+for me to avoid an outburst of temper."
+
+"Now the embrace of peace."
+
+"Ah, madam," said Jack, "you must excuse that ceremony, their
+friendship is too new for such intimacy, and Knips don't much like
+being bitten."
+
+"Need we other proofs," remarked Becker, when the scene between the
+monkeys was concluded, "that everything has been premeditated,
+weighed, and calculated? It was necessary for that most arid country,
+Arabia, that we should have a sober animal, susceptible of existing a
+long time without water, and capable of treading the hot sands of the
+desert. God has accordingly given us the camel."
+
+"And the dromedary," remarked Ernest.
+
+"So everywhere," continued Becker; "and add to these evidences of
+Divine wisdom the brilliant colors, the silken furs, the golden
+plumage, and the ever-varying forms, yet, in all this diversity,
+there is unison--a harmony. Like the various objects which a clever
+artist introduces into his sketch, they are placed without uniformity,
+but still with reference to their effect upon each other, and so to
+the unity of the general design."
+
+"Therefore," remarked Ernest, "we have an animal whose skin is of
+stone, which it throws off annually to assume a new one--whose flesh
+is its tail and in its feet--whose hair is found inside in its
+breast--whose stomach is in its head, which, like the skin, is renewed
+every year, the first function of the new being to digest the old
+one."
+
+Here the Pilot manifested some symptoms of incredulity.
+
+"That is not all, Willis," continued Ernest, "the animal of which I
+speak carries its eggs in the interior of its body till they are
+hatched, and then transfers them to its tail. It has pebbles in its
+stomach, can throw off its limbs when they incommode it, and replace
+them with others more to its fancy. To finish the portrait, its eyes
+are placed at the tip of long flexible horns."
+
+"Do you really mean me to believe that yarn?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, Willis, unless you intend to deny the existence of lobsters."
+
+"Lobsters! Ah! you are talking of them, are you!"
+
+"Have not," continued Ernest, "six thousand three hundred and
+sixty-two eyes been counted in one beetle? sixteen thousand in a fly?
+and as many as thirty-four thousand six hundred in a butterfly? Of
+course, facets understood."
+
+"Supposing these facets myope or presbyte," observed Jack, "that gives
+seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty-five pairs of spectacles
+on one nose!"
+
+"How wonderfully varied are the forms of Nature. If, from the mastodon
+and the fossil mammoth, to which Buffon attributes five or six times
+the bulk and size of the elephant, we descend to those animalculae, of
+which Leuwenhoek estimates that a thousand millions of them would not
+occupy the place of an ordinary grain of sand."
+
+Here Willis lost all patience and left the gallery, whistling as
+usual, under such circumstances, the "Mariner's March."
+
+"Malesieu has detected animals by the microscope twenty-seven times
+smaller than a mite. A single drop of water under this instrument
+assumes the aspect of a lake, peopled by an infinite multitude of
+living creatures."
+
+"Therefore," observed Wolston, "it is not the great works of Nature,
+or those of which the organization is most perfect, that alone
+presents to the mind of man the unfathomable mysteries of creation;
+atoms become to him problems, that utterly defy the utmost efforts of
+his intelligence."
+
+"Which," suggested Becker, "does not prevent us believing ourselves a
+well of science, nor hinder us from piling Pelion on Ossa to scale the
+skies."
+
+"What becomes, in the presence of these facts, of the metaphysics and
+cosmogonies that have succeeded each other for two thousand years?
+What of all the theories, from Ptolemy to Copernicus, from Copernicus
+to Galileo, Descartes and his zones, Leibnitz and his monads, Wolf and
+his fire forces, Maupertuis and his intelligent elements, Broussais,
+who, in his anatomical lectures, has oftener than once shown to his
+pupils, on the point of his scalpel, the source of thought; what, I
+say, becomes of all these?"
+
+"There is less wisdom in such vain speculation than in these simple
+words: '_I believe in God the Father, the Creator of all things_.'"
+
+"Worlds," says Isaiah, "are, before Him, like the dew-drops on a blade
+of grass."
+
+"We are now, however, getting into the clouds," remarked Wolston; "let
+us return to the earth by the shortest route. What do you mean to do
+with the chimpanzee?"
+
+"Why, we must cage him in some way," replied Becker; "to let him loose
+again would be to create fresh uneasiness for ourselves. To kill him
+would be almost a kind of homicide."
+
+"Can I come in now?" inquired Willis, thrusting his head into the
+gallery.
+
+"Yes, with perfect safety."
+
+"You see, when Master Ernest begins to spin, he gets into the chapter
+of miracles, and forgets that we have ears."
+
+"I cannot help seeing them sometimes though, Willis; when they are a
+little longer than usual, it is difficult to hide them altogether."
+
+"Well," replied Willis, "I confess I am a bit of a fool, and as you
+are at a loss what to do with our friend here, I shall take him over
+with me to Shark's Island: there will be a pair of us there then."
+
+"If you will undertake to be his guide and instructor, he is yours,
+Willis."
+
+"What shall I call him?"
+
+"Jocko."
+
+"It shall go hard with me if I do not make a gentleman of him in a
+month's time."
+
+"I should like," said Frank, "if you could convert him into a tiger."
+
+"A tiger?"
+
+"Yes, we want a footman in livery to fetch Mrs. Wolston's carriage
+next time she calls for it."
+
+"I feel highly flattered by the compliment," said Mrs. Wolston, "but
+fear you will not be able to turn him out entire."
+
+"Why so, madam?"
+
+"Where are the top boots to come from?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PIONEERS--EXCURSION TO COROMANDEL--HINDOO FANCIES--A CAGED
+HUNTER--LOUIS XI. AND CARDINAL BALUE--A FURLONG OF NEWS--CARNAGE--THE
+BARONET AND HIS SEVENTEEN TIGERS--FIFTY-FOUR FEET OF CELEBRITY--STERNE'S
+WINDOW--PROMENADE OF THE CONSCIENCES--EMULATION AND VANITY.
+
+
+When a country is released from the presence of an enemy that annoyed
+and harassed them, the people feel as if a weight had been taken off
+their shoulders; so the inhabitants of New Switzerland had breathed
+more freely since the capture of the chimpanzee.
+
+The works at Falcon's Nest were completed, and the two families had
+taken possession of their aerial dwellings, where they were perched
+like a pair of rookeries within call of each other.
+
+The confined air of towns has a tendency to plunge men into lethargy
+and indolence, and to precipitate the decadence of a constitution in
+which the seeds of disease have been sown; whilst, on the other hand,
+the pure air of the country braces the nerves, excites a healthy
+action in the system, and invigorates a shattered frame; so it was
+with Mr. Wolston--under the benign influences of the genial climate
+and the refreshing sea breeze, he gradually, but steadily, recovered
+health and strength.
+
+A larger breadth of land had been cleared and fitted for receiving
+grain, which it was susceptible of reproducing a hundred-fold. Such is
+the sublime contract God has made with man, that, in exchange for his
+labor and skill, a single grain of wheat will produce seven or eight
+stalks, each bearing an ear containing fifty grains; a single grain
+has been known to yield twenty-eight ears, and Pliny states that Nero
+received a grain bearing the enormous number of three hundred and
+sixty ears. Strange that such a singular instance of fecundity should
+present itself during the domination of a man, or rather monster, who
+dared to wish that the Roman people had only one head, so that he
+might cut it off at a single blow!
+
+Willis and the Wolstons were as yet ignorant of the extent and limits
+of the colony; there were two inclosed and cultivated sections, named
+respectively Waldeck and Prospect Hill, which they had not yet
+inspected. With a view to enable them to form a more accurate
+conception of the boundaries of the territory they inhabited, a grand
+excursion was decided upon that would enable them leisurely to
+investigate every nook and cranny of the settlement.
+
+The storehouse was accordingly overhauled, and the ladies called in to
+prepare viands for the journey; they were likewise invited to furnish
+a supply of certain enchanted travelling bags, in which the gentlemen
+were often astonished to find, during their distant expeditions, a
+thousand and one useful things that they would never have dreamt of
+bringing with them of their own accord.
+
+Becker, Wolston, Ernest, and Frank set about the construction of a
+vehicle on four wheels for the luggage and the ladies; they did not
+contemplate erecting a machine with elastic springs and gilded panels,
+like the Lord Mayor's state coach--their object was to produce a
+machine that would ease, without dislocating, the limbs of the
+travellers, and that would move at least more gently than a gardener's
+cart, loaded with hampers of greens for Covent Garden Market. It may
+readily be supposed that Ernest's Latin was not of much service in
+these operations, for even Wolston's mechanical skill was sorely tried
+in elaborating the design.
+
+Fritz, Willis, and Jack had already started as pioneers of the
+expedition to examine the buildings, and to see that no more apes or
+other piratical marauders had established themselves on their
+premises; and, in compliance with a request made by Willis, who
+strongly objected to becoming a bushranger, they had gone by water. It
+was further arranged that, on their return, all should start
+together--the entire community in one cavalcade, like an army on the
+march.
+
+The young ladies were as much pleased in anticipation with this
+journey as if the destination of the travellers had been Brighton or
+Ramsgate. To children of their age, change is always pleasing. Often,
+in consequence of a death, the collapse of a bank, the loss of a
+law-suit, or some dire disaster of that sort, parents have seen
+themselves compelled to abandon the home of their fathers, endeared to
+them by many gentle recollections, perhaps to embark for some far
+distant land; they stifle their sighs, and bid a mute farewell to each
+stone and each tree, familiar to them as household words; they depart
+with reluctance, and often turn to cast a lingering look behind at
+objects so dear to their memory. Not so the children; they issue from
+the door like a flock of caged pigeons just let loose; they sing and
+leap and laugh with glee; the old house has no charms for them, they
+are as glad to depart as their elders are wishful to stay; the trunk
+desires to multiply its roots on the soil, but the buds prefer to blow
+elsewhere--for the latter life resolves itself into the word FUTURE,
+and for the former into the word PAST.
+
+Leaving Wolston, Becker, and his two sons hard at work on the
+carriage, let us turn to the pinnace which was now making its way
+along the shore under the guidance of the Pilot.
+
+"I should like much," said Fritz, "to present Mr. and Mrs. Wolston
+with a couple of bear, leopard, or tiger skins."
+
+"So should I," said Jack.
+
+"I wish you could think of some other sort of gift," suggested Willis;
+"what do you say to a couple of seal or shark skins?"
+
+"Won't do," replied both Fritz and Jack in one voice. "What objections
+have you to the others?"
+
+"Well, you are in some sort consigned to my care; I should like you to
+return to your parents with your own skins entire."
+
+"Then you think it is a terrific affair to kill a tiger or two? You
+have been accustomed to the sea, and fancy landsmen are good for
+nothing but shooting crows and wild-cats; that is a mistake, however;
+we are familiar with larger game."
+
+"Shiver my timbers! do you call bears and tigers game?"
+
+"I am afraid, Willis, you are a bit of a milksop."
+
+"Avast heaving there, Master Fritz! as it is, I am a half-hanged man
+already, so death has now no terrors Dov me; it is the first pang that
+is most felt."
+
+"Yes; but in the case of tigers, they never give you time to feel a
+second pang; miss your aim, and it is all over with you."
+
+"True; and therefore I wish you would give up the project. As for
+myself, I would face anything with a four-pounder, but rifle practice
+on board ship is mostly confined to the marines; it is not that,
+however, I am troubled about; I am certain your worthy father would
+never forgive me if I countenance this project."
+
+"You need not tell him anything about it."
+
+"Where, then, are the skins to come from? Can you say you bought them
+at the furrier's? You must really hit upon some other fancy."
+
+"But it is not a fancy, Willis, it is a necessity; it is not our own
+amusement we are consulting. Just imagine yourself what will happen
+during the excursion now being arranged. Our parents will, of course,
+offer their bear skins to Mr. and Mrs. Wolston; there will be refusals
+on the one side and entreaties on the other."
+
+"And, as is usual in these sort of discussions," added Jack, "Mrs.
+Wolston will call her carriage."
+
+"Yes," continued Fritz, "and my mother will most certainly deprive
+herself of a covering that is absolutely indispensable during the cold
+nights of this climate."
+
+"There is reason in what you say," observed Willis, scratching his
+ear.
+
+"You see, Willis, the thing ought and must be done."
+
+"As you put it, yes; but it will take time to prepare the skins."
+
+"They will not be ready in time for this expedition certainly, and my
+mother must do without her skin this journey; but it is our duty to
+prevent anything of the sort happening in future."
+
+"Were I to consent to this project," said Willis, "there is still
+something more required."
+
+"What, Willis?"
+
+"Why, the tigers and what's-a-names; it is necessary to find the brute
+before you can get its skin."
+
+"Granted; there would be a difficulty in the case had we not here
+quite handy a magnificent covering of wild animals, all ready to kill
+or to be killed. Just steer a point to the east, Willis; there, that
+will do. Just beyond that bluff you see yonder, there is a low flat
+plain covered with brushwood and tufted with trees; on the left, this
+prairie is bounded by a chain of low hills, and on the right a broad
+river, which last we have named the St. John, because it bears some
+resemblance to a stream of that name in Florida; beyond this plain
+there is a swamp."
+
+"And," added Jack, "behind this swamp there is a magnificent forest of
+cedars, peopled with the finest furs imaginable, but garnished,
+however, with formidable claws and rows of teeth."
+
+"I was not aware," said Willis, "that we were within reach of such
+amiable neighbors."
+
+"Oh, they cannot reach us; thanks to the conformation of that chain of
+hills you see yonder, there is only one pass that opens into our
+settlement, and that we have taken care to shut up and fortify."
+
+"It appears then," said Willis, "that there will be no difficulty in
+finding the animals, but--"
+
+"Come, Willis, no more buts; you hunt in your own way from morning
+till night, let us for once hunt in ours."
+
+"I go a-hunting?"
+
+"Yes, there you are, charging your piece just now."
+
+"Oh, my pipe you mean; but look at the difference; mosquitoes bite
+human beings, they don't eat them!"
+
+"And, you may add, their skins don't make bed-clothes. Besides, if my
+mother takes rheumatism or the ague, it will be you that is to blame."
+
+"I would rather face all the tigers in Bengal and all the lions in
+Africa than incur such a responsibility. I will, therefore, take a
+part in your cruise, and if any accident happens to either of you, I
+shall stay in the forest till nothing is left of me but my cap and my
+bones. In this way I will escape all reproach in this world, and I may
+as well, after all, rejoin my old commander, Captain Littlestone, by
+this road as by any other."
+
+In the meantime, they had reached the coast of Waldeck, and having
+landed, they found the outhouses and sheds that had been erected there
+in satisfactory order; the apes had not forgotten a battue that had
+once been got up for their special behoof, as not an individual was to
+be seen in the neighborhood. A morass of the district that had been
+converted into a rice plantation, promised an abundant crop; and the
+cotton plants, that Frank had once mistaken for flakes of snow, reared
+their woolly blossoms, looking for all the world like the powdered
+heads of our ancestors. After a slight repast, the pinnace was once
+more in motion, and the party steering for Prospect Hill.
+
+"Ah," sighed Willis, "I wish we had only Sir Marmaduke Travers' cage
+here."
+
+"Cage!" cried Fritz, laughing, "what, to shut up the game first and
+shoot it afterwards?" "No, quite the reverse: to shut up the hunters."
+
+"Ah, you would serve us in the same way as Louis XI. served Cardinal
+Balue."
+
+"I know nothing of either Louis XI. or Cardinal Balue; but the cage I
+speak of was an excellent invention, for all that."
+
+"Which you would like to prove to us by caging ourselves, eh?"
+
+"Sir Marmaduke Travers," continued Willis, "was an English gentleman,
+and he was travelling in Coromandel, no one knew why or for what
+purpose."
+
+"For the fun of the thing, probably," suggested Jack; the English are
+said to be great oddities."
+
+"At that time there happened to be a Hindoo widow somewhere in those
+parts. This lady was very rich, very young, very beautiful, and very
+fond of tormenting her admirers. And, as fate would have it, the
+travelling Englishman was completely taken captive by this dark
+beauty; and taking advantage of the hold she had obtained upon his
+heart, she amused herself by making him do all sorts of out of the way
+things. Sometimes she would bid him let his moustache grow, then she
+would order him to cut it off; he had to worship Brahma, adopt the
+fashion of the Hindoos, and had even to undergo the indignity of
+having his head tied up in a dirty pocket-handkerchief."
+
+"That is to say," remarked Jack, "that the lady, not having a pug or a
+monkey, made Sir Marmaduke a substitute for both."
+
+"Very likely, but still Sir Marmaduke was no fool; he was, on the
+contrary, a gentleman and a philosopher."
+
+"I doubt that," said Jack.
+
+"You are wrong, then. You have been brought up in an out of the way
+part of the world, and are not familiar with the usages of civilized
+society. When once a man has allowed the tender passion to take root
+in his breast, it cannot afterwards be extinguished at will; it grows
+and grows like an oil spot, so that what might easily have been
+mastered at first, makes us in time its devoted slave."
+
+"I cannot admit," said Fritz, "that any sensible man would allow
+himself to be treated in the way you state."
+
+"The wisest and bravest have often, for all that, been obliged to bend
+their heads to such circumstances; in fact, those only escape whose
+hearts have been steeled by time or adversity. Well, nothing would
+please the lady in one of her caprices short of Sir Marmaduke's going
+alone to the jungle and killing a tiger or two for her. This caused
+him some little uneasiness."
+
+"I should think so," remarked Jack, "unless he had been accustomed to
+face the animals."
+
+"However, the widow's hand was to be the reward of the achievement,
+and the thing must consequently be done. Being, however, as I have
+said, a bit of a philosopher, he considered with himself that if, by
+chance, he should perish in the attempt he would lose the widow all
+the same, and that he could not think of with any thing like
+equanimity. To extricate himself from this dilemma he sent a despatch
+to an enterprising friend of his, then stationed with his regiment at
+Calcutta, requesting his advice."
+
+"And this friend, no doubt, sent him a couple of tigers all ready
+trussed?"
+
+"No, better than that; he sent him a strong iron cage fifteen feet
+square, very solid. This was shipped on board a cutter commanded by
+Captain Littlestone, and I was entrusted with the task of erecting it
+on shore, whilst an express was sent off to Sir Marmaduke."
+
+"Ah!" said Jack, "I begin to understand now."
+
+"Well, he rigged himself in tiger-hunting costume, went and bade the
+lady good-bye, who coolly wished him good sport, mounted a horse, and
+rode off to conquer a lady who, as a proof of her affection, had so
+cavalierly consigned him to the tender mercies of the wild beasts."
+
+"Why, it was dooming him to certain destruction," said Fritz.
+
+"In the meantime the cage had been conveyed to a valley surrounded
+with mountains, the caves of which were known to shelter entire
+colonies of tigers. Here also came Sir Marmaduke. The cage was firmly
+embedded in the soil, the exterior was thickly studded over with sharp
+spikes screwed into the bars; inside were placed a table and a sofa,
+with crimson velvet cushions."
+
+"A lady's boudoir in the wilderness," said Jack.
+
+"In one corner there was a case containing a dozen bottles of pale
+ale, and as many of champagne; in another was a second case containing
+curry pies and a variety of preserved meats; in a third case were five
+and twenty loaded rifles, together with a complete magazine in
+miniature of powder and shot. On the table were sundry cases of
+havannahs, a box of _allumettes_, the last number of the _Edinburgh
+Review_, and a copy of the _Times_."
+
+"What is the _Times_?" inquired Jack.
+
+"It is a furlong of paper, folded up and covered with news,
+advertisements, and letters from the oldest inhabitant of everywhere.
+Leaving, then, Sir Marmaduke seated in the centre of his cage, we
+towards night returned to the cutter, first scattering two or three
+quarters of fresh beef in the vicinity of the cage."
+
+"That should have assembled all the tigers in Coromandel," said
+Fritz.
+
+"Anyhow, it brought enough. Towards midnight Sir Marmaduke could count
+thirty noble brutes capering in the moonlight and feasting upon the
+beef that had been provided for them."
+
+"What did the Englishman do then?"
+
+"He took aim at the most magnificent specimen of the herd and fired.
+No sooner had he done this than the whole pack came scampering towards
+the cage, thinking, doubtless, they had nothing to do but scrunch the
+bones of the solitary hunter. This was the signal for a regular
+slaughter. Sir Marmaduke discharged his rifles point blank in the
+noses of the animals that environed him on all sides; those who were
+not wounded by the balls were severely injured by the spikes of the
+cage in their furious efforts to seize their enemy. The howling,
+yelling, and fury was quite a new sensation for Sir Marmaduke; he
+rather enjoyed the thing whilst the excitement lasted. However, all
+things must have an end; when the sun appeared on the horizon the
+wounded retired, leaving the dead masters of the situation."
+
+"I suppose, in the meantime," remarked Fritz, "that the amiable Hindoo
+was considering whether or not, under the circumstances, she should
+wear mourning for her defunct cavalier."
+
+"Be that as it may, the defunct made his appearance, safe and sound,
+that same day, whilst the cutter stood out to sea with every vestige
+of the cage except the dead tigers. Shortly after, the widow was
+astonished to see an army of coolies marching in procession towards
+her door, all, like the slaves of Aladdin, heavily laden; and she was
+not awakened from her surprise till the master of the ceremonies had
+placed the following letter in her hands:
+
+"Madam,--With this you will receive seventeen fall-grown tigers, which
+I have had the honour of shooting for you.
+
+"Marmaduke Travers."
+
+"That was a choice bijou for a lady," said Jack.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Yes," added Fritz; "and if the ladies of Coromandel have stands in
+their drawing-rooms, to display the tributes to their charms, Sir
+Marmaduke's present afforded abundant material for adorning those of
+the widow."
+
+"Well, the consequence was, that Sir Marmaduke's name rung from one
+end of India to the other. The feat of killing, single-handed,
+seventeen tigers, converted him into a hero of the first magnitude. No
+festival was complete without him, he was courted by the fashionables
+and worshipped by the mob; some enthusiasts even proposed to erect a
+tomb for him, that being the way they honor their great men in eastern
+nations."
+
+"Every country," remarked Fritz, "has its own peculiarities in this
+respect. The memory of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome was
+perpetuated in the intrinsic merit of the works of art erected in
+their names. In England quantity takes the place of quality; there is
+said to be in London a statue of a hero disguised as Achilles, six
+yards in height, and perched upon a pedestal twelve yards high."
+
+"Making in all," remarked Jack, "exactly eighteen yards of fame."
+
+"The handsome Hindoo," continued Willis, "was proud of the feat her
+charms had inspired. She gloried in showing off the redoubtable
+tiger-slayer at her _réunions_, and ended in being completely
+fascinated herself with her former slave. The match that she had
+formerly sneezed at she now earnestly desired, and, as Sir Marmaduke
+did not declare himself so speedily as she desired, she determined to
+give him a little encouragement by sending one of the most inviting
+and most odoriferous of notes."
+
+"Sir Marmaduke must then have considered himself one of the happiest
+of men," said Fritz.
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "neither man nor woman can, in affairs of
+this kind, depend upon themselves for two consecutive hours. The
+aspirations of a whole life-time may be dispelled in five minutes, and
+the wishes of to-day may become the detestations of to-morrow. The new
+sensations awakened in Sir Marmaduke by the affair of the cage--his
+recollection of the ferocious brutes as they clung with expiring
+energy to the bars of the cage, their streaked skins streaming with
+blood, the fearful howling and terrific death yells, the formidable
+claws that were often within an inch of his face--had, somehow or
+other, chased the passion he had felt for the widow completely out of
+his breast."
+
+"Oh, the scamp of a Travers!" said Jack, energetically.
+
+"He began to ask himself coolly what a lady, who had made such
+extraordinary demands upon him before marriage, might not require him
+to do after; and the result of his cogitations is expressed in the
+following reply that he sent to the now smiling widow:--
+
+"'Sir Marmaduke Travers is highly flattered by the charming note of
+the adorable daughter of Brahma; he shall gladly continue to bask in
+the sunshine of her smiles, out his ambition desires and will accept
+nothing more.'"
+
+"Flowery and laconic," said Fritz.
+
+"Well," inquired Willis, "was I not right in wishing to have the cage
+of Sir Marmaduke here?"
+
+"Yes, but we cannot get it. We have no ingenious trend at Calcutta to
+send us such a machine, and furnish it with crimson-cushioned sofas
+and pale ale, so we shall have to rest satisfied with our own
+ingenuity, tact, and agility."
+
+Fritz and Jack were justified in relying upon their own resources.
+They had been often sorely tried, and never had been found wanting in
+cases of emergency. Since the arrival of the Wolstons their courage
+had become almost temerity; previous to that event, they had been
+content to meet danger bravely when it was inevitable, and never went
+deliberately in search of it. Now, however, if we apply the glass of
+which Sterne speaks to their breasts and spy what is passing therein,
+we shall fad that an imperious desire to become heroes had taken
+possession of their inward souls--a determination to make themselves
+conspicuous at all hazards was burning within them; that, in fact,
+they were courting the admiration of the new audience that Providence
+had sent to the colony, the praise of which found more favor in their
+hearts than the paternal admonitions.
+
+This was far from being commendable; but, although emulation and
+vanity have some features in common, still they must not be
+confounded: the former consists in generous efforts to equal or
+surpass some one in something praiseworthy; the second is a kind of
+self-love, that seeks to purchase respect or flattery at no matter
+what cost;--the one is a vice, the other a virtue.
+
+Fritz and Jack were not actuated by vanity; they were urged on by
+their impulses, without weighing the circumstances that gave them
+rise; and indeed they were not even conscious of being more desirous
+of renown now than they had been hitherto.
+
+The temperament of Ernest and Frank was of another kind. Their natures
+were much less excitable, and it did not appear that the recent
+arrivals had altered their outward demeanor in the slightest degree;
+they continued calm, staid, and reflective, as they had ever been.
+
+All four were a singular mixture of the child and the man--knowing
+many things that young people are ignorant of, they were yet almost
+totally unacquainted with the ordinary attributes of social
+life--unsophisticated and naive to an extreme degree, they would have
+appeared in a fashionable drawing-room downright fools. On the other
+hand, they possessed great clearness of perception, presence of mind
+in danger, promptitude in action, and the utmost coolness in the face
+of apparently insurmountable obstacles--qualities that would have
+utterly confounded the young men who shine in the saloons of Europe,
+whose chief merit often consists in their being familiar with the
+unmeaning conventionalisms of fashionable life.
+
+At Prospect Hill they found the outhouses and plantations in much the
+same position as at Waldeck. Here the crimson flowers of the caper
+plant, the white flowers of the tea plant, and the rich blossoms of
+the clove tree, perfumed the air and promised a fragrant harvest. This
+was a charming caravansary, all ready with its smiles to welcome the
+illustrious colonists as soon as they presented themselves.
+
+These points being settled to the satisfaction of the three pioneers,
+a sheep was taken on board the pinnace at the request of Willis--who
+seemed to have taken a violent fancy for mutton chops--and they set
+sail towards the east.
+
+In the first instance they made for a projecting head-land that seemed
+to bar their progress in that direction, and, much to the astonishment
+of the Pilot, they entered a cavern that formed the entrance to a
+natural tunnel. This, besides being an interesting feature in the
+coast scenery, was one of the treasures of the colony, for it
+contained vast quantities of edible birds' nests, so much prized by
+the Chinese. The voyagers did not, however, tarry here; these were not
+the objects they were now in search of. Nautilus Bay and the Bay of
+Pearls were likewise traversed unheeded, nor could the attractive
+banks of the St. John, fringed with verdant foliage, divert them from
+the project they had in contemplation.
+
+Wise men, when they indulge in folly, are often more foolish than real
+fools; so it was with Willis: now that he had joined in the scheme, he
+evinced more ardor in its execution than the young men themselves. He
+said that it would not be enough to capture skins for Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston, they must also capture one a-piece for Mary and Sophia
+likewise, and talked as if the adventure of Sir Marmaduke and his
+seventeen tigers had been a bagatelle.
+
+Some hours before dark they landed at a spot well known to both Fritz
+and Jack; it was a place where Becker and his sons had some time
+before been engaged in deadly conflict with a herd of lions, and where
+one of their dogs had fallen a victim to the enraged monarchs of the
+forest.
+
+"My plan," said Willis, "is to kill the sheep and place the quarters
+on the shore, just as bait is thrown into the water to bring the fish
+within the net."
+
+"A reminiscence of Sir Marmaduke," said Jack.
+
+"Then," continued Willis, "we shall light a fire to take the place of
+the sun, who is about to retire for the night. This done, I propose
+that we should return to the pinnace, keep the mutton within rifle
+range, and riddle the skins that come to feast upon it."
+
+After some opposition on the part of Fritz and Jack, who preferred to
+encounter their antagonists on more equal terms, the proposal of
+Willis was ultimately agreed to.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ON THE WATCH--FECUNDITY OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS--LATEST NEWS FROM THE
+MOON--A DEATH-KNELL EVERY SECOND--THE INCONVENIENCES OF BEING TOO NEAR
+THE SUN--NARCOTICS--WILLIS CONTRALTO--HUNTING TURNED UPSIDE
+DOWN--ELECTRIC CLOUDS--PARTIALITIES OF LIGHTNING--BELLS AND
+BELL-RINGERS--CONDUCTING RODS--THE RETURN--THE TWO SISTERS--TOBY
+BECOMES A DRAGOMAN.
+
+
+As is usual in tropical climates, a blazing hot day was succeeded by
+an intensely dark night. The fire that the hunters had made on shore
+cast a lurid glare on the prominent objects round about. The flames,
+as they fitfully lit up the landscape into that dim distinctness
+termed by artists the _chiar oscuro_, made the bushes and trunks of
+trees appear like monsters issuing stealthily from the forest that
+lined the background. There seemed to be some attraction, however,
+elsewhere for the real monsters, not a single wild beast having as yet
+appeared on the scene.
+
+The two young men were eagerly straining their eyes from the stern of
+the pinnace, whilst the dogs kept diligently wagging their tails in
+expectation of a signal for the onset. The position of Willis could be
+ascertained now and then by an eye of fire, which opened and shut as
+he inhaled or exhaled the fumes of his Maryland. The ripple beat
+gently on the sea-line of the boat, which oscillated with the
+regularity and softness of a cradle.
+
+"It is always so," said Jack, impatiently; "if we don't want wild
+beasts, there are shoals of them to be seen; but if we do want them,
+then they are all off to their dens."
+
+"Perhaps, there are none now," suggested Willis.
+
+"Say rather," observed Fritz, "that there ought to be thousands; for
+on the one hand they multiply rapidly, and on the other there is no
+one to destroy them. Spaniards once left a few cattle on St. Domingo,
+and they increased at such a rate, that the island very soon would not
+have been able to support them, had they not been kept down by
+constant slaughter."
+
+"Besides," remarked Jack, "the bovine race reproduce themselves more
+slowly than other animals; a single sow, according to a calculation
+made by Vauban, if allowed to live eleven years, would produce six
+millions of pigs."
+
+"What a cargo of legs of pork and sides of bacon!" exclaimed Willis,
+laughing.
+
+"Then fish; there are more than a hundred and sixty thousand eggs in a
+single carp. A sturgeon contains a million four hundred and
+sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty, whilst in some codfish
+the number exceeds nine millions."
+
+"Oh, you need not favor us with the 'Mariner's March,' Willis; what my
+brother says is perfectly correct."
+
+"What, then, do these shoals of creatures live upon?"
+
+"The big ones upon the little ones; fish devour each other."
+
+"A beautiful harmony of Nature," remarked Fritz drily.
+
+"Then plants," continued Jack, "are still more prolific than animals.
+Some trees can produce as many of their kind as they have branches, or
+even leaves. An elm tree, twelve years old, yields sometimes five
+hundred thousand pods; and, by the way, Willis, to encourage you in
+carrying on the war against the mosquitoes, a single stalk of tobacco
+produces four thousand seeds."
+
+"The leaves, however, are of more use to me than the seeds," replied
+Willis.
+
+"This admirable proportion between the productiveness of the two
+kingdoms demonstrates the far-seeing wisdom of Providence. If the
+power of multiplication in vegetables had been less considerable, the
+fields, gardens, and prairies would have been deserts, with only a
+plant here and there to hide the nakedness of the land. Had God
+permitted animals to multiply in excess of plants, the entire
+vegetation would soon have been devoured, and then the animals
+themselves would of necessity have ceased to exist."
+
+"How is it, then," inquired Willis, "with this continual
+multiplication always going on, the inhabitants of land and sea do not
+get over-crowded?"
+
+"Why, as regards man, for example, if thirteen or fourteen human
+beings are born within a given period, death removes ten or eleven
+others; but though this leaves a regular increase, still the
+population of the globe always continues about the same."
+
+"It may be so, Master Jack, but when I was a little boy at school, I
+generally came in for a whipping, if I made out two and two to be
+anything else than four."
+
+"And served you right too, Willis; but if the human family did not
+continually increase, if the number of deaths exceeded continually
+that of the births, at the end of a few centuries the world would be
+unpeopled."
+
+"Very good; but if, on the other hand, there is a continual increase,
+how can the population continue the same?"
+
+"Because the increase supposes a normal state; that is to say, the
+births are only estimated as compared with deaths from disease or old
+age. But then there are shipwrecks, inundations, plagues, and war,
+which sometimes exterminate entire communities at one fell swoop. Then
+whole nations die out and give place to the redundant populations of
+others; phenomena now observed in the cases of the aborigines of
+Australia and America."
+
+"Very true."
+
+"No signs of furs yet," cried Fritz, who was every now and then
+levelling his rifle at the phantoms on shore.
+
+"We need not dread," continued Jack, "ever being hustled or jostled on
+the earth; life will fail us before space. There are now eight hundred
+millions of human beings in existence, and, according to the most
+moderate computation, room enough for twice that number. As it is, the
+most fertile sections of the earth are not the most populous; there
+are four hundred millions in Asia, sixty millions in Africa, forty in
+America, two hundred and thirty in Europe, and only seventy millions
+in the islands and continent of Oceanica!"
+
+"To which," remarked Fritz, "you may add the eleven inhabitants of New
+Switzerland."
+
+"Assuming, then, this calculation to be nearly accurate, though
+authorities vary materially in their computations of the earth's
+inhabitants, and regarding it in connexion with the average duration
+of human life, a thousand millions of mortals must perish in
+thirty-three years; to descend to detail, thirty millions every year,
+three thousand four hundred every hour, sixty every minute, or ONE
+EVERY SECOND."
+
+"Aye," remarked Willis, "we are here to-day and gone to-morrow."
+
+"Suppose, then, that the population of the earth were twice as great,
+cultivation would be extended, territories that are now lying waste
+would be teeming with life and covered with fertile fields, but the
+same beautiful equilibrium would be maintained."
+
+"And the inhabitants of the planets," said Fritz, "what are they
+about?"
+
+"What planets do you mean?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Well, all in general; the moon, for example, in particular."
+
+"The moon," replied Jack, "has, in the first place, no atmosphere.
+This we know, because the rays of the stars passing behind her are
+not, in the slightest degree, refracted; and this proves that neither
+men, nor animals, nor vegetables of any kind, are to be found in that
+planet, for they could not exist without air."
+
+"That should settle the question," remarked Willis.
+
+"Yes," remarked Fritz; "but some theorists, nevertheless, insist that
+there may be living creatures in the moon, for all that--of course,
+differently constituted from the inhabitants of our earth, and
+susceptible of existing without air. There is, however, no evidence of
+any kind to support such a theory; it is a mere fancy, the dream of an
+imaginative brain. Upon the same grounds, it may be argued, that the
+interior of the earth is inhabited, and that elves and gnomes are
+possible beings. Besides, the telescope has been brought to so high a
+degree of perfection, that objects the size of a house can now be
+detected in the moon."
+
+"It seems, I am afraid," remarked Jack, who, like his brother, was
+getting annoyed by the phantasmagoria on shore, "that we were about
+as well supplied with wild beasts here as they are with men in the
+planets."
+
+"In speaking of the moon, however," continued Fritz, "I do not imply
+all the planets; for, certain as we are that the moon has no
+atmosphere, so we are equally certain that some of the planets possess
+that attribute. Still there are other circumstances that render the
+notion of their being inhabited by beings like ourselves exceedingly
+improbable. Mercury, for example, is so embarrassed by the solar rays,
+that lead must always be in a state of fusion, and water, if not
+reduced to a state of vapor, will be hot enough to boil the fish that
+are in it. Uranus, at the other extremity of the system, receives four
+hundred times less heat and light than we do, consequently neither
+water nor any thing else can exist there in a liquid state; what is
+fluid on our earth must be frozen up into a solid mass. Good, I
+declare my brother has fallen asleep!"
+
+"It is very--interesting--however," said Willis, making ineffectual
+efforts to smother a yawn.
+
+"The same difficulty with comets; there must have been some very
+urgent necessity for human beings in order to have peopled them. When
+they pass the perihelion--"
+
+"The what?" inquired Willis.
+
+"The point where they approach nearest the sun--when they pass the
+perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific;
+when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the
+cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five
+thousand _myriamètres_ of the sun."
+
+"Friends coming within that distance of each other should at least
+shake hands," said Willis.
+
+"Still, even at that distance, the heat, according to Newton, must be
+like red-hot iron, and if constituted like our earth, when heated to
+that degree, must take fifty thousand years to cool."
+
+"Fifty thousand years!" said Willis, yawning from ear to ear.
+
+"The central position between these extremes, which would either
+congeal our earth into a mass of ice or burn it up into a heap of
+cinders, is therefore the most congenial to such beings as ourselves.
+Whence I conclude--"
+
+Here the crimson flashes of Willis's pipe, which had been gradually
+diminishing in brilliance suddenly ceased; _contralto_ notes issued
+from the profundities of his breast, and it became evident to the
+orator that all his audience were sound asleep.
+
+"Whence I conclude," said Fritz, addressing himself, "that my orations
+must be somewhat soporiferous."
+
+Being thus left alone to keep a look-out on shore, his thoughts
+gradually receded within his own breast, where all was rose-colored
+and smiling, for at his age rust has not had time to corrupt, nor
+moths to eat away. And it was not long before he himself, like his two
+companions, was fast locked in the arms of sleep.
+
+How long this state of things lasted the chronicle saith not; but the
+three sleepers were eventually awakened by a simultaneous howl of the
+dogs. They were instantly on their feet, with their rifles levelled.
+
+It was too late; day had broken, and there was light enough to
+convince them that nothing was to be seen. The sheep's quarters had,
+however, entirely disappeared, and they had the satisfaction of
+knowing that they had politely given the denizens of the forest a
+feast gratis.
+
+"Ah, they shall pay us for it yet," said Jack.
+
+"This is a case of the hunters being caught instead of the game,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"The poor sheep! If Ernest had been here, he would have erected a
+monument to its memory."
+
+"I doubt that; epitaphs are generally made rather to please the living
+than to compliment the defunct. But, Willis, we must deprive you of
+your office of huntsman in chief--I shall go into the forest and
+revenge this insult."
+
+"I have no objection to abdicate the office of huntsman, but must
+retain that of admiral, in which capacity I announce to you that there
+will be a storm presently, and that we shall just have time to make
+Rockhouse before it overtakes us."
+
+"That is rather a reason for our remaining where we are."
+
+"We have come for skins, and skins we must have."
+
+"Besides, we are two to one, and in all constitutional governments the
+majority rules."
+
+"Have you both made up your minds?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, we are quite decided."
+
+"In that case," said Willis, "let us hoist the anchor and be off
+home."
+
+"Home! but we are determined to have the skins first."
+
+"No, you are not," said Willis; "I know you better than you know
+yourselves. You are both brave fellows, but I know you would not, for
+all the skins in the world, have your good mother suppose that you
+were buffeted about by the waves in a storm."
+
+"True; up with the anchor, Willis," said Fritz.
+
+"Be it so," said Jack, shaking his fist menacingly at the silent
+forest, "but we shall lose nothing by waiting."
+
+The sailor had not erred in his calculations, for they had scarcely
+unfurled the sail before they heard the distant rumbling of the storm.
+As soon as the first flash of lightning shot across the sky, Jack put
+his forefinger of one hand on the wrist of the other, and began
+counting one--two--three.
+
+"Do you feel feverish?" inquired Willis.
+
+"No, not personally," replied Jack; "I am feeling the pulse of the
+storm--twenty-four--twenty-five--twenty-six--it is a mile off."
+
+"Aye! how do you make that out?"
+
+"Very easily; you recollect Ernest telling us that light travelled so
+rapidly, that the time it occupied in passing from one point to
+another of the earth's surface was scarcely perceptible to our
+senses?"
+
+"Yes, but I thought he was spinning a yarn at the time."
+
+"You were wrong, Willis; he likewise told us that sound travels at the
+rate of four hundred yards in a second."
+
+"Well, but--"
+
+"Have patience, Willis! When the lightning flashes, the electric spark
+is discharged, is it not?"
+
+"Well, I was never high enough aloft to see."
+
+"But others have been; Newton and Franklin have seen it. Now, if the
+sound reaches our ears a second after the flash, it has travelled four
+hundred yards. If we hear it twelve or thirteen seconds after, it has
+travelled twelve or thirteen times four hundred yards, or about half a
+mile, and so on."
+
+"But what has that to do with your pulse?"
+
+"In the first place, I am in perfect health, am I not?"
+
+"I hope so, Master Jack."
+
+"Then when our systems are in good order, the pulse, keeping fractions
+out of view, beats once in every second; and consequently, though we
+do not always carry a watch, we always have our arteries about us, and
+may therefore always reckon time."
+
+"Now I understand."
+
+"Ah! then we are to escape this time without the 'Mariner's March.'"
+
+"It appears, Master Jack, that you have turned philosopher as well as
+your brothers. Can you tell me what causes lightning?"
+
+"Yes, I can, Willis. You must know, in the first place, that all the
+layers of the atmosphere are, more or less, charged with electricity."
+
+"Ask him how," said Fritz drily.
+
+"Ah, you hope to puzzle me," replied Jack, "but thanks to Mr. Wolston,
+I am too well up in physics to be easily driven off my perch, and
+therefore may safely take my turn in philosophising."
+
+"Well, we are listening."
+
+"The air, by means of the vapor it contains, absorbs electricity from
+terrestrial bodies, and so becomes a sort of reservoir of this
+invisible fluid. All chemical combinations evolve electricity, the air
+collects it and stores it up in the clouds. There, worshipful brother,
+your question is answered."
+
+"Good, go on."
+
+"Well, Willis, you must know, in the second place, the clouds are very
+good fellows, and share with each other the good things they possess.
+When one cloud meets another, the one over-supplied with this fluid
+and the other in its normal state, there is an immediate interchange
+of courtesies, the negative electricity of the one is exchanged for
+the positive of the other."
+
+"There does not appear, however, to be much generosity in this
+transaction, since the surcharged cloud does not cede its superfluous
+abundance without a consideration."
+
+"It is very rarely that philanthropy amongst us goes much further,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"No, everybody is not like Willis," rejoined Jack, "who acts like a
+prince, and gives legs of mutton gratis to hyenas and tigers. The
+discharges of electricity from one cloud to another are the flashes of
+lightning, and it is to be observed that the thunder is nothing more
+than the noise made by the fluid rushing through the air."
+
+"What, then, is the thunderbolt?"
+
+"There is no such thing as what is popularly understood by the term
+thunderbolt. The lightning itself, however, often does mischief. This
+happens when the discharge, instead of being between two clouds in the
+air, takes place between a cloud and the ground--a cloud surcharged
+with electricity understood. Then all intervening objects are struck
+by the fluid."
+
+"There, however, you are wrong," said Fritz. "All objects are not
+struck; on the contrary, the fluid avoids some things and searches out
+others, even moving in a zig-zag direction to manifest these caprices;
+it often discharges itself on or into hard substances, and passes by
+those which are soft or feeble."
+
+"I might say this arose from a sentiment of generosity," added Jack,
+"but I have other reasons to assign."
+
+"So much the better," said Fritz, "as I should scarcely be satisfied
+with the first."
+
+"Well," continued Jack, "lightning has its likings and dislikings."
+
+"Like men and women," suggested Willis.
+
+"It has a partiality for metal."
+
+"An affection that is not returned, however," observed Fritz.
+
+"If the fluid enters a room, for example, it runs along the bell
+wires, inspects the works of the clock, and sometimes has the audacity
+to pounce upon the money in your purse, even though a policeman should
+happen to be in the kitchen at the time."
+
+"Perhaps," remarked Willis, "it is Socialist or Red Republican in its
+notions."
+
+"It does not, however, patronise war," replied Jack; "I once heard of
+it having melted a sword and left the scabbard intact."
+
+"That, to say the least of it, is improbable," remarked Fritz. "The
+hilt, or even the point, might have been fused; but even supposing the
+electric fluid to have been capable of such flagrant preference, the
+scabbard could not have held molten metal without being itself
+consumed."
+
+"Aye," remarked Willis, "there are plenty of non-sensical stories of
+that kind in circulation, because nobody takes the trouble to test
+their truth. Still, according to your own account, a man or woman runs
+no danger from the lightning."
+
+"I beg your pardon there, Willis; the electric fluid does not go out
+of its way to attack a human being, but if one should-happen to be in
+its way, it does not take time to request that individual to stand
+aside, it simply passes through him, and leaves him or her, as the
+case may be, a coagulated mass of inanimate tissues."
+
+"What a variety of ways there are of getting out of the world!" said
+Willis lugubriously.
+
+"Again," continued Jack, "anything that happens to be in the vicinity
+of the clouds when this interchange of courtesies is going on, is apt
+to draw the storm upon itself, hence the continual war that is carried
+on between the lightning and the steeples."
+
+"Something like an individual coming within range of a cloud of
+mosquitoes," suggested Willis.
+
+"A learned German--one of us," said the scapegrace, laughing,
+"calculated, in 1783, that in the space of thirty-three years there
+had been, to his own knowledge, three hundred and eighty-six spires
+struck, and a hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed by lightning,
+without reckoning a much larger number wounded."
+
+"And yet," remarked Willis, "I never heard of an insurance against
+accidents by lightning."
+
+"There are plenty of them, however, in Roman Catholic countries," said
+Fritz. "Every village has one, and the charge is almost nominal."
+
+"How, then, do these companies make it pay?"
+
+"They find it answer somehow, and they never collapse."
+
+"Then everybody ought to insure."
+
+"Yes, but there are some obstinate people who do not see the good of
+it."
+
+"If my life had not already been forfeited, I should insure it. But
+how is it done?"
+
+"Well, you have only to go into a church, fall down on your knees
+before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the
+cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind,
+you are perfectly safe."
+
+"Ah! that is the way you insure your lives, is it, trusting to the
+priests rather than to Providence? For my own part, I should prefer a
+policy of insurance--that is to say, if my life were of any value."
+
+"Next to steeples," continued Jack, "come tall trees, such as poplars
+and pines. Should you ever be caught by a storm in the open country,
+Willis, never take shelter under a tree; face the storm bravely, and
+submit to be deluged by the rain. Dread even bushes, if they are
+isolated. An entire forest is less dangerous than a single reed when
+it stands alone."
+
+"But you forget, brother, that when a man stands alone he is quite as
+prominent an object as the trunk of a tree four or five feet high,
+particularly in an open plain."
+
+"Quite so. It is therefore advisable, when severe storms are close
+upon us, to lie down flat on the ground."
+
+"Suppose," remarked Fritz, smiling, "a brigade of soldiers on the
+march suddenly to collapse in this way, as if before a discharge of
+grape."
+
+"And why not? If it is done in the case of grape-shot, why may it not
+be done when the artillery is a thousand times more effective?"
+
+"Well, I suspect it would rather astonish the commanding officer,
+that is all."
+
+"Then, Willis," continued Jack, "you must not run during a storm,
+because the air you put in motion by so doing may draw the electricity
+into the current."
+
+"Do the conductors not prevent the lightning from doing harm?"
+
+"Yes, but you cannot carry one of them on your hat. These rods are
+only useful in protecting buildings, and then to nothing more than
+double the area of their length; it is for this last reason that roofs
+of public buildings have them projecting in all directions."
+
+"They are a sort of trap set for the lightning, are they not?"
+
+"Yes, and into which it is pretty sure to fall. Franklin, of whom I
+spoke just now, was the first to suggest that bars of steel would draw
+lightning out of a cloud surcharged with electricity."
+
+"What becomes of it when it is caught?"
+
+"Keeping in view its partiality for bell-pulls, a wire is attached to
+the rod down which the unconscious fluid glides."
+
+"Like a powder-monkey from the main-top."
+
+"Exactly; till it enters a well, and there it is left at the bottom in
+company with Truth."
+
+A practical storm had begun to mix itself up with the theory as
+developed by Jack, but not before they had very nearly reached their
+destination, where they were waited for with the greatest anxiety.
+
+No sooner had they landed than Sophia ran to meet Willis, who was
+advancing with Jack.
+
+"Ah, sweetheart," she said, "Susan has been so uneasy about you."
+
+"You are a good girl, Miss Soph--Susan."
+
+"Oh, if you only knew how frightened we have been!"
+
+"What, do you admit fear to be one of your accomplishments, Miss
+Sophia?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Certainly, when others are concerned, Master Jack. But, by the way,
+do you recollect the chimpanzee?"
+
+"Yes, what about the rascal?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Oh, I must not tell you, mamma would call me a chatterbox; you will
+know by-and-by."
+
+In the meanwhile Mary, on her side, was congratulating Toby, who kept
+scampering between herself and Fritz, at one moment receiving the
+caresses of the one and at the next of the other, with every
+demonstration of joy. This had become an established mode of
+communication between the young people when Fritz arrived from a
+lengthened ramble; the intelligent, brute, in point of fact, had
+assumed the office of dragoman.
+
+"Ah, ah, Becker, glad to see you again," said Willis. "Your sons are
+fountains of knowledge, whilst I am--"
+
+"A very worthy fellow, Willis, and I know it," replied Becker, shaking
+him heartily by the hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES--THE CHOICE OF A
+PROFESSION--CONQUEROR--ORATOR--ASTRONOMER--COMPOSER--PAINTER--POET--VILLAGE
+CURATE--THE KAFIRS--OCCUPATIONS OF WOMEN--THE ALPHA AND OMEGA OF THE
+SEA.
+
+
+To the storm succeeded one of those diluvian showers that have already
+been described. Rain being merely a result of evaporation, it was
+evident that sea and land in those climates must perspire at an
+enormous rate to effect such cataclysms. In consequence of this
+deluge, the proposed excursion was indefinitely postponed. The
+provisions, the marvellous kits, the waggon, were all ready; but
+Nature, as often happens under such circumstances, had assumed a
+menacing attitude, and for the present forbade the execution of the
+project.
+
+A sort of vague sadness, that generally accompanies a gloomy
+atmosphere, weighed upon the spirits of the colonists. Recollections
+of the _Nelson_ and her sudden disappearance thrust themselves more
+vividly than ever upon their memory; and Willis was observed to throw
+his sou'-wester unconsciously on the ground--a proof that remembrances
+of the past occupied his thoughts.
+
+One of the ladies was occupied in the needful domestic operations of
+the household, whilst the other sat with a stocking on her left arm,
+busily occupied in repairing the ravages of tear and wear upon that
+useful though humble garment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do
+the great ladies of the court of King Alfred, and as Hercules himself
+is said to have done when he changed his club and lion's skin for a
+spindle and distaff with the Queen of Lybia; Jack was apparently
+sketching, Fritz had a collection of hunting apparatus before him, and
+the other two young men, each with a book, were deeply immersed in
+study.
+
+This state of things was by no means cheerful, and Wolston determined
+to break up the monotony by introducing a subject of conversation
+likely to interest them all, the old as well as the young.
+
+"By the way, gentlemen," said he, "it occurs to me that you have not
+yet thought of selecting a profession; your future career seems at
+present somewhat obscure."
+
+"What would you have?" inquired Jack; "there is no use for lawyers and
+judges in our colony, except to try plundering monkeys or protect
+jackal orphans."
+
+"True; but suppose you were to find yourselves, by some chance, again
+in the great world, there it is necessary to possess a qualification
+of some kind; a blacksmith or a carpenter, expert in his handicraft,
+has a better chance of acquiring wealth and position than a man
+without a profession, however great his talents may be; an idler is a
+mere clog in the social machine, and is often thrust aside to browse
+in a corner with monks and donkeys."
+
+"But to acquire a profession, is not instruction and practice
+necessary?"
+
+"Certainly; it is impossible to become a proficient in any art or
+science by mere study alone; but before sowing a field, what is done?"
+
+"It is ploughed and manured."
+
+"And should there be only a few seeds?"
+
+"We can sow what we have, and reserve the harvest till next season. By
+economising each crop in this way, we shall soon have seeds enough to
+cover any extent of land."
+
+"May I request you, Master Ernest, to draw a conclusion from that as
+regards sowing the seeds of a future career?"
+
+"I would infer, from your suggestion, that we might adapt ourselves
+for such and such a profession by preparing our minds to receive
+instruction in it, and we might also avail ourselves in the meantime
+of such sources of information regarding it as are at present open to
+us. The physician in prospective, for example, might make himself
+familiar with the medical properties of such plants as are within his
+reach; he might likewise examine the bones of an ape, and thus, by
+analogy, become acquainted with the framework of the human body. The
+would-be lawyer might, in the same way, avail himself of the library
+to obtain an insight into those social mysteries that bind men in
+communities and necessitate human laws for the preservation of peace
+and order. Thus, by directing our thoughts into one line of study, we
+may form a basis upon which the superstructure may be easily erected,
+and the necessary academical degrees or sanction of the university
+obtained."
+
+"And, when you see this, why not adopt so commendable a course?"
+
+"Because we may probably be destined to remain here, where, according
+to Jack, the learned professions, at least, are not likely to be much
+in demand."
+
+"The study of a particular science or art has charms in itself, which
+amply compensate the student for his labor. But, even admitting you do
+not return to the Old World, you forget that it is your intention to
+colonise this territory."
+
+"It seems, however, that God has willed it otherwise."
+
+"What God does not will in one way, he may bring about in another.
+What reason have you for supposing that the _Nelson_ may not return
+with colonists?"
+
+"It will be from the other world then," said Willis.
+
+"Yes, from the other world," replied Jack, "but not in the sense you
+imply."
+
+"Besides, should the _Nelson_ not reappear, that is no reason why
+another accident may not drive another ship upon the coast that will
+be more fortunate; what has happened to-day may surely happen again
+to-morrow. And in the event of colonists arriving, will there not be
+sick to cure, boundaries to determine, differences of opinion to
+decide, and opposing claims to adjudge."
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Wolston."
+
+"Well, admitting these necessities, what profession will each of you
+select? Let us begin with you, Master Fritz."
+
+"The career," replied Fritz, "that would be most congenial to my
+taste is that of a conqueror."
+
+"A conqueror!"
+
+"Yes; Alexander, Scipio, Timour the Tartar, and Gengis Khan are the
+sort of men I should like to resemble. They have made a tolerable
+figure in the world, and I should have no objection to follow in their
+footsteps."
+
+"But you forget that their footsteps are marked with tears, disasters,
+terror, and bloodshed."
+
+"These are indispensable."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Once, when a great commander was asked the same question, he replied,
+that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs."
+
+"Yes," remarked Becker, "but if you had read the anecdote entire, you
+would have seen that he was asked in return, 'What use there was for
+so many omelets.'"
+
+"Added to which," continued Wolston, "that is not a normal career;
+there is no diploma required for it; it is an accident arising out of
+adventitious circumstances, sometimes fostered by ambition, but no
+course of study can produce a conqueror."
+
+"What, then, is the use of military schools?"
+
+"They are, to the best of my knowledge, instituted for rearing
+defenders for one's country, and not with a view to the subjugation of
+another's."
+
+"My poor Fritz," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "I hope when you conquer
+half the world, you will find an occupation for your mother more in
+consonance with your dignity than mending your stockings."
+
+"Then, again," continued Wolston, "war cannot be waged by a single
+individual."
+
+"There must be an enemy somewhere," suggested Willis.
+
+"The difficulty does not, however, lie there," observed Jack; "for, if
+we have no enemies, it is easy enough to make them."
+
+"There must, at all events, be armies, magazines, and a treasury--or
+eggs, as the great commander in question hinted."
+
+"True," replied Fritz; "but there is the same difficulty as regards
+all professions; there can be no barristers without briefs, no
+physicians without patients."
+
+"You will admit, however, that clients and patients are not so rare as
+hundreds of thousands of armed men and millions of money."
+
+"Brother," said Jack, "your cavalry are routed and your infantry
+outflanked."
+
+"If you are determined to be a conqueror, let it be by the pen rather
+than by the sword--or, what do you say to oratory? It is not easier,
+perhaps, but, at all events, eloquence is not denied to ordinary
+mortals. You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Hannibals, the
+Tamerlanes, or the Cæsars; but you may attain a place with
+Demosthenes, who was more dreaded by Philip of Macedon than an army of
+soldiers."
+
+"Or Cicero," remarked Becker, "who preserved his country from the
+rapacity of Cataline."
+
+"Or Peter the Hermit," remarked Frank, "who by his eloquence roused
+Europe against the Saracens."
+
+"Or Bossuet," added Wolston, "and then you may venture to assert in
+the face of kings that _God alone is Great_, should they, like Louis
+XIV., assume the sun as an emblem, and adopt such a silly scroll as
+'_Nec pluribus impar_.'"
+
+"Bossuet, Peter the Hermit, Cicero, and Demosthenes, are not so bad,
+after all, as a last resource," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and I would
+recommend you to enrol yourself in that list of conquerors, Master
+Fritz."
+
+"The more especially," observed Jack, "as you have no impediment in
+your voice, and would not have to undergo a course of pebbles like
+Demosthenes."
+
+"So far as that goes, Jack," replied Fritz, "you would possess a like
+advantage for the profession as myself; but I will take time to
+reflect." Then, turning towards his mother, he said, "Conqueror or
+Jack Pudding, mother, you shall always find me a dutiful son."
+
+His mother was more gratified by this expression of attachment than
+she would have been had he laid at her feet the four thousand golden
+spurs found, in 1302, on the field of Courtray.
+
+"And now, Ernest, what profession do you intend to adopt? what is
+your dream of the future?"
+
+"I, Mr. Wolston! Well, having no taste for artillery, brilliant
+charges, blood-stained ruins, and the other _agrémens_ of war, I
+cannot be a hero. Do you know when I feel most happy?"
+
+"No, let us hear."
+
+"It is towards evening, when I am reposing tranquilly on the banks of
+the Jackal."
+
+"Ah, I thought so," cried Jack; "no position so congenial to the true
+philosopher as the horizontal."
+
+"When the sun," continued Ernest, gravely, "is retiring behind the
+forest of cedars that bounds the horizon; when the palms, the mangoes,
+and gum trees, mass their verdure in distinct and isolated groups;
+when nature is making herself heard in a thousand melodious voices;
+when the hum of the insect is ringing in my ears, and the breeze is
+gently murmuring through the foliage; when thousands of birds are
+fluttering from grove to grove, sometimes breaking with their wings
+the smooth surface of the river; when the fish, leaping out of their
+own element, reflect for an instant from their silvery scales the
+departing rays of the sun; when the sea, stretching away like a vast
+plain of boundless space, loses itself in the distance, then my eyes
+and thoughts are sometimes turned upwards towards the azure of the
+firmament, and sometimes towards the objects around me, and I feel as
+if my mind were in search of something which has hitherto eluded its
+grasp, but which it is sure of eventually finding. Under these
+circumstances, I assure you, I would not exchange the moss on which I
+sat for the greatest throne in Christendom."
+
+"But surely you do not call such a poetical exordium a profession?"
+remarked Becker.
+
+"It must be admitted," said Wolston, "that the sun and trees have
+their uses, especially when the one protects us from the other; the
+sun, for example, dries up the moisture that falls from the trees, and
+the trees shelter us from the burning rays of the sun. Still, I am at
+a loss myself to connect these things with a profession in a social
+point of view."
+
+"What would you have thought," inquired Ernest, "if you had seen
+Newton and Kepler gazing at the sky, before the one had determined the
+movements of the celestial bodies, and the other the laws of
+gravitation? What would you have thought of Parmentier passing hours
+and days in manipulating a rough-looking bulb, that possessed no kind
+of value in the eyes of the vulgar, but which afterwards, as the
+potato, became the chief food of two-thirds of the population of
+Europe? What would you think of Jenner, with his finger on his brow,
+searching for a means of preserving humanity from the scourge of the
+small-pox?"
+
+"But these men had an object in view."
+
+"Jenner, yes; but not the other two. They thought, studied,
+contemplated, and reflected, satisfied that one day their thoughts,
+calculations, and reflections would aid in disclosing some mystery of
+Nature; but it would have perplexed them sorely to have named
+beforehand the nature and scope of their discoveries."
+
+"According to you, then," said Jack, "there could not be a more
+dignified profession than that of the scarecrow. The greatest
+dunderhead in Christendom might simply, by going a star-gazing, pass
+himself off as an adept in the occult sciences, and claim the right of
+being a benefactor of mankind in embryo."
+
+"At all events," replied Ernest, "you will admit that, so long as I am
+ready to bear my share of the common burdens, and take my part in
+providing for the common wants, and in warding of the common dangers,
+it is immaterial whether I occupy my leisure hours in reflection or in
+rifle practice."
+
+"Well," said Jack, "when you have made some discovery that will enrol
+your name with Descartes, Huygens, Cassini, and such gentlemen, you
+will do us the honor of letting us know."
+
+"With the greatest pleasure."
+
+"It is a pity that Herschell has invented the telescope: he might have
+left you a chance for the glory of that invention."
+
+"If I have not discovered a new star, brother, I discovered long ago
+that you would never be one."
+
+"Well, I hope not; their temperature is too unequal for me--they are
+either freezing or boiling: at least, so said Fritz the other day,
+whilst we were--all, what were we doing, Willis?"
+
+"We were supposed to be hunting."
+
+"Ah, so we were."
+
+"Now, Master Jack, it is your turn to enlighten us as to your future
+career."
+
+"It is quite clear, Mr. Wolston, that, since my brothers are to be so
+illustrious, I cannot be an ordinary mortal; the honor of the family
+is concerned, and must be consulted. I am, therefore, resolved to
+become either a great composer, like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; a
+renowned painter, like Titian, Carrache, or Veronese; or a great poet,
+like Homer, Virgil, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton, Goethe, and Racine."
+
+"That is to say," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that you are resolved to be
+a great something or other."
+
+"Decidedly, madam; on reflection, however, as I value my eyesight, I
+must except Homer and Milton."
+
+"But have you not determined to which of the muses you will throw the
+handkerchief?"
+
+"I thought of music at first. It must be a grand thing, said I to
+myself, that can charm, delight, and draw tears from the eyes of the
+multitude--that can inspire faith, courage, patriotism, devotion and
+energy, and that, too, by means of little black dots with tails,
+interspersed with quavers, crotchets, sharps and flats."
+
+"Have you composed a sonata yet?"
+
+"No, madam; I was going to do so, but it occurred to me that I should
+require an orchestra to play it."
+
+"And not having that, you abandoned the idea?"
+
+"Exactly, madam. I then turned to poetry. That is an art fit for the
+gods; it puts you on a level with kings, and makes you in history even
+more illustrious than them. You ascend the capitol, and there you are
+crowned with laurel, like the hero of a hundred fights."
+
+"What is the subject of your principal work in this line?"
+
+"Well, madam, I once finished a verse, and was going on with a second,
+but, somehow or other, I could not get the words to rhyme."
+
+"Then it occurred to you that you had neither a printer nor readers,
+and you broke your lyre?"
+
+"I was about to reproach you, Master Jack," said Wolston, "for
+undertaking too many things at once; but I see the ranks are beginning
+to thin."
+
+"Beautiful as poetry may be," continued Jack, one gets tired of
+reading and re-reading one's own effusions."
+
+"It is even often intensely insipid the very first time," remarked
+Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"There still remains painting," continued Jack. "Painting is vastly
+superior to either music or poetry. In the first place, it requires no
+interpreter between itself and the public;--what, for example, remains
+of a melody after a concert? nothing but the recollection. Poesy may
+excite admiration in the retirement of one's chamber; your nostrils
+are, as it were, reposing on the bouquet, though often you have still
+a difficulty in smelling anything. But if once you give life to
+canvas, it is eternal."
+
+"Eternal is scarcely the proper word," remarked Wolston: "the
+celebrated fresco of Leonardo da Vinci, in the refectory of the
+Dominicans at Milan, is nothing but a confused mass of colors and
+figures."
+
+"I answer that by saying that the painting in question is only a
+fresco. Besides, I use the word eternal in a modified or relative
+sense. A painting is preserved from generation to generation, whilst
+its successive races of admirers are mingled with the dust. Then
+suppose a painter in his studio; he cannot look around him without
+awakening some memory of the past. He can associate with those he
+loves when they are absent, nay, even when they are dead, and they
+always remain young and beautiful as when he first delineated them."
+
+"Take care," cried Ernest, pushing back his seat, "if you go on at
+that rate you will take fire."
+
+"No fear of that, brother, unless you have a star or a comet in your
+pocket, in which case you are not far enough away yet."
+
+These occasional bickerings between Ernest and Jack were always given
+and taken in good part, and had only the effect of raising a
+good-humored laugh.
+
+"Let the painter," he continued, "fall in with a spot that pleases
+him, he can take it with him and have it always before his eyes. The
+hand of God or of man may alter the original, the forest may lose its
+trees, the old castle may be destroyed by fire or time, the green
+meadow may be converted into a dismal swamp, but to him the landscape
+always retains its pristine freshness, the same butterfly still
+flutters about the same bush, the same bee still sucks at the same
+flower."
+
+"Really," said Mrs. Wolston, "it is a pity, after all, that you did
+not achieve your second verse."
+
+"And yet," continued Jack, "that is only a copy. How much more sublime
+when we regard the painter as a creator! If there is in the past or
+present a heroic deed--if there is in the infinity of his life one
+moment more blessed than another, like Pygmalion he breathes into it
+the breath of life, and it becomes imperishable. Who would think a
+century or two hence of the victories of Fritz, unless the skill of
+the painter be called in to immortalize them!"
+
+"I agree with you in thinking that the arts you name are the source of
+beautiful and legitimate emotions. But generally it is better to view
+them as a recreation or pastime, rather than a profession. They have
+doubtless made a few men live in posterity, but, on the other hand,
+they have embittered and shortened the lives of thousands."
+
+"You will never guess what led me to adopt this art in preference to
+the two others. It was the discovery, that we made some years ago, of
+a gum tree, the name of which I do not recollect."
+
+"The myrica cerifera," said Ernest.
+
+"From the gum of this tree the varnish may be made. Now, like my
+brother, who, when he sees the sun overhead, considers he ought to
+profit by the circumstance and become a discoverer, so I said to
+myself: You have varnish, all you want, therefore, to produce a
+magnificent painting is canvas, colors, and talent; consequently, you
+must not allow such an opportunity to pass--it would be unpardonable.
+Accordingly, I set to work with an energy never before equalled; and,"
+added he, showing the design he had just finished, "here are two eyes
+and a nose, that I do not think want expression."
+
+"Capital!" said Mrs. Wolston; "your painting will be in admirable
+keeping with the hangings my daughters have promised to work for your
+mamma."
+
+"Nobody can deny," continued Jack, laughing, "that the colony is
+advancing in civilization; it already possesses a conqueror, a member
+of the Royal Society minus the diploma, and an Apelles in embryo."
+
+"It is now your turn, Frank."
+
+"I," replied Frank, in his mild but penetrating voice, "if I may be
+allowed to liken the flowers of the garden to the occupations of human
+life, I should prefer the part of the violet."
+
+"It hides itself," said Mrs. Wolston, "but its presence is not the
+less felt."
+
+"When I have allowed myself to indulge in dreams of the future, I have
+pictured myself dwelling in a modest cottage, partially shrouded in
+ivy, not very far from the village church. My coat is a little
+threadbare."
+
+"Why threadbare?" inquired Sophia.
+
+"Because there are a number of very poor people all round me, and I
+cannot make up my mind to lay out money on myself when it is wanted by
+them."
+
+"Such a coat would be sacred in our eyes," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"In the morning I take a walk in my little garden; I inspect the
+flowers one after the other; chide my dog, who is not much of a
+florist; then, perhaps, I retire to my study, where I am always ready
+to receive those who may require my aid, my advice, or my personal
+services."
+
+Here Mrs. Wolston shook Frank very warmly by the hand.
+
+"Sometimes I go amongst the laborers in the fields, talk to them of
+the rain, of the fine weather, and of HIM who gives both. I enter the
+home of the artizan, cheer him in his labors, and interest myself in
+the affairs of his family; I call the children by their names, caress
+them, and make them my friends. I talk to them of our Redeemer, and
+thus, in familiarly conversing with the young, I find means of
+instructing the old. They, perhaps, tell me of a sick neighbor; I
+direct my steps there, and endeavor to mitigate the pangs of disease
+by words of consolation and hope; I strive to pour balm on the wounded
+spirit, and, if the mind has been led away by the temptations of the
+world, I urge repentance as a means of grace. If death should step in,
+then I kneel with those around, and join them in soliciting a place
+amongst the blessed for the departed soul."
+
+"We shall all gladly aid you in such labors of love," said Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"When death has deprived a family of its chief support, then I appeal
+to those whom God has blessed with the things of this world for the
+means of assisting the widow and the fatherless. To one I say, 'You
+regret having no children, or bemoan those you have lost; here are
+some that God has sent you.' I say to another, 'You have only one
+child, whilst you have the means of supporting ten; you can at least
+charge yourself with two.' Thus I excite the charity of some and the
+pity of others, till the bereaved family is provided for. I obtain
+work for those that are desirous of earning an honest living, I bring
+back to the fold the sheep that are straying, and rescue those that
+are tottering on the brink of infidelity."
+
+Here the girls came forward and volunteered to assist Frank in such
+works of mercy.
+
+"I accept your proffered aid, my dear girls, but, as yet, I am only
+picturing a future career for myself. After a day devoted to such
+labors as these, I return to my home, perhaps to be welcomed by a
+little circle of my own, for I hope to be received as a minister of
+the Protestant Church, and, as such, may look forward to a partner in
+my joys and troubles. Should Providence, however, shape my destiny
+otherwise, I shall have the poor and afflicted--always a numerous
+family--to bestow my affections upon. But, whilst much of my time is
+thus passed amongst the sorrowing and the sick, still there are hours
+of gaiety amongst the gloom--there are weddings, christenings, and
+merrymakings--there are happy faces to greet me as well as sad
+ones--and I am no ascetic. I take part in all the innocent amusements
+that are not inconsistent with my years or the gravity of my
+profession--but you seem sad, Mrs. Wolston."
+
+"Yes, Frank; you have recalled my absent son, Richard, so vividly to
+my memory, that I cannot help shedding a tear."
+
+"Is your son in orders then, madam?"
+
+"He is precisely what you have pictured yourself to be, a minister of
+the gospel, and a most exemplary young man."
+
+"If," remarked Becker, "we have hitherto refrained from inquiring
+after your son, madam, it was because we had no wish to recall to your
+mind the distance that separated you from him, and we should be glad
+to know his history."
+
+"There is little to relate; he is very young yet, and as soon as he
+had obtained his ordination, he was offered a mission to Oregon, which
+he accepted; but the ship having been detained at the Cape of Good
+Hope, he regarded the accident as a divine message, to convert the
+heathen of Kafraria, where he now is."
+
+"It is no sinecure to live amongst these copper-colored rascals," said
+Willis; "they are constantly stealing the cattle of the Dutch settlers
+in their neighborhood. About twelve years ago, our ship was stationed
+at the Cape, and I was sent with a party of blue jackets into the
+interior, as far as Fort Wiltshire, on the Krieskamma, the most remote
+point of the British possessions in South Africa. There we dispersed a
+cloud of them that had been for weeks living upon other people's
+property. They are tall, wiry fellows, as hardy as a pine tree, and as
+daring as buccaneers. The chief of the _kraals_, or huts, wear leopard
+or panther skins, and profess to have the power of causing rain to
+fall, besides an endless number of other miraculous attributes.
+Amongst them, a wife of the ordinary class costs eight head of cattle,
+but the price of a young lady of the higher ranks runs as high as
+twenty cows. When a Kafir is suspected of a crime, his tongue is
+touched seven times with hot iron, and if it is not burnt he is
+declared innocent."
+
+"I am afraid," said Jack, "if they were all subjected to that test,
+they would be found to be a very bad lot. But now, since we have all
+decided upon a profession, let us hear what the young ladies intend
+doing with themselves; let them consult their imagination for a
+beautiful future gilded with sunshine, and embroidered with gold."
+
+"There is only one occupation for women," said Mrs. Becker, "and that
+is too well defined to admit of speculation, and too important to
+admit of fanciful embellishments."
+
+"Well, then, mother, let us hear what it is."
+
+"It is to nurse you, and rear you, when you are unable to help
+yourselves; to guide your first steps, and teach you to lisp your
+first syllables. For this purpose, God has given her qualities that
+attract sympathy and engender love. She is so constituted as to impart
+a charm to your lives, to share in your labors, to soothe you when you
+are ruffled, to smooth your pillow when you are in pain, and to
+cherish you in old age; bestowing upon you, to your last hour, cares
+that no other love could yield. These, gentlemen, are the duties and
+occupations of women; and you must admit, that if it is not our
+province to command armies, or to add new planets to the galaxy of the
+firmament; that if we have not produced an Iliad or an Ænead, a
+Jerusalem Delivered, or a Paradise Lost, an Oratorio of the Creation,
+a Transfiguration, or a Laocoon, we have not the less our modest
+utility."
+
+"I should think so, mother," replied Jack; "it would take no end of
+philosophers to do the work of one of you."
+
+"It surprises me," said Willis, "that not one of you has selected the
+finest profession in the world--that of a sailor."
+
+"The finest profession of the sea, you mean, Willis. There is no doubt
+of its being the finest that can be exercised on the ocean, since it
+is the only one. If it is the best, Willis, it is also the worst."
+
+"It has also produced great men," continued Willis; "there are
+Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Captain Cook, to whom you are indebted
+for a new world."
+
+"No thanks to them for that," said Jack; "if they had not discovered a
+new world we should have been in an old one."
+
+"That does not follow," remarked Ernest; "the new world would have
+existed even if it had not been discovered, and you might have found
+your way there all the same."
+
+"Not very likely," replied Jack, "unless one of the stars you intend
+to discover had shown us the way; otherwise it would only have existed
+in conjecture; and as nobody under such circumstances would have
+dreamt of settling in it, they would not have been shipwrecked during
+the voyage."
+
+"Very true," remarked Fritz; "if we had not been here we should, very
+probably, have been somewhere else, and perhaps in a much worse
+plight. Let me ask if there is any one here who regrets his present
+position?"
+
+Willis was about to reply to this question, but Sophia observing that
+there was something wrong with the handkerchief that he wore round his
+neck, hastened towards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.
+
+The hour had now arrived when the families separated for the night.
+Mary was preparing as usual to recite the evening prayer, but before
+doing so she whispered a few words in her mother's ear.
+
+"Yes, my child;" and, turning to Frank, she added, "Since you are
+determined to adopt the ministry as a profession, it is but right that
+we should for the future entrust ourselves to your prayers."
+
+The two families were now located in their respective eyries; and
+Jack, whilst escorting the Wolstons to the foot of their tree, said to
+Sophia,
+
+"I thought the chimpanzee had been playing some prank."
+
+"So he has. Has nobody told you of it?"
+
+"No, not a soul."
+
+"Then I will be as discreet as my neighbors; good night, Master Jack."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HERBERT AND CECILIA--THE LITTLE ANGELS--A CATASTROPHE--THE
+DEPARTURE--MARRIAGE OF THE DOGE WITH THE ADRIATIC--SOVEREIGNS OF THE
+SEA--DANTE AND BEATRIX--ELEONORA AND TASSO--LAURA AND PETRARCH--THE
+RETURN--SURPRISES--WHAT ONE FINDS IN TURBOTS--A HORROR--THE
+PRICE OF CRIME--BALLOONING--PHILIPSON AND THE CHOLERA--A
+METAMORPHOSIS--ADVENTURE OF THE CHIMPANZEE--ARE YOU RICH?
+
+
+Next day the sky was shrouded in dense masses of cloud, some grey as
+lead, some livid as copper, and some black as ink. Towards evening the
+two families, as usual, resolved themselves into a talking party, and
+Wolston, requesting them to listen, began as follows:--
+
+"There were two rich merchants in Bristol, between whom a very close
+intimacy had for a long time existed. One of them, whom I shall call
+Henry Foster, had a daughter; and the other, Nicholas Philipson, had a
+son, and the two fathers had destined these children for one another.
+The boy was a little older than the girl, and their tastes, habits,
+and dispositions seemed to fit them admirably for each other, and so
+to ratify the decision of the parents. Little Herbert and Cecilia were
+almost constantly together. They had a purse in common, into which
+they put all the pieces of bright gold they received as presents on
+birthdays and other festive occasions. In summer, when the two
+families retired to a retreat that one of them had in the country, the
+children were permitted to visit the cottagers, and to assist the
+distressed, if they chose, out of their own funds--a permission which
+they availed themselves of so liberally that they were called by the
+country people the two little angels."
+
+"What a pity there are no poor people here!" said Sophia, dolefully.
+
+"Why?" inquired her mother.
+
+"Because we might assist them, mamma."
+
+"It is much better, however, as it is, my child; our assistance might
+mitigate the evils of poverty, but might not be sufficient to remove
+them."
+
+This reasoning did not seem conclusive to Sophia, who shook her head
+and commenced plying her wheel with redoubled energy.
+
+"When Herbert Philipson was twelve years of age he was sent off to
+school, and Cecilia was confided to the care of a governess, who,
+under the direction of Mrs. Foster, was to undertake her education.
+But neither music nor drawing, needlework, grammars nor exercises,
+could make little Cecilia forget her absent companion. Absence, that
+cools older friendships, had a contrary effect on her heart; the
+months, weeks, days, and hours that were to elapse before Herbert
+returned for the holidays, were counted and recounted. When that
+period--so anxiously desired--at length arrived, there was no end of
+rejoicing: she told Herbert of all the little boys and little girls
+she had clothed and fed, of the old people she had relieved, of the
+tears she had shed over tales of woe and misery, how she had carried
+every week a little basket covered with a white napkin to widow
+Robson, how often she had gone into the damp and dismal cottage of the
+dying miner, and how happy she always made his wife and their nine
+pitiful looking children."
+
+"That is a way of conquering human hearts," remarked Mrs. Becker,
+"often more effective than those referred to the other day."
+
+"Once, when Herbert was at home for the holidays, he accompanied
+Cecilia on her charitable visits, and was greatly surprised to find
+that blessings were showered upon his own head wherever they went;
+people, whom he had never seen before, insisted upon his being their
+benefactor. This he could not make out. At last, by an accident, he
+discovered the secret--Cecilia had been distributing her gifts in his
+name! He remonstrated warmly against this, declaring that he had no
+wish to be praised and blessed for doing things that he had no hand
+in. Finding that his protestations were of no avail, he determined,
+on the eve of his returning to school, to have his revenge."
+
+"He did not buy Cecilia a doll, did he?" inquired Jack.
+
+"No; he collected all the eatables, clothing, blankets, and money he
+could obtain; went amongst the poorest of the cottages, and
+distributed the whole in Cecilia's name."
+
+"Ah," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is a pity we could not all remain at
+the age of these children, with the same purity, the same innocence,
+and the same freshness of sensation; the world would then be a
+veritable Paradise."
+
+"For some years this state of things continued, the affection between
+the young people strengthened as they grew older, the occasional
+holiday time was always the happiest of their lives. Herbert, in due
+course, was transferred from school to college, where he obtained a
+degree, and rapidly verged into manhood. Cecilia from the girl at
+length bloomed into the young lady. A day was finally fixed when they
+were to be bound together by the holy ties of the church; everything
+was prepared for their union, when the commercial world was startled
+by the announcement that Philipson was a ruined man. A ship in which
+he had embarked a valuable freight had been wrecked, and an agent to
+whom he had entrusted a large sum of money had suddenly disappeared."
+
+"How deplorable!" cried Fritz.
+
+"Not so very unfortunate, after all," remarked Mary.
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Because nothing had occurred to interrupt the marriage; only one of
+the families was ruined, and there was still enough left for both."
+
+"But," said Fritz, "even admitting that the friendship between the two
+families continued uninterrupted, and that the father of Cecilia was
+willing to share his property with the father of Herbert, still the
+young man, in the parlance of society, was a beggar; and it is always
+hard for a man to owe his position to a woman, and to become, as it
+were, the _protégé_ of her whom he ought rather to protect."
+
+"If that is the view you take, Master Fritz, then I agree with you
+that the misfortune was deplorable," said Mary, bending at the same
+time to hide her blushes, under pretence of mending a broken thread.
+
+"And what if Cecilia's father had been ruined instead of Herbert's?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"I should say," replied Sophia, "that we have as much right to be
+proud and dignified as you have."
+
+"The best way in such a case," observed Willis, laughing, "would be
+for both parties to get ruined together."
+
+"Herbert," continued Wolston, "was a youth of resolution and energy.
+He entertained the same opinion as Fritz; and instead of wasting his
+time in idle despondency, got together some articles of merchandise,
+and sailed for the Indian Archipelago, promising his friends that he
+would return to his native land in two years."
+
+"Two years is a long time," remarked Mary; "but sometimes it passes
+away very quickly."
+
+"Ah!" observed Sophia, Cecilia, in the meantime, would redouble her
+charities and her prayers."
+
+"The two years passed away, then a third, and then a fourth, but not a
+single word had either been heard of or from the absentee. Cecilia was
+rich, and her hand was sought by many wealthy suitors, but hitherto
+she had rejected them all."
+
+"The dear, good Cecilia," cried Sophia.
+
+"Up till this period the family had permitted her to have her own way.
+But as it is necessary for authority to prevent excesses of all kinds,
+they thought it time now to interfere; they could not allow her to
+sacrifice her whole life for a shadow. Her parents, therefore,
+insisted upon her making a choice of one or other of the suitors for
+her hand. She requested grace for one year more, which was granted."
+
+"Come back, truant, quick; come back, Master Herbert!" cried Sophia.
+
+"There now, Willis," cried Jack, "you see the effect of your new
+world; people go away there, and never come back again."
+
+"Oh, but you must bring him back in time, father; you must indeed,"
+urged Sophia.
+
+"If it were only a romance I were relating to you, Sophia, I could
+very easily bring him back; but the narrative I am giving you is a
+matter of fact, which I cannot alter at will. There would be no
+difficulty in bringing a richly-laden East Indiaman, commanded by
+Captain Philipson, into the Severn, and making Herbert and Cecilia
+conclude the story in each other's arms, but it would not be true."
+
+"Then if I had been Cecilia, I should have become a nun," said Mary,
+timidly.
+
+"Exaggeration, my daughter, is an enemy to truth. It is easy to say,
+'I would become a nun,' and in Roman Catholic countries it is quite as
+easy to become one; but, though it may be sublime to retire in this
+way from the world, it is frightful when a woman has afterwards to
+regret the inconsiderate step she has taken, and which is often the
+case with these poor creatures."
+
+"As you said of myself," remarked Willis, "it is a crime to go down
+with a sinking ship so long as there is a straw to cling to."
+
+"I presume," continued Wolston, "that during this year poor Cecilia
+prayed fervently for the return of her old playfellow; but her prayers
+were all in vain, the year expired, and still no news of the young
+man; at last she despaired of ever seeing him again, and, after a
+severe struggle with herself, she decided upon complying with the
+desire of her parents and her friends. A few months after the expiring
+of the year of grace, she was the affianced bride of a highly
+respectable, well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman. John Lindsey, her
+intended husband, could not boast of his good looks; he was little,
+rather stout, was deeply pitted in the face with the small-pox, and
+had a very red nose, but he was considered by the ladies of Bristol as
+a very good match for all that."
+
+"Oh, Cecilia, how ridiculous!" exclaimed Sophia.
+
+"Better, at all events, than turning nun," said Jack.
+
+"The family this season had gone to pass the summer at the sea-coast;
+and one day that Cecilia and her intended were taking their accustomed
+walk along the shore--"
+
+"Holloa!" cried Jack, "the truant is going to appear, after all."
+
+"John Lindsey, observing a ring of some value upon Cecilia's finger,
+politely asked her if she had any objections to tell him its history.
+She replied that she had none, and told him it was a gift of young
+Philipson's. 'I am well acquainted with your story,' said Lindsey,
+'and do not blame the constancy with which you have treasured the
+memory of that young man; on the contrary, I respect you for it--in
+fact, it was the knowledge of your self-sacrifice to this affection
+and all its attendant circumstances, that led me to solicit the honor
+of your hand; for, said I to myself, one who has evinced so much
+devotion for a mere sentiment, is never likely to prove unfaithful to
+sacred vows pledged at the altar,' 'Come what may, you may at least
+rely upon that, sir,' she answered. 'Then,' continued Lindsey, 'as an
+eternal barrier is about to be placed between yourself and your past
+affections, perhaps you will pardon my desire to separate you, as much
+as possible, from everything that is likely to recal them to your
+mind.' Saying that, he gently drew the ring from her finger, and threw
+it into the sea."
+
+It was strongly suspected that Mary shed a tear at this point of the
+recital.
+
+"It is all over with you now, Herbert," cried Fritz.
+
+"You had better make a bonfire of your ships, like Fernando Cortez in
+Mexico; or, if you are on your way home, better pray for a hurricane
+to swallow you up, than have all your bright hopes dashed to atoms,
+when you arrive in port."
+
+"I am only a little girl," said Sophia; "but I know what I should have
+said, if the gentleman had done the same thing to me."
+
+"And what would you have said, child?" inquired her mother.
+
+"I should have said, that I was not the Doge of Venice, and had no
+intention of marrying the British Channel."
+
+"Can you describe the ceremony to which you refer?"
+
+"Yes; but it would interrupt papa's story, and Jack would laugh at
+me."
+
+"Never mind my story," replied her father, "there is plenty of time
+to finish that."
+
+"And as for me," said Jack, "though I do not wear a cocked hat and
+knee breeches, and though, in other respects, my tailor has rather
+neglected my outward man, still I know what is due to a lady and a
+queen."
+
+"There, he begins already!" said Sophia.
+
+"Never mind him, child; go on with your account of the marriage."
+
+"Well," began Sophia, "for a long time, there had been disputes
+between the states of Bologna, Ancona, and Venice, as to which
+possessed the sovereignty of the Adriatic."
+
+"If it had been a dispute about the Sovereignty of the ocean in
+general," remarked Willis, "there would have been another competitor."
+
+"Venice," continued Sophia, "carried the day, and about 1275 or 76 she
+resolved to celebrate her victory by an annual ceremony. For this
+purpose, a magnificent galley was built, encrusted with gold, silver,
+and precious stones. This floating _bijou_ was called the
+_Bucentaure_, was guarded in the arsenal, whence it was removed on the
+eve of the Ascension. Next day the Doge, the patriarch, and the
+Council of Ten embarked, and the galley was towed out to the open sea,
+but not far from the shore. There, in the presence of the foreign
+ambassadors, whilst the clergy chanted the marriage service, the Doge
+advanced majestically to the front of the galley, and there formally
+wedded the sea."
+
+"He might have done worse," observed Willis.
+
+"The ceremony," continued Sophia, "consisted in the Doge throwing a
+ring into the sea, saying, 'We wed thee, O sea! to mark the real and
+perpetual dominion we possess over thee.'"
+
+"And it may be added," observed Becker, "that the history of Venice
+shows how religiously the spouses of the Adriatic kept their vows."
+
+"Now," said Sophia, "that I have told my tale, let us hear what became
+of Cecilia."
+
+"Well, the marriage took place the morning after Herbert's ring had
+been thrown to the fishes. Whilst the bride, bridegroom, and their
+friends were congratulating each other over the wedding breakfast, as
+is usual in England on such occasions, Cecilia's father was called out
+of the room."
+
+"Too late," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Herbert Philipson had arrived that same morning; but, as Fritz
+observes, he was just an hour too late. He had acquired a fortune, but
+his long-cherished hopes of happiness were completely blasted."
+
+"Why did he stay away five years without writing?" inquired Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"He had written several times, but at that time no regular post had
+been established, and his letters had never reached their
+destination."
+
+"When did he find out that Cecilia was married?"
+
+"Well, some people think it more humane to kill a man by inches rather
+than by a single blow of the axe. Not so with Herbert's friends; the
+first news that greeted him on landing were, that his ever-remembered
+Cecilia was probably at that moment before the altar pledging her vows
+to another."
+
+"I should rather have had a chimney-pot tumble on my head," remarked
+Willis.
+
+"Herbert was a man in every sense of the word--the mode of his
+departure proves that. On hearing this painful intelligence, he simply
+covered his face with his hands, and, after a moment's thought,
+resolved to see his lost bride at least once more."
+
+"Poor Herbert!" sighed Mary.
+
+"Foster was thunderstruck when the stranger declared himself to be the
+son of his old friend; and, after cordially bidding him welcome,
+sorrowfully asked him what he meant to do. 'I should wish to see Mrs.
+Lindsey in presence of her husband,' he replied, 'providing you have
+no objections to introduce me to the company.'"
+
+"Bravo!" ejaculated Willis.
+
+"Foster could not refuse this favor to an unfortunate, who had just
+been disinherited of his dearest hopes. He, therefore, took Herbert by
+the hand and led him into the room. Nobody recognized him. 'Ladies and
+gentlemen,' said he, 'permit me to introduce Mr. Herbert Philipson,
+who has just arrived from Sumatra.' You may readily conceive the
+dismay this unexpected announcement called up into the countenances of
+the guests. There was only one person in the room who was calm,
+tranquil, and unmoved--that person was Cecilia herself. She rose
+courteously, bade him welcome, hoped he was well, coolly asked him why
+he had not written to his friends, and politely asked him to take a
+seat beside herself and husband, just, for all the world, as if he had
+been some country cousin or poor relation to whom she wished to show a
+little attention."
+
+"I would rather have been at the bottom of the sea than in her place,
+for all that," said Mary.
+
+"Why? She had nothing to reproach herself with. Had she not waited
+long enough for him?"
+
+"Young heads," remarked Becker, "are not always stored with sense. A
+foolish pledge, given in a moment of thoughtlessness is often
+obstinately adhered to in spite of reason and argument. The young idea
+delights in miraculous instances of fidelity. What more charming to a
+young and ardent mind than the loves of Dante and Beatrix, of Eleonora
+and Tasso, of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, or of Dean
+Swift and Stella? Young people do not reflect that most of these
+stories are apocryphal, and that the men who figure in them sought to
+add to their renown the prestige of originality; they put on a passion
+as ordinary mortals put on a new dress, they yielded to imagination
+and not to the law of the heart, and almost all of them paid by a life
+of wretchedness the penalty of their dreams."
+
+"That is, I presume," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "you do not object to any
+reasonable amount of constancy, but you object to its being carried to
+an unwarrantable excess."
+
+"Exactly so, madam," replied Becker; "constancy, like every thing else
+when reasonable limits are exceeded, becomes a vice."
+
+"The merriments of the marriage breakfast," continued Wolston
+"slightly interrupted by the arrival of the new guest, were resumed.
+Fresh dishes were brought in, and, amongst others, a fine turbot was
+placed on the table. The gentleman who was engaged in carving the
+turbot struck the fish-knife against a hard substance."
+
+"I know what!" exclaimed two or three voices.
+
+"I rather think not," said Wolston, drily.
+
+"Oh, yes, the ring! the ring!"
+
+"No, it was merely the bone that runs from the head to the tail of the
+fish."
+
+"Oh, father," cried Sophia, "how can you tease us so?"
+
+"If they had found the ring," replied Wolston, laughing, "I should
+have no motive for concealing it. Fruit was afterwards placed before
+Herbert, and, when nobody was looking, he pulled a clasped dagger out
+of his pocket."
+
+Here Sophia pressed her hands closely on her ears, in order to avoid
+hearing what followed.
+
+"It was a very beautiful poignard," continued Wolston, "and rather a
+bijou than a weapon; and, as the servants had neglected to hand him a
+fruit-knife, he made use of it in paring an apple."
+
+"Is it all over?" inquired Sophia, removing a hand from one ear.
+
+"Alas! yes!" said Jack, lugubriously, "he has been and done it."
+
+"O the monster!"
+
+"Travelling carriages having arrived at the door for the bridal party,
+Herbert quietly departed."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Sophia, "did they not arrest and drag him to
+prison?"
+
+"Oh," replied Jack, "the crime was not so atrocious as it appears."
+
+"Not atrocious!"
+
+"No; you must bear in mind that young Philipson had passed the
+preceding five years of his life amongst demi-savages, whose manners
+and customs he had, to a certain extent, necessarily contracted. In
+some countries, what we call crimes are only regarded as peccadillos.
+In France, for example, till very lately, there existed what was
+called the law of _combette_, by right of which pardon might be
+obtained for any misdeed on payment of a certain sum of money. There
+was a fixed price for every imaginable crime. A man might
+consequently be a Blue Beard if he liked, it was only necessary to
+consult the tariff in the first instance, and see to what extent his
+means would enable him to indulge his fancy for horrors."
+
+"On quitting the house," continued Wolston, "Herbert Philipson bent
+his way to the shore, and shortly after was observed to plunge into
+the sea."
+
+"So much the better," exclaimed Sophia; "it saved his friends a more
+dreadful spectacle."
+
+"The weather being fine and the water warm, Herbert enjoyed his bath
+immensely; he then returned to his hotel, went early to bed, and slept
+soundly till next morning."
+
+"The wretch!" cried Sophia, "to sleep soundly after assassinating his
+old playfellow, who had suffered so much on his account."
+
+"It is pretty certain," continued Wolston, "that, if Philipson had
+been left entirely to himself, he would always have shown the same
+degree of moderation he had hitherto displayed."
+
+"Oh, yes, moderation!" said Sophia.
+
+"But his friends began to prate to him about the shameful way he had
+been jilted by Cecilia, and, by constantly reiterating the same thing,
+they at last succeeded in persuading him that he was an ill-used man.
+His self-esteem being roused by this silly chatter, he began to affect
+a ridiculous desolation, and to perpetrate all manner of outrageous
+extravagances."
+
+"Bad friends," remarked Willis, "are like sinking ships; they drag you
+down to their own level."
+
+"The first absurd thing he did was to purchase a yacht, and when a
+storm arose that forced the hardy fishermen to take shelter in port,
+he went out to sea, and it is quite a miracle that he escaped
+drowning. Then, if there were a doubtful scheme afloat, he was sure to
+take shares in it. Nothing delighted him more than to go up in a
+balloon; he would have gladly swung himself on the car outside if the
+proprietor had allowed him."
+
+"I have often seen balloons in the air," remarked Willis, "but I could
+never make out their dead reckoning."
+
+"A balloon," replied Ernest, "is nothing more than an artificial
+cloud, and its power of ascension depends upon the volume of air it
+displaces.
+
+"Very good, Master Ernest, so far as the balloon itself is concerned;
+but then there is the weight of the car, passengers, provisions, and
+apparatus to account for."
+
+"Hydrogen gas, used in the inflation of balloons, is forty times
+lighter than air. If a balloon is made large enough, the weight of the
+car and all that it contains, added to that of the gas, will fall
+considerably short of the weight of the air displaced by the machine."
+
+"I suppose it rises in the air just as an empty bottle well corked
+rises in the water?"
+
+"Very nearly. Air is lighter than water; consequently, any vessel
+filled with the one will rise to the surface of the other. So in the
+case of balloons. The gas, in the first place, must be inclosed in an
+envelope through which it cannot escape. Silk prepared with
+India-rubber is the material usually employed. As the balloon rises,
+the gas in the interior distends, because the air becomes lighter the
+less it is condensed by its superincumbent masses; hence it is
+requisite to leave a margin for this increase in the volume of the
+gas, otherwise the balloon would burst in the air."
+
+"If a balloon were allowed to ascend without hindrance where would it
+stop?"
+
+"It would continue ascending till it reached a layer of air as light
+as the gas; beyond that point it could not go."
+
+"And if the voyagers do not wish to go quite so far?"
+
+"Then there is a valve by which the gas may be allowed to escape, till
+the weight of the machine and its volume of air are equal, when it
+ceases to ascend. If a little more is permitted to escape, the balloon
+descends."
+
+"And should it land on the roof of a house or the top of a tree, the
+voyagers have their necks broken."
+
+"That can only happen to bunglers; there is not the least necessity
+for landing where danger is to be apprehended. When the aeronaut is
+near the ground, and sees that the spot is unfavorable for
+debarkation, he drops a little ballast, the balloon mounts, and he
+comes down again somewhere else."
+
+"The fellow that made the first voyage must have been very daring."
+
+"The first ascent was made by Montgolfier in 1782, and he was followed
+by Rosiers and d'Arlandes."
+
+"With your permission, father," said Ernest, "I will claim priority in
+aerial travelling for Icarus, Doedalus, and Phaeton."
+
+"Certainly; you are justified in doing so. Gay-Lussac, a philosophic
+Frenchman, rose, in 1804, to the height of seven thousand yards."
+
+"He must have felt a little giddy," remarked Jack.
+
+"Most of the functions of the body were affected, more or less, by the
+extreme rarity of the air at that height. Its dryness caused wet
+parchment to crisp. He observed that the action of the magnetic needle
+diminished as he ascended, sounds gradually ceased to reach his ear,
+and the wind itself ceased to be felt."
+
+"That, of course," remarked Ernest, "was when he was travelling in the
+same direction and at the same speed."
+
+"Well," said Jack, "we can find materials here for a balloon; the
+ladies have silk dresses, there is plenty of India-rubber--we used to
+make boots and shoes of it; hydrogen gas can be obtained from a
+variety of substances. What, then, is to prevent us paying a visit to
+some of Ernest's friends in the skies?"
+
+"Unfortunately for your project, Jack, no one has discovered the art
+of guiding a balloon; consequently, instead of finding yourself at
+_Cassiope_, you might land at _Sirius_, where your reception would be
+somewhat cool."
+
+"But what became of Herbert?" inquired one of the ladies.
+
+"Singularly enough, he escaped all the dangers he so recklessly
+braved, and all the bad speculations he embarked in turned out good.
+Somehow or other, the moment he took part in a desperate scheme it
+became profitable."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Sophia, "his victim, like a guardian angel, continued
+to watch over him."
+
+"When the cholera appeared in England, he was sure to be found where
+the cases were most numerous. He followed up the pest with so much
+pertinacity and publicity, that it was no unusual thing to find it
+announced in the newspapers that Philipson and the cholera had arrived
+in such and such a town."
+
+"The bane and the antidote," remarked Jack.
+
+"If Cecilia had been one of those women who delight in horse-racing,
+fox-hunting, opera-boxes, and public executions, she would have been
+highly amused to see her old friend's name constantly turning up under
+such extraordinary circumstances."
+
+"Is she not dead, then?" inquired Sophia, with astonishment,
+
+"It appears that her wounds were not mortal," quietly replied her
+mother.
+
+"Besides," observed Jack, "there are human frames so constituted that
+they can bear an immense amount of cutting and slashing. So in the
+case of animals; there, for instance, is the fresh-water polypus--if
+you cut this creature lengthwise straight through the middle, a right
+side will grow on the one half and a left side on the other, so that
+there will be two polypi instead of one. The same thing occurs if you
+cut one through the middle crosswise, a head grows on the one half and
+a tail on the other, so that you have two entire polypi either way."
+
+"And you may add," observed Ernest, "since so interesting a subject is
+on the _tapis_, that if two of these polypi happen to quarrel over
+their prey, the largest generally swallows the smallest, in order to
+get it out of the way; and the latter, with the exception of being a
+little cramped for space, is not in the slightest degree injured by
+the operation."
+
+"And does that state of matters continue any length of time?"
+
+"The polypus that is inside the other may probably get tired of
+confinement, in which case it makes its exit by the same route it
+entered; but, if too lazy to do that, it makes a hole in the body of
+its antagonist and gets out that way. But, what is most curious of
+all, these processes do not appear to put either of the creatures to
+the slightest inconvenience."
+
+"I am quite at a loss to make you all out," said Sophia.
+
+"Well, my child," replied her mother, "you should not close up your
+ears in the middle of a story."
+
+"Cecilia, or rather Mrs. Lindsey, however," continued Wolston, "was a
+pious, painstaking, simple-minded woman, who devoted her whole
+attention to her domestic duties. Notwithstanding her fortune, she did
+not neglect the humblest affairs of the household, and thought only of
+making her husband pleased with his home. When she was told of the
+vagaries of Philipson, she prayed in private that he might be led from
+his evil ways, and could not help thanking Providence that she was not
+the wife of such a dreadful scapegrace."
+
+"I should think so," remarked Mrs. Becker.
+
+"At last, Herbert Philipson astonished even his own companions by a
+crowning act of folly. There was then a young woman in Bristol, of
+good parentage, but an unmitigated virago; her family were thoroughly
+ashamed of her temper and her exploits. They allowed her to have her
+own way, simply for fear that, through contradiction, she might plunge
+herself into even worse courses than those she now habitually
+followed. In short, she was the talk and jest of the whole town."
+
+"What a charming creature!" remarked Mrs. Becker.
+
+"No servant of her own sex could put up with her for two days
+together; she styled everybody that came near her fools and asses, and
+did not hesitate to strike them if they ventured to contradict her.
+She got on, however, tolerably well with ostlers, stable-boys, cabmen,
+and such like, because they could treat her in her own style, and were
+not ruffled by her abuse."
+
+"How amiable!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Herbert heard of this young person, and, through a fast friend of his
+own, obtained an introduction to her, and on the very first interview
+he offered her his hand. He was known still to be a wealthy man, so
+neither the lady herself nor anybody connected with her made the
+slightest objection to the match, thinking probably that, if there
+were six of the one, there were at least half a dozen of the other."
+
+"They ought to have gone to Bedlam, instead of to church," said
+Willis; "that is my idea."
+
+"Nevertheless, they went to church; and, after the marriage, Cecilia
+sought and obtained an introduction to the lady, and, whether by
+entreaties or by her good example, I cannot say; be this as it may,
+the unpromising personage in question became one of the best wives and
+the best mothers that ever graced a domestic circle--in this respect
+even excelling the pattern Cecilia herself; and, what is still more to
+the purpose, she succeeded in completely reforming her husband. When I
+left England there was not a more prosperous merchant, nor a more
+estimable man in the whole city of Bristol, than Herbert Philipson."
+
+"From which we may conclude," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is always
+advisable to have angels for friends."
+
+"We may also conclude," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that when a stroke of
+adversity, or any other misfortune, overturns the edifice of happiness
+we had erected for the future, we may build a new structure with fresh
+material, which may prove more durable than the first."
+
+"Talking of having angels for friends," said Becker, "puts me in mind
+of the association of Saint Louis Gonzaga, at Rome. On the anniversary
+of this saint, the young and merry phalanx forming the association
+march in procession to one of the public gardens. In the centre of
+this garden a magnificent altar has been previously erected, on which
+is placed a chafing-dish filled with burning coals. The procession
+forms itself into an immense ring round the altar, broken here and
+there by a band of music. These bands play hymns in honor of the
+saints, and other _morceaux_ of a sacred character. Each member of the
+association holds a letter inclosed in an embossed and highly
+ornamented envelope, bound round with gay-colored ribbons and threads
+of gold. These letters are messages from the young correspondents to
+their friends in heaven, and are addressed to 'Il Santo Giovane Luigi
+Gonzaga, in Paradiso.' At a given signal, the letters, in the midst of
+profound silence, are placed on the chafing-dish. This done, the music
+resounds on all sides, and the assembly burst out into loud
+acclamations, during which the letters are supposed to be carried up
+into heaven by the angels."
+
+"A curious and interesting ceremony," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and one
+that may possibly do good, inasmuch as it may induce the young people
+composing the association to persevere in generous resolutions."
+
+The two families again separated for the night. And whilst the young
+men were escorting the Wolstons to their tree, Sophia went towards
+Jack. "Will you tell me," inquired she, "what happened whilst I had my
+ears closed up, Jack?"
+
+"Yes, with all my heart, if you will tell me first what the chimpanzee
+had been about during our absence."
+
+"Well, he got up into our tree when we were out of the way. After
+soaping his chin, he had taken one of papa's razors, and just as he
+was beginning to shave himself, some one entered and caught him."
+
+"Oh, is that all? What I have to tell you is a great deal more
+appalling than that."
+
+"Well, then, be quick."
+
+"But I am afraid you will be shocked."
+
+"Is it very dreadful?"
+
+"More so than you would imagine. If you dream about it during the
+night, you will not be angry with me for telling you?"
+
+"No, I will be courageous, and am prepared to hear the worst."
+
+"What was your father saying when you shut up your ears?"
+
+"Herbert had just pulled out a dagger."
+
+"And when you took your hands away?"
+
+"All was then over; Herbert had done some dreadful thing with the
+dagger, and I want to know what it was."
+
+"He pared an apple with it," replied Jack, bursting into a roar of
+laughter, and, running off, he left Sophia to her reflections.
+
+A few seconds after he returned. This time he had almost a solemn air,
+the laughter had vanished from his visage, like breath from polished
+steel.
+
+"Miss Sophia," inquired he gravely, "are you rich?"
+
+"I don't know, Master Jack; are you?"
+
+"Well, I have not the slightest idea either."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE TEARS OF CHILDHOOD AND RAIN OF THE TROPICS--CHARLES'S
+WAIN--VOLUNTARY ENLISTMENT--A LIKENESS GUARANTEED--THE WORLD AT
+PEACE--ALAS, POOR MARY!--THE SAME BREATH FOR TWO BEINGS--THE FIRST
+PILLOW--THE LOGIC OF THE HEART--HOW FRITZ SUPPORTED GRIEF--A GRAIN OF
+SAND AND THE HIMALAYA.
+
+
+At daybreak next morning, all the eyes in the colony were busily
+engaged in scrutinizing the sky. This time the operation seemed
+satisfactory, for immediately afterwards, all the hands were, with
+equal diligence, occupied in packing up and making other preparations
+for the meditated excursion to the remote dependencies of New
+Switzerland.
+
+The dense veil that the day before had shrouded them in gloom was now
+broken up into shreds. The azure depths beyond had assumed the
+appearance of a blue tunic bespattered with white, and the clouds
+suggested the idea of a celestial shepherd, driving myriads of sheep
+to the pasture. Children alone can dry up their tears with the
+rapidity of Nature in the tropics; perhaps we may have already made
+the remark, and must, therefore, beg pardon for repeating the simile a
+second time.
+
+In a short time, the two families were assembled on the lawn, in front
+of the domestic trees of Falcon's Nest, ready to start on their
+journey. The cow and the buffalo were yoked to the carriage, which was
+snugly covered over with a tarpauling, thrown across circular girds,
+like the old-fashioned waggons of country carriers. Frank mounted the
+box in front; Mrs. Becker, Wolston, and Sophia got inside; whilst
+Ernest and Jack, mounted on ostriches that had been trained and broken
+in as riding horses, took up a position on each side, where the doors
+of the vehicle ought to have been. These dispositions made, after a
+few lashes from the whip, this party started off at a brisk rate in
+the direction of Waldeck.
+
+It had been previously arranged that one half of the expedition should
+go by land, and the other half by water, and that on their return this
+order should be reversed, so that both the interior and the coast
+might be inspected at one and the same time. The only exception was
+made in favor of Willis, who was permitted both to go and return by
+sea.
+
+The second party, consisting of Mrs. Wolston, Becker, Mary, and Fritz,
+started on foot in the direction of the coast. They had not gone far
+before Becker observed a large broadside plastered on a tree.
+
+"What is that?" he inquired.
+
+Nobody could give a satisfactory reply.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Wolston, "paper grows ready made on the
+trees of this wonderful country."
+
+"They all approached, and, much to their astonishment, read as
+follows:--
+
+"TAKE NOTICE.
+
+"The renowned Professor Ernest Becker is about to enlighten the
+benighted inhabitants of this country, by giving a course of lectures
+on optics. The agonizing doubts that have hitherto enveloped
+astronomical science, particularly as regards the interiors of the
+moon and the stars, have arisen from the absurd practice of looking at
+them during the night. These doubts are about to be removed for ever
+by the aforesaid professor, as he intends to exhibit the luminaries in
+question in open day. He will also place Charles's Wain[C] at the
+disposal of any one who is desirous of taking a drive in the Milky
+Way. The learned professor will likewise stand for an indefinite
+period on his head; and whilst in this position will clearly
+demonstrate the rotundity of the earth, and the tendency of heavy
+bodies to the centre of gravity. In order that the prices of admission
+may be in accordance with the intrinsic value of the lectures, nothing
+will be charged for the boxes, the entrance to the pit will be gratis,
+and the gallery will be thrown open for the free entry of the people.
+The audience will be expected to assume a horizontal position. Persons
+given to snoring are invited to stay at home."
+
+"I rather think I should know that style," remarked Willis.
+
+"It is a pity Ernest is not with us," observed Fritz; "but the placard
+will keep for a day or two."
+
+"They say laughing is good for digestion," remarked Mrs. Wolston; "and
+if so, it must be confessed that Master Jack is a useful member of the
+colony in a sanitary point of view."
+
+The party had scarcely advanced a hundred paces farther, when Fritz
+called out,
+
+"Holloa! there is another broadside in sight."
+
+This one was headed by a smart conflict between two ferocious looking
+hussars, and was couched in the following terms:--
+
+"PROCLAMATION.
+
+"All the inhabitants of this colony capable of bearing arms, who are
+panting after glory, are invited to the Fig Tree, at Falcon's Nest,
+there to enrol themselves in the registry of Fritz Becker, who is
+about to undertake the conquest of the world. Nobody is compelled to
+volunteer, but those who hold back will be reckoned contumacious, and
+will be taken into custody, and kept on raw coffee till such time as
+they evince a serious desire to enlist. There will be no objection to
+recruits returning home at the end of the war, if they come out of it
+alive. Neither will there be any objections to the survivors bringing
+back a marshal's baton, if they can get one. The Commander-in-chief
+will charge himself with the fruits of the victory. Surgical
+operations will be performed at his cost, and cork legs will be served
+out with the rations. In the event of a profitable campaign, a
+monument will be erected to the memory of the defunct, by way of a
+reward for their heroism on the field of battle."
+
+"Well, Fritz," said Becker, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "you were
+sorry that Ernest was not present to hear the last placard read;
+fortunately, you are on the spot yourself this time."
+
+Fritz tried to look amused, but the attempt was a decided failure.
+
+When the party had gone a little farther, another announcement met
+their gaze; all were curious to know whose turn was come now; as they
+approached, the following interesting question, in large letters,
+stared them in the face:--
+
+"HAVE YOU HAD YOUR PORTRAIT TAKEN YET?
+
+"It has been reserved for the present age, and for this prolific
+territory, so exuberant in cabbages, turnips, and other potables, to
+produce the greatest of living artists--real genius--who is destined
+to outshine all the Michel Angelos and Rubenses of former ages. Not
+that these men were entirely devoid of talent, but because they could
+do nothing without their palette and their paint brushes. Now that
+illustrious _maestro_, Mr. Jack Becker, has both genius and ingenuity,
+for he has succeeded in dispensing with the aforementioned troublesome
+auxiliaries of his art. His plan which has the advantage of not being
+patented, consists in placing his subject before a mirror, where he is
+permitted to stay till the portrait takes root in the glass. By this
+novel method the original and the copy will be subject alike to the
+ravages of time, so that no one, on seeing a portrait, will be liable
+to mistake the grand-mother for the grand-daughter. Likenesses
+guaranteed. Payments, under all circumstances, to be made in advance.
+
+"Ah, well," said Becker, laughing, "it appears that the scapegrace has
+not spared himself."
+
+"I hope there is not a fourth proclamation," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"There are no more trees on our route, at all events," replied
+Becker.
+
+"Glad to hear that; Jack must respect the avocation chosen by Frank,
+since he sees nothing in it to ridicule."
+
+As they drew near the Jackal River, in which the pinnace was moored,
+Mary and Fritz were a little in advance of the party.
+
+"Are you really determined to turn the world upside down, Master
+Fritz?"
+
+"At present, Miss Wolston, I am myself the sum and substance of my
+army, in addition to which I have not yet quite made up my mind."
+
+"It is an odd fancy to entertain to say the least of it."
+
+"Does it displease you?"
+
+"In order that it could do that, I must first have the right to judge
+your projects."
+
+"And if I gave you that right?"
+
+"I should find the responsibility too great to accept it. Besides, a
+determination cannot be properly judged, without putting one's self in
+the position of the person that makes it. You imagine happiness
+consists in witnessing the shock of armies, whilst I fancy enjoyment
+to consist in the calm tranquility of one's home. You see our views of
+felicity are widely different."
+
+"Not so very widely different as you seem to think, Miss Wolston. As
+yet my victories are _nil_; I have not yet come to an issue with my
+allies; to put my troops on the peace establishment I have only to
+disembody myself, and I disembody myself accordingly."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "you are very easily turned from your purpose."
+
+"Easily! no, Miss Wolston, not easily; you cannot admit that an
+objection urged by yourself is a matter of no moment, or one that can
+be slighted with impunity."
+
+"Ah! here we are at the end of our journey."
+
+"Already! the road has never appeared so short to me before."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston, coming up to her daughter, "you appear
+very merry."
+
+"Well, not without reason, mamma; I have just restored peace to the
+world."
+
+The pinnace was soon launched, and, under the guidance of Willis, was
+making way in the direction of Waldeck. The sea had not yet recovered
+from the effects of the recent storm; it was still, to use an
+expression of Willis, "a trifle ugly." Occasionally the waves would
+catch the frail craft amidships, and make it lurch in an uncomfortable
+fashion, especially as regarded the ladies, which obliged Willis to
+keep closer in shore than was quite to his taste. The briny element
+still bore traces of its recent rage, just as anger lingers on the
+human face, even after it has quitted the heart.
+
+Whilst the pinnace was in the midst of a series of irregular
+gyrations, a shrill scream suddenly rent the air, and at the same
+instant Fritz and Willis leaped overboard.
+
+_Mary had fallen into the sea_.
+
+Becker strained every nerve to stay the boat. Mrs. Wolston fell on her
+knees with outstretched hands, but, though in the attitude of prayer,
+not a word escaped her pallid lips.
+
+The two men floated for a moment over the spot where the poor girl had
+sunk; suddenly Fritz disappeared, his keen eye had been of service
+here, for it enabled him to descry the object sought. In a few seconds
+he rose to the surface with Mary's inanimate body in his left arm.
+Willis hastened to assist him in bearing the precious burden to the
+boat, and Becker's powerful arms drew it on deck.
+
+The joy that all naturally would have felt when this was accomplished
+had no time to enter their breasts, for they saw that the body evinced
+no signs of life, and a fear that the vital spark had already fled
+caused every frame to shudder. They felt that not a moment was to be
+lost; the resources of the boat were hastily put in requisition;
+mattresses, sheets, blankets, and dry clothes were strewn upon the
+deck. Mrs. Wolston had altogether lost her presence of mind, and could
+do nothing but press the dripping form of her daughter to her bosom.
+
+"Friction must be tried instantly," cried Becker; "here, take this
+flannel and rub her body smartly with it--particularly her breast and
+back."
+
+Mrs. Wolston instinctively followed these directions.
+
+"It is of importance to warm her feet," continued Becker; "but,
+unfortunately, we have no means on board to make a fire."
+
+Mrs. Wolston, in her trepidation, began breathing upon them.
+
+"I have heard," said the Pilot, "that persons rescued from drowning
+are held up by the feet to allow the water to run out."
+
+"Nonsense, Willis; a sure means of killing them outright. It is not
+from water that any danger is to be apprehended, but from want of air,
+or, rather, the power of respiration. What we have to do is to try and
+revive this power by such means as are within our reach."
+
+The Pilot, meantime, endeavored to introduce a few drops of brandy
+between the lips of the patient. Fritz stood trembling like an aspen
+leaf and deadly pale; he regarded these operations as if his own life
+were at stake, and not the patient's.
+
+"There remains only one other course to adopt, Mrs. Wolston," said
+Becker, "you must endeavor to bring your daughter to life by means of
+your own breath."
+
+"Only tell me what to do, Mr. Becker, and, if every drop of blood in
+my body is wanted, all is at your disposal."
+
+"You must apply your mouth to that of your daughter, and, whilst her
+nostrils are compressed, breathe at intervals into her breast, and so
+imitate the act of natural respiration."
+
+Stronger lungs than those of a woman might have been urgent under such
+circumstances, but maternal love supplied what was wanting in physical
+strength.
+
+The Pilot had turned the prow of the pinnace towards home; he felt
+that, in the present case at least, the comforts of the land were
+preferable to the charms of the sea.
+
+"This time it is not my breath, but her own," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Her pulse beats," said Becker; "she lives."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Fritz and Willis in one voice.
+
+A quarter of an hour had scarcely yet elapsed since the patient's
+first immersion in the sea; but this brief interval had been an age of
+agony to them all. As yet, her head lay quiescent on her mother's
+bosom, that first pillow, common alike to rich and poor, at the
+threshold of life.
+
+The%signs of returning animation gradually became more and more
+evident; at length, the patient gently raised her head, and glanced
+vacantly from one object to another; then, her eyes were turned upon
+herself, and finally rested upon Fritz and Willis, who still bore
+obvious traces of their recent struggle with the waves. Here she
+seemed to become conscious, for her body trembled, as if some terrible
+thought had crossed her mind. After this paroxysm had passed, she
+feebly inclined her head, as if to say--"I understand--you have saved
+my life--I thank you." Then, like those jets of flame that are no
+sooner alight than they are extinguished, she again became insensible.
+
+As soon as they reached the shore, Fritz hastened to Rockhouse, and
+made up a sort of palanquin of such materials as were at hand, into
+which Mary was placed, and thus was conveyed, with all possible care
+and speed, on the shoulders of the men to Falcon's Nest. A few hours
+afterwards she returned to consciousness and found herself in a warm
+bed, surrounded with all the comforts that maternal anxiety and
+Becker's intelligent mind could suggest.
+
+Fritz was unceasing in his exertions; no amount of fatigue seemed to
+wear him out. As soon as he saw that everything had been done for the
+invalid that their united skill could accomplish, he bridled an
+untrained ostrich, and rode or rather flew off in search of the land
+portion of the expedition.
+
+"Mary is saved," he cried, as he came up with them.
+
+"From what?" inquired Wolston, anxiously.
+
+"From the sea, that was about to swallow her up."
+
+"And by whom?"
+
+"By Willis, myself, and us all."
+
+The same evening, the two families were again assembled at Falcon's
+Nest, and thus, for a second time, the long talked-of expedition was
+brought to an abrupt conclusion.
+
+"Ah," said Willis, "we must cast anchor for a bit; yesterday it was
+the sky, to-day it was the sea, to-morrow it will be the land,
+perhaps--the wind is clearly against us."
+
+How often does it not happen, in our pilgrimage through life, that we
+have the wind against us? We make a resolute determination, we set out
+on our journey, but the object we seek recedes as we advance; it is no
+use going any farther--the wind is against us. We re-commence ten,
+twenty, a hundred times, but the result is invariably the same. How is
+this? No one can tell. What are the obstacles? It is difficult to say.
+Perhaps, we meet with a friend who detains us; perhaps, a recollection
+that our memory has called, induces us to swerve from the path--the
+blind man that sung under our window may have something to do with
+it--perhaps, it was merely a fly, less than nothing.
+
+It is not our minor undertakings, but rather our most important
+enterprises, that are frustrated by such trifles as these; for it must
+be allowed that we strive less tenaciously against an obstacle that
+debars us from a pleasure, than against one that separates us from a
+duty--in the one case we have to stem the torrent, in the other we
+sail with the current.
+
+When we observe some deplorable instance of a wrecked career--when we
+see a man starting in life with the most brilliant prospects
+collapsing into a dead-weight on his fellows, we are apt to suppose
+that some insurmountable barrier must have crossed his path--some
+Himalaya, or formidable wall, like that which does not now separate
+China from Tartary; but no such thing. Trace the cause to its source,
+and what think you is invariably found? A grain of sand; the
+unfortunate wretch has had the wind against him--nothing more.
+
+Rescued from the sea, Mary Wolston was now a prey to a raging fever.
+Ill or well, at her age there is no medium, either exuberant health or
+complete prostration; the juices then are turbulent and the blood is
+ardent.
+
+Somehow or other, a good action attaches the doer to the recipient;
+so, in the case of Fritz, apart from the brotherly affection which he
+had vaguely vowed to entertain for the two young girls that had so
+unexpectedly appeared amongst them, he now regarded the life of Mary
+as identical with his own, and felt that her death would inevitably
+shorten his own existence; "for," said he to himself, "should she die,
+I was too late in drawing her out of the water." In his tribulation
+and irreflection, he drew no line between the present and the past,
+but simply concluded, that if he saved her too late, he did not save
+her at all. Hope, nevertheless, did not altogether abandon him. He
+would sometimes fancy her restored to her wonted health, abounding in
+life and vigour. Then the pleasing thought would cross his mind that,
+but for himself, that charming being, in all probability, would have
+been a tenant of the tomb. Would that those who do evil only knew the
+delight that sometimes wells up in the breasts of those who do good!
+
+The first day of Mary's illness, Fritz bore up manfully. On the
+second, he joined his father and brothers in their field labors; but,
+whilst driving some nails into a fence, he had so effectually fixed
+himself to a stake that it was only with some difficulty that he could
+be detached. The third day, at sunrise, he called Mary's dog,
+shouldered his rifle, and was about to quit the house.
+
+"Where are you going?" inquired Jack.
+
+"I don't know--anywhere."
+
+"Anywhere! Well, I am rather partial to that sort of place; I will go
+with you."
+
+"But I must do something that will divert my thoughts. There may be
+danger."
+
+"Well I can help you to look up a difficulty."
+
+Every day the two brothers departed at sunrise, and returned together
+again in the evening. Mrs. Becker felt acutely their sufferings. She
+watched anxiously for the return of the two wanderers, and generally
+went a little way to meet them when they appeared in the distance.
+
+"She does not run to meet us," said Fritz, one day; "that is a bad
+sign."
+
+"Not a bit of it," replied Jack. "If she had any bad news to give us,
+she would not come at all."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] The constellation known in astronomy as the _Great Bear_ is in,
+some parts of England termed the _Plough_, and in others _Charles's
+Wain_ or _Waggon_. It may be added, that the same constellation is
+popularly known in France as the _Chariot of David_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GOD'S GOVERNMENT--KING STANISLAUS--THE DAUPHIN SON OF LOUIS XV.--THE
+SHORTEST ROAD--NEW YEAR'S DAY--A MIRACLE--CLEVER ANIMALS--THE
+CALENDAR--MR. JULIUS CÆSAR AND POPE GREGORY XIII.--HOW THE DAY AFTER
+THE 4TH OF OCTOBER WAS THE 15TH--OLYMPIAD--LUSTRES--THE HEGIRA--A
+HORSE MADE CONSUL--JACK'S DREAM.
+
+
+Some men, when they regard the sinister side of events, are apt to
+call in question the axiom, Nothing is accomplished without the will
+of God. Why, they ask, do the wicked triumph? Why are the just
+oppressed? Why this evil? What is the use of that disaster? Was it
+necessary that Mary Wolston should be thrown into the sea, and that
+she should afterwards die in consequence of the accident?
+
+To these questions we reply, that God does not interrupt the ordinary
+course of His works. Man is a free agent in so far as regards his own
+actions; were it otherwise, we should not be responsible for our own
+crimes. We might as well plunge into vice as adhere to virtue; for we
+could not be called upon to expiate the one, nor could we hope to be
+rewarded for the other. It is not to be expected that God is to
+perform miracles at every instant for our individual benefit. It is
+unreasonable in us to suppose that, in obedience to our wishes or
+desires, He will alter His immutable laws.
+
+A foot slips on the brink of a precipice, and we are dashed to atoms.
+Our boat is upset in a squall, and we are drowned. Like Stanislaus
+Leszinsky, King of Poland, we fall asleep in the corner of a chimney,
+our clothes take fire, and we are burned to death. We go a hunting; we
+mistake a grey overcoat for the fur of a deer, and we kill our friend
+or his gamekeeper, as once happened to the son of Louis XV., who in
+consequence almost died of grief, and renounced forever a sport of
+which he was passionately fond. Did Providence will, exact, or
+pre-ordain all these calamities? Certainly not; but our Creator has
+seen fit to tolerate and permit them, since he did not interpose to
+prevent them.
+
+The government of God is a conception so wonderful, so sublime, that
+none but Himself can fathom its depths. Human intelligence is too
+finite to penetrate or comprehend a system so complex, and yet so
+uniform. The mind of man can only form a just idea of a cause when the
+effect has been made manifest to his understanding. There might have
+been a reason for the death of Mary Wolston--who knows? But if it were
+so, that reason was beyond the pale of mortal ken.
+
+Let us not, however, anticipate. Mary Wolston is not yet dead. On the
+contrary, when the ninth day of her illness had passed, Fritz and Jack
+were returning from an expedition, the nature of which was only known
+to themselves, but which, to judge from the packs that they bore on
+their backs, had been tolerably productive. The two young men observed
+their mother advancing, as usual, to meet them, but this time _she
+ran_. They had no need to be told in words that Mary Wolston was now
+out of danger; the serenity of their mother's countenance was more
+eloquent than the most elaborate discourse that ever stirred human
+souls.
+
+Mrs. Becker herself felt that words were superfluous, so she quietly
+took her son's arm, and they walked gently homewards, whilst Jack
+strode on before. On turning a corner of the road, the latter stumbled
+upon Wolston and Ernest, who, in the exuberance of their joy, had also
+come out to meet the hunters. They were, however, a little behind; but
+that was nothing new. These two members of the colony had become quite
+remarkable for procrastination and absence of mind. When Wolston the
+mechanician, and Ernest the philosopher, travelled in company, it was
+rare that some pebble or plant, or question in physics, did not induce
+them to deviate from their route or tarry on their way. One day they
+both started for Rockhouse to fetch provisions for the family dinner,
+but instead of bringing back the needful supplies of beef and mutton,
+they returned in great glee with the solution of an intricate problem
+in geometry. All fared very indifferently on that occasion, and, in
+consequence, Wolston and Ernest were, from that time on, deprived of
+the office of purveyors.
+
+In the present instance, instead of running like Mrs. Becker, they had
+philosophically seated themselves on the trunk of a tree. At their
+feet was a diagram that Wolston had traced with the end of his stick;
+this was neither a tangent nor a triangle, as might have been
+expected, but a figure denoting how to carve one's way to a position,
+amidst the rugged defiles of life.
+
+"In all things," observed Wolston, "in morals as well as physics, the
+shortest road from one point to another, is the straight line."
+
+"Unless," objected Ernest, "the straight line were encumbered with
+obstacles, that would require more time to surmount than to go round.
+Two leagues of clear road would be better than one only a single
+league in length, if intersected by ditches and strewn with wild
+beasts."
+
+"Bah!" cried Jack, who had just come up out of breath, "you might leap
+the one and shoot the others."
+
+"Your argument," replied Wolston, "is that of the savage, who can
+imagine no obstacles that are not solid and tangible. The obstacles
+that retard our progress in life neither display yawning chasms nor
+rows of teeth; they dwell within our own minds--they are versatility,
+disgust, ennui, thirst after the unknown, and love of change. These
+lead us to take bye-paths and long turnings, and fritter away the
+strength that should be used in promoting a single aim. Hence arise a
+multiplicity of hermaphrodite avocations and desultory studies, that
+terminate in nothing but vexation of spirit. Let us suppose, for
+example, that Peter has made up his mind to be a lawyer."
+
+"I do not see any particular reason why Peter should not be a lawyer,"
+said Jack.
+
+"Nor I either; but unfortunately when Peter has pored a certain time
+over Coke upon Littleton, and other abstruse legal authorities, he
+accidentally witnesses a review; he throws down his books, and
+resolves to become a soldier."
+
+"After the manner and style of our Fritz," suggested Jack.
+
+"He changes the Pandects for Polybius, and Gray's Inn for a military
+school. All goes well for awhile; the idea of uniform helps him over
+the rudiments of fortification and the platoon exercise. He passes two
+examinations creditably, but breaks down at the third, in consequence
+of which he throws away his sword in disgust. He does not like now to
+rejoin his old companions in the Inn, who have been working steadily
+during the years he has lost. He therefore, perhaps, adopts a middle
+course, and gets himself enrolled in the society of solicitors, which
+does not exact a very elaborate diploma."
+
+"Well, after all, the difference between a barrister and a solicitor
+is not so great."
+
+"True; but the exercises to which he has been accustomed previously
+unfit him for the drudgeries of his new employment, and he soon
+abandons that, just as he abandoned the other two."
+
+"Your friend Peter is somewhat difficult to please," said Jack.
+
+"He then goes into business, a term which may mean a great deal or
+nothing at all; it admits of one's going about idle with the
+appearance of being fully occupied. Then a few unsuccessful
+speculations bring him back, at the end of his days, to the point
+whence he started--that is, zero."
+
+"Ah, yes, I see now," cried Jack, whilst he traced a diagram on the
+ground. "Poor Peter has always stopped in the middle of each
+profession and gone back to the starting point of another, thus
+passing his life in making zig-zags, and only moving from one zero to
+another."
+
+"Exactly," added Wolston: "whilst those who persevered in following up
+the profession they chose at first finally succeeded in attaining a
+position, and that simply by adhering to a straight line."
+
+Here Fritz and his mother arrived, arm in arm.
+
+"Ha! there you are," cried Ernest. "We were on our way to meet you."
+
+"You surely do not call sitting down there being on your way to meet
+us, do you?"
+
+"Well, yes, mother," suggested Jack, "on the principle that two bodies
+coming into contact meet each other."
+
+Like those flowers that droop during a storm, but recover their
+brilliancy with the first rays of the sun, so a few days more sufficed
+to restore Mary Wolston to better health than she had ever enjoyed in
+her life before. Some months now elapsed without giving rise to any
+event of note. All the men, women, and children in the colony had been
+busily employed from early morn to late at e'en. No sooner had one
+field been sown than there was another to plant; then came the grain
+harvest and its hard but healthy toil; next, much to the delight of
+Willis, herrings appeared on the coast, followed by their attendant
+demons, the sea-dogs; salmon-fishing, hunting ortolans, the foundries
+and manufactories, likewise exacted a portion of their time.
+Frequently parties were occupied for weeks together in the remote
+districts; so that, with the exception of one day each week--the
+Sabbath--the two families had of late been rarely assembled together
+in one spot.
+
+The hope of ever again beholding the _Nelson_ had gradually ceased to
+be entertained by anybody. Like an echo that resounds from rock to
+rock until it is lost in the distance, this hope had died away in
+their breasts. Willis nevertheless continued to keep the beacon on
+Shark's Island alight; but he regarded it more as a sepulchral lamp in
+commemoration of the dead, than as a signal for the living.
+
+One morning, the break of day was announced by a cannon-shot. All
+instantly started on their feet and gazed inquiringly in each other's
+faces. One thing forced itself upon all their thoughts--daybreak
+generally arrives without noise; it is not accustomed to announce
+itself with gunpowder; like real merit, it requires no flourish of
+trumpets to announce its advent.
+
+"Good," said Becker; "Fritz and Jack are not visible, therefore we may
+easily guess who fired that shot."
+
+"Particularly," added Wolston, "as this is the first of January. Last
+night I observed an unusual amount of going backwards and forwards,
+so, I suppose, nobody need be much at a loss to solve the mystery."
+
+"Aye," sighed Willis, "New Year's Day brings pleasing recollections to
+many, but sad ones to those who are far away from their own homes."
+
+Shortly after, the absentees arrived, each mounted on his favorite
+ostrich.
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, spreading out a fine leopard's skin, "be
+good enough to accept this, with the compliments of the season."
+
+"Mr. Wolston," said Jack, at the same time, "here is the outer
+covering of a panther, who, stifling with heat, commissioned me to
+present you with his overcoat."
+
+"I am very proud of your gift, Master Fritz," said Mrs. Wolston; "it
+is really very handsome."
+
+"It may, perhaps, be useful at all events, madam," said Fritz; "for,
+in the absence of universal pills and such things, it is a capital
+preventative of coughs and colds."
+
+"You have been over the way again, then?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes; but, as you see, we adopted a more efficacious mode of
+operations than the one you suggested."
+
+"Ah," replied Willis, drily, "you did not light a fire this time to
+frighten the brutes away, and go to sleep when it went out!"
+
+Sophia then presented Willis with a handsome tobacco pouch, on which
+the words, "From Susan," were embroidered.
+
+"Bless your dear little heart!" said the sailor, whilst a tear
+sparkled in the corner of his eye, "you make me almost think I am in
+Old England again."
+
+"What is the matter?" inquired Mrs. Wolston, as Mary came running in.
+
+"Oh, such a miracle, mamma! my parrot commenced talking this morning."
+
+"And what did it say, child?"
+
+Here Mary blushed and hesitated; Mrs. Wolston glanced at Fritz, and
+thought it might be as well not to inquire any further.
+
+"Perhaps somebody has changed it," suggested Jack.
+
+"Not very likely that a strange parrot could pronounce my own name."
+
+"Well, perhaps your own has been learning to spell for a long time,
+and has just succeeded in getting into words of two or more syllables.
+These creatures abound in sell-esteem; and yours, perhaps, would not
+speak till it could speak well."
+
+"Odd, that it should pitch upon New Year's morning to say all sorts of
+pretty things. They do not carry an almanack in their pockets, do
+they?"
+
+"Well," remarked Willis, "parrots do say and do odd things. I heard of
+one that once frightened away a burglar, by screaming out, 'The
+Campbells are coming;' so, Miss Wolston, perhaps yours does keep a
+log."
+
+"By counting its knuckles," suggested Jack.
+
+"Counting one's knuckles is an ingenious, but rather a clumsy
+substitute for the calendar," remarked Wolston.
+
+"And who invented the calendar?" inquired Willis.
+
+"I am not aware that the calendar was ever invented," replied Wolston.
+"Fruit commences by being a seed, the admiral springs from the
+cabin-boy, words and language succeed naturally the babble of the
+infant; so, I presume, the calendar has grown up spontaneously to its
+present degree of perfection."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Wolston, but some one must have laid the first plank."
+
+"The motions of the sun, moon, and stars would, in all probability,
+suggest to the early inhabitants of our globe a natural means of
+measuring time. God, in creating the heavenly bodies, seems to have
+reflected that man would require some index to regulate his labors and
+the acts of his civil life. The primary and most elementary
+subdivisions of time are day and night, and it demanded no great
+stretch of human ingenuity to divide the day into two sections, called
+forenoon and afternoon, or into twelve sections, called hours. Such
+subdivisions of time would probably suggest themselves simultaneously
+to all the nations of the earth. Necessity, who is the mother of all
+invention, doubtless called the germs of our calendar into existence."
+
+"Yes, so far as the days and hours are concerned. There are other
+divisions--weeks, for example."
+
+"The division of time into weeks is a matter that belongs entirely to
+revelation; the Jews keep the last day of every seven as a day of
+rest, in accordance with the law of Moses, and the Christians dedicate
+the first day of every seven to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
+
+"Then there are months."
+
+"The month is another natural division. The return of the moon in
+conjunction with the sun, was observed to occur at regular intervals
+of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and some minutes. This interval is
+called the _lunar month_, which for a long time was regarded as the
+radical unit in the admeasurement of time."
+
+"But the year is now the unit, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, in course of time the moon, in this respect, gave place to the
+sun. It was observed that the earth, in performing her revolution
+round the sun, always arrived at the same point of her orbit at the
+end of three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, fifty-eight
+minutes, and forty-five seconds."
+
+"Does the earth invariably pass the same point at that interval?"
+
+"Yes, invariably; and the interval in question is termed the solar
+year."
+
+"After all," remarked Jack, "the perseverance of the earth is very
+much to be admired. It goes on eternally, always performing the same
+journey, never deviates from its path, and is never a minute too
+late."
+
+"If the earth had performed her annual voyage in a certain number of
+entire days, the solar year would have been an exact unit of time; but
+the odd fraction defied all our systems of calculation. Originally, we
+reckoned the year to consist of three hundred and sixty-five days."
+
+"And left the fraction to shift for itself!"
+
+"Yes, but the consequence was, that the civil year was always nearly a
+quarter of a day behind; so that at the end of a hundred and
+twenty-one years the civil year had become an entire month behind. The
+first month of winter found itself in autumn, the first month of
+spring in the middle of winter, and so on.
+
+"Rather a lubberly sort of log, that," remarked Willis.
+
+"This confusion became, with time, more and more embarrassing. Another
+evil was, likewise, eventually to be apprehended, for it was seen
+that, on the expiring of fourteen hundred and sixty revolutions of the
+earth round the sun, fourteen hundred and sixty-one civil years would
+be counted."
+
+"But where would have been the evil?"
+
+"All relations between the dates and the seasons would have been
+obliterated, astronomical calculations would have become inaccurate,
+and the calendar virtually useless."
+
+"Well, Willis, you that are so fertile in ideas, what would you have
+done in such a case?" inquired Jack.
+
+"I! Why I scarcely know--perhaps run out a fresh cable and commenced a
+new log."
+
+"Your remedy," continued Wolston, "might, perhaps, have obviated the
+difficulty; but Julius Cæsar thought of another that answered the
+purpose equally well. It was simply to add to every fourth civil year
+an additional day, making it to consist of three hundred and sixty-six
+instead of three hundred and sixty-five, This supplementary day was
+given to the month of February."
+
+"Why February?"
+
+"Because February, at that time, was reckoned the last month of the
+year. It was only in the reign of Charles IX. of France, or in the
+second half of the sixteenth century, that the civil year was made to
+begin on the 1st of January. As the end of February was five days
+before the 1st or kalends of March, the extra day was known by the
+phrase _bis sexto_ (_ante_) _calendus martii_. Hence the fourth year
+is termed in the calendar _bissextile_, but is more usually called by
+us in England _leap year_."
+
+"The remedy is certainly simple; but are your figures perfectly
+square? If you add a day every four years, do you not overleap the
+earth's fraction?"
+
+"Yes, from ten to eleven minutes."
+
+"And what becomes of these minutes? Are they allowed to run up another
+score?"
+
+"No, not exactly. In 1582, the civil year had got ten clear days the
+start of the solar year, and Pope Gregory XIII. resolved to cancel
+them, which he effected by calling the day after the 4th of October
+the 15th."
+
+"That manner of altering the rig and squaring the yards," said Willi
+laughing, "would make the people that lived then ten days older. If it
+had been ten years, the matter would have been serious. Had the Pope
+said to me privately, 'Willis, you are now only forty-seven, but
+to-morrow, my boy, you will fill your sails and steer right into
+fifty-seven,' I should have turned 'bout ship and cleared off. Few men
+care about being put upon a short allowance of life, any more than we
+sailors on short rations of rum."
+
+"But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your
+age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that."
+
+"Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a
+latitude than Mr. Julius Cæsar--but what are you laughing at?"
+
+"Nothing; only Julius Cæsar is not generally honored with the prefix
+_Mr_. It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of _Sir
+Newton_ and _Mr. William Shakespeare_; the latter, however, by way of
+amends, they sometimes style the _immortal Williams_.'"
+
+"Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed
+the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder. But who
+was Julius Cæsar."
+
+"Julius Cæsar," replied Jack, sententiously, "was first of all an
+author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin
+Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England,
+and gave _Mr._ Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia."
+
+"He must have been a clever fellow to do all that; still, my idea
+continues the same. When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to
+have finished the business in a workmanlike manner."
+
+"That, however," continued Wolston, "he left to Pope Gregory, who
+decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries.
+Thus, the years 1700 and 1800, which should have been leap years, did
+not reckon the extra day; so the years 2000 and 2400 will likewise be
+deprived of their supplementary four-and-twenty hours."
+
+"There is one difficulty about this mode of stowing away extra days;
+these leap years may be forgotten."
+
+"Not if you keep in mind that leap years alone admit of being divided
+by four."
+
+"Did the Pope manage to get entirely rid of the fraction?"
+
+"Not entirely; but the error does not exceed one day in four thousand
+years, and is so small that it is not likely to derange ordinary
+calculations; and so, Willis, you now know the origin of the calendar,
+and likewise how time came to be divided into weeks, months, and
+years."
+
+"You have only spoken of the Christian calendar," remarked Ernest.
+"There have been several other systems in use. Those curious people
+that call themselves the children of the sun and moon, possess a mode
+of reckoning that carries them back to a period anterior to the
+creation of the world. Then, the Greeks computed by Olympiads, or
+periods of four years. The Romans reckoned by lustri of five years,
+the first of which corresponds with the 117th year of the foundation
+of Rome."
+
+"And when does our calendar begin?"
+
+"It dates only from the birth of Christ, but may be carried back to
+the creation, which event, to the best of our knowledge, occurred four
+thousand and four years before the birth of our Savior. This period,
+added to the date of the present, or any future year, gives us, as
+nearly as we can ascertain, the interval that has elapsed since our
+first parents found themselves in the garden of Eden."
+
+"Our calendar," remarked Jack, "appears simple enough; it is to be
+regretted that there have been, and are, so many other modes of
+reckoning extant. What with the Greek Olympiads, the Roman lustres,
+the Mahometan hegira, and Chinese moonshine, there is nothing but
+perplexity and confusion."
+
+"It is possible, however," said Becker, "to accommodate all these
+systems with each other. Leaving the Chinese out of the question, we
+have only to bear in mind, that the Christian era begins on the first
+year of the 194th Olympiad, 753 years after the building of Rome, and
+622 years before the Mahometan hegira. These three figures will serve
+us as flambeaux to all the dates of both ancient and modern history."
+
+The discourse was here interrupted by Toby, who entered the room, and
+was gleefully frisking and bounding round Mary.
+
+"Really," observed Mrs. Becker, "Toby does seem to know that this is
+New Year's Day, he looks so lively and so smart."
+
+The animal, in point of fact, wore a new collar, and seemed conscious
+that he was more than usually attractive that particular morning. At a
+sign from Mary, the intelligent brute went and wagged his tail to
+Fritz. Hereupon the young man, observing the collar more closely,
+noticed the following words embroidered upon it: _I belong now
+entirely to Master Fritz, who rescued my mistress from the sea_.
+
+"Ah, Miss Wolston," said Fritz, "you forget I only did my duty; you
+must not allow your gratitude to over-estimate the service I rendered
+you."
+
+"Well, I declare," cried Mrs. Wolston, laughing "here is another
+animal that speaks."
+
+"The age of Aesop revived," suggested Mrs. Becker.
+
+"What do you say, Master Jack?" inquired Mrs. Wolston. "Do you suppose
+that Toby has learned embroidery in the same way that the parrot
+learned grammar?"
+
+"Oh, more astonishing things than that have happened! Mr. Wolston
+there will tell you that he has seen a wooden figure playing at chess;
+why, therefore, should the most sagacious of all the brutes not learn
+knitting?"
+
+"I fear, in speaking so highly of the dog," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you
+are doing injustice to other animals. Marvellous instances of
+sagacity, gratitude, and affection, have been shown by other brutes
+beside the dog. A horse of Caligula's was elevated to the dignified
+office of consul."
+
+"Yes, and talking of the affection of animals," observed Ernest, "puts
+me in mind of an anecdote related by Aulus Gellius. It seems that a
+little boy, the son of a fisher man, who had to go from Baiæ to his
+school at Puzzoli, used to stop at the same hour each day on the brink
+of the Lucrine lake. Here he often threw a bit of his breakfast to a
+Dolphin that he called Simon, and if the creature was not waiting for
+him when he arrived, he had only to pronounce this name, and it
+instantly appeared."
+
+"Nothing very wonderful in that," said Jack; "the common gudgeon,
+which is the stupidest fish to be found in fresh water, would do that
+much."
+
+"Yes; but listen a moment. The dolphin, after having received his
+pittance, presented his back to the boy, after having tacked in all
+his spines and prickles as well as he could, and carried him right
+across the lake, thus saving the little fellow a long roundabout walk;
+and not only that, but after school hours it was waiting to carry him
+back again. This continued almost daily for a year or two; but at last
+the boy died, and the dolphin, after waiting day after day for his
+reappearance, pined away, and was found dead at the usual place of
+rendezvous. The affectionate creature was taken out of the lake, and
+buried beside its friend.[D]
+
+"And, on the other hand," added Jack, "if animals sometimes attach
+themselves to us, we attach ourselves to them. We are told that
+Crassus wore mourning for a dead ferret, the death of which grieved
+him as much as if it had been his own daughter.[E] Augustus crucified
+one of his slaves, who had roasted and eaten a quail, that had fought
+and conquered in the circus.[F] Antonia, daughter-in-law of Tiberius,
+fastened ear-rings to some lampreys that she was passionately fond
+of."[G]
+
+"That, at all events, was attachment in one sense of the word," said
+Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Without reference to the dog in particular," continued Jack, "proofs
+of sagacity in animals are very numerous. The nautilus, when he wants
+to take an airing, capsizes his shell, and converts it into a gondola;
+then he hoists a thin membrane that serves for a sail; two of his
+arms are resolved into oars, and his tail performs the functions of a
+rudder. There are insects ingenious enough to make dwellings for
+themselves in the body of a leaf as thin as paper. At the approach of
+a storm some spiders take in a reef or two of their webs, so as to be
+less at the mercy of the wind. Beavers will erect walls, and construct
+houses more skilfully than our ablest architects. Chimpanzees have
+been known spontaneously to sit themselves down, and perform the
+operation of shaving."
+
+"Stop, Jack," cried Mrs. Wolston; "I must yield to such a deluge of
+argument, and admit that Toby may have acquired the art of embroidery
+with or without a master, only I should like to see some other
+specimen of his skill."
+
+"Probably you will by-and-by," replied Jack, laughing, "if you keep
+your eyes open."
+
+Here Sophia came into the room leading her gazelle.
+
+"Ah, just in time," said Mrs. Wolston; "here is another animal that
+probably has something to say."
+
+"Wrong, mamma," replied Sophia; "my gazelle is as mute as a mermaid.
+Very provoking, is it not, when all the other animals in the house
+talk?"
+
+"You had better apply to Master Jack; he may, probably, be able to hit
+upon a plan to make your gazelle communicative."
+
+"Will you, Master Jack?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Sophia. The plan I would suggest is very simple. Feed
+him for a week or two with nouns, adjectives, and verbs."
+
+Here Sophia, addressing her gazelle, said, "Master Jack Becker is a
+goose."
+
+Meantime Fritz was leaning on the back of Mary's chair.
+
+"Miss Wolston," said he, "did you not tell me that you had brought
+Toby up, and that you were very fond of him?"
+
+"Yes, Fritz."
+
+"Then it would be unfair in me to withdraw his allegiance from you
+now, and, consequently, I must refuse your present"
+
+"But where would have been the merit of the gift if I did not hold
+him in some esteem? Besides, I thought you were fond of Toby."
+
+"So I am, Miss Wolston."
+
+"Then you will not be indebted to me for anything--I owe you much."
+
+"No such thing; you owe me nothing."
+
+"My life, then, is nothing?"
+
+"Oh, I did not mean that; I must beg your pardon."
+
+"Which I will only grant on condition you accept my gift."
+
+"Well, if you insist upon it, I will."
+
+"I can see him as before; the only difference will be that you are his
+master, in all other respects he will belong to us both."
+
+"May I know what your knight-errant is saying to you, Mary?" inquired
+Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Oh, I have been so angry with him; he was going to refuse my
+present."
+
+"That was very naughty of him, certainly."
+
+"He has, however, consented, like a dutiful squire, to obey my
+behests."
+
+"Yes, mother, Toby is henceforth to be divided between us."
+
+"Divided?"
+
+"Yes; that is, he is to be nominally mine, but virtually to belong to
+us both. Is it not so, Miss Wolston?"
+
+"Yes, Master Fritz."
+
+On his side, Jack had approached Miss Sophia.
+
+"So you won't give me your gazelle?" he whispered.
+
+"No, certainly not, Mr. Jack," replied Sophia; "if you had saved my
+life, as Fritz saved my sister's, I should then have had the right to
+make you a present. But you know it is not my fault."
+
+"Nor mine either," said Jack.
+
+"Perhaps not; but if I had fallen into the sea, you would have allowed
+the sharks to swallow me, would you not?"
+
+"I only wish we had been attacked by a hyena or a bear on our way to
+Waldeck."
+
+"God be thanked, that we were not!"
+
+"Well, but look here, Miss Sophia; let me paint the scene. You have
+fainted, as a matter of course, and fallen prostrate on the ground,
+insensible."
+
+"That is likely enough, if we had encountered one of the animals you
+mention."
+
+"Then I throw myself between you and the savage brute."
+
+"Supposing you were not half a mile off at the time."
+
+"No fear of that--he rises, on his hind legs, and glares."
+
+"Is it a hyena or a bear?"
+
+"Oh, whichever you like--he opens his jaws, and growls."
+
+"Like the wolf at Little Red Riding Hood."
+
+"I plunge my arm down his throat and choke him."
+
+"Clever, very; but are you not wounded?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, however; all my thoughts are centred in you--I
+think of nothing else."
+
+"I am insensible, am I not?"
+
+"Yes, more than ever--we all run towards you, and exert ourselves to
+bring you back to your senses."
+
+"Then I come to life again."
+
+"No, stop a bit."
+
+"But it is tiresome to be so long insensible."
+
+"My mother has luckily a bottle of salts, which she holds to your
+nose--I run off to the nearest brook, and return with water in the
+crown of my cap, with which I bathe your temples."
+
+"Oh, in that case, I should open one eye at least. Which eye is opened
+first after fainting?"
+
+"I really don't know."
+
+"In that case, to avoid mistakes, I should open both."
+
+"It is only then, when I find you are recovering, that I discover the
+brute has severely bitten my arm."
+
+"Then comes my turn to nurse you."
+
+"You express your thanks in your sweetest tones, and I forget my
+wounds."
+
+"Sweet tones do no harm, if they are accompanied with salves and
+ointment."
+
+"In short, I am obliged to carry my arm in a sling for three months
+after."
+
+"Is that not rather long?"
+
+"No; because your arm, in some sort, supplies, meantime, the place of
+mine."
+
+"Your picture has, at least, the merit of being poetic. Is it
+finished?"
+
+"Not till next New Year's Day, when you present me with an embroidered
+scarf, as the ladies of yore used to do to the knights that defended
+them from dragons and that sort of thing."
+
+"What a pity all this should be only a dream!"
+
+"Well, I am not particularly extravagant, at all events; others dream
+of fortune, honor, and glory."
+
+"Whilst you confine your aspirations to a bear, a bite, and a scarf."
+
+"You see nothing was wanted but the opportunity."
+
+"And foresight."
+
+"Foresight?"
+
+"Yes; if you had previously made arrangements with a bear, the whole
+scene might have been realized."
+
+"You are joking, whilst I am taking the matter _au serieux_."
+
+"That order is usually reversed; generally you are the quiz and I am
+the quizzee."
+
+"You will admit, at all events, that I would not have permitted the
+bear to eat you."
+
+Here Sophia burst into a peal of laughter, and vanished with her
+gazelle.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] Aulus Gellius, VII., 8.
+
+[E] Macrobius, _Saturn_, XL, 4.
+
+[F] Plutarch.
+
+[G] Pliny, IX., 53.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SEPARATION--GUELPHS AND GHIBELINES--MONTAGUES AND
+CAPULETS--SADNESS--THE REUNION--JOCKO AND HIS EDUCATION--THE
+ENTERTAINMENTS OF A KING--THE MULES OF NERO AND THE ASSES OF
+POPPÆA--HERCULES AND ACHILLES--LIBERTY AND EQUALITY--SEMIRAMIS AND
+ELIZABETH--CHRISTIANITY AND THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER--THE WILLISONIAN
+METHOD--MORAL DISCIPLINE VERSUS BIRCH.
+
+
+Winter was now drawing near, with its storms and deluges. Becker
+therefore felt that it was necessary to make some alterations in their
+domestic arrangements; and he saw that, for this season at all events,
+the two families must be separated--this was to create a desert within
+a desert; but propriety and convenience demanded the sacrifice.
+
+It was decided that Wolston and his family should be quartered at
+Rockhouse, whilst Becker and his family should pass the rainy season
+at Falcon's Nest, where, though these aerial dwellings were but
+indifferently adapted for winter habitations, they had passed the
+first year of their sojourn in the colony. The rains came and
+submerged the country between the two families, thus, for a time,
+cutting off all communication between them. The barriers that
+separated the Guelphs from the Ghibelines, the Montagues from the
+Capulets, the Burgundians from the Armagnacs, and the House of York
+from that of Lancaster, could not have been more impenetrable than
+that which now existed between the Wolstons and Beckers.
+
+Whenever a lull occurred in the storm, or a ray of sunshine shot
+through the murky clouds, all eyes were mechanically turned to the
+window, but only to turn them away again with a sigh; so completely
+had the waters invaded the land, that nothing short of the dove from
+Noah's Ark could have performed the journey between Rockhouse and
+Falcon's Nest.
+
+Dulness and dreariness reigned triumphant at both localities. The calm
+tranquility that Becker's family formerly enjoyed under similar
+circumstances had fled. They felt that happiness was no longer to be
+enjoyed within the limits of their own circle. Study and conversation
+lost their charms; and if they laughed now, the smile never extended
+beyond the tips of their lips. The young people often wished they
+possessed Fortunatus's cap, or Aladdin's wonderful lamp, to transport
+them from the one dwelling to the other; but as they could obtain no
+such occult mode of conveyance, there was no remedy for their miseries
+but patience. To the Wolstons this interval of compulsory separation
+was particularly irksome, as this was the first time in their lives
+that they had been entirely isolated for any length of time.
+
+At Falcon's Nest, Ernest was the most popular member of the domestic
+circle. His astronomical predilections made him the Sir Oracle of the
+storm, and he was constantly being asked for information relative to
+the progress and probable duration of the rains. Every morning he was
+called upon for a report as to the state of the weather; but, with all
+his skill, he could afford them very little consolation.
+
+But all things come to an end, as well as regards our troubles as our
+joys. One morning, Ernest reported that less rain had fallen during
+the preceding than any former night of the season; the next morning a
+still more favorable report was presented; and on the third morning
+the floods had subsided, but had left a substratum of mud that
+obliterated all traces of the roads. Notwithstanding this, and a smart
+shower that continued to fall, Fritz and Jack determined to force a
+passage to Rockhouse.
+
+Towards evening, the two young men returned, soaking with wet and
+covered with mud, but with light hearts, for they had found their
+companions in the enjoyment of perfect health and in the best spirits.
+They brought back with them a missive, couched in the following
+terms:--
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, greeting, desire the favor of Mr. and Mrs.
+Becker's company to dinner, together with their entire family, this
+day se'nnight, weather permitting."
+
+Ernest was hereupon consulted, and stated that, in so far as the rain
+was concerned, they should in eight days be able to undertake the
+journey to Rockhouse. This assurance was not, however, entirely relied
+upon, for between this and then many an anxious eye was turned
+skywards, as if in search of some more conclusive evidence. Those who
+possess a garden--and he who has not, were it only a box of
+mignionette at the window--will often have observed, in consequence of
+absence or forgetfulness, that their flowers have begun to droop; they
+hasten to sprinkle them with water, then watch anxiously for signs of
+their revival. So both families continued unceasingly during these
+eight days to note the ever-varying modifications of the clouds.
+
+At length the much wished-for day arrived; the morning broke with a
+blaze of sunshine, and though hidden with a dense mist, the ground was
+sufficiently hardened to bear their weight. Wolston awaited his guests
+at a bridge of planks that had been thrown across the Jackal River,
+where he and Willis had erected a sort of triumphal arch of mangoe
+leaves and palm branches. Here Becker and his family were welcomed, as
+if the one party had just arrived from Tobolsk, and the other from
+Chandernagor, after an absence of ten years.
+
+Another warm reception awaited them at Rockhouse, where an abundant
+repast was already spread in the gallery. Mrs. Becker had often
+intended to work herself a pair of gloves, but the increasing demand
+for stockings had hitherto prevented her. She was pleased, therefore,
+on sitting down to dinner, to discover a couple of pairs under her
+plate, with her own initials embroidered upon them.
+
+"Ah," said she, "I was almost afraid I had lost my daughters, but I
+have found them again."
+
+After dinner the girls showed her a quantity of cotton they had spun,
+which proved that, though they might have been dull, they had, at
+least, been industrious.
+
+"Mary span the most of it," said Sophia; "but you know, Mrs. Becker,
+she is the biggest."
+
+"Oh, then," said Jack, "the power of spinning depends upon the bulk
+of the spinner?"
+
+"Oh, Master Jack, I thought you had been ill, that you had not
+commenced quizzing us before."
+
+"Never mind him, Soffy," said her father; "to quote Hudibras,
+
+  "There's nothing on earth hath so perfect a phiz,
+  As not to give birth to a passable quiz."
+
+Here Willis led in the chimpanzee, who made a grimace to the assembled
+company.
+
+"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said Willis, "Jocko is about to show you
+the progress he has made in splicing and bracing."
+
+"Good!" said Becker, "you have been able to make something of him,
+then?"
+
+"You will see presently. Jocko, bring me a plate."
+
+Hereupon the chimpanzee seized a bottle of Rockhouse malaga, and
+filled a glass.
+
+"He has erred on the safe side there," said Jack, drily.
+
+"Well," added Willis, laughing, "we must let that pass. Jocko," said
+he, assuming a sententious tone, "I asked you for a plate."
+
+The chimpanzee looked at him, hesitated a moment, then seized the
+glass, and drank the contents off at a single draught. A box on the
+ears then sent him gibbering into a corner.
+
+"Your servant," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "has been taking lessons from
+Dean Swift as well as yourself, Willis."
+
+"I will serve him out for that, the swab; he does not play any of
+those tricks when we are alone. I must admit, however, that I am
+generally in the habit of helping myself."
+
+Here attention was called to the parrot, who was screaming out
+lustily, "I love Mary, I love Sophia."
+
+"Holloa," exclaimed Fritz, "Polly loves everybody now, does she?"
+
+"Well, you see," replied Sophia, "I grew tired of hearing him scream
+always that he loved my sister, so by means of a little coaxing, and a
+good deal of sugar, I got him to love me too."
+
+The poultry were next mustered for the inspection of their old
+masters. These did not consist of the ordinary domestic fowls alone;
+amongst them were a beautiful flamingo, some cranes, bustards, and a
+variety of tame tropical birds. With the fowls came the pigeons, which
+were perching about them in all directions.
+
+"We are now something like the court of France in the fourteenth
+century," said Wolston.
+
+"How so?" inquired Becker.
+
+"In the reign of Charles V., they were obliged to place a trellis at
+the windows of the Palace of St. Paul to prevent the poultry from
+invading the dining room."
+
+"Rural anyhow," observed Jack.
+
+"Of course, most other features of the palace were in unison with this
+primitive state of matters. The courtiers sat on stools. There was
+only one chair in the palace, that was the arm-chair of the king,
+which was covered with red leather, and ornamented with silk fringes."
+
+"So that we may console ourselves with the reflection, that we are as
+comfortable here as kings were at that epoch in Europe," remarked
+Ernest.
+
+"Yes; historians report, that when Alphonso V. of Portugal went to
+Paris to solicit the aid of Louis XI. against the King of Arragon, who
+had taken Castile from him, the French monarch received him with great
+honor, and endeavored to make his stay as agreeable as possible."
+
+"Reviews, I suppose, feasts, tournaments, spectacles, and so forth."
+
+"A residence was assigned him in the Rue de Prouvaires, at the house
+of one Laurent Herbelot, a grocer."
+
+"What! amongst dried peas and preserved plums?"
+
+"Precisely; but the house of Herbelot might then have been one of the
+most commodious buildings in all Paris. Alphonso was afterwards
+conducted to the palace, where he pleaded his cause before the king.
+Next day he was entertained at the archiepiscopal residence, where he
+witnessed the induction of a doctor in theology. The day after that a
+procession to the university was organized, which passed under the
+grocer's windows."
+
+"These were singular marvels to entertain a king withal," said Jack.
+
+"Such were the amusements peculiar to the epoch. It must be observed
+that the Louis in question was somewhat close-fisted, and rarely drew
+his purse-strings unless he was certain of a good interest for his
+money. But courts in those days were very simple and frugal. The
+sumptuary laws of Philip le Bel (1285) had fixed supper at three
+dishes and a lard soup. The king's own dinner was likewise limited to
+three dishes."
+
+"These three dishes might, however, have yielded a better repast than
+the fifty-two saucers of the Chinese," remarked Jack.
+
+"No one could obtain permission to give his wife four dresses a year,
+unless he had an income of six thousand francs."
+
+"What business had the laws to interfere with these things, I should
+like to know?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Those who possessed two thousand francs income were only allowed to
+wear one dress a year, the cloth for which was not permitted to exceed
+tenpence a yard; but ladies of rank could go as high as fifteen
+pence."
+
+"Philip le Bel must have been an old woman," insisted Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"No private citizen was permitted to use a carriage, and such persons
+were likewise interdicted the use of flambeaux."
+
+"They were permitted to break their necks at all events, that is
+something."
+
+"In England, the same primitive simplicity prevailed; Queen Elizabeth
+is said to have breakfasted on a gallon of ale, her dining-room floor
+was strewn every day with fresh straw or rushes, and she had only one
+pair of silk stockings in her entire wardrobe."
+
+"At the same time," observed Ernest, "these usages stand in singular
+contradiction to those that prevailed at an earlier age. The supper of
+Lucullus rarely cost him less than thirty thousand francs, and he
+could entertain five and twenty thousand guests. Six citizens of Rome
+possessed a great part of Africa. Domitius had an estate in France of
+eighty thousand acres."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+"When Nero went to Baize he was accompanied by a thousand chariots and
+two thousand mules caparisoned with silver. Poppæa followed him with
+five hundred she asses to furnish milk for her bath. Cicero purchased
+a dining-room table that cost him a million sesterces, or about two
+hundred thousand francs. I can understand the progress of
+civilization, and I can also understand civilization remaining
+stationary for a given period; but I cannot understand why a citizen
+of ancient Rome should be able to lodge twenty-five thousand men,
+whilst a king of France could scarcely keep the ducks from waddling
+about his apartments, and a queen of England could fare no better than
+a ploughman."
+
+"If," replied Frank, "there were no other criterion of civilization
+than luxury and riches, you would have good grounds for surprise; but
+such is not the case. Between ancient and modern times, Christianity
+arose, and that has tended in some degree to keep down the ostentation
+of the rich, and to augment, at the same time, the comforts of the
+poor. In place of the heroes, Hercules and Achilles, we have had the
+apostles Peter and Paul; so Luther and Calvin have been substituted
+for Semiramis and Nero. Pride has given place to charity, and
+corruption to virtue."
+
+"Would that it were so, Frank," continued Ernest. "Christianity has,
+doubtless, effected many beneficial changes, and produced many able
+men; but in this last respect antiquity has not been behind. It has
+also its sages: Thales, Socrates, and Pythagoras, for example."
+
+"True," replied Frank, "antiquity has produced some virtuous men, but
+their virtue was ideal, and their creed a dream."
+
+"And the Stoics?"
+
+"The Stoics despised suffering, and Christians resign themselves to
+its chastisements; this constitutes one of the lines of demarcation
+between ancient and modern theology."
+
+"But there were many signal instances of virtue manifested in ancient
+times."
+
+"Yes; but for the most part, it was either exaggerated or false;
+unyielding pride, obstinate courage, implacable resentment of
+injuries. Errors promenaded in robes under the porticos. Ambition was
+honored in Alexander, suicide in Cato, and assassination in Brutus."
+
+"But what say you to Plato?"
+
+"The immolation of ill-formed children, and of those born without the
+permission of the laws, prosecution of strangers and slavery; such
+were the basis of his boasted republic, and the gospel of his
+philosophy."
+
+"Why, then, are these men held up as models for our imitation?"
+
+"Because they are distant and dead; likewise, because they were, in
+many respects, great and wise, considering the paganism and darkness
+with which they were surrounded. Life was then only sacred to the few;
+the many were treated as beasts of burden. The Emperor Claudian even
+felt bound to issue an edict prohibiting slaves from being slain _when
+they were old and feeble_."
+
+"Which leaves a margin for us to suppose that they might be slain when
+they were young and strong," observed Jack.
+
+"By the constitution of Constantine certain cases were defined, where
+a master might suspend his slave by the feet, have him torn by wild
+beasts, or tortured by slow fire."
+
+"Does slavery and its horrors not still exist, for example, in Russia
+and the United States of America?"
+
+"Slavery does exist, to the great disgrace of modern civilization, in
+the countries you mention; but, so far as I am aware, its horrors are
+not recognized by the laws."
+
+"There, Mr. Frank," said Wolston, "I am very sorry to be under the
+necessity of contradicting you. I have visited the slave states of
+North America, and have witnessed atrocities perhaps less brutal, but
+not less heart-rending, than those you mention."
+
+"But do the laws recognize them?"
+
+"Yes, tacitly; the testimony of the slaves themselves is not received
+as evidence."
+
+"Why do a people that call their county a refuge for the down-trodden
+nations of Europe suffer such abominations?"
+
+"Well, according to themselves, it is entirely a question of the
+_almighty dollar_. If there were no slaves, the swamps and morasses of
+the south could not be cultivated. It has been found that the negro
+will dance, and sing, and starve, but he will not work in the fields
+when free. Besides, they assert, that the slaves are generally well
+cared for, and that it is only a few detestable masters that beat them
+cruelly."
+
+"Then, at all events, dollars are preferred to humanity by the United
+States men, in spite of their vaunted emblems--liberty and equality."
+
+"Quite so. In all matters of internal policy, the dollar reigns
+supreme."
+
+"Admitting," continued Frank, "that the evils of slavery may exist in
+a section of the American Union, and amongst the barbarous hordes of
+Russia, these evils are trifling in comparison with others that stain
+the annals of antiquity. We are told that a hundred and twenty persons
+applied to Otho to be rewarded for killing Galba. That so many men
+should contend for the honor of premeditated murder, is sufficiently
+characteristic of the epoch. There was then no corruption, no brutal
+passion, that had not its temple and its high priest. In the midst of
+all this wickedness and vice there appeared a man, poor and humble,
+who accomplished what no man ever did before, and what no man will
+ever do again--he founded a moral and eternal civilization. Judaism
+and the religion of Zoroaster were overthrown. The gods of Tyre and
+Carthage were destroyed. The beliefs of Miltiades and of Pericles, of
+Scipio and Seneca, were disavowed. The thousands that flocked annually
+to worship the Eleusinian Ceres ceased their pilgrimage. Odin and his
+disciples have all perished. The very language of Osiris, which was
+afterwards spoken by the Ptolemies, is no longer known to his
+descendants. The paganisms which still exist in the East are rapidly
+yielding to the march of western intelligence. Christianity alone,
+amidst all these ring and fallen fabrics, retains its original
+vitality, for, like its author, it is imperishable."
+
+"It is a curious thing what we call conversation," observed Mrs.
+Wolston. "No sooner is one subject broached than another is
+introduced; and we go on from one thing to another until the original
+idea is lost sight of. Leaving the palace of Charles V., to go with
+the King of Portugal to a grocer's shop in some street or other of
+Paris, we cross the Alps, the Himalaya, and the Atlantic. Lucullus,
+Nero, Achilles, Peter, Paul, Tyre and Sidon, Semiramis and
+Elizabeth--queens, saints, and philosophers, are all passed in review,
+and why? Because the pigeons put my husband in mind of the Palace of
+St. Paul!"
+
+"No wonder," observed Jack; "these pigeons are carriers, and naturally
+suggest wandering."
+
+Once more seated round the table, Fritz, observing that the
+misunderstanding between Willis and the chimpanzee still continued,
+thrust a plate into the hand of the latter, and pointed with his
+finger to Willis. This time Jocko obeyed, for the language was
+intelligible, and he went and placed the plate before his master.
+
+"Ho, ho!" cried Willis, "so you have come to your senses at last, have
+you? Well, that saves you an extra lesson to-morrow, you lubber you."
+
+"He takes rather long to obey your orders, though, Willis; it is
+rather awkward to wait an hour for anything you ask for. What system
+do you pursue in educating him--the Pestalozzian or the parochial?"
+
+"We follow the system in fashion aboard ship," replied Willis.
+
+"And what does that consist of?"
+
+"A rope's end."
+
+"Oh, then, you are an advocate for the birch, are you?" said Wolston;
+"it is, doubtless, a very good thing when moderately and judiciously
+administered. That puts me in mind of the missionary and the king of
+the Kuruman negroes."
+
+"A tribe of Southern Africa, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, the missionary and the king were great friends. The king not
+only permitted him to baptize his subjects, but offered to whip them
+all into Christianity in a week. This summary mode of proselytism did
+not, however, coincide with the Englishman's ideas, and he refused the
+offer, although the king insisted that it was the only kind of
+argument that could ever reach their understandings."
+
+The day at length drew to a close, and, though no one asked the time
+yet all felt that the moment of departure was approaching; whether
+they were willing to go was doubtful, but at they were loth to depart
+was certain.
+
+"It is time to return now," said Becker, rising.
+
+"Already!"
+
+"There are some clouds in the distance that bode no good."
+
+"Nothing more than a little rain at worst," said Jack.
+
+"And your mother?" inquired Decker.
+
+"Oh! we can make a palanquin for her."
+
+"Your plan, Jack, is not particularly bright; it puts me in mind of
+some genius or other that took shelter in the water to keep out of the
+wet."
+
+"Very odd," said Jack, "we are always wishing for rain, and when it
+comes, we do all we can to keep out of its way."
+
+"That is, because we are neither green pease nor gooseberries," said
+Ernest, drily.
+
+"True, brother; and as the rain is your affair, perhaps you will be
+good enough to delay it for an hour or so."
+
+"I am sorry on my own account, as well as yours, that I have not yet
+discovered the art of controlling the skies."
+
+Here Fritz whispered a few words in his mother's ear, that called up
+one of those ineffable smiles that the maternal heart alone can
+produce.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Becker, "if you think so, deliver the message
+yourself."
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, "I am charged to invite you and your
+family to Falcon's Nest this day week."
+
+"The invitation is accepted, unless my daughters have any objections
+to urge."
+
+"How can you fancy such a thing, mamma?" said both girls.
+
+"The fact is, that my daughters have got such a dread of cold water,
+that they dread to wet the soles of their shoes, unless one or other
+of you gentlemen is within hail."
+
+"Mamma does so love to tease us," said Mary; "we are afraid of nothing
+but putting you to inconvenience."
+
+"Well, in that case, we shall be at Falcon's Nest on the appointed
+day, unless the roads are positively submerged."
+
+"In that case," said Jack, "a line of canoes will be placed upon the
+highway, between the two localities."
+
+As the prospect of a prize incites the young scholar to increased
+exertion--as the prospect of worldly honors urges the ambitious man on
+in his career--as the oasis cheers the weary traveller on his journey
+through the desert, and makes him forget hunger and thirst--as the
+dreams of comfort and home warm the blood of a wayfarer amongst snow
+and ice--as hope smooths the ruggedness of poverty and softens the
+calamities of adversity, so the prospect of meeting again mitigates
+the regrets of parting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY--MUCIUS SCÆVOLA--WHAT'S TO BE
+DONE?--BRUTUS TORQUATUS AND PETER THE GREAT--AUSTRALIA, BOTANY BAY,
+AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN--NEW GUINEA AND THE BUCCANEER--VANCOUVER'S
+ISLAND--WHITE SKINS--DANGER OF LANDING ON A WAVE--HANGED OR
+DROWNED--ROUTE TO HAPPINESS--OMENS.
+
+
+The old saw, _Where there's a will there's a way_, means--if it means
+anything--that a great deal may be effected by energy. A man without
+energy is a helpless character, and invariably lags behind his fellow
+mortals in the stream of life; like a cork in an eddy, he is rebuffed
+here and jostled there, and goes on travelling in a circle to the end
+of the chapter. Not so the man of action; no jostling thwarts him, no
+rebuffs retard him; he breaks through all sorts of obstacles, and
+floats along with the current.
+
+Such a man was Becker. Though surrounded with dangers, and harassed by
+the elements, almost alone he had converted a wilderness into fertile
+fields; he pursued the track that his judgment suggested, and followed
+it up with invincible resolution; he manfully resisted the severest
+trials, and cheerfully bore the heaviest burdens; his reliance on
+Truth or Virtue and on God were unfaltering; but had he provided for
+every emergency? Is mortal power capable of overcoming every
+difficulty? We shall see.
+
+A day or two after the entertainment at Rockhouse, Becker whispered to
+the Pilot--
+
+"Willis, take a rifle, and come along with me; I have something to say
+to you."
+
+They walked a quarter of an hour or so without uttering a word, when
+Willis broke the silence.
+
+"You seem sad, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Yes, Willis, I am almost distracted."
+
+"Still, you seem well enough; you are as hale and hearty as if you
+had just been keel-hauled and got a new rig."
+
+"It is not my body that is suffering, Willis; it is my mind."
+
+"Whatever is the matter?"
+
+"Willis, _my wife is dying_."
+
+And so it was. For a long period Becker's wife had been a prey to
+racking pains, which, so to speak, she hid from herself, the better to
+conceal them from others, just as if suffering had been a crime. After
+having resisted for fourteen years the afflictions of exile, long and
+perilous expeditions, nights passed under tents, humid winters and
+fierce burning summers, her health had, at length, succumbed, not all
+at once, like fabrics sapped by gunpowder, but little by little, like
+those that are demolished piecemeal with the pickaxe of the workman.
+Day by day she grew more and more feeble, without those who were
+constantly by her side observing the insidious workings of disease.
+Like Mucius Scævola, who held his hands in a burning brazier without
+uttering a word, she so effectually hid her griefs within the recesses
+of her own bosom, that no one even suspected her illness.
+
+"But, Mr. Becker," said Willis, "I saw your wife this morning, and she
+seemed as well as usual."
+
+"Yes, _seemed_, Willis, that is true enough; not to give us pain, she
+has concealed her illness from us all. It is only within the last
+twelve hours that I accidentally discovered that she has been long
+laboring under some fearful malady."
+
+"Do you know the nature of the disease?"
+
+"No, that I have no means of ascertaining; it may be a distinct form
+of disease, or it may be a complication of disorders, which I know
+not."
+
+"It would not signify about the name if we only knew a remedy."
+
+"True; but I dread some malady of a cancerous type, which could not be
+eradicated without surgical skill."
+
+"I wish I had been born a doctor instead of a pilot," sighed Willis.
+
+"I cannot see her perish before my eyes."
+
+"Certainly not, Mr. Becker; it would never do to allow a ship to sink
+if she can be saved."
+
+"Well, what is to be done?"
+
+"There lies the difficulty; had it been a question of anything that
+floats on the water, I might have suggested a remedy; but, in this
+case, I am fairly run aground."
+
+"I know too well what must be done, Willis. In cases of ordinary
+maladies, with care and due precaution, proper nourishment and time,
+Nature will generally effect a cure."
+
+"Nature has no diploma, but she accomplishes more cures than those
+that have."
+
+"Unfortunately this is not a malady that can be cured by such means;
+and, unless its progress be checked in time, it may ultimately assume
+a form that will render a cure impossible."
+
+"Is death, then, inevitable?"
+
+"A patient may retain a languishing life under such circumstances for
+some time; but if the disease be cancer, a cure is hopeless without
+instruments and scientific skill."
+
+"I thought I was the only wretched being in the colony," said Willis,
+sighing, "but I find I am not alone."
+
+"There are no hopes of the _Nelson_, are there?" inquired Becker.
+
+"None now; for some time Mr. Wolston and yourself almost persuaded me
+that she had escaped; but had she reached the Cape, we should have
+heard of her ere now."
+
+"The probabilities of another vessel touching here are small, are they
+not?"
+
+"We are not in the direct track to anywhere; therefore, unless a ship
+has been driven out of her course by a gale, there is not a chance."
+
+"Unfortunate that I am!" exclaimed Becker, covering his face with his
+hands. "Brutus, Manlius Torquatus, and Peter the Great, condemned
+their sons to death, but they were guilty; still the sacrifice must be
+made."
+
+Here Willis stared aghast, and began to fear Becker's intellect had
+been affected by his troubles.
+
+"I do not exactly understand you, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Two of my sons have gone on before us; they were to embark in the
+canoe for Shark's Island, and wait for us there. I must have courage,
+and you also, Willis."
+
+This exordium did not tend to alter the Pilot's impression. They
+walked on for some time in silence towards the coast.
+
+"Do you know the latitude and longitude of this coast, Willis?"
+
+"Good!" thought the Pilot, "he has changed the subject."
+
+"Yes; we are in the South Sea, and no great distance from the line."
+
+"What continent is nearest us?"
+
+"We cannot be very far off the south coast of New Holland, or, as it
+is named in some charts, Australia. You know that the _Nelson_ hailed
+from Botany Bay, or Sydney, as the convict colony which the English
+Government has just founded there is called."
+
+"How far do you suppose we are from Sydney?"
+
+"Well, I should say, with a fair wind and a smart craft, Sydney is not
+above two months' sail, if so much."
+
+"Is the coast inhabited?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What character do the inhabitants bear?"
+
+"According to the Dutch sailors, who have been on the coast, they are
+the most plundering and lubberly set of rascals to be met with
+anywhere."
+
+"They are not acquainted with the use of fire-arms, are they?"
+
+"No not of fire-arms; but they have a machine of their own that they
+call a waddy, or something of that sort, which they throw like a
+harpoon; but the thing takes a twist in the air, and strikes behind
+them."
+
+"Is the coast accessible?"
+
+"No; it is fringed with reefs, and, in some places, the surf runs for
+miles out to sea."
+
+"The navigation along shore, then, is extremely perilous?"
+
+"Whatever can he be driving at?" thought Willis.
+
+"Yes; such a lee shore in a gale would terrify the Flying Dutchman
+himself."
+
+Here Becker shook his head dolefully, and they walked on a little
+further in silence.
+
+"What islands do you suppose are nearest us, Willis?"
+
+"I should say we are in or near the group marked in the chart
+Papuasia; beyond them is the territory of New Guinea, and a point to
+nor'ard are a whole nest of islands discovered by the celebrated
+buccaneer, Dampière."
+
+"And their inhabitants?"
+
+"Oh, some of them are pretty fair; but, taking them in the lump, they
+are a bad lot."
+
+"The islands to the west are those discovered by Cook, Vancouver, and
+Bougainville, are they not?"
+
+"They are marked Polynesia in the charts."
+
+"Do you know of any European settlements on these islands?"
+
+"Well, there is a fort of the Hudson's Bay Company on Vancouver's
+Island, but that is a long way north; and, I believe, a factory has
+recently been anchored in New Zealand, but that is a long way south."
+
+"And what are the principal islands between?"
+
+"There is New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the
+Societies' Islands, the Marquesas, Tahite, and the Pelew Islands; but
+each navigator gives them a new name, so that it is hard to say which
+is which; all you can do is to say that there is an island in latitude
+so and so and longitude so and so, but the name is almost out of the
+question."
+
+"And the natives?"
+
+"Some of them are remarkably tame, and trade freely with strangers;
+but others have strongly marked cannibal propensities, and dote upon a
+white-skin feast when they can get one."
+
+Here Becker shuddered, and uttered an exclamation of horror.
+
+"That would be a terrible fate, Willis."
+
+"Whatever can he mean?" thought the Pilot.
+
+"Willis, to reach Europe from here, what course do you think would be
+best?"
+
+"Now I think I shall fix him at last," said the Pilot, levelling his
+rifle at an imaginary bird.
+
+"You will only waste gunpowder," said Becker; "I see nothing."
+
+"You asked me just now what course I should steer for Europe, did you
+not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the most direct course would be to make the Straits of
+Macassar, and then steer for Java."
+
+"And when there?"
+
+"You would then be fifteen or sixteen hundred leagues from the Cape."
+
+"So much?"
+
+"Yes, that is about the distance in a straight line across the Indian
+Ocean. When at the Cape, another fifteen days' sail will bring you to
+the line; five or six weeks after that St. Helena will heave in sight;
+then you fall in with the Island of Ascension; leaving which a week or
+two will bring you to the Straits of Gibraltar, where you get the
+first glimpse of Europe. But if you are bound for England, your
+daughter may commence working a pair of slippers for you; they will be
+ready by the time you get there."
+
+They had now arrived at the point of the Jackal River where the
+pinnace was moored.
+
+"What do you think of this boat?" inquired Becker.
+
+"The pinnace is well enough for fair weather; but it is not the sort
+of craft I should like to command in a storm at sea."
+
+"So that to venture to sea in it would be to incur imminent danger?"
+
+"There is no denying that, Mr. Becker; if she shipped a moderately
+heavy sea, down she must go to the bottom, like a four and twenty
+pound shot; and if she should spring a leak, you cannot land to put
+her to rights; the waves are by no means solid."
+
+"Just as I thought!" exclaimed Becker; "I was right in judging that it
+would be a sacrifice. It is almost certain death; but they must go."
+
+"Where?" inquired Willis.
+
+"To Europe if need be, if God in his mercy spares the pinnace."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I have the means of purchasing surgical skill, and I must use all the
+sacrifices at my command to obtain it."
+
+"Avast heaving, Mr. Becker," cried Willis; "now I understand; the
+thing is as clear as the tackle of the best bower, and when a
+resolution is once formed, nothing like paying it out at the word of
+command. When shall we start?"
+
+"I am not talking of either you or myself, Willis."
+
+"Of whom then, may I ask?"
+
+"Fritz and Jack. Fritz knows something of navigation; and if they
+succeed, they will have saved their mother; if they perish, they will
+have died to save her."
+
+"Fritz, as you say, does know something of navigation, particularly as
+regards coasting; but here you have a pilot, accustomed to salt water,
+quite handy, why not engage him also?"
+
+"Willis, you have yourself said that the undertaking is perilous in
+the extreme, and your life is not bound up like theirs in that of
+their mother."
+
+"True; but do you not see that I am sick of dry land, and that I am
+getting rusty for the want of a little sea air?"
+
+"I felt ashamed to ask you to share in so desperate an enterprise,
+otherwise I would have proposed it to you, Willis."
+
+"But you might have seen that I was growing thin, absolutely pining
+away, and drying up on land. There are ducks that can live without
+water, but I am not one of them."
+
+"Am I, then, to understand that you offer to risk your life in this
+forlorn hope?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Becker; a man condemned to be hanged, running the risk
+of being drowned is no great sacrifice."
+
+"Willis, I accept your offer, to share in the dangers of this
+enterprise, most gratefully. I thank you in the name of my sons and of
+their mother, and trust that God may enable me to recompense you for
+your devotion to them and to myself."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You forget," added Willis, wiping a tear from the corner of his
+eye, that he ascribed to a grain of dust, "you forget that I was on
+the point of venturing out to sea in the canoe, had you yourself and
+Mr. Wolston not prevented me. There is work to be done, I admit; and
+it is not impossible to cross even the Indian Ocean in the pinnace.
+But we may find a doctor, perhaps, at some of the settlements--for
+instance, at Manilla, in the Philippines."
+
+"That is not to be hoped for, Willis; there is, probably, only one
+skilful medical man in each colony, and he will be prevented leaving
+by Government engagements."
+
+"True; then we had better hoist sail for Europe direct, and trust to
+falling in with a ship now and then."
+
+"Alas!" sighed Becker, "in a path so wide as the ocean, it would be
+unwise to trust to such chances; you will have to rely, I fear,
+entirely upon the resources of the pinnace alone."
+
+"Well, I dare say, though we may have to put up with half rations, we
+shall not starve on the voyage, at all events."
+
+They had unmoored the pinnace, and were on their way to Shark's
+Island.
+
+"You are about to announce to your sons their departure?" said Willis,
+inquiringly.
+
+"Yes; but my heart almost fails me."
+
+"The iron must be struck while it is hot. Will you commission me to
+whisper a few words in their ear?"
+
+"Thanks, Willis; but what right have I to expect courage from them, if
+I exhibit weakness myself? No, my friend, I may shed tears in your
+presence, but not before them."
+
+"A man ought never to allow his feelings to get the better of his
+courage," said Willis, in whose eyes, however, the dust was evidently
+playing sad havoc.
+
+"These boys have almost never been absent from me. I have watched them
+grow up from infancy to adolescence, and from adolescence to manhood;
+they have always been dutiful and obedient, and with gratitude I have
+blessed them every night of their lives. But stern are the decrees of
+Fate; I must command them to depart from me--perhaps for ever!"
+
+"There are evils that lead to good," said Willis, "even though these
+evils be the Straits of Magellan or the storms of the Indian Ocean."
+
+Here the pinnace reached the offing of Shark's Island, where Fritz and
+Jack, leaning on the battery, watched the progress of the boat.
+
+"Do you observe how downcast my father looks?" said Fritz.
+
+"Willis does not look much gayer," remarked Jack.
+
+"Do you believe in omens, Jack?"
+
+"Now and then."
+
+"Well, mark me, there is a screw loose somewhere, or I am no oracle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+BACON AND BISCUIT--LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE--THE PATERNAL BENEDICTION--AN
+APPARITION--A MOTHER NOT EASILY DECEIVED--THE ADIEU--THE EMPEROR
+CONSTANTINE--IN HOC SIGNO VINCES--THE SAILOR'S POSTSCRIPT--CÆSAR AND
+HIS FORTUNES--RECOLLECTIONS--MRS. BECKER PLUCKS STOCKINGS AND KNITS
+ORTOLANS--HOW DELIGHTFUL IT IS TO BE SCOLDED--THE BODIES VANISH, BUT
+THE SOULS REMAIN.
+
+
+On their return from Shark's Island, Fritz and Jack were deeply
+affected, not by the dread of the perils they were destined to
+encounter--these never gave them a moment's uneasiness--but by the
+knowledge that a merciless vulture was preying upon the vitals of
+their beloved mother.
+
+Willis on the contrary, appeared as lively as if he had just received
+notice of promotion; but whether the idea of again dwelling on the
+open sea had really elevated his spirits, or whether this gaiety was
+only assumed to encourage Becker and his sons, was best known to
+himself.
+
+It was arranged amongst them that no one, under any circumstances,
+should be made acquainted with the design they had in contemplation.
+By this means all opposition would be vanquished, and the regrets of
+separation would, in some degree, be avoided. Besides, if the project
+were divulged, might not Frank and Ernest insist upon their right to
+share its dangers? This eventuality alone was sufficient to impress
+upon them all the urgency of secrecy. The really strong man knows his
+weakness, and therefore dislikes to run the risk of exposing it, so
+Becker dreaded the tears and entreaties that this desperate
+undertaking would inevitably exercise, were it generally known
+beforehand to the rest of the family; whereas, if once the pinnace
+were fairly at sea, it could not be recalled, and time would do the
+rest.
+
+Since, then, all the preparations had to be made in such a way as not
+to excite suspicion that any thing extraordinary was on foot, the
+progress was necessarily slow. Willis, under pretext of amusing
+himself, refitted the pinnace, and strengthened it so far as he could
+without impairing its sailing efficiency. He called to mind that, when
+Captain Cook reached Batavia, after his first voyage round the world,
+he observed with astonishment that a large portion of the sides of his
+famous ship the _Endeavor_ was, under the water line, no thicker than
+the sole of a shoe.
+
+As soon as the weather had settled, and the tropical heats set in, the
+Wolstons resumed their abode at Falcon's Nest; whilst, under some
+plausible pretext or other, Willis, Fritz, and Jack took up their
+quarters at Rockhouse. This arrangement gave the destined navigators
+the means of carrying on their operations unobserved, especially as
+regards salting provisions and baking for the voyage.
+
+Along with the stores, a portion of the valuables, that still remained
+in the magazines of Rockhouse, were placed on board the pinnace; for,
+though gold and precious stones were not of much value in New
+Switzerland, Becker had not forgotten that such was not the case in
+other portions of the world; he reflected that his sons must be
+furnished with the means of returning to the colony with comfort.
+There was also a man of science and education to be bought, and that,
+he knew, could not be done without as the French proverb has it,
+having some hay in one's boots.
+
+Storms are usually heralded by some premonitory symptoms: the
+atmosphere becomes oppressive, the clouds increase in density, the sky
+gradually becomes obscure and large drops of rain begin to fall, then
+follows the deluge, and the elements commence their strife. It is much
+the same with impending misfortunes: gloom gathers on the countenance,
+our movements become constrained, our thoughts wander, and a tear
+lingers in the corner of the eye. Fritz and Jack endeavored in vain to
+appear unconcerned, but, in spite of their efforts, it was painfully
+evident that their minds were burdened by some heavy weight. They
+were more tender and more affectionate, particularly towards their
+mother. Towards evening, when they quitted the family circle for
+Rockhouse, their adieus were so earnest, so warm, and so often
+repeated, that it almost appeared as if they were laying in a stock of
+them for their voyage, to store up and preserve with the bacon and
+biscuits. Even the animals came in for an extra share of caresses,
+and, if they were capable of reflection, it must have puzzled them
+sorely to account for all the endearments that were lavished upon them
+by the two brothers.
+
+Becker himself was no less affected than his sons; sometimes, when the
+latter were busily occupied with some preparation for the voyage, he
+would fix his eyes sadly upon them, just as if every trait of these
+cherished features had not already been deeply graven on his soul.
+
+During the preceding rainy season, the two young men felt the days
+long and tedious, and wished in their inmost hearts that they would
+pass away more swiftly; now, the hours seemed to fly with
+unaccountable rapidity, and they would gladly have lengthened them if
+they had had the power. But no one can arrest
+
+  Le temps, cette image mobile
+  De l'immobile éternité.
+
+And time is right in holding on the even tenor of its way; for if it
+once yielded to the desires of mortals, there would be no end of
+confusion and perplexity. It takes unto itself wings and flies away,
+say the fortunate; it lags at a snail's pace, say the unfortunate. The
+idler knows not how to pass it away. The man of action does not
+observe its progress. Those who are looking forward to some favorite
+amusement exclaim, "Would that it were to-morrow!" but how many there
+are that might well ejaculate, from the bottom of their souls, "Would
+that to-morrow may never arrive!" How, then, could such wishes be met
+in a way to satisfy all?
+
+A day at length arrived when everything was ready for departure, and
+when nothing was wanted to weigh anchor but courage on the part of
+the voyagers. The pinnace was laden to the gunwale, the compass was in
+its place, the casks were filled with fresh water from the Jackal
+River, and Willis reported that both wind and sea were propitious for
+a start.
+
+The morning of that day was lovely in the extreme. Willis, Fritz, and
+Jack were early at Falcon's Nest; the two families breakfasted
+together under the trees in the open air. After breakfast an
+adjournment to the umbrageous shade of the bananas was proposed and
+agreed to.
+
+"Mother," said Fritz, taking Mrs. Becker's arm, "I want you all to
+myself."
+
+"I object to that, if you please," cried Jack, taking her other arm.
+
+"Why, you boys seem extravagantly fond of your mother to-day," said
+Mrs. Becker, gaily.
+
+"Well, you see, mother, we have the right to have an idea now and
+then--Willis has one every week."
+
+"So long as your ideas are about myself, I have no reason to object to
+them," said Mrs. Becker, smiling.
+
+"We have always been dutiful sons, have we not, mother?" inquired
+Fritz.
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+"You are well pleased with us then?"
+
+"Yes, surely."
+
+"We have never caused you any uneasiness, have we?" inquired Jack.
+
+"That is to say, inadvertently," added Fritz; "designedly is out of
+the question."
+
+"No, not even inadvertently," replied their mother.
+
+"Were you very sorry when Frank and Ernest were going to leave us?"
+
+"Yes, my children, the tears still burn my cheek."
+
+"Nevertheless, you knew that it was for the common welfare, and you
+felt resigned to the separation."
+
+"But why do you ask such a question now?"
+
+"Well, _à propos de rien_, mother," replied Jack, "simply because we
+love you, and, like misers, we treasure your love."
+
+Towards the afternoon both families were again assembled under the
+trees at Falcon's Nest This time it was dinner that brought them
+together; the repast consisted of cold meats of various kinds, but the
+chief dish was a wonderful salad, the rich, fresh odor of which
+perfumed the air. Wolston, Frank, and Ernest kept up a lively
+conversation, yet, though all seemed happy and pleased, there were
+bursting hearts at the table that day."
+
+"I am going to take a turn in the pinnace to-morrow," said Willis,
+quietly; "who will go with me?"
+
+"I will!" cried all the four brothers.
+
+"I shall require you, Frank and Ernest, to take a look at the rice
+plantation to-morrow," said Becker, "so I wish you to put off the
+excursion till another time."
+
+"We are at your orders, father," replied the two young men.
+
+"Where are you going, Willis?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Well, I am anxious to discover whether we inhabit an island or a
+continent, and may, consequently, extend the survey beyond the points
+already known; so you must not be disappointed should we not return
+the same night."
+
+"But what is the good of such an expedition?" inquired Mrs. Becker.
+
+"The country may be inhabited, or there may be inhabited islands in
+the vicinity," replied Willis.
+
+"If there be natives anywhere near," said Mrs. Becker, "they have left
+us at peace hitherto, and, in my opinion, since the dog sleeps, it
+will be prudent for us to let it lie."
+
+"It is not a question of creating any inconvenience," suggested
+Becker, "but only to ascertain more accurately our geographical
+position: such a knowledge can do us no possible harm, but, some day,
+it may be of immense service to us."
+
+"What if you should fall in with a ship?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"In that case we shall give your compliments to the commander,"
+replied Jack.
+
+"You may do that if you like, but try and bring it back with you if
+you can."
+
+"Do you wish to leave us?"
+
+"I do not mean that," hastily added Mrs. Wolston, "but I am beginning
+to get anxious about my son, poor fellow. If the _Nelson_ has not
+arrived at the Cape, then he will suppose we are all drowned, and I
+should like to fall in with some means of assuring him of our safety."
+
+"Oh yes," cried the two girls, "do try and fall in with a ship; our
+poor brother will be so wretched."
+
+"You might say our brother as well," added the two young men.
+
+Here the two mothers interchanged a glance of intelligence, which
+might mean very little, but which likewise might signify a great deal.
+
+A moment of intense anxiety had now arrived for Becker and his two
+sons; they could scarcely refrain from shedding tears, but they felt
+that the slightest imprudence of that nature would divulge everything.
+
+"Come now, my lads, look alive," cried Willis, in a voice which he
+meant to be gruff; "if you intend to take a few hours' repose before
+we start in the morning, it is time to be off."
+
+Fritz and Jack, had it been to save their lives, could not now have
+helped throwing more than usual energy into their parting embraces
+that particular afternoon; but they passed through the ordeal with
+tolerable firmness, and then with heavy hearts turned towards the
+door.
+
+"I think I will walk with you as far as Rockhouse," said Becker.
+
+All four then departed; and when the party were about fifty yards from
+Falcon's Nest, Fritz and Jack turned round and waved a final adieu to
+those loved beings whom probably, they might never see again.
+
+"It is well," said Becker. "I am satisfied with your conduct
+throughout this trying interval."
+
+It was now an hour when there is something indescribably sombre about
+the country; day was declining, the outlines of the larger objects in
+the landscape were becoming less distinct, and the trees were assuming
+any sort of fantastical shape that the mind chose to assign to them.
+Here and there a bird rustled in the foliage, but otherwise the
+silence was only broken by footsteps of the four men.
+
+In ordinary life children quit the parental home by easy and almost
+imperceptible gradations. First, there is the school, then college;
+next, perhaps, the requirements of the profession they have adopted.
+Thus they readily abandon the domestic hearth; friends, intercourse,
+and society divide their affection, and the separation from home
+rarely, if ever, costs them a pang. Not so with Becker's two sons;
+their world was New Switzerland; therefore, like the rays of the sun
+absorbed by the mirror of Archimedes, all their affections were
+concentrated on one point.
+
+On the former occasion when the family ties were on the eve of being
+rent asunder, the case was very different. It is true, Frank and
+Ernest were about to leave for an indefinite period of time; but then,
+every comfort that the most fastidious voyager could desire was
+awaiting them on board the _Nelson_; for a well-appointed ship is like
+a well-appointed inn on shore, all your wants are ministered to with
+the utmost celerity. Besides, Captain Littlestone had taken the young
+men under his special protection, and had promised to see them
+properly introduced and cared for in Europe. How dissimilar was the
+position of Fritz and his brother; they were about to tumble into the
+old world should they be so fortunate as to reach it, much as if they
+had dropped from the skies, without a guide and without a friend. They
+were about to entrust themselves to the ocean, separated from its
+treacherous floods by a few wretched planks; to be exposed for months,
+almost unsheltered, to wind, rain, and the mercy of pitiless storms.
+
+"If God in His mercy preserves you, my sons," said Becker, breaking at
+last the silence, "you will find yourselves launched in an ocean still
+more turbulent than that you have escaped--an ocean where falsehood
+and cunning assume the names of policy and tact; where results always
+justify the means, whatever these may be; where everything is
+sacrificed to personal interest and ambition; where fortune is honored
+as a virtue that dispenses with all others, and where profligacies of
+the most odious kinds are decorated with gay and seductive colors. It
+is difficult for me to foresee the various circumstances amidst which
+you may be placed; but there are certain rules of conduct that
+provide for nearly every emergency. I have no need to urge loyalty or
+courage--these qualities are inseparable from your hearts. Strive only
+for what is just and honest. Submit to be cheated rather than be
+cheats yourselves; ill-gotten gains never made any one rich. Put your
+trust in Providence. Seek aid from on high, when you find yourselves
+surrounded with difficulties. Never forget that there is no corner on
+the earth's surface, however obscure, that the eyes of the Lord are
+not there to behold your actions. Act promptly and with energy. Bear
+in mind that every moment lost will be to your mother an age of
+suffering, and that her life is suspended on the fragile thread of
+your return."
+
+The party had now reached the banks of the Jackal River, where the
+pinnace was moored. Fritz and Jack were shedding tears unrestrainedly,
+and had dropped on their knees at their father's feet.
+
+"I call," said Becker, in a trembling voice, "the benediction of
+Heaven upon your heads, my sons."
+
+"Oh, but they must not go!" cried Mrs. Becker, rushing out from behind
+some tall brushwood that hid her from their view; "they shall not go!"
+
+Fritz and Jack were instantly inclosed within their mother's arms.
+
+"Ah!" cried she, pushing aside the hair from their brows, the better
+to observe their features, "you thought to deceive your mother, did
+you?"
+
+"Pardon!" exclaimed both the young men.
+
+Here Becker thought it necessary to interfere; and, summoning all the
+courage he could muster to the task, said--
+
+"Why should they not go? Is this the first expedition they have
+undertaken?"
+
+"No, it is not the first expedition they have undertaken, but it is
+the first time their eyes and their looks betokened an eternal adieu.
+It is the first time that I felt they were forsaking me for ever, and
+it is the first time you ever addressed them with the words you just
+now uttered."
+
+Becker saw that it was useless to attempt to carry deceit any
+further; he therefore withdrew his eyes from the piercing glance of
+his wife. Willis, caught in the act, as it were, was completely thrown
+off his guard, and had not a word to say for himself. Fritz and Jack
+had again fallen on their knees, this time at the feet of their
+mother.
+
+"Ah! I begin to understand," she screamed, as she glanced around on
+the scared group that surrounded her, like a wounded lioness whose
+cubs were being carried off; "now the bandage begins to drop from my
+eyes. A thousand inexplicable things dart into my mind. You are
+sending the boys on an impracticable voyage to secure the safety of
+their mother; but you did not think that in order to prolong my
+existence for a few years, you would kill me instantly with grief!
+What right have you to impose a remedy upon me that is a thousand
+times worse than the malady? Have I ever complained? May my sufferings
+not be agreeable to me? May I not like them? Is pain and suffering not
+our lot from the cradle to the tomb? But I am not ill, I was never
+better in my life than I am at this moment."
+
+Here she was seized with a paroxysm of nervous tremors that convulsed
+her frame most fearfully, and completely belied her words. Becker
+rushed forward and held her firmly in his arms.
+
+"God give me strength!" he murmured. "Go, my children, where your duty
+calls you; go, my friend, do not prolong this terrible scene an
+instant longer."
+
+Not another word was spoken, the pinnace was unmoored; Fritz, Jack,
+and Willis embarked. When at some little distance from the shore,
+there was just light enough for Fritz to notice that his father was
+directing the feeble steps of his mother in the direction of Falcon's
+Nest. In a few moments more all the objects on shore were one confused
+mass of unfathomable shadow. The pinnace dropped anchor at Shark's
+Island, where some few final preparations for the voyage had to be
+made. Fritz here took a pen and wrote:
+
+"We part. We are gone. When you read this letter, the sea, for some
+distance, will extend between us. We shall live and move elsewhere,
+but our hearts still with you. We wish that Ernest and Frank would
+erect a flagstaff on the spot where we last parted with our parents.
+It may be to us what the celestial standard bearing the scroll, _in
+hoc signo vinces_ was to the Emperor Constantine. The place is already
+sacred, and may be hallowed by your prayers for us. Our confidence in
+the divine mercy is boundless. Do not despair of seeing us again. We
+have no misgivings, not one of us but anticipates confidently the
+period when we shall return and bring with us health, happiness, and
+prosperity to you all.
+
+"Let me add a word," said Jack.
+
+"The sea is calm, our hearts are firm, our enterprise is under the
+protection of Heaven--there never was an undertaking commenced under
+more favorable auspices. Farewell then, once more, farewell. All our
+aspirations are for you.
+
+"FRITZ.
+
+"JACK.
+
+"P.S.--Willis was going to write a line or two when, lo and behold! a
+big tear rolled upon the paper. 'Ha!' said he, 'that is enough, I will
+not write a word, they will understand that, I think,' and he threw
+down the pen."
+
+"How is the letter to be sent on shore?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"There is a cage of pigeons on board the pinnace," replied Jack, "but
+I do not want them to know that, for, if they should expect to hear
+from us, and some accident happen to the pigeons, they might be
+dreadfully disappointed."
+
+"We can return on shore," observed Willis, "and place it on the spot,
+where we embarked; they are sure to be there to-morrow."
+
+This suggestion was incontinently adopted. The letter was attached to
+a small cross, and fixed in the ground. The voyagers had all
+re-embarked in the pinnace, which was destined to bear even more than
+Cæsar and his fortunes. Willis had already loosened the warp, when, a
+thought crossed the mind of Fritz.
+
+"I must revisit Falcon's Nest once more," said he.
+
+"What!" cried Willis, "you are not going to get up such another scene
+as we witnessed an hour or two ago?"
+
+"No, Willis, I mean to go by stealth like the Indian trapper, so as to
+be seen by no mortal eye. I wish to take one more look at the old
+familiar trees, and endeavor to ascertain whether my mother has
+reached home in safety."
+
+"But the dogs?" objected Willis.
+
+"The dogs know me too well to give the slightest alarm at my approach.
+I shall not be long gone; but really I must go, the desire is too
+powerful within me to be resisted."
+
+"I will go with you," said Jack.
+
+Here Willis shook his head and reflected an instant.
+
+"You are not angry with us, Willis, are you?"
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "and I think the best thing I can do, under
+the circumstances, is to go too."
+
+"Very well, make fast that warp again, and come along."
+
+The party then disappeared amongst the brushwood.
+
+"Some time ago," remarked Fritz, "we followed this track about the
+same hour; there was danger to be apprehended, but the enterprise was
+bloodless, though successful."
+
+"You mean the chimpanzee affair," said Willis.
+
+"Yes; this time we have only an emotion to conquer, but I am afraid it
+is too strong for us."
+
+"These are the trees," said Jack, as they debouched upon the road,
+"that I stuck my proclamations upon. We had very little to think of in
+those days."
+
+As the party drew near Falcon's Nest, the dogs approached and welcomed
+them with the usual canine demonstrations of joy.
+
+"I have half a mind to carry off Toby," said Fritz; "but I fear Mary
+would miss him."
+
+Externally all appeared tranquil at Falcon's Nest; this satisfied the
+young men that their mother had succeeded in reaching home, at least,
+in safety; a light streaming through the window of Becker's dwelling,
+however, showed that the family had not yet retired for the night.
+
+"If they only knew we were so near them!" remarked Jack.
+
+The entire party then sat down upon a rustic bench, shrouded with
+flowering orchis and Spanish jasmine.
+
+"How often, on returning from the fields or the chase, we have seen
+our mother at work on this very seat," observed Fritz.
+
+"Aye," added Jack; "once I observed she had fallen asleep whilst
+knitting stockings. I advanced on tip-toe, removed gently her knitting
+apparatus, stockings, and all, and placed on her lap some ortolans
+that I had caught and strangled; but I first plucked one of them, and
+scattered the feathers all about, and then retreated into a thicket to
+watch the _dénouement_ of my scheme. She awoke, put down her hand to
+take up a stocking, and laid hold of a bird. She stared, rubbed her
+eyes, stared again, looked about, and could find nothing but the
+ortolan feathers. I then ran forward and embraced her, looking as if I
+had just come from unearthing turnips. 'Well, I declare,' she said
+with a bewildered air, 'I could have sworn that I was knitting just
+now, and here I find myself plucking ortolans; and what is more, I
+have not the slightest idea where, in all the world, the birds have
+come from!' Of course, I looked as innocent as possible; so that the
+more she stared and reflected, the less she could make the matter out.
+At last, she went on plucking the birds, and when this was done she
+stuck them on the spit. When the ortolans were roasted and ready to be
+served up, I went into the kitchen, carried them off, and put my
+mother's knitting apparatus on the spit. Imagine her surprise when she
+beheld her worsted and stockings at the fire, knowing, at the same
+time, that four hungry stomachs were waiting for their dinners! At
+last, fearing that she was going to ascribe the metamorphosis to some
+hallucination of her own, I went up to her, threw my arms round her
+neck, told her the whole story, and we both of us enjoyed a hearty
+laugh over it."
+
+"Aye, Jack, those were laughing times," said Fritz, sadly.
+
+"Not only that, but our mother was always so even--tempered; she was
+never ruffled in the slightest degree by my nonsense; though she often
+had the right to be very angry, yet she never once took offence. On
+another occasion, Mary and Sophia Wolston were working here at those
+mysterious embroideries which they always hid when we came near."
+
+"Toby's collar, I suppose," remarked Fritz.
+
+"My tobacco pouch," suggested Willis.
+
+"I approached," continued Jack, "with the muffled softness of a cat,
+and was just on the point of discovering their secret, when my monkey,
+Knips, who was cracking nuts at their feet, made a spring, and drew a
+bobbin of silk after it; this caused them to look round, and great was
+my astonishment to find myself caught at the very moment I expected to
+surprise them. They commenced scolding me at an immense rate, but then
+it was so delightful to be scolded!"
+
+"Aye," murmured Fritz, "that is all over now."
+
+Like a file of sheep, one recollection dragged another after it, so
+that the whole of the past recurred to their memories. Some faint
+streaks of light now warned them that day was about to break; the
+cocks began to crow one after the other, and to fill the air with
+their shrill voices.
+
+"Now," said Willis, "it is high time to be off."
+
+Jack hastily gathered two bouquets of flowers, which he suspended to
+the lintel of each dwelling.
+
+"These," said he, "will show them that we have paid them another
+visit."
+
+They then bent down all three on their knees, uttered a short prayer,
+and afterwards disappeared amidst the shadows of the chestnut trees.
+
+"Listen!" said Willis, seeing that his companions were about to make a
+halt, "if you stop again, or speak of returning any more, I will cease
+to regard you as men."
+
+Half an hour afterwards, on the morning of the 8th March, 1812, the
+pinnace bore out to sea, and when day broke, the crew could not descry
+a single trace of New Switzerland on any point of the horizon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE--THE MARY--COUNT UGOLINO--THE
+SOURCES OF RIVERS--THE ALPS DEMOLISHED--NO MORE PYRENEES--THE
+FIRST SHIP--ADMIRAL NOAH--FLEETS OF THE ISRAELITES--THE
+COMPASS--PRINTING--GUNPOWDER--ACTIUM AND SALAMIS--DIDO AND
+AENEAS--STEAM--DON GARAY AND ROGER BACON--MELCHTHAL, FURST, AND
+WILLIAM TELL--GOING A-PLEASURING--UPSET VERSUS BLOWN UP--A DEAD
+CALM--THE LOG--WILLIS'S ARCHIPELAGO--THE ISLAND OF SOPHIA--THE BREAD
+FRUIT-TREE--NATIVES OF POLYNESIA--STRIPED TROWSERS--ABDUCTION OF
+WILLIS--IS HE TO BE ROASTED OR BOILED?--WHEN THE WINE IS POURED OUT,
+WE MUST DRINK IT.
+
+
+At the date of the events narrated in the preceeding chapter,
+comparatively little was known of Oceania, that is, of the islands and
+continents that are scattered about the Pacific Ocean. Most of them
+had been discovered, named, and marked correctly enough in the charts,
+but beyond this all was supposition, hypothesis, and mystery. The
+mighty empire of England in the east was then only in its infancy,
+Sutteeism and Thuggism were still rampant on the banks of the Ganges,
+but the power of the descendants of the Great Mogul was on the wane.
+California was only known as the hunting-ground of a savage race of
+wild Indians. The now rich and flourishing colonies of Australia were
+represented by the convict settlement of Sydney. The Dutch had
+asserted that the territory of New Holland was utterly uninhabitable,
+and this was still the belief of the civilized world; nor was it
+without considerable opposition on the part of _soi-disant_
+philanthropists that the English government succeeded in establishing
+a prison depot on what at the time was considered the sole spot in
+that vast territory susceptible of cultivation. At the present time,
+these formerly-despised regions send _one hundred tons of pure gold_
+to England. The political state of Europe itself had at this time
+assumed a singular aspect. Napoleon had made himself master of nearly
+all the continental states; Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and a
+part of Germany were at his feet; and, by the Peace of Tilsit, he had
+secured the coõperation of Alexander, Emperor of Russia, in his
+schemes to ruin the trade and commerce of Great Britain. England, by
+her opportune seizure of the Danish fleet, broke up the first great
+northern confederacy that was formed against her. This act, though
+much impugned by the politicians of the day, is now known not only to
+have been perfectly justifiable, but also highly creditable to the
+political foresight of Canning and Castlereagh, by whom it was
+suggested, to say nothing of the daring and boldness that Nelson
+displayed in executing the manoeuvre. When news of this event reached
+the Russian Emperor it threw him into a paroxysm of rage, and he
+declared war against England in violent language. He had the insolence
+to make peace with France the _sina qua non_ of his friendship. At the
+distance of nearly half a century, the actual language employed has a
+peculiar flavor. The emperor, after detailing his grievances, declares
+that henceforth there shall be no connection between the two
+countries, and calls on his Britannic Majesty to dismiss his
+ministers, and conclude a peace forthwith. The British Government
+replied to this by ordering Nelson to set sail forthwith for the mouth
+of the Neva. A bitter and scorching manifesto was at the time
+forwarded to the emperor. It accused him flatly of duplicity, and
+boldly defied him and all his legions. The whole document is well
+worthy of perusal in these lackadaisical times. It is dated
+Westminister, December 18, 1807. It sets forth anew the principles of
+maritime war, which England had then rigidly in force. Napoleon had
+declared the whole of the British Islands in a state of blockade. The
+British Government replied by blockading _de facto_ the whole of
+Europe. This was done by those celebrated orders in council, which,
+more than anything else, precipitated the downfall of Napoleon. They
+threw the trade of the world into the hands of England. Of course,
+Russia was deeply affected, so was Spain and all the other maritime
+states; and they were all, one way or another, in open hostility with
+this country. But England laughed all their threats to scorn; and in
+the whole history of the country, there was not a more brilliant
+period in her eventful history. She stood alone against the world in
+arms. Even the blusterings of the United States were unheeded, and in
+no degree disturbed her stern equanimity. She saw the road to victory,
+and resolved to pursue it. But England then had great statesmen, and,
+of them all, Lord Castlereagh was the greatest, although he served a
+Prince Regent who cared no more for England or the English people,
+than the Irish member, who, when reproached for selling his country,
+thanked God that he had a country to sell.
+
+At length the ill-will of the Americans resolved itself into open
+warfare, and the United States was numbered with the overt enemies of
+England. This resulted in British troops marching up to Washington and
+burning the Capitol, or Congress House, about the ears of the members
+who had stirred up the strife. Meanwhile, all the islands of France in
+the east and west had been taken possession of; the British flag waved
+on the Spanish island of Cuba, and in the no less valuable possessions
+of Holland, in Java. Everywhere on the ocean England held undisputed
+sway. This state of things gave rise to one great evil--the sea
+swarmed with cruisers and privateers, English, French, and American;
+so that no vessel, unless sailing under convoy, heavily armed, or a
+very swift sailer, but ran risk of capture.
+
+The _Mary_--for so Fritz now called the pinnace--had been ten days at
+sea, the wind had died away, and for some time scarcely a zephyr had
+ruffled the surface of the water, the sails were lazily flapping
+against the mast, and but for the currents, the voyagers would have
+been almost stationary. It may readily be supposed that, under such
+circumstances, their progress was somewhat slow, and, as Jack
+observed, to judge from their actual rate of sailing, they ought to
+have started when very young, in order to arrive at the termination of
+the voyage before they became bald-headed old men.
+
+They prayed for a breeze, a gale, or even a storm; their fresh water
+was beginning to get sour, and they reflected that, if the calm
+continued any length of time, their provisions would eventually run
+short, and the ordinary resource of eating one another would stare
+them in the face. Jack, being the youngest, would probably disappear
+first, next Fritz, then Willis would be left to eat himself, in order
+to avoid dying of hunger, just as the unfortunate Count Ugolino
+devoured his own children to save them from orphanage.
+
+As yet, however, there were no symptoms of such a dire disaster; they
+were in excellent health and tolerable spirits; they had provisions
+enough to last them for six months at least, and consequently had not
+as yet, at all events, the slightest occasion to manifest a tendency
+to anthropophagism.
+
+"I can understand the sea," remarked Jack, "as I understand the land
+and the sky; God created them, that is enough; but I cannot understand
+how a mighty river like the Nile or the Ganges can continue eternally
+discharging immense deluges of water into the sea without becoming
+exhausted. From what fathomless reservoirs do the Amazon and the
+Mississippi receive their endless torrents?"
+
+"The reservoirs of the greatest rivers," replied Fritz, "are nothing
+more than drops of water that fall from the crevice of some rock on or
+near the summit of a hill; these are collected together in a pool or
+hollow, from which they issue in the form of a slender rivulet. At
+first, the smallest pebble is sufficient to arrest the course of this
+thread of water; but it turns upon itself, gathers strength, finally
+surmounts the obstacle, dashes over it, unites itself with other
+rivulets, reaches the plain, scoops out a bed, and goes on, as you
+say, for ever emptying its waters into the sea."
+
+"Yes; but it is the source of these sources that I want to know the
+origin of. You speak of hills, whilst we know that water naturally, by
+reason of its weight and fluidity; seeks to secrete itself in the
+lowest beds of the earth."
+
+"It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that water may come down
+a hill, although it never goes up. Rain, snow, dew, and generally all
+the vapors that fall from the atmosphere, furnish the enormous masses
+of water that are constantly flowing into the sea. The vapor alone
+that is absorbed in the air from the sea is more than sufficient to
+feed all the rivers on the face of the earth. Mountains, by their
+formation, arrest these vapors, collect them in a hole here and in a
+cavern there, and permit them to filter by a million of threads from
+rock to rock, fertilizing the land and nourishing the rivers that
+intersect it. If, therefore, you were to suppress the Alps that rise
+between France and Italy, you would, at the same time, extinguish the
+Rhone and the Po."
+
+"It would be a pity to do that," said Jack; "there was a time though
+when there were no Pyrenees."
+
+"That must have been, then, at a period prior to the formation of
+granite, which is esteemed the oldest of rocks."
+
+"No such thing," insisted Jack; "it was so late as 1713, when, by the
+peace of Utrecht, the crown of Spain was secured to the Duke of Anjou,
+grandson of Louis XIV."
+
+"Howsomever," remarked Willis, "all the mariners in the French fleet
+could not convince me that the Pyrenean mountains are only a hundred
+years old."
+
+"My brother is only speaking metaphorically," said Fritz; "when the
+crown of Spain was assigned to the Duke of Anjou, his grandfather
+said--_Qu il n'y avait plus de Pyrénées_. He meant by that simply,
+that France and Spain being governed by the same prince, the moral
+barrier between them existed no longer. The formidable mountains still
+stood for all that, and he who removes them would certainly be
+possessed of extraordinary power."
+
+"I am always putting my foot in it," said Willis, "when the yarn is
+about the land; let us talk of the sea for a bit. Who built the first
+ship?"
+
+"Well," replied Fritz, "I should say that the first ship was the ark."
+
+"Whence we may infer," added Jack, "that Noah was the first admiral."
+
+"We learn from the Scriptures," continued Fritz, "that the first
+navigators were the children of Noah, and it appears from profane
+history that the earliest attempts at navigation were manifested near
+where the ark rested; consequently, we may fairly presume that the art
+of ship-building arose from the traditions of the deluge and the ark."
+
+"In that case, the art in question dates very far back."
+
+"Yes, since it dates from 2348 years before the birth of Christ; but
+the human race degenerated, the traditions were forgotten, and
+navigation was confined to planks, rafts, bark canoes, or the trunk of
+a tree hollowed out by fire."
+
+"That is the sort of craft used by the inhabitants of Polynesia at the
+present day," remarked Willis.
+
+"It appears, however, by the Book of Job, that pirates existed in
+those days, and that they went to sea in ships and captured
+merchantmen, which proves, to a certain extent, that there were
+merchantmen to conquer. We know also that David and Solomon equipped
+large fleets, and even fought battles on sea."
+
+"Whether an ancient or modern, a Jew or a Gentile," said Willis, "he
+must have been a brave fellow who launched the first ship, and risked
+himself and his goods at sea in it."
+
+"True," continued Fritz; "but when once the equilibrium of a floating
+body was known, there would be no longer any risk; as soon as it came
+to be understood that any solid body would float if it were lighter
+than its bulk of water, the matter was simple enough."
+
+"Very good," interrupted Jack; "but the words 'when' and 'as soon as'
+imply a great deal; _when_, or _as soon as_, we know anything, the
+mystery of course disappears. But before! there is the difficulty.
+Particles of water do not cohere--how is it, then, that a ship of war,
+that often weighs two millions of pounds, does not sink through them,
+and go to the bottom? Individuals, like myself for example, who are
+not members of a learned society, may be pardoned for not knowing how
+water bears the weight of a seventy-four."
+
+"The seventy-four would, most undoubtedly, sink if it were heavier
+than the weight of water it displaced; but this is not the case; wood
+is generally lighter than water."
+
+"The wood, yes; but the cannon, the cargo, and the crew?"
+
+"You forget the cabooses, the cockpits, and the cabins, that do not
+weigh anything. Allowing for everything, the weight of a ship, cargo
+and all, is much lighter than its bulk of water, and consequently it
+cannot sink."
+
+"But how is it, then, that the immense bulk of a seventy-four moves so
+easily in the water? One would think that its prodigious weight would
+make it stick fast, and continue immoveable."
+
+"When the seventy-four in question has displaced its weight of water,
+its own weight is substituted for the water, and is in consequence
+virtually annihilated; it does not, in point of fact, weigh anything
+at all, and therefore is easily impelled by the wind."
+
+"When there is any, understood," added Jack.
+
+"And a yard or so of canvas," suggested Willis.
+
+"True," continued Fritz, "a sail or two would be very desirable; these
+instruments of propulsion do not appear, however, to have been used by
+the ancients. We first hear of a sail being employed at the time when
+Isis went in search of her husband Osiris, who was killed by his
+brother Typhon, and whose quarters were scattered in the Nile. This
+lady, it seems, took off the veil that covered her head, and fastened
+it to an upright shaft stuck in the middle of the boat, and, much to
+her astonishment, it impelled her onwards at a marvellous speed."
+
+"A clever young woman that," said Willis; "but I doubt whether veils
+would answer the purpose on board a seventy-four, particularly as
+regards the mainsail and mizentops."
+
+"The Phoenicians were the most enterprising of the early navigators.
+They appeared to have sailed round Africa without a compass, for they
+embarked on the Red Sea and reappeared at the mouth of the Nile, and
+the compass was not invented till the fourteenth century."
+
+"And who was the inventor of the compass?" inquired Willis.
+
+"According to some authorities, it was invented by a Neapolitan named
+Jean Goya; according to others, the inventor was a certain Hugues de
+Bercy."
+
+"Then," said Jack, "you do not admit the claims of the Chinese and
+Hindoos, who assert priority in the discovery?"
+
+"I neither deny nor admit their claims, because I do not know the
+grounds upon which they are founded; like the invention of gunpowder
+and printing, the discovery of the compass has many rival claimants."
+
+"I am of opinion," said Jack, "that Guttenberg is entitled to the
+honor of discovering printing, and that Berthold Schwartz invented
+gunpowder."
+
+"Perhaps you are right; but there is scarcely any invention of
+importance that has not two or three names fastened to it as
+inventors; they stick to it like barnacles, and there is no way to
+shake any of them off. So, in the case of illustrious men, nations
+dispute the honor of giving them birth; there are six or seven towns
+in Asia Minor that claim to be the birth-place of Homer. National
+vanities justly desire to possess the largest amount of genius; hence,
+no sooner does anything useful make its appearance in the world, than
+half a dozen nations or individuals start up to claim it as their
+offspring. The wisest course, under such circumstances, is to side
+with the best accredited opinion, which I have done in the case of the
+compass."
+
+"It was no joke," said Willis, "to circumnavigate Africa without a
+compass."
+
+"You are quite right, Willis, if you judge the navigation of those
+days by the modern standard; but it is to be borne in mind that the
+ancients never lost sight of the coast. They steered from cape to
+promontory, and from promontory to cape, dropping their anchor every
+night and remaining well in-shore till morning. If by accident they
+were driven out into the open sea, and the stars happened to be hidden
+by fog or clouds, they were lost beyond recovery, even though within a
+day's sail of a harbor; because, whilst supposing they were making for
+the coast, they might, in all probability, be steering in precisely
+the opposite direction."
+
+"It is certainly marvellous," said Jack, "that a piece of iron stuck
+upon a board should be a safe and sure guide to the mariner through
+the trackless ocean, even when the stars are enveloped in obscurity
+and darkness!"
+
+"It is a symbol of faith," remarked Willis, "that supplies the doubts
+and incertitudes of reason."
+
+"As for the ships, or rather galleys, of the ancients," continued
+Fritz, "with the exception of the ambitious fleets of the Greeks and
+Romans that fought at Salamis and Actium, one of the modern ships of
+war could sweep them all out of the sea with its rudder."
+
+"Yes," said Jack, "at the period of which you speak, the ancients
+possessed a great advantage over us. The winds in those days were
+personages, and were very well known; they were called Aeolus, Boreas,
+and so forth. They were to be found in caves or islands, and, if
+treated with civility, were remarkably condescending. Queen Dido,
+through one of these potentates, obtained contrary winds, to prevent
+Aeneas from leaving her."
+
+"By the way," said Willis, "there is, or at least was, in one of the
+Scottish rivers, a ship without either oars or sails."
+
+"Yes, very likely; but it did not move."
+
+"It did though, and, what is more, against both wind and tide."
+
+"I wish we had your wonderful ship here just now, it is just the thing
+to suit us under present circumstances," said Jack.
+
+"So it would, Master Jack, for it sails against currents, up rivers,
+and the crew care no more about the wind than I do about the color of
+the clouds when I am lighting my pipe."
+
+"You don't happen to mean that the _Flying Dutchman_ has appeared on
+the Scotch coast, do you, Willis?"
+
+"Not a bit of it, I mean just exactly what I say. It is a real ship,
+with a real stern and a real figure-head, but manned by blacksmiths
+instead of mariners."
+
+"Well, but how does it move? Does somebody go behind and push it, or
+is it dragged in front by sea-horses and water-kelpies?"
+
+"No, it moves by steam."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Aye, there lies the mystery. The affair has often been discussed by
+us sailors on board ship; some have suggested one way and some
+another."
+
+"Neither of which throws much light on the subject," observed Jack;
+"at least, in so far as we are concerned."
+
+"All I can tell you," said Willis, "is, that the steam is obtained by
+boiling water in a large cauldron, and that the power so obtained is
+very powerful."
+
+"That it certainly is, if it could be controlled, for steam occupies
+seventeen or eighteen hundred times the space of the water in its
+liquid state; but then, if the vessel that contains the boiling water
+has no outlet, the steam will burst it."
+
+"It appears that it can be prevented doing that, though," replied
+Willis, "even though additional heat be applied to the vapor itself."
+
+"By heating the steam, the vapor may acquire a volume forty thousand
+times greater than that of the water; all that is well known; but as
+soon as it comes in contact with the air, nothing is left of it but a
+cloud, which collapses again into a few drops of water."
+
+"That may be all very true, Master Fritz, if the steam were allowed to
+escape into the air; but it is only permitted to do that after it has
+done duty on board ship. It appears that steam is very elastic, and
+may be compressed like India-rubber, but has a tendency to resist the
+pressure and set itself free. Imagine, for example, a headstrong young
+man, for a long time kept in restraint by parental control, suddenly
+let loose, and allowed scope to follow the bent of his own
+inclinations."
+
+"Very good, Willis; for argument's sake, let us take your headstrong
+young man, or rather the steam, for granted, and let us admit that it
+is as elastic as ever you please--but what then?"
+
+"Then you must imagine a piston in a cylinder, forced upwards when
+the steam is heated, and falling downwards when the steam is cooled.
+Next fancy this upward and downward motion regulated by a number of
+wheels and cranks that turn two wheels on each side of the ship,
+keeping up a constant jangling and clanking, the wheels or paddles
+splashing in the water, and then you may form a slight idea of the
+thing."
+
+"Oh!" cried Jack, "we invented a machine of that kind for our canoe,
+with a turnspit. Do you recollect it, Fritz?"
+
+"Yes, I recollect it well enough; and I also recollect that the canoe
+went much better without than with it."
+
+"You spoke just now," continued Willis, "of rival nations, who pounce
+like birds of prey upon every new invention; and so it is with the
+steamship. An American, named Fulton, made a trial in the Hudson with
+one in 1807--that is about five years ago--and I believe the Yankees,
+in consequence, are laying claim to the invention."
+
+"Now that you bring the thing to my recollection," said Fritz, "the
+idea of applying steam in the arts is by no means new, although, I
+must candidly admit, I never heard of it being used in propelling
+ships before. The Spaniards assert that a captain of one of their
+vessels, named Don Blas de Garay, discovered, as early as the
+sixteenth century, the art of making steam a motive power."
+
+"I don't believe that," said Jack.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because a real Spaniard has never less than thirty-six words in his
+name. If you had said that the steam engine was discovered by Don
+Pedrillo y Alvares y Toledo y Concha y Alonzo y Martinez y Xacarillo,
+or something of that sort, then I could believe the man to have been a
+genuine Spaniard, but not otherwise."
+
+"Spaniard or no Spaniard, the Spanish claim the discovery of steam
+through Don Blas; the Italians likewise claim the discovery for a
+mechanician, named Bianca; the Germans assign its discovery to
+Solomon de Causs; the French urge Denis Papin; and the English claim
+the invention for Roger Bacon."
+
+"You have forgotten the Swiss," said Jack.
+
+"The Swiss," replied Fritz, with an air of dignity, "put forward no
+candidate: steam and vapor and smoke are not much in their line. They
+discovered something infinitely better--the world is indebted to them
+for the invention of liberty. I mean rational, intelligent, and true
+liberty--not the savagery and mob tyranny of red republicanism. The
+three discoverers of this noble invention were Melchthal, Furst, and
+William Tell."
+
+"You can have no idea," continued Willis, "of the stir that steam was
+creating in Europe the last time I was there. Of course there were
+plenty of incredulous people who said that it was no good; that it
+would never be of any use; and that if it were, it would not pay for
+the fuel consumed. On the other hand, the enthusiasts held that,
+eventually, it would be used for everything; that in the air we should
+have steam balloons; on the sea, steam ships, steam guns, and perhaps
+steam men to work them; that on land there would be steam coaches
+driven by steam horses. Journeys, say they, will be performed in no
+time, that is, as soon as you start for a place you arrive at it, just
+like an arrow, that no sooner leaves the bow than you see it stuck in
+the bull's eye."
+
+"In that case," observed Jack, "it will be necessary to do away with
+respiration, as well as horses."
+
+"A Londoner will be able to say to his wife, My dear, I am going to
+Birmingham to-day, but I will be back to dinner; and if a Parisian
+lights his cigar at Paris, it will burn till he arrives at Bordeaux."
+
+"Holloa, Willis, you have fairly converted Fritz and me into marines
+at last."
+
+"I am only speaking of what will be, not of what is--that makes all
+the difference you know. It is expected that there will be steam
+coaches on every turnpike-road; so that, instead of hiring a
+post-chaise, you will have to order a locomotive, and instead of
+postboys, you will to engage an engineer and stoker."
+
+"Then, instead of saying, Put the horses to," remarked Jack, "we
+shall have to say, Get the steam up."
+
+"Exactly; and when you go on a pleasure excursion, you will be whisked
+from one point to another without having time to see whether you pass
+through a desert or a flower-garden."
+
+"What, then, is to become of adventures by the way, road-side inns,
+and banditti?"
+
+"All to be suppressed."
+
+"So it appears," said Jack; "men are to be carried about from place to
+place like flocks of sheep; perhaps they will invent steam dogs as
+well to run after stragglers, and bring them into the fold by the calf
+of the leg. Your new mode of going a-pleasuring may be a very
+excellent thing in its way, Willis; but it would not suit my taste."
+
+"Probably not; nor mine either, for the matter of that, Master Jack."
+
+"At all events," said Fritz, "you would run no danger of being upset
+on the road."
+
+"No; but, by way of compensation, you may be blown up."
+
+"True, I forgot that."
+
+"This conversation has carried us along another knot," said Jack,
+opening the log, which he had been appointed to keep; "and now, by
+your leave, I will read over some of my entries to refresh your
+memories as to our proceedings.
+
+"March 9th.--Wind fair and fresh--steered to north-west--a flock of
+seals under our lee bow--feel rather squeamish.
+
+"10th.--No wind--fall in with a largish island and four little ones,
+give them the name of Willis's Archipelago.
+
+"11th.--A dead calm--sea smooth as a mirror--all of us dull and
+sleepy.
+
+"12th.--Heat 90 deg.--shot a boobie, roasted and ate him, rather
+fishy--passed the night amongst some reefs.
+
+"13th.--Same as the 12th, but no boobie.
+
+"14th.--Same as the 13th.
+
+"Dreadfully tiresome, is it not," said Jack; "no wonder they call this
+ocean the Pacific."
+
+"Alas!" sighed Willis, thinking of the _Nelson_, "it does not always
+justify the name."
+
+"15th.--Hailed a low island, surrounded with breakers, named it
+Sophia's Island."
+
+"But all these islands have been named half a dozen times already,"
+said Willis.
+
+"Oh, never mind that, another name or two will not break their backs."
+
+"16th.--Current bearing us rapidly to westward--caught a sea cow, and
+had it converted into pemican.
+
+"17th.--Shot another boobie, which we put in the pot to remind us that
+we were no worse off than the subjects of Henry IV. No wind--sea
+blazing like a furnace."
+
+"You will have to turn over a new leaf in your log by-and-by," said
+Willis, "or I am very much mistaken."
+
+"Well, I hope you are not mistaken, Willis, for I am tired of this
+sort of thing."
+
+A red haze now began to shroud the sun, the heat of the air became
+almost stifling, but the muffled roar of distant thunder and bright
+flashes of light warned the voyagers to prepare for a change. Willis
+reefed the canvas close to the mast, and suggested that everything
+likely to spoil should be put under hatches. This was scarcely done
+before the storm had reached them, and they were soon in the midst of
+a tropical deluge. At first, a light breeze sprung up, blowing towards
+the south-east, which continued till midnight, when it chopped round.
+Towards morning, it blew a heavy gale from east to east-south-east,
+with a heavy sea running. In the meantime, the pinnace labored
+heavily, and several seas broke over her. Willis now saw that their
+only chance of safety lay in altering their course. All the canvas was
+already braced up except the jib, which was necessary to give the
+craft headway, and with this sail alone they were soon after speeding
+at a rapid rate in the direction of the Polynesian Islands. The gale
+continued almost without intermission for three weeks, during which
+period Willis considered they must have been driven some hundreds, of
+miles to the north-west.
+
+The gale at length ceased, the sea resumed its tranquility, and the
+wind became favorable. The pinnace had, however, been a good deal
+battered by the storm, and their fresh water was getting low, and it
+was decided they should still keep a westerly course till they reached
+an island where they could refit before resuming their voyage.
+
+"The gale has not done us much good," said Jack, sadly; "if it had
+blown the other way, we might have been in the Indian Ocean by this
+time."
+
+"Cheer up," said Willis, taking the glass from his eye, "I see land
+about three miles to leeward, and the landing appears easy."
+
+"But the savages?" inquired Jack.
+
+"The islands of this latitude are not all inhabited," replied Fritz;
+"besides, under our present circumstances, we have no alternative but
+to take our chance with them."
+
+"Well, I do not know that," objected Jack; "it would be better for us
+to do without fresh water than to run the risk of being eaten."
+
+"What a beautiful coast!" cried Willis, who still kept the telescope
+at his eye. "Near the shore the land is flat, and appears cultivated;
+but behind, it rises gradually, and is closed in with a range of
+hills, covered with trees. There is a beautiful bay in front of us,
+which appears to invite us ashore. But the place is inhabited; the
+shore is strewn with huts, and I can see clumps of the bread-fruit
+tree growing near them."
+
+"What sort of vegetable is the bread-fruit?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"It is a very excellent thing, and supplies the natives with bread
+without the intervention of grain, flour-mills, or bakers. It can be
+eaten either raw, or baked, or boiled; either way, it is palatable.
+The tree itself is like our apple trees; but the fruit is as large as
+a pine-apple--when it is ripe, it is yellow and soft. The natives,
+however, generally gather it before it is ripe; it is then cooked in
+an oven; the skin is burnt or peeled off--the inside is tender and
+white, like the crumb of bread or the flour of the potato."
+
+"Let me have the telescope an instant," said Fritz; "I should like to
+see what the natives are like. Ah, I see a troop of them collecting on
+shore; some of them seem to be covered with a kind of wrought-steel
+armor."
+
+"Perhaps the descendants of the Crusaders," remarked Jack, "returning
+from the Holy Land by way of the Pacific Ocean!"
+
+"Others wear striped pantaloons," continued Fritz.
+
+"That is to say," observed Willis, "the whole lot of them are as naked
+as posts. What you suppose to be cuirasses and pantaloons, are their
+tabooed breasts and legs."
+
+"Are you sure of that, Willis?"
+
+"Not a doubt about it."
+
+"Such garments are both durable and economical," remarked Jack; "but I
+scarcely think they are suitable for stormy weather. But do you think
+it is safe to land amongst such a set of barebacked rascals, Willis?"
+
+"I should not like to take the responsibility of guaranteeing our
+safety; but I do not see what other course we can adopt."
+
+They had now approached within musket-shot of the shore. They could
+see that a venerable-looking old man stood a few paces in front of the
+group of natives. He held a green branch in one hand, and pressed with
+the other a long flowing white beard to his breast.
+
+"According to universal grammar," said Jack, "these signs should mean
+peace and amity."
+
+"Yes," replied the Pilot; "the more so that the rear-guard are pouring
+water on their heads, which is the greatest mark of courtesy the
+natives of Polynesia can show to strangers."
+
+"Gentlemen," cried Jack, taking off his cap and making a low bow, "we
+are your most obedient servants."
+
+"We must be on our guard," said Willis; "these savages are very
+deceitful, and sometimes let fly their arrows under a show of
+friendship. I will go on shore alone, whilst you keep at a little
+distance off, ready to fire to cover my retreat, if need be."
+
+The young men objected to Willis incurring danger that they did not
+share; but on this point Willis was inexorable, so they were obliged
+to suffer him to depart alone. By good chance, they had shipped a
+small cask of glass beads on board the pinnace. The Pilot took a few
+of these with him, and, placing a cask and a couple of calabashes in
+the canoe, he rowed ashore.
+
+The natives were evidently in great commotion; there was an immense
+amount of running backwards and forwards. Something important was,
+obviously enough, going forward; but, whether the excitement was
+caused by curiosity or admiration, it was hard to say. They might be
+preparing a friendly reception for the stranger, or they might be
+preparing to eat him--which of the two was an interesting question
+that Willis did not care about probing too deeply at that particular
+moment.
+
+Fritz and Jack anxiously watched the operations of the natives from
+the bay. They could not with safety abandon the pinnace; but to leave
+Willis to the mercy of the sinister-looking people on shore was not to
+be thought of either. The _Mary_ was, therefore, run in as close as
+possible, and Jack leaped on the sands a few minutes after the Pilot.
+
+Willis marched boldly on towards the natives, and when he arrived
+beside the old man, the crowd opened up and formed an avenue through
+which a chief advanced, followed by a number of men, seemingly
+priests, who carried a grotesque-looking figure that Jack presumed to
+be an idol. The figure was made up of wicker-work--was of colossal
+height--the features, which represented nothing on earth beneath nor
+heaven above, were inconceivably hideous--the eyes were discs of
+mother-of-pearl, with a nut in the centre--the teeth were apparently
+those of a shark, and the body was covered with a mantle of red
+feathers.
+
+At the command of the chief, some of the natives advanced and placed a
+quantity of bananas, bread-fruits, and other vegetables at the Pilot's
+feet; the priests then came forward and knelt down before him, and
+seemed to worship after the fashion of the ancients when they paid
+their devotions to the Eleusinian goddess, or the statue of Apollo.
+Meanwhile, Jack, on his side, was likewise surrounded by the natives,
+who was treated with much less ceremony than Willis. Instead of
+falling down on their knees, each of them, one after the other, rubbed
+their noses against his, and then danced round him with every
+demonstration of savage joy.
+
+Jack had now an opportunity of observing the personages about him more
+in detail. They were mostly tall and well-formed; their features bore
+some resemblance to those of a negro, their nose being flat and their
+lips thick; on the other hand, they had the high cheek-bones of the
+North American Indian and the forehead of the Malay. Nearly all of
+them were entirely naked, but wore a necklace and bracelets of shells.
+They were armed with a sort of spear and an axe of hard wood edged
+with stone. Their skins were tattooed all over with lines and circles,
+and painted; these decorations, in some instances, exhibiting careful
+execution and no inconsiderable degree of artistic skill. These
+observations made, Jack pushed his way to the spot where Willis was
+receiving the homage of the priests.
+
+"What! you here?" said the Pilot.
+
+"Yes, Willis, I have come to see what detained you. By the way, is
+there anything the matter with my nose?"
+
+"Nothing that I can see; but the natives of New Zealand rub their
+noses against each other, and probably the same usage is fashion
+here."
+
+"Why, then, do they make you an exception?"
+
+"I have not the remotest idea."
+
+The priests at length rose, and the chief advanced. This dignitary
+addressed a long discourse to Willis in a sing-song tone, which lasted
+nearly half an hour. After this, he stood aside, and looked at Willis,
+as if he expected a reply.
+
+"Illustrious chief, king, prince, or nabob," said Willis, "I am highly
+flattered by all the fine things you have just said to me. It is true,
+I have not understood a single word, but the fruits you have placed
+before me speak a language that I can understand. Howsomever, most
+mighty potentate, we are not in want of provisions; but if you can
+show us a spring of good water, you will confer upon us an everlasting
+favor."
+
+"You might just as well ask him to show you what o'clock it is by the
+dial of his cathedral," said Jack.
+
+"They would only point to the sun if I did."
+
+"But suppose the sun invisible."
+
+"Then they would be in the same position as we are when we forget to
+wind up our watches. Gentlemen savages," he said, turning to the
+natives and handing them the glass beads, "accept these trifles as a
+token of our esteem."
+
+The natives required no pressing, but accepted the proffered gifts
+with great good-will. The dancing and singing then recommenced with
+redoubled fury, and poor Jack's nose was almost obliterated by the
+constant rubbing it underwent.
+
+Suddenly the hubbub ceased, and a profound silence reigned throughout
+the assembly. The oldest of the priests brought a mantle of red
+feathers, similar to the one that covered the idol. This was thrown
+over the Pilot's shoulders; a tuft of feathers, something resembling a
+funeral plume, was placed upon his head, and a large semi-circular fan
+was thrust into his hand. Thus equipped, a procession was formed, one
+half before and the other half behind him. The _cortége_ began to move
+slowly in the direction of the interior, but the operation was
+disconcerted by Willis, who remained stock-still.
+
+"Thank you," he said, "I would rather not go far away from the shore."
+
+As soon as the natives saw clearly that Willis was not disposed to
+move, the chief issued a mandate, and four stout fellows immediately
+removed the idol from its position, and Willis was placed upon the
+vacant pedestal.
+
+The kind of adoration with which all these proceedings were
+accompanied greatly perplexed the voyagers. What could it all mean?
+Was this a common mode of welcoming strangers? It occurred to Jack
+that the Romans were accustomed to decorate with flowers the victims
+they designed as sacrifices to the altars of their gods before
+immolating them. This reminiscence made his flesh creep with horror,
+and filled him with the utmost dismay.
+
+"Willis!" he cried to the Pilot, whom they were now leading off in
+triumph, "let us try the effects of our rifles on this rabble; you
+jump over the heads of your worshippers, and we will charge through
+them to shore. I will shoot the first man that pursues us, and signal
+Fritz to discharge the four-pounder amongst them."
+
+"Impossible," replied Willis; "we should both be stuck all over with
+arrows and lances before we could reach the pinnace. Did I not tell
+you not to come ashore?"
+
+"True, Willis, but did you suppose I had no heart? How could I look on
+quietly whilst you were surrounded by a mob of ferocious-looking men?"
+
+"Well, well, Master Jack, say no more about it; I do not suppose they
+mean to do me any harm; but there would be danger in rousing the
+passions of such a multitude of people. They seem, luckily, to direct
+their attentions exclusively to me, so you had better go back and look
+after the canoe."
+
+"No; I shall follow you wherever you go, Willis, even into the
+soup-kettles of the wretches."
+
+"In that case," said Willis, "the wine is poured out, and, such as it
+is, we must drink it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+JUPITER TONANS--THE THUNDERS OF THE PILOT--WORSHIPPERS OF THE
+FAR WEST--A LATE BREAKFAST--RONO THE GREAT--A POLYNESIAN
+LEGEND--MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OCEANIA--MR. AND MRS. TAMAIDI--REGAL
+POMP--ELBOW ROOM--KATZENMUSIK--QUEEN TONICO AND THE SHAVING
+GLASS--CONSEQUENCES OF A PINCH OF SNUFF--DISGRACE OF THE GREAT
+RONO--MARIUS--CORIOLANUS--HANNIBAL--ALCIBIADES--CIMON--ARISTIDES--A
+SOP FOR THE THIRSTY--AIR SOMETHING ELSE BESIDES OXYGEN AND
+HYDROGEN--MARYLAND AND WHITECHAPEL--HALF-WAY UP THE CORDILLERAS--HUMAN
+MACHINES--STAR OF THE SEA, PRAY FOR US!
+
+
+Was he on his way to the Capitol or to the Gemoniae? The solution of
+this question became, for the moment, of greater importance to Willis
+than the "to be or not to be" of Hamlet to the State of Denmark. This
+incertitude was all the more painful, that it was accompanied by
+myriads of insects, created by the recent rains; these swarmed in the
+air to such an extent, that it was utterly impossible to inhale the
+one without swallowing the other. The sailor, notwithstanding his
+elevated and somewhat perilous position, true to his instincts and
+tormented by the flies, took out his pipe, filled it, and struck a
+light. As soon as the first column of smoke issued from his mouth, the
+cavalcade halted spontaneously, the natives fell on their faces, their
+noses touching the ground, and in an attitude of the profoundest fear
+and apprehension. Jupiter thundering never created such a sensation as
+Willis smoking. The savages seemed glued to the earth with terror. If
+the Pilot had thought it advisable to escape, he might have walked
+over the prostrate bodies of his captors, not one of whom would have
+been bold enough to follow what appeared to be a human volcano,
+vomiting fire and smoke,--the fire of course being understood.
+
+Willis, however, now saw that he possessed in his pipe a ready means
+of awing them. Besides, it was clear that, through some fortunate
+coincidence, the natives had mistaken him for a divinity. There was,
+consequently, no immediate danger to be apprehended; he therefore
+became himself again, and began to enjoy the novelty of his new
+dignity.
+
+It was certainly a curious contrast. Willis, seated on a sort of
+throne, crowned with a waving plume of feathers, shrouded in a fiery
+mantle, and surrounded by a crowd of prostrate figures, was quietly
+puffing ribbons of smoke from the tips of his lips. There he sat, for
+all the world like a crane in a duck-pond. From time to time the more
+daring of the worshippers slightly raised their heads to see whether
+Jupiter was still thundering; but when their eye caught a whiff of
+smoke, they speedily resumed their former posture. Some of them even
+thrust their heads into holes, or behind stones, as if more
+effectually to shelter themselves from the fury of the fiery furnace.
+At last the eruption ceased, Willis knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
+replaced it in his pocket, and the convoy resumed its route. After
+half an hour's march, the procession halted near a clump of plantains,
+in front of a structure more ambitious than any of those in the
+neighborhood. A female, laden with rude ornaments, was standing at the
+door. This lady, who rivalled the celebrated Daniel Lambert in
+dimensions, would have created quite a _furore_ at Bartholomew Fair;
+according to Jack, she was so amazingly fat, that it would have taken
+full five minutes to walk round her. She took the Pilot respectfully
+by the hand, and led him into the interior of the building, which was
+crowded with images of various forms, and was evidently a temple.
+Willis, at a sign from his conductress, seated himself in a chair,
+raised on a dais, and surmounted by a terrific figure similar to the
+one already described, but draped in white feathers instead of red.
+
+The fat lady, or rather the high priestess--for she was the reigning
+potentate in this magazine of idols--took a sucking pig that was held
+by one of the priests. After muttering a prayer or homily of some
+sort, she strangled the poor animal, and returned it to the priest. By
+and by, the pig was brought in again cooked, and presented with great
+ceremony to Willis. There were likewise sundry dishes of fruit, nuts,
+and several small cups containing some kind of liquid. One of the
+priests cut up the pig, and lifted pieces of it to Willis's mouth;
+these, however, he refused to eat. The fat priestess, observing this,
+chewed one or two mouthfuls, which she afterwards handed to the Pilot.
+This was putting the sailor's gallantry to rather a rude test. He was
+equal to the emergency, and did not refuse the offering. But he must
+have felt at the time, that being a divinity was not entirely without
+its attendant inconveniences.
+
+Nor was this the only infliction of the kind he was doomed to
+withstand. One of the priests took up a piece of kava-root, put it
+into his mouth, chewed it, and then dropped a bit into each of the
+cups already noticed. One of these, containing this nectar, was
+presented to Willis by the fat Hebe who presided at the feast, and he
+had the fortitude to taste it. Another of the cups was handed to Jack.
+
+"No, I thank you," said he, shaking his head; "I breakfasted rather
+late this morning."
+
+Meantime, another personage had entered upon the scene. After having
+performed an obeisance to Willis like the rest, this individual backed
+himself to where Jack was standing, by this means adroitly avoiding
+both the kava and the nose-rubbings. He was distinguished from the
+other natives by an ornament round his waist, which fell to his knees.
+His skin seemed a trifle less dark, his features less marked; but his
+body was tattooed and stained after the common fashion.
+
+The new comer turned out to be a Portuguese deserter, who had
+abandoned his ship twenty years before, and had married the daughter
+of a chief of the island on which he now was. At the present moment,
+he filled the part of prime minister to the king, an office be could
+not have held in his own ungrateful country, since he could neither
+read nor write. These accomplishments, it appeared, were not,
+however, absolutely indispensable in Polynesia. It has been found that
+when a savage is transferred to Europe, he readily acquires the habits
+of civilized life. By a similar adaptation of things to circumstances,
+this European had identified himself with the savages. He had adopted
+their manners, their customs, and their costume. When he thought of
+his own country, it was only to wonder why he ever submitted to the
+constraint of a coat, or put himself to the trouble of handling a fork
+and spoon. He had not, however, entirely forgotten his mother tongue,
+and, moreover, still retained in his memory a few English words. He
+was likewise very communicative, and told Jack that they were in the
+Island of Hawai; that the name of the king was Toubowrai Tamaidi, who,
+he added, intended visiting the pinnace with the queen next day, to
+pay his respects in person to the great Rono. "His Majesty," said the
+Portuguese, "would have been amongst the first to throw himself at his
+feet, but unfortunately the royal residence is a good way off; and
+though both the king and the queen are on the way, running as fast as
+they can, it may take them some time yet to reach the shore."
+
+"But who is the great Rono?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Well," replied the prime minister, "you ought to know best, since you
+arrived with him."
+
+Jack felt that he was touching on delicate ground, and saw that it was
+necessary to diplomatise a little.
+
+"True," said he; "but I am not acquainted with the position that
+illustrious person holds in relation to Hawai." The Portuguese then
+made a very long, rambling, and not very lucid statement, from which
+Jack gleaned the following details. About a hundred years before,
+during the reign of one of the first kings, there lived a great
+warrior, whose name was Rono. This chief was very popular, but he was
+very jealous. In a moment of anger he killed his wife, of whom he was
+passionately fond. The regret and grief that resulted from this act
+drove him out of his senses; he wandered disconsolately about the
+island, fought and quarrelled with every one that came near him. At
+last, in a fit of despair, he embarked in a large canoe, and, after
+promising to return at the expiration of twelve hundred moons, with a
+white face and on a floating island, he put out to sea, and was never
+heard of more.
+
+This tradition, it appears, had been piously handed down from family
+to family. The natives of Hawai--who are not more extravagant in the
+matter of idols than some nations who boast a larger amount of
+civilization, but who do not destroy them so often--enrolled Rono
+amongst the list of their divinities. An image of him was set up,
+sacrifices were instituted in his honor. Every year the day of his
+departure was kept sacred, and devoted to religious ceremonies. The
+twelfth hundred moon had just set, when a large boat appeared in the
+bay, and a man came ashore. The high priest of the temple, Raou, and
+his daughter, On La, priestess of Rono, solemnly declared that the man
+in question was Rono himself, who had returned at the precise time
+named, and in the manner he promised.
+
+It was, therefore, clear from this statement that Willis was to be
+henceforward Rono the Great.
+
+Jack was rather pleased than otherwise to learn that he was the
+companion of a real live divinity. It assured him, in the first place,
+that the danger of his being converted into a stew or a fricassee was
+not imminent. He did not forget, however, that the consequences might
+be perilous if, by any chance, the illusion ceased; for he knew that
+the greater the height from which a man falls, the less the mercy
+shown to him when he is down. As soon, therefore, as the ceremonies
+had a little relaxed, and Willis was left some freedom of action, Jack
+went forward, and knelt before him in his turn.
+
+"O sublime Rono," said he, "I know now why your nose has escaped all
+the rubbings that mine has had to undergo."
+
+"Do you?" said Willis; "glad to hear it, for I am as much in the dark
+as ever."
+
+Jack then related to him the fabulous legend he had just heard.
+
+After a while, Willis shook off his _entourage_ as gently as possible,
+and succeeded in getting out of the temple. Accompanied by Jack, he
+proceeded towards the shore, receiving, as he went, the adoration of
+the people. The route was strewn with fruit, cocoa-nuts, and pigs, and
+the natives were highly delighted when any of their offerings were
+accepted by the deified Rono.
+
+The islanders appeared mild, docile, and intelligent, notwithstanding
+the singular delusion that possessed them. Living from day to day,
+they were, doubtless, ignorant of those continual cares and
+calculations for the future that in the old world pursue us even into
+the hours of sleep. Were they happier in consequence? Yes, if the
+child is happier than the man, and if we admit that we often loose in
+tranquillity and happiness what we gain in knowledge and perfection:
+yes, if happiness is not exclusively attached to certain peoples and
+certain climates; yes, if it is true that, with contentment, happiness
+is everywhere to be found.
+
+The houses of the Hawaians are singular structures, and scarcely can
+be called dwellings. They consist of three rows of posts, two on each
+side and one in the middle, the whole covered with a slanting roof,
+but without any kind of wall whatever.
+
+They do not bury their dead, but swing them up in a sort of hammock,
+abundantly supplied with provisions. It is supposed that this is done
+with a view to enable the souls of the departed to take their flight
+more readily to heaven. The practice, consequently, seems to indicate
+that the natives possess a confused idea of a future state. When a
+child dies, flowers are placed in the hammock along with the
+provisions--a touch of the nature common to us all. They express deep
+grief by inflicting wounds upon their faces with a shark's tooth; and,
+when they feel themselves in danger of dying, they cut off a joint of
+the little finger to appease the anger of the Divinity. There was
+scarcely one of the adult islanders who was not mutilated in this way.
+
+Though the worshippers of the great Rono appeared gentle and peaceable
+enough, there were to be seen here and there a human jaw-bone,
+seemingly fresh, with the teeth entire, suspended over the entrances
+to the huts. These ghastly objects sent a shudder quivering through
+Jack's frame, and made Willis aware that it would not be advisable
+rashly to throw off his sacred character.
+
+As it was now late, and as they knew that Fritz would be uneasy about
+them, they put off laying in their stock of water till next day. Jack
+told the prime minister that the great Rono would be prepared to
+receive their majesties whenever they chose to visit him. This done,
+Willis and his companion seated themselves in the canoe, and rowed out
+to the pinnace.
+
+"God be thanked, you have returned in safety!" cried Fritz; "I never
+was so uneasy in the whole course of my life."
+
+"Well, brother, we have not been without our anxieties as well, and
+had we not happened to have had a divinity amongst us, we might not
+have come off scathless."
+
+Jack then related their adventures, which gradually brought a smile to
+the pale lips of Fritz.
+
+"But the water?" inquired Fritz, after he had heard the story.
+
+"Oh, water; they offered us something to drink on shore that will
+prevent us being thirsty for a month to come, but we shall see to that
+to-morrow."
+
+Towards dark, some fireworks were discharged on board the pinnace, by
+way of demonstrating that Willis's pipe was not the only fiery terror
+the great Rono had at his command.
+
+Early next morning a flotilla of canoes were observed rounding one of
+the points that formed the bay. The one in advance was larger than the
+others, and was evidently the trunk of a large tree hollowed out.
+Jack's new friend, the Portuguese, hailed the pinnace, and announced
+the King and Queen of Hawai, who thereupon scrambled into the pinnace.
+His majesty King Toubowrai had probably felt it incumbent upon himself
+to do honor to the illustrious Rono, for he wore an old uniform coat,
+very likely the produce of a wreck, through the sleeves of which the
+angular knobs of his copper-colored elbows projected. He did not seem
+very much at his ease in this garment, which contrasted oddly with the
+tight-fitting tattooed skin that served him for pantaloons.
+
+His wife, Queen Tonico, princess-like was half stifled in a thick
+blanket or mat of cocoa-nut fibre. Her ears were heavily laden with
+teeth and ornaments of various kinds, made out of bone, mother of
+pearl, and tortoise-shell. Her nails were two or three inches long;
+and, to judge by the number of finger-joints that were wanting, she
+was either troubled with delicate nerves, or was slightly
+hypochondriac.
+
+The royal pair were accompanied by a band of music: fortunately, this
+remained in the regal barge. It consisted of a flute with four holes,
+a nondescript instrument, seemingly made of stones; a drum made out of
+the hollow trunk of a tree, covered at each end with skin, of what
+kind it is needless to inquire. The sounds emitted by this orchestra
+were of an ear-rending nature, and of a kind graphically termed by the
+Germans Katzenmusik.
+
+"Illustrious Rono," cried Jack, "for goodness sake, tell these
+gentlemen you are not a lover of sweet sounds."
+
+"Belay there!" roared Willis.
+
+This command, however, had no effect; the artists continued thumping
+and blowing away as before. Willis, thinking to make himself better
+heard, placed his hands on his mouth, and roared the same order
+through them. This action seemed to be received as a mark of
+approbation, for the noise became absolutely terrific.
+
+"No use," said Willis: "I can make nothing of them. You try what you
+can do."
+
+"Very good," said Jack, lighting what is technically termed an
+_artichoke_, but better known as a zig-zag cracker; "if they do not
+understand English, perhaps they may comprehend pyrotechnics."
+
+The artichoke was thrown into the royal barge. At first there was only
+a slight whiz, finally it gave an angry bound and leaped into the
+midst of the musicians. Startled, they tried to get out of its way;
+but they were no sooner at what they thought to be a safe distance,
+than the thing was amongst them again. Their majesties, who were just
+then engaged in kissing the Rono's feet, started up in alarm; but when
+they saw the danger did not menace themselves, they burst into a
+hearty laugh at the antics of their suite.
+
+This episode over, and the orchestra silenced, the Sovereign of Hawai
+proceeded to inspect the pinnace. He expressed his delight every now
+and then by uttering the syllables "_ta-ta_." Fritz handed one of
+those shaving glasses to the Queen that lengthen the objects they
+reflect. This astonished her Majesty vastly, and caused her to _ta-ta_
+at a great rate. She looked behind the mirror, turned it upside down,
+and at last, when she felt assured that it was the royal person it
+caricatured, she commenced measuring her cheeks to account for the
+extraordinary disproportion.
+
+They next all sat down to a repast that was spread on deck. Their
+Majesties observing Rono use a fork, did so likewise; but though they
+stuck a piece of meat on the end of it, and held it in one hand, they
+continued carrying the viands to their mouths with the other. At the
+conclusion of the feast, Willis took a pinch of snuff out of a
+canister. Their Majesties insisted upon doing so likewise. Willis
+handed them the canister, and they filled their noses with the
+treacherous powder. Then followed a duet of sneezing, accompanied with
+facial contortions. The royal personages thinking, probably, that they
+were poisoned, leaped into the sea like a couple of frogs, and swam to
+the royal barge.
+
+"Holloa, sire," cried Jack, "where are you off to?"
+
+This was answered by the barge paddling away rapidly towards land.
+Hitherto, the whole affair had been a farce; but now the natives, who
+had collected in great numbers along the shore, seeing their king and
+queen leap into the water with a terrified air, supposed that an
+attempt had been made to cut short their royal lives, and, under this
+impression, discharged a cloud of arrows at the pinnace, and matters
+began to assume a serious aspect.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jack, "shooting at the great Rono!"
+
+"That," said Fritz, "only proves they are men like ourselves. He who
+is covered with incense one day, is very often immolated the next."
+
+"And that simply because Rono treated Mr. and Mrs. What's-their-names
+to a pinch of snuff. Serve them right to discharge the contents of the
+four-pounder amongst them."
+
+"No, no," cried Willis; "the worthy people are, perhaps, fond of their
+king and queen."
+
+"Worthy people or not," said Fritz, drawing out an arrow that had sunk
+into the capstan, "it is very likely that if this dart had hit one of
+us, there would only have been two instead of three in the crew of the
+pinnace."
+
+"Well," said Willis, "Master Jack thought the voyage rather dull; now
+something has turned up to relieve the monotony of his log."
+
+"We are still without fresh water though, Willis; I wish you could say
+that had turned up as well."
+
+"It will be prudent to go in search of that somewhere else now," said
+Willis, unfurling the sails. "Fortunately the wind is fresh, and we
+can make considerable headway before night."
+
+As they steered gently out of the bay a second cloud of arrows was
+sent after them, but this time they fell short.
+
+"The belief in Rono is about to be seriously compromised," remarked
+Fritz; "I should advise the priestess to retire into private life."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because she is too fat to live in an ordinary house, she could only
+breathe in a temple. But, O human vicissitudes!" added Jack, rolling
+himself up in a sail after the manner of the Roman senators; "behold
+Rono the Great banished from his country, and compelled to go and
+pillow his head on a foreign sail, like Marius at Minturnus--like
+Coriolanus amongst the Volcians--like Hannibal at the house of
+Antiochus--like Alcibiades at the castle of Grunium in Phrygia, given
+to him out of charity by the benevolent Pharnabazus, and in which he
+was burnt alive by his countrymen--like Cimon, voted into exile by
+ballot and universal suffrage--like Aristides, whom the people got
+tired of hearing called the Just, and many others."
+
+"Who are all these personages?" inquired Willis.
+
+"They were worthies of another age," replied Fritz; "very excellent
+men in their way, and you are in no way dishonored by being numbered
+amongst them."
+
+"Yesterday," continued Jack, "an entire people were upon their knees
+before you; they offered up sacrifices, and poured out incense on
+their altars for you; fruit and pigs were scattered in heaps, like
+flowers, upon your path; the crowd were prostrated by the fumes of
+your pipe. To-day--alas, the change!--a cloud of arrows, and not a
+single glass of cold water!"
+
+"That gives you an opportunity of quenching your thirst with the
+nectar offered to you yesterday," said Fritz; "as for myself, I have
+no such resource."
+
+"Yes, that was a posset to quench one's thirst withal; I only wish I
+had a cupful to give you. I do not regret having had an opportunity of
+becoming acquainted with the people though. They have enabled me to
+rectify some erroneous notions I formerly entertained. If, for
+example, I were to ask you what air consists of? you would, no doubt,
+reply that is a compound body made of oxygen and hydrogen or azote, in
+the proportion of twenty-one of the one to seventy-nine of the other."
+
+"Yes, most undoubtedly."
+
+"Well, such is not the case; there are other elements in the air
+besides these."
+
+"If you mean that the air accidentally, or even permanently, holds in
+solution a certain quantity of water, or a portion of carbonic acid
+gas, and possibly some particles of dust arising from terrestrial
+bodies, then I grant your premises."
+
+"No; what I mean is, that the air of Hawai is composed of three
+distinct elements."
+
+"Possibly; but if so, the air in question is not known to chemists."
+
+"These three elements are oxygen, hydrogen, and insects."
+
+"Ah, insects! I might have fancied you were driving at some hypothesis
+of that sort."
+
+"I intend to communicate this discovery to the first learned society
+we fall in with."
+
+"In the Pacific Ocean?"
+
+"Yes: there or elsewhere."
+
+"I always understood," observed Willis, "that air was a sort of cloud,
+one and indivisible."
+
+"A cloud if you like, Willis; but do you know the weight of it you
+carry on your shoulders?"
+
+"Well, it cannot be very great, otherwise I should feel it."
+
+"What do you say to a ton or so, old fellow?"
+
+"If you wish me to believe that, you will have to explain how, where,
+when, why, and wherefore."
+
+"Very good. Willis; you have bathed sometimes?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"In the sea?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know what water weighs?"
+
+"No, but I know that it is heavy."
+
+"Well, a square yard of air weighs two pounds and a half, but a square
+yard of water weighs two thousand pounds. Now, can you calculate the
+weight of the water that is on your back and pressing on your sides
+when you swim?"
+
+"No, I cannot."
+
+"You are not sufficiently up in arithmetic to do that, Willis?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor am I either, Willis; but let me ask you how it is that the waves
+do not carry you along with them?"
+
+"Because one wave neutralises the effect of another."
+
+"Very good; but how is it that these ponderous waves, coming down upon
+you, do not crush you to atoms by their mere weight?"
+
+"Well, I suppose that liquids do not operate in the same way as
+solids: perhaps there is something in our bodies that counterbalances
+the effect of the water."
+
+"Very likely; and if such be the case as regards water, may it not be
+so also as regards air?"
+
+"But I do not feel air; whereas, if I go into water, I not only feel
+it, but taste it sometimes, and I cannot force my way through it
+without considerable exertion."
+
+"That is because you are organized to live in air and not in water.
+You ask the smallest sprat or sticklebake if it does not, in the same
+way feel the air obstruct its progress."
+
+"But would the stickleback answer me, Master Fritz?"
+
+"Why not, if it is polite and well bred?"
+
+"By the way, Willis," inquired Jack, "do you ever recollect having
+lived without breathing?"
+
+"Can't say I do."
+
+"Very well, then; had you felt the weight of the air at any given
+moment, it must have produced an impression you never felt before, but
+you have not, because circumstances have never varied. A sensation
+supposes a contrast, whilst, ever since you existed, you have always
+been subject to atmospheric pressure."
+
+"Ah, now I begin to get at the gist of your argument. You mean, for
+example, that I would never have appreciated the delicate flavor of
+Maryland or Havanna, had I not been accustomed to smoke the
+cabbage-leaf manufactured in Whitechapel."
+
+"Precisely so; and take for another example the farm of Antisana,
+which is situated about midway up the Cordilleras, mountains of South
+America. When travellers, arriving there from the summits which are
+covered with perpetual snow, meet others arriving from the plain where
+the heat is intense, those that descend are invariably bathed in
+perspiration, whilst those that have come up are shivering with cold
+and covered with furs. The reason of this is, that we cannot feel warm
+till we have been cold, and _vice versâ_."
+
+"Our bodies," resumed Fritz, "however much the thermometer descends,
+never mark less than thirty-five degrees above zero. In winter the
+skin shrinks, and becomes a bad conductor of heat from without; but,
+at the same time, does not allow so much gas and vapor to escape from
+within. In summer, on the contrary, the skin dilates and allows
+perspiration to form, a process that consumes a considerable amount of
+latent heat. Starting from this principle, it has been calculated that
+a man, breathing twenty times in a minute, generates as much heat in
+twenty-four hours as would boil a bucket of water taken at zero."
+
+"If means could be found," remarked Jack, "to furnish him with a
+boiler, by fixing a piston here and a pipe there man might be
+converted into one of the machines we were talking about the other
+day."
+
+"Were I disposed to philosophize," added Fritz, "I might prove to you
+that for a long time men have been little else than mere machines."
+
+Before night they had run about thirty miles further to the
+north-east, without seeing any thing beyond a formidable bluff,
+guarded by a fringe of breakers, that would soon have swallowed up the
+_Mary_ had she ventured to reach the land. It was necessary however to
+obtain fresh water at any price before they resumed their voyage.
+
+It was to be feared that all the islanders of the Pacific were not in
+expectation of a great Rono, consequently Willis suggested that it
+would be as well to search for an uninhabited spot. The only question
+was, how long they might have to search before they succeeded; for
+they knew that there were plenty of small islands in these latitudes
+unencumbered by savages, and furnished with pools and springs of
+water.
+
+Night at length closed in upon them, and with it came a dense mist,
+that enveloped the _Mary_ as if in a triple veil of muslin.
+
+"Willis," inquired Jack, "what difference is there between a mist and
+a cloud?"
+
+"None that I know of," replied the Pilot, "except that a cloud which
+we are in is mist, and mist that we are not in is a cloud. And now, my
+lads," he added, "you may turn in, for I intend to take the first
+watch."
+
+Before turning in, however, all three joined in a short prayer. The
+young men had not yet forgotten the pious precepts of their father.
+Prayer is beautiful everywhere, but nowhere is it so beautiful as on
+the open sea, with infinity above and an abyss beneath. Then, when all
+is silent save the roar of the waves and the howling of the winds, it
+is sublime to hear the humble voice of the sailor murmuring, "Star of
+the night, pray for us!"
+
+That night the star of the night did pray for the three voyagers, for
+the rays of the moon burst through the darkness and the mist, and fell
+upon a long line of reefs under the lee of the pinnace. Had they held
+on their course a few minutes longer, our story would have been ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LYING TO--HEART AND INSTINCT--SPARROWS VIEWED AS
+CONSUMERS--MIGRATIONS--POSTING A LETTER IN THE
+PACIFIC--CANNIBALS--ADVENTURES OF A LOCKET.
+
+
+The glimpse of moonshine only lasted a second, but it was sufficient
+to light up the valley of the shadow of death. All around was again
+enveloped in obscurity. The moon, like a modest benefactor who hides
+himself from those to whose wants he has ministered, concealed itself
+behind its screen of blackness.
+
+The pinnace was thrown into stays, and they resolved to lie-to till
+daybreak. There might be rocks to windward as well as to leeward; at
+all events, they felt that their safest course lay in maintaining, as
+far as possible, their actual position; and, after having returned
+thanks for their almost miraculous escape, they made the usual
+arrangements for passing the night.
+
+Next morning they found themselves in the midst of a labyrinth of
+rocks, from which, with the help of Providence, they succeeded in
+extricating themselves. The rocks, or rather reefs, amongst which they
+were entangled, are very common in these seas. As they are scarcely
+visible at high water, they are extremely dangerous, and often baffle
+the skill of the most expert navigator.
+
+Whilst Willis steered the pinnace amongst the islands and rocks of the
+Hawaian Archipelago, Fritz kept a look-out for savages, fresh water,
+and eligible landing-places. And Jack, after having posted up his log,
+set about inditing a letter for home.
+
+"The voyage," said he, "has lately been so prolific in adventure, that
+I scarcely know where to begin."
+
+"Begin by saluting them all round," suggested Fritz.
+
+"But, brother of mine, that is usually done at the end of the
+letter," objected Jack.
+
+"What then? you can repeat the salutations at the end, and you might
+also, for that matter, put them in the middle as well."
+
+"I have written lots of letters on board ship for my comrades,"
+remarked Willis, "and I invariably commenced by saying--_I take a pen
+in my hand to let you know I am well, hoping you are the same_."
+
+"What else could you take in your hand for such a purpose, O Rono?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Sometimes, after this preamble, I added, '_but I am afraid_.'"
+
+"I thought you old salts were never afraid of anything, short of the
+Flying Dutchman."
+
+"Yes; but the letters I put that in were for young lubbers, who,
+instead of sending home half their pay, were writing for extra
+supplies, and were naturally in great fear that their requests would
+be refused."
+
+"I scarcely think I shall adopt that style, Willis, even though it
+were recognized by the navy regulations."
+
+"Do you think the pigeon will find its way with the letter from here
+to New Switzerland?" inquired Willis.
+
+"I have no doubt about that," replied Fritz, "it naturally returns to
+its nest and its affections. If you had wings, would you not fly
+straight off in the direction of the Bass Rock or Ailsa Craig, to hunt
+up your old arm-chair?"
+
+"Don't speak of it; I feel my heart go pit-pat when I think of home,
+sweet home."
+
+"So do the birds. When they soften the grain before they throw it into
+the maw of their fledgelings--when they fly off and return laden with
+midges to their nests--when they tear the down from their breasts to
+protect their eggs and their young, do you think their hearts do not
+beat as well as yours?"
+
+"But all that is said to be instinct."
+
+"Heart or instinct, where is the difference? The Abbé Spallanzani saw
+two swallows that were carried to Milan return to Pavia in fifteen
+minutes, and the distance between the two cities is seven leagues."
+
+"That I can easily believe."
+
+"When you see a little, insignificant bird flying backwards and
+forwards, perching on one branch and hopping off to another,
+whistling, carolling, perching here and there, you think that it has
+no cares, that it does not reflect, and that it does not love!"
+
+"Well, I have heard in my time a great many wonderful stories of
+robin-redbreasts and jenny-wrens, but I always understood that they
+were intended only to amuse little boys and girls."
+
+"You consider, doubtless, that a field-sparrow is not a creature of
+much importance; but do you know that he consumes half a bushel of
+corn annually?"
+
+"If that is his only merit, the farmers, I dare say, would be glad to
+get rid of him."
+
+"But it is not his only merit. What do you think of his killing three
+thousand insects a week."
+
+"That is more to the purpose. But, to return to the pigeon, supposing
+it is possible for it to find its way, how long do you suppose it will
+take to get there?"
+
+"It is estimated that birds of passage fly over two hundred miles a
+day, if they keep on the wing for six hours."
+
+"Two hundred miles in six hours is fast sailing, anyhow."
+
+"Swallows have been seen in Senegal on the 9th of October, that is,
+eight or nine days after they leave Europe; and that journey they
+repeat every year."
+
+"They must surely make some preparations for such a lengthy
+excursion."
+
+"When the period of departure approaches, they collect together in
+troops on the chimneys or roofs of houses, and on the tops of trees.
+During this operation, they keep up an incessant cry, which brings
+families of them from all quarters. The young ones try the strength of
+their wings under the eyes of the parents. Finally, they make some
+strategic dispositions, and elect a chief."
+
+"You talk of the swallows as if they were an army preparing for
+battle, with flags flying, trumpets sounding, and ready to march at
+the word of command."
+
+"The resemblance between flocks of birds and serried masses of men in
+martial array is striking. Wild ducks, swans, and cranes fly in a kind
+of regimental order; their battalions assume the form of a triangle or
+wedge, so as to cut through the air with greater facility, and
+diminish the resistance it presents to their flight.
+
+"But how do you know it is for that?"
+
+"What else could it be for? The leader gives notice, by a peculiar
+cry, of the route it is about to take. This cry is repeated by the
+flock, as if to say that they will follow, and keep the direction
+indicated. When they meet with a bird of prey whose attacks they may
+have to repulse, the ranks fall in so as to present a solid phalanx to
+the enemy."
+
+"If they had a commissariat in the rear and a few sappers in front,
+the resemblance would be complete."
+
+"If a storm arises," continued Fritz, without noticing Willis's
+commentary, "they lower their flight and approach the ground."
+
+"Forgotten their umbrellas, perhaps."
+
+"When they make a halt, outposts are established to keep a look out
+while the troop sleeps."
+
+"And, in cases of alarm, the outposts fire and fall in as a matter of
+course."
+
+"Great Rono," said Jack, "you are become a downright quiz. I have
+finished my letter whilst you have been discussing the poultry," he
+added, handing the pen to his brother, "and it only waits your
+postscriptum." Fritz having added a few lines, the epistle was sealed,
+and was then attached to one of the pigeons, which, after hovering a
+short time round the pinnace, took a flight upwards and disappeared in
+the clouds.
+
+They were now in sight of a large island, which bore no traces of
+habitation. There was a heavy surf beating on the shore, but the case
+was urgent, so Willis and Jack embarked in the canoe, and, after a
+hard fight with the waves, landed on the beach.
+
+Each of them were armed with a double-barrelled rifle, and furnished
+with a boatswain's whistle. The whistle was to signal the discovery of
+water, and a rifle shot was to bring them together in case of danger.
+These arrangements being made, Jack proceeded in the direction of a
+thicket, which stood at the distance of some hundred yards from the
+shore. He had no sooner reached the cover in the vicinity of the trees
+than he was pounced upon by two ferocious-looking savages. They gave
+him no time to level his rifle or to draw a knife. One of his captors
+held his hands firmly behind his back, whilst the other dragged him
+towards the wood. At this moment the Pilot's whistle rang sharply
+through the air. This put an end to any hopes that Jack might have
+entertained of being rescued through that means. Had he sounded the
+whistle, it would only have led Willis to suppose that he had heard
+the signal, and was on his way to join him.
+
+Poor Jack judged, from the aspect of the men who held him, that they
+were cannibals, and consequently that his fate was sealed, for if his
+surmises were correct, there was little chance of the wretches
+relinquishing their prey. Jack had often amused himself at the expense
+of the anthropophagi, but here he was actually within their grasp.
+Though death terminates the sorrows and the sufferings of man, and
+though the result is the same in whatever shape it comes, yet there
+are circumstances which cause its approach to be regarded with terror
+and dismay. In one's bed, exhausted by old age or disease, the lips
+only open to give utterance to a sigh of pain; life, then, is a burden
+that is laid down without reluctance; we glide imperceptibly and
+almost voluntarily into eternity.
+
+At twenty years of age, however, when we are full of health and ardor,
+the case is very different. Then we are at the threshold of hope and
+happiness; our illusions have not had time to fade, the future is a
+brilliant meteor sparkling in sunshine. At that age our seas are
+always calm, and the rocks and shoals are all concealed. Our barks
+glide jauntily along, the sailors sing merrily, the perils are
+shrouded in romance, and the flag flutters gaily in the breeze. Then
+life is not abandoned without a tear of regret.
+
+To die in the midst of one's friends is not to quit them entirely.
+They come to see us through the marble or stone in which we are
+shrouded. It is another thing to have no other sepulchre than the
+æsophagus of a cannibal. How the recollections of the past darted into
+Jack's mind! He felt that he loved those whom he was on the point of
+leaving a thousand times more than he did before. What would he not
+have given for the power to bid them one last adieu? The idea of
+quitting life thus was horrible.
+
+It was in vain that he tried to shake off his assailants; his
+adolescent strength was as nothing in the arms of steel that bound
+him. He saw that he was powerless in their hands, and at length ceased
+making any further attempts to escape.
+
+The savages, finding that he had relaxed his struggles, commenced to
+rifle and strip him. They tore off his upper garments, and discovered
+a small locket, containing a medallion of his mother, which the
+unfortunate youth wore round his neck. This prize, which the savages
+no doubt regarded as a talisman of some sort, they both desired to
+possess. They quarrelled about it, and commenced fighting over it.
+Jack's hands were left at liberty. In an instant he had seized his
+rifle. He ran a few paces back, turned, took deliberate aim at the
+most powerful of his adversaries, who, with a shriek, fell to the
+ground. The other savage, scared by the report of the shot and its
+effects upon his companion, took to flight, but he carried off the
+locket with him.
+
+Jack had now regained his courage. He felt, like Telemachus in the
+midst of his battles, that God was with him, and he flew, perhaps
+imprudently, after the fugitive. Seeing, however, that he had no
+chance with him as regards speed, he discharged his second rifle. The
+shot did not take effect, but the report brought the savage to his
+knees. The frightened wretch pressed his hands together in an attitude
+of supplication. Jack stopped at a little distance, and, by an
+imperious gesture, gave him to understand that he wanted the locket.
+The sign was comprehended, for the savage laid the talisman on the
+ground.
+
+"Now," said Jack, "in the name of my mother I give you your life."
+
+By another sign, he signified to the man that he was at liberty, which
+he no sooner understood than he vanished like an arrow.
+
+Great was the consternation of Fritz when he heard the reports; he
+feared that the whole island was in commotion, and that both his
+brother and the Pilot were surrounded by a legion of copper-colored
+devils. From the conformation of the coast he could see nothing, and,
+like Sisiphus on his rock, he was tied by imperious necessity to his
+post.
+
+The Pilot, on hearing the first shot, ran to the spot, and both he and
+Jack arrived at the same instant, where the savage lay bleeding on the
+ground.
+
+"You are safe and sound, I hope?" said Willis, anxiously.
+
+"With the exception of some slight contusions, and the loss of my
+clothes, thank God, I am all right, Willis."
+
+"We are born to bad luck, it seems."
+
+"Say rather we are the spoilt children of Providence. I have just
+passed through the eye of a needle."
+
+"Is this the only savage you have seen?"
+
+"No, there were two of them; and, to judge from their actions, I
+verily believe the rascals intended to eat me. As for this one, he is
+more frightened than hurt."
+
+And so it was, he had escaped with some slugs in his shoulders; but he
+seemed, by the contortions of his face, to think that he was dying.
+
+"Fortunately," said Jack, "my rifle was not loaded with ball. I should
+be sorry to have the death of a human being on my conscience."
+
+"Well," said Willis, "I am not naturally cruel, but, beset as you have
+been, I should have shot both the fellows without the slightest
+compunction."
+
+"Still," said Jack, giving the wounded savage a mouthful of brandy,
+"we ought to have mercy on the vanquished--they are men like
+ourselves, at all events."
+
+"Yes, they have flesh and bone, arms, legs, hands, and teeth like us;
+but I doubt whether they are possessed of souls and hearts."
+
+"The chances are that they possess both, Willis; only neither the one
+nor the other has been trained to regard the things of this world in a
+proper light. Their notions as to diet, for example, arise from
+ignorance as to what substances are fit and proper for human food."
+
+"As you like," said Willis; "but let us be off; there may be more of
+them lurking about."
+
+"What! again without water?"
+
+"No, this time I have taken care to fill the casks; the canoe is laden
+with fresh water."
+
+"Fritz must be very uneasy about us; but this man may die if we leave
+him so."
+
+"Very likely," said the Pilot; "but that is no business of ours."
+
+"Good bye," said Jack, lifting up the wounded savage, and propping him
+against a tree; "I may never have the pleasure of seeing you again,
+and am sorry to leave you in such a plight; but it will be a lesson
+for you, and a hint to be a little more hospitable for the future in
+your reception of strangers."
+
+The savage raised his eyes for an instant, as if to thank Jack for his
+good offices, and then relapsed into his former attitude of dejection.
+
+Twenty minutes later the canoe was aboard the pinnace.
+
+"Fritz," said Jack, throwing his arms round his brother's neck, "I am
+delighted to see you again; half an hour ago I had not the shadow of a
+chance of ever beholding you more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE UTILITY OF ADVERSITY--AN ENCOUNTER--THE HOROKEN--BILL ALIAS BOB.
+
+
+A light but favorable breeze carried them away from land, and they
+were once again on the open sea. Willis, after a prolonged
+investigation of the sun's position, taken in relation to some
+observations he had made the day before, concluded that the best
+course to pursue, under existing circumstances, was to steer for the
+Marian Islands.[H] In addition to the distance they had originally to
+traverse, all the way lost during the storm was now before them. As
+regards provisions, they had little to fear; they could rely upon
+falling in with a boobie or sea-cow occasionally, and fresh fish were
+to be had at any time. Their supply of water, however, gave them some
+uneasiness, for the quantity was limited, and they might be retarded
+by calms and contrary winds. The chances of meeting a European ship
+were too slender to enter for anything into their calculations.
+
+"It appears to me," said Jack, one beautiful evening, when they were
+some hundreds of miles from any habitable spot, "that, having escaped
+so many dangers, the watchful eye of Providence must be guarding us
+from evil."
+
+"Very possibly," replied Fritz; "one of the early chroniclers of the
+Christian Church says that Lazarus, whom our Saviour resuscitated at
+the gates of Jerusalem, became afterwards one of the most popular
+preachers of Christianity, and in consequence the Jews regarded him
+with implacable hatred."
+
+"But what, in all the world, has that to do with the Pacific Ocean?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Very little with the Pacific in particular, but a great deal with
+the ocean in general. Lazarus, his sisters, and some of his friends,
+were thrown into prison, tried, and condemned."
+
+"And stoned or crucified," added Jack.
+
+"No; the high priest of the temple had a great variety of punishments
+on hand besides these. He resolved to expose them to the mercy of the
+waves, without provisions, and without a mast, sail, or rudder."
+
+"Thank goodness, we are not so badly off as that."
+
+"_He_, for whom Lazarus suffered, and who is the same that nourishes
+the birds of the air and feeds the beasts of the field; watched over
+the forlorn craft; under his guidance, the little colony of martyrs
+were wafted in safety to the fertile coasts of Provence. They landed,
+according to the tradition, at Marseilles, of whom Lazarus was the
+first bishop, and has always been the patron saint. Who knows?--the
+same good fortune may perhaps await us."
+
+"We are not martyrs."
+
+"True; but Providence does not always measure its favors by the merits
+of those upon whom they are bestowed--misfortune, alone, is often a
+sufficient claim; so it is well for us to be patient under a little
+suffering, for sweet often is the reward."
+
+"A little hardship, now and then," added Jack, "is, no doubt,
+salutary. The Italians say: '_Le avversità sono per l'animo cio ch' è
+un temporale per l'aria_.' Suffering teaches us to prize health and
+happiness; were there no such things as pain and grief, we should be
+apt to regard these blessings as valueless, and to estimate them as
+our legitimate rights. For my own part, I was never so happy in my
+whole life as when I embraced you the other day, after escaping out of
+the clutches of the savages."
+
+"There are many charms in life that are almost without alloy: the
+perfume of flowers--music--the singing of birds--the riches of
+art--the intercourse of society--the delights of the family
+circle--the treasures of imagination and memory. Some of the most
+beneficent gifts of Nature we only know the existence of when we are
+deprived of them; occasional darkness alone enables us to appreciate
+the unspeakable blessing of light. Man has a multitude of enjoyments
+at his command; but so many sweets would be utterly insipid without a
+few bitters."
+
+"The rheumatism, for example," said Willis, rubbing his shoulders.
+
+"Many enjoyments," continued Fritz, "spring from the heart alone; the
+affections, benevolence, love of order, a sense of the beautiful, of
+truth, of honesty, and of justice."
+
+"On the other hand," said Willis, "there are dishonesty, injustice,
+disappointment, and blighted hopes; but you are too young to know much
+about these. When you have seen as much of the world on sea and on
+land as I have, perhaps you will be disposed to look at life from
+another point of view. In old stagers like myself, the tender emotions
+are all used up; it is only when we are amongst you youngsters that we
+forget the present in the past; when we see you struggling with
+difficulties, it recalls our own trials to our mind, rouses in us
+sentiments of commiseration, and softens the asperities of our years."
+
+"According to you, then," said Fritz, levelling his rifle at a petrel,
+"the misfortunes of the one constitute the happiness of the other?"
+
+"Unquestionably," said Jack; "for instance, if you miss that bird, so
+much the worse for you, and so much the better for the petrel."
+
+"It is very rarely, brother, that you do not interrupt a serious
+conversation with some nonsense."
+
+"Keep your temper, Fritz; I am about to propose a serious question
+myself. How is it that the petrel you are aiming at does not come and
+perch itself quietly on the barrel of your rifle?"
+
+"Jack, Jack, you are incorrigible."
+
+"Did you ever see a hare or a pheasant come and stare you in the face
+when you were going to shoot it?"
+
+"Stunsails and tops!" cried Willis, "if I do not see something
+stranger than that staring us in the face."
+
+"The sea-serpent, perhaps," said Jack.
+
+"I thought it was a sea-bird at first," said Willis, "but they do not
+increase in size the longer you look at them."
+
+"They naturally appear to increase as they approach," observed Fritz.
+
+"Yes, but the increase must have a limit, and I never saw a bird with
+such singular upper-works before. Just take a cast of the glass
+yourself, Master Fritz."
+
+"Halls of Æolus!" cried Fritz, "these wings are sails."
+
+"So I thought!" exclaimed Willis, throwing his sou'-wester into the
+air, and uttering a loud hurrah.
+
+"If it is the _Nelson_" said Jack, "it would be a singular encounter."
+
+"_The Nelson_!" sighed Willis, "in the latitude of Hawai; no, that is
+impossible."
+
+"She is bearing down upon us," said Fritz.
+
+"Just let me see a moment whether I can make out her figure-head,"
+said Willis. "Aye, aye!"
+
+"Can you make it out?"
+
+"No; but, from the sheer of the hull, I think the ship is British
+built."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed both the young men.
+
+"Yes, you may say 'Thank God;' but, if it turns out to be a
+man-of-war, I must report myself on board, and I doubt whether my
+story will go down with the captain."
+
+"But if it is the _Nelson_?" insisted Jack.
+
+"Aye, aye; the _Nelson_," replied Willis, "is not going to turn up
+here to oblige us, you may take my word for that."
+
+"I have better eyes than you, Willis; just let me see if I can make
+her out. No, impossible; nothing but the hull and sails."
+
+"It is just possible," persisted Jack, "that the _Nelson_ may have
+been detained at the Cape, and afterwards blown out of her course like
+ourselves."
+
+"All I can say is," replied Willis, "that if Captain Littlestone be on
+board that ship, it will make me the happiest man that ever mixed a
+ration of grog. But these things only turn up in novels, so it is no
+use talking."
+
+"She has hoisted a flag at the mizzen," cried Fritz.
+
+"Can you make it out?"
+
+"Well, let me see--yes, it must be so."
+
+"What, the Union Jack?" cried Willis.
+
+"No, a red ground striped with blue."
+
+"The United States, as I am a sinner!" cried Willis. "Well, it might
+have been worse. We can go to America; there are surgeons there as
+well as in Europe--at all events, we can get a ship there for England.
+But let me see, we must hoist a bit of bunting; unfortunately, we have
+only British colors aboard, and I am afraid they are not in
+particularly high favor with our Yankee cousins just now."
+
+"Never mind a flag," said Fritz.
+
+"Oh, that will never do, they have hoisted a flag and are waiting a
+reply. But let me see," added Willis, rummaging amongst some stores,
+"here is one of our Shark's Island signals--that, I think, will puzzle
+the Yankee considerably."
+
+The Pilot's signal was answered by a gun, the report of which rang
+through the air. The strange ship's sails were thrown back and she
+stood still. A boat then put off with a young man in uniform and six
+rowers on board.
+
+"Pinnace ahoy!" cried the officer through a speaking trumpet, "who are
+you?"
+
+"Shipwrecked mariners," cried Fritz, in reply.
+
+"What is the name of your craft?"
+
+"The _Mary_."
+
+"What country?"
+
+"Switzerland."
+
+"I was not aware that Switzerland was a naval power," observed Willis.
+
+"She has no sea-port," said Jack, "but she has a fleet--of row boats."
+
+"Where do you hail from?" inquired the officer.
+
+"New Switzerland."
+
+"That gentleman is very curious," observed Jack.
+
+Here a silence of some minutes ensued; the officer seemed at fault in
+his geography.
+
+"Where away?" at last resounded from the trumpet.
+
+"Bound for Europe," replied Fritz.
+
+This reply elicited an expression of doubt, accompanied with such a
+tremendous exjurgation as made both Fritz and Jack almost shrink into
+the hold.
+
+A few minutes after the Yankee in command stepped on board, and
+explanations were entered into that perfectly satisfied the republican
+officer. He continued, however, to eye Willis curiously.
+
+The _Hoboken_, for that was the name of the strange ship, was an
+American cruiser, carrying twelve ship guns and a long paixhan. She
+was attached to the Chinese station, but had recently obtained
+information that war had been declared between England and the States.
+She was now making her way to the west by a circuitous route to avoid
+the British squadron, and, at the same time, with a view to pick up an
+English merchantman or two.
+
+Fritz and Jack being citizens of a sister republic, and subjects of a
+neutral power, were received on board with a hearty welcome, and with
+the hospitality due to their interesting position. Willis also
+received some attention, and was treated with all the courtesy that
+could be shown to the native of an enemy's country.
+
+The pinnace was taken in tow till the young men made up their minds as
+to the course they would adopt. A free passage to the States was
+kindly offered to them, and even pressed upon their acceptance; but
+the captain left the matter entirely to their own option.
+
+Fritz and Jack were delighted with the warmth of their reception; and,
+after being so long cooped up in the narrow quarters of the pinnace,
+looked upon the Yankee cruiser, with its men and officers in uniform,
+as a sort of floating palace. The _Nelson_ having been only a
+despatch-boat, it had given them but an indifferent idea of a
+man-of-war. On board the Yankee every thing was kept in apple-pie
+order. Discipline was maintained with martinet strictness. The
+fittings shone like a mirror. The brass cappings glistened in the sun.
+Complicated rolls of cable were profusely scattered about, but without
+confusion. The deck always seemed as fresh as if it had been planked
+the day before. The sails overhead seemed to obey the word of command
+of their own accord. The boatswain's whistle seemed to act upon the
+men like electricity. The seamen's cabins, six feet long by six feet
+broad, in which a hammock, locker, and lashing apparatus were
+conveniently stowed, were something very different from the
+accommodation on board the pinnace. These things were regarded by
+Fritz and Jack with great interest; and nowhere is the genius of man
+so brilliantly displayed as on board a well-appointed ship of war.
+
+The young men, however, when they sat down to dinner in the captain's
+cabin, and beheld a long table flanked with cushioned seats, commanded
+at each end by arm-chairs, the side-board plentifully garnished with
+plate and crystal of various kinds, fastened with copper nails to
+prevent damage from the ship's pitching, they did not reflect that
+they were in the crater of a volcano, and that two paces from where
+they sat there was powder enough to blow the ship and all its crew up
+into the air.
+
+They were likewise highly amused by the perpetual "guessing,"
+"calculating," "reckoning," and inexhaustible curiosity of the crew;
+but their admiration of the ship, her guns, her stores, and her
+tackle, were boundless; they felt that their pinnace was a mere toy in
+comparison. The urbanity of the officers also was a source of much
+gratification to them; Jack even declared that all the civilization of
+Europe had been shipped on board the _Hoboken_, and in so far as that
+was concerned, they had no occasion to go on much further.
+
+The object of this expedition, however, was a surgeon. There was one
+on board. Would he go to New Switzerland? Jack determined to try, and
+accordingly he walked straight off to the personage in question.
+
+"Doctor," said he, "would you do myself and my brother a great favor?"
+
+"Certainly; and, if it is in my power, you may consider it done."
+
+"Well, will you embark with us for New Switzerland?"
+
+"For what purpose, my friend?"
+
+"My mother is laboring under a malady, which there is every reason to
+fear is cancer."
+
+"And suppose a fever was to break out in this ship whilst I am
+absent, what do you imagine is to become of the officers and crew?"
+
+"There are no symptoms of disease on board; but my mother is dying."
+
+"You forget, young man, that disease may make its appearance at any
+moment. There are many sons on board whose lives are as dear to their
+mothers as your mother's is to you, and for every one of these lives I
+am officially accountable."
+
+Jack hung down his head and was silent.
+
+"No, my good friend, it is impossible for me to grant such a request;
+but, from what I know of your history, and the means at your command,
+you may be able to obtain the services of a competent medical man. I
+would, therefore, recommend you to abandon your boat, and proceed with
+us to our destination."
+
+After a lengthy consultation, the two brothers and Willis determined
+to adopt this course. The cargo of the pinnace was accordingly
+transferred to the hold of the _Hoboken_. A short summary of their
+history was written, corked up in a bottle, and fastened to the mast
+of the _Mary_, which was then cut adrift. A tear gathered on the
+cheeks of the young men as they saw their old friend in adversity
+dropping slowly behind, and they did not withdraw their eyes from it
+till every vestige of its hull was lost in the shadows of the waters.
+
+As Fritz and Jack were thus engaged in gazing listlessly on the ocean,
+and reflecting upon their altered prospects, and perhaps trying to
+penetrate the veil of the future, Willis came towards them rubbing his
+breast, as if he had been seized with a violent internal spasm.
+
+"Hilloa," cried Jack, "the Pilot is sea-sick! Shall I run for some
+brandy, Willis?"
+
+"No, stop a bit; we were in hopes of falling in with Captain
+Littlestone, were we not?"
+
+"Yes; but what then?"
+
+"We were disappointed, were we not?"
+
+"Yes. That has not made you ill, has it?"
+
+"No; somebody else has turned up; there is one of the _Nelson's_ crew
+on board this ship."
+
+"One of the _Nelson's_ crew?"
+
+"Aye, and if you only knew how my heart beat when I saw him."
+
+"I can easily conceive your feelings," said Jack, "for my own heart
+has almost leaped into my mouth."
+
+"And I am thunderstruck," added Fritz.
+
+"I went towards my old friend," continued Willis, "with tears in my
+eyes, threw my arms round him, and gave him a hearty but affectionate
+hug."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Nothing, at first; but, as soon as I left his arms at liberty, he
+gave me such a punch in the ribs as almost doubled me in two; it was
+enough to knock the in'ards out of a rhinoceros--ugh!"
+
+"A blow in earnest?" exclaimed Fritz in astonishment.
+
+"Yes; there was no mistake about it; it was a real, good, earnest John
+Bull knock-down thump; it put me in mind of Portsmouth on a pay
+day--ugh!"
+
+"Extremely touching," said Jack, smiling.
+
+"Then, when I called him by his name Bill Stubbs, and asked what had
+become of the sloop, he said that he knew nothing at all about the
+sloop, and swore that he had never set his eyes on my figure-head
+before, the varmint--ugh!"
+
+"Odd," remarked Jack.
+
+"Are you sure of your man?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"But you say his name is Bill, whilst he declares his name is Bob."
+
+"Aye, he has evidently been up to some mischief, and changed his
+ticket."
+
+"Then what conclusion do you draw from the affair."
+
+"I am completely bewildered, and scarcely know what to think; perhaps
+the crew has mutinied, and turned Captain Littlestone adrift on a
+desert island. That is sometimes done. Perhaps--"
+
+"It is no use perhapsing those sort of melancholy things," said Fritz;
+"we may as well suppose, for the present, that Captain Littlestone is
+safe, and that your friend has been put on shore for some
+misdemeanour."
+
+"May be, may be, Master Fritz; and I hope and trust it is so. But to
+have an old comrade amongst us, who could give us all the information
+we want, and yet not to be able to get a single thing out of him--"
+
+"Except a punch in the ribs," suggested Jack.
+
+"Exactly; and a punch that will not let me forget the lubber in a
+hurry," added Willis, clenching his fist; "but I intend, in the
+meantime, to keep my weather eye open."
+
+A few weeks after this episode the _Hoboken_ was slowly wending her
+way along the bights of the Bahamas. Fritz, Jack, and Willis were
+walking and chatting on the quarter-deck. The sky was of a deep azure.
+The sea was covered with herbs and flowers as far as the eye could
+reach--sometimes in compact masses of several miles in extent, and at
+other times in long straight ribbons, as regular as if they had been
+spread by some West Indian Le Notre. The ship seemed merely displaying
+her graces in the sunshine, so gentle was she moving in the water. The
+air was laden with perfumes, and a soft dreamy languor stole over the
+friends, which they were trying in vain to shake off. In one direction
+rose the misty heights of St. Domingo, and in another the cloud-capped
+summits of Cuba. Sometimes the highest peaks of the latter pierced the
+veil that enveloped them, and seemed like islands floating in the sky,
+or heads of a race of giants.
+
+"The air here is almost as balmy and fragrant as that of New
+Switzerland," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Aye, aye," said the Pilot; "but it is not all gold that glitters: in
+these sweet smells a nasty fever is concealed, with which I have no
+wish to renew my acquaintance."
+
+"By the way, talking about acquaintances, Willis, have you obtained
+any further intelligence from your friend Bill, _alias_ Bob?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"No, not a syllable; the viper is as cunning as a fox, and keeps his
+mouth as close as a mouse-trap."
+
+"He seems as obstinate as a mule, and as obdurate as a Chinaman into
+the bargain."
+
+"All that, and more than that; but," added Willis, "I have found out
+from the mate that he was pressed on board this ship at New Orleans."
+
+"Pressed on board?" said Fritz, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes; that is a mode of recruiting for the navy peculiar to England
+and the United States. Would you like to hear something about how the
+system is carried out?"
+
+"Yes, Willis, very much."
+
+"The transactions, however, that I shall have to relate are in no way
+creditable, either to myself or anybody else connected with them; and
+I am afraid, when you hear the particulars, you will be ready to turn
+round and say, your friend the Pilot is no good after all."
+
+"Have you, then, been desperately wicked, Willis?"
+
+"Well, that depends entirely upon the view you take of what I am to
+tell you. Listen."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[H] Sometimes called the _Ladrones_ or _Archipelago of Saint Lazarus_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+IN WHICH WILLIS SHOWS, THAT THE TERM PRESS-GANG MEANS SOMETHING ELSE
+BESIDES THE GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS.
+
+
+"When I was a youngster, about a year or two older than you are now,
+Master Fritz, I slipped on board the brig _Norfolk_ as boatswain's
+mate. The ship at the time was short of hands, so there was no
+immediate probability of her weighing anchor; but on the same day I
+scratched my name on the books a despatch arrived, in consequence of
+which we left the harbor, and proceeded out to sea under sealed
+orders. One day, when off the Irish coast, I was called aft by the
+first lieutenant.
+
+"'You know something of Cork, my man, I believe?' said he.
+
+"'Yes, your honor, I have been ashore there once or twice,' said I.
+
+"'Very good,' said he; 'get ready to go ashore there again as quick as
+you like.'
+
+"Leave to go on shore is always agreeable to a sailor. He prefers the
+sea, but likes to stretch himself on land now and then, just to enjoy
+a change of air, and look about him a bit; so it was with all possible
+expedition that I made the requisite preparations.
+
+"When I reappeared, I found a party of twenty men mustered on deck in
+pipe-clay order. A full ration of small arms was served out to them,
+and, under the command of the lieutenant, we embarked in the long-boat
+and rowed ashore. We landed at a point of the coast some miles distant
+from Cork, and it was dark before we reached the military barracks of
+that town, which, for the present, appeared to be our destination.
+
+"I had not the slightest idea of what we were to do on shore. From our
+being so heavily armed, I knew it was no mere escort or parade duty
+that was in question, and began to think there was work of some kind
+on hand. This gave me no kind of uneasiness. I only wondered whatever
+it could be, for there was clearly a mystery of some kind or other.
+Were we going to besiege Paddy, in his own peaceable city of Cork? Had
+some of the peep-o'-day boys been burning down farmer Magrath's ricks
+again? or was there a private still to be routed out and demolished? I
+could not tell.
+
+"Half an hour after our arrival, I was called into a private room by
+the lieutenant, who was seated at a table with a package of clothes
+beside him. The first lieutenant of the _Norfolk_, I must remark, was
+a bit of an original. He had won his way up to the rank he then held
+from before the mast. His build was rather squat, and his face was
+garnished with a pair of fiery red whiskers, so he was no beauty,
+added to which he was reckoned one of the most rigid martinets in the
+service; yet, for all that, his crew liked him, for they knew his
+heart was in the right place.
+
+"'See, my man,' said he, 'take this package, and rig yourself out in
+the toggery it contains.'
+
+"I obeyed this order, and soon after stood before him, in a pair of
+jack-boots, with a slouching sort of tarpauling hat on my head, so
+that I might either have passed for a manner out of luck or a dustman.
+
+"'Well,' said the lieutenant, laughing, 'now you have quite the air of
+the hulks about you.'
+
+"This remark not being very complimentary, I did not feel called upon
+to make any reply.
+
+"'You know,' he continued, 'that the brig is short about a dozen
+hands, and I want you to pick up a few likely lads here. I understand
+there are a number of able-bodied seamen skulking about the
+public-houses, where they will likely remain as long as their money
+lasts. I should like to secure as many of them as possible, and then
+capture a few stout landsmen to make up the number; but, in the first
+place, I want you to go and find out the best place to make a razzia.'
+
+"I stared when I found myself all at once promoted to the post of
+pioneer for a party of kidnappers, and muttered something or other
+about honor.
+
+"'Honor, sir!' roared the lieutenant, 'what has honor to do with it,
+sir? It is duty, sir. It is the laws of the service, sir, and you must
+obey them, sir.'
+
+"'But it is hard, your honor,' said I, 'that the laws of the service
+should force men to do what they think is wrong.'
+
+"'And what right, sir, have you to think it is wrong, or to judge the
+acts of your superiors? If the laws of the service order you fifty
+lashes at the yard-arm to-morrow, you will find that you will get
+them. Do you want to be handed over to the drummer, and to cultivate
+an acquaintance with the cat?'
+
+"'No, your honor,' said I, laughing.
+
+"The lieutenant's face by this time was as red as his whiskers, and,
+though he was in a towering rage, he quickly calmed down again, like
+boiling milk when it is taken off the fire.
+
+"'Then,' said he, quietly, 'am I to understand you refuse?'
+
+"'No, your honor,' said I. 'If it is my duty, I must obey; but you
+will pardon the liberty, when I say that it is hard to be forced to
+drag away a lot of poor fellows against their wills.'
+
+"'Look ye,' replied the lieutenant, 'I tolerate your freedom of speech
+for two reasons--the first, because we are here alone, and no harm is
+done; the second, because I entertain the same opinion myself; but,
+mind you, we are both bound by the regulations of the service, and it
+is mutiny for either of us to disobey.'
+
+"According to the moral law, the mission with which I was charged
+could scarcely be considered honorable; but, according to the laws of
+the land, or rather of the sea, it was perfectly unexceptionable.
+Amongst the seamen, a foray amongst the landlubbers was regarded more
+in the light of a spree than anything else. If, indeed, it were
+possible to pick up the lazy and idle amongst the population, this
+mode of enlistment might be useful; but often the industrious head of
+a family was seized, whilst the idle escaped. It was rare, however,
+that a ship's crew were employed in this sort of duty; men were more
+usually obtained through the crimps on shore, who often fearfully
+abused the authority with which they were invested for the purpose. As
+for myself, the lieutenant's arguments removed all my scruples, if I
+ever had any.
+
+"I then suggested a plan of operations, which was approved. The men
+were to be kept ready for action, and the lieutenant himself was to
+await my report at the 'Green Dragon,' one of the hotels in the town.
+
+"At that time there was in the outskirts of Cork a sort of tavern and
+lodging-house, called the 'Molly Bawn.' This establishment was
+frequented by the lowest class of seamen and 'tramps.' Thither I
+wended my way. It was late when I arrived in front of the place; and
+whilst hesitating whether I should venture into such a precious
+menagerie, I happened to look round, and, by the light of a dim lamp
+that burned at the corner of the street, I caught a glimpse of the
+lieutenant leaning against the wall, quietly smoking an Irish dudeen."
+
+"Like Rono the Great in the island of Hawai," suggested Jack.
+
+"Something. This, however, cut short my deliberations. I walked in.
+There was a crowd of men and women drinking and smoking about the bar.
+These, however, were not the people I sought. The regular tenants of
+the house were not amongst that lot, and it was essential for me to
+find out in what part of the premises they were stowed. I commenced
+proceedings by ordering a noggin of whisky, and making love to the
+damsel that brought it in. After having formally made her an offer of
+marriage, I asked after the landlord. She told me he was engaged with
+some customers, but offered to take a message to him.
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'just tell him that a friend of One-eyed Dick's would
+like to have a parley with him.'"
+
+"And who was One-eyed Dick?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"One of the crew of a piratical craft captured by one of our cruisers
+a few months before, and who at that time was safely lodged in
+Portsmouth jail.
+
+"The girl soon returned. She told me to walk with her, and led me
+through some narrow passages into what appeared to be another house.
+She knocked at a door that was strongly barred and fastened inside. A
+slight glance at these precautions made me aware that there was no
+chance of making a capture here without creating a great disturbance.
+So, after reflecting an instant, I decided upon adopting some other
+course.
+
+"When the door was opened I could see nothing distinctly; there was a
+turf-fire throwing a red glare out of the chimney, a dim oil-lamp hung
+from the roof, but everything was hidden in a dense cloud of tobacco
+smoke, through which the light was not sufficiently powerful to
+penetrate."
+
+"The atmosphere must have been stifling," observed Fritz.
+
+"Yes, it puts me in mind of your remark about the air, which, you
+said, consists of--let me see--"
+
+"Oxygen and hydrogen."
+
+"Just so; but the air a sailor breathes when he is at home consists
+almost entirely of tobacco smoke. At last, I could make out twenty or
+thirty rough-looking fellows seated on each side of a long deal table
+covered with bottles, glasses, and pipes. Dan Hooligan, the landlord,
+sat at the top--a fit president for such an assembly. He was partly a
+smuggler, partly a publican, and wholly a sinner. I should say that
+the liquor consumed at that table did not much good to the revenue.
+How Dan contrived to escape the laws, was a mystery perhaps best known
+to the police."
+
+"So you are a pal of One-eyed Dick's, are you?' said he.
+
+"'Rather,' said I, adopting the slang of the place.
+
+"'Well,' said he, 'Dick has been a good customer of mine, and all his
+pals are welcome at the 'Molly.' I have not seen him lately,
+however--how goes it with him now?'
+
+"'Right as a trivet,' said I, 'and making lots of rhino.'
+
+"'Glad to hear it; and what latitude does he hail in now?'
+
+"'That,' said I, 'is private and confidential.'
+
+"'Oh,' said he, 'there are no outsiders here, we are all sworn friends
+of Dick's, every mother's son of us.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'Dick is off the Cove in the schooner _Nancy_, of
+Brest,'"
+
+"Holloa, Willis," cried Jack, "there was a fib!"
+
+"Well, I told you to look out for something of that sort when I
+began."
+
+"'What!' cried the landlord, 'Dick in a schooner off the Irish coast?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I; 'and aboard that schooner there is as tight a cargo of
+brandy and tobacco as ever you set eyes upon.'
+
+"Here the landlord pricked up his ears, and the rest of the company
+began to listen attentively. The fellow that sat next me coolly told
+me that both he and Dick had been lagged for horse-stealing, and had
+subsequently broken out of prison and escaped. He further told me that
+most of the gentlemen present had been all, one way or another, mixed
+up with Dick's doings; from which I concluded they were a rare parcel
+of scamps, and resolved, within myself, to try and bag the whole
+squad. They were all stout fellows enough, most of them seamen. I
+thought they might be able to 'do the State some service,' and
+determined to convert them into honest men, if I could.'
+
+"'Dick cannot come ashore,' said I; 'some one of his old pals here has
+peached, and there is a warrant out against him.'
+
+"This information threw the assembly into a state of violent
+commotion. They rose up, and swore terrible vengeance against the head
+of the unfortunate culprit when they caught him. The oaths rather
+alarmed me at first, for they were of a most ferocious stamp.
+
+"'Yes,' continued I, 'Dick is aboard the schooner, but, as there are
+two or three warrants out against him, he does not care about coming
+ashore; so said he to me, 'We want a lugger and a few hands to run the
+cargo ashore; and if you look in at the 'Molly,' and see my old pal,
+Dan, perhaps you will find some lads there willing to give us a turn.
+The captain said, if the thing was done clean off, he would stand
+something handsome."
+
+"'Just the thing for us!' shouted half a dozen voices.
+
+"'But the lugger?' said I.
+
+"'Oh, Phil Doolan, at the Cove, has a craft that has landed as many
+cargoes as there are planks in her hull. Besides, he has stowage for a
+fleet of East Indiamen.'
+
+"'Well, gentlemen," said I, 'the chaplain, One-eyed Dick, and myself,
+will be at Phil Doolan's to-morrow at midnight; do you agree to meet
+us there?'
+
+"This question was answered by a universal 'Yes;' and by way of
+clenching the affair, I ordered a couple of gallons of the stiffest
+potheen in the house. This was received with three cheers, and before
+I left the 'Molly' every man-jack of them had disappeared under the
+table. Dan himself, however, kept tolerably sober, and promised, on
+account of his friendship for One-eyed Dick, to have the whole kit
+safe at Phil Doolan's by twelve o'clock next night, and with this
+assurance I made my exit from the premises, and steered for the
+'George and Dragon.'
+
+"The lieutenant agreed with me in thinking that it would cause too
+much uproar to attack the 'Molly Bawn.' He congratulated me on my
+success in laying a trap for the people, and promising to meet me at
+the Cove, he ordered a car, and drove off in the direction of the
+_Norfolk's_ boat. Early next morning I started to reconnoitre the
+ground and organize my plan of operations. I found Phil Doolan's
+mansion to be a mud-built tenement, larger, and standing apart from,
+the houses that then constituted the village. It was ostensibly a
+sailor's lodging-house and tavern for wayfarers, but, like the 'Molly
+Bawn,' was in reality a rendezvous of smugglers, occasionally
+patronized by fugitive poachers and patriots. It was known to its
+familiars as 'The Crib,' but was registered by the authorities as the
+'Father Mahony,' who was represented on the sign-post by a full-length
+portrait of James the Second. What gave me most satisfaction was to
+observe that the building was conveniently situated for a sack.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"When night set in I marched the _Norfolk's_ men in close order,
+and as secretly as possible, to the Cove. Approaching Phil Doolan's in
+one direction, I could just catch a glimpse of the red coats of a file
+of marines advancing in another, with the lieutenant at their head,
+and, exactly as twelve o'clock struck on the parish clock, the 'Father
+Mahony' was surrounded on all sides by armed men. Two or three
+lanterns were now lit, and dispositions made to close up every avenue
+of escape."
+
+"'There he is!' cried Willis, interrupting himself, and staring into
+the air.
+
+"Who?" inquired Jack--"Phil Doolan?"
+
+"No--Bill Stubbs, late of the _Nelson_."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"That squat, broad-shouldered man there, bracing the maintops."
+
+"Yes, now that you point him out, I think I have seen him before,"
+said Fritz.
+
+"Holloa, Bill," cried Jack.
+
+"You see," said Willis, "he turned his head."
+
+"How d'ye do, Bill?" added Jack.
+
+"Are you speak'ng to me, sir?" inquired the sailor.
+
+"Yes, Bill."
+
+"Then was your honor present when I was christened? I appear to have
+forgotten my name for the last six-and thirty years."
+
+"No use, you see," said Willis; "he is too old a bird to be caught by
+any of these dodges. But I have lost the thread of my discourse."
+
+"You had surrounded the cabin, and were lighting lamps."
+
+"Half a dozen men were stationed at the door, pistol in hand, ready to
+rush in as soon as it opened. The lieutenant and I went forward and
+knocked, but no one answered. We knocked again, louder than before,
+but still no answer.
+
+"'Open the door, in the King's name!' thundered the lieutenant.
+Silence, as before.
+
+"Calling to the marines, he ordered them to root up Phil Doolan's
+sign-post, and use it as a battering ram against the door. The first
+blow of this machine nearly brought the house down, and a cracked
+voice was heard calling on the saints inside.
+
+"'Blessed St. Patrick!' croaked the voice, 'whativer are ye kicking up
+such a shindy out there for? Whativer d'ye want wid an old woman, and
+niver a livin' sowl in the house 'cept meself and Kathleen in her
+coffin?'
+
+"'Kathleen is dead, then?' said the lieutenant with a grin.
+
+"'Save yer honor's presence, she's off to glory, an' as dead as a
+herrin,' replied the voice.
+
+"'Really!' said the lieutenant, 'and where is Phil Doolan?'
+
+"'Och, yer honor? he's gone to get some potheen for the wake.'
+
+"'Well,' said the lieutenant, 'I should like to take a share in waking
+the defunct--what's her name?'
+
+"'Kathleen, yer honor.'
+
+"'Well, just let us in to take a last look at the worthy creature.'
+
+"The door then creaked on its rusty hinges, and we entered. Not a
+soul, however, was to be seen anywhere, save and except the old woman
+herself. The coffin containing the remains of Kathleen, resting on two
+stools, stood in the middle of the floor, with a plate of salt as
+usual on the lid. I fairly thought I had been done, and looked upon
+myself as the laughing stock of the entire fleet."
+
+"So far," remarked Jack, "your story has been all right, but the last
+episode was rather negligently handled."
+
+"How?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Why, you did not make enough of the coffin scene; your description is
+too meagre. You should have said, that the wind blew without in fierce
+gusts, the weathercocks screeched on the roofs, and caused you to
+dread that the ghost of the defunct was coming down the chimney; large
+flakes of snow were rushing through the half-open door; a solitary
+rushlight dimly lit up the chamber, and cast frightful shadows upon
+the wall."
+
+"Well; but the night was fine, and there was not a breath of wind."
+
+"What about that? A little wind, more or less, a weathercock or so,
+some drops of rain, or a few flakes of snow, do not materially detract
+from the truth, whilst they heighten the color of the picture."
+
+"And if some lightning tearing through the clouds were added?"
+
+"Yes, that would most undoubtedly increase the effect; but go on with
+your story."
+
+"I knew Phil to be an artful dodger, and was determined not to be
+foiled by a mere trick, so I laid hold of a lantern and closely
+examined the walls and flooring. My investigation was successful, for
+just under the coffin I detected traces of a trap-door."
+
+"'Well, my good woman, what have you got down there?" inquired the
+lieutenant.
+
+"'Is it underground, ye mane, yer honor? divil a hail's there, if it
+isn't the rats.'
+
+"'Well, just remove the coffin a little aside; we shall see if we
+cannot pepper some of the rats for you.'
+
+"Here the old woman appealed to a vast number of saints, and protested
+against Kathleen's remains being disturbed. The lieutenant, however,
+grew tired of this farce, and ordered the coffin to be shifted. A
+sailor accordingly laid hold of each end.
+
+"'Blazes!' said one, 'here is a body that weighs.'
+
+"'Perhaps,' said the other, 'the coffin is lined with lead.'
+
+"The trap-door was drawn up, and the lieutenant, pistol in hand,
+descended alone.
+
+"'Now, my lads,' said he, addressing some invisible personages, 'we
+know you are here, and I call upon you to yield in the King's
+name--resistance is useless, the house is surrounded, and we are in
+force, so you had better give in without more ado.'
+
+"No answer was returned to this exordium; but we heard the murmuring
+of muffled voices, as if the rapscallions were deliberating. I now
+descended with my lamp, followed by some of the seamen, and beheld my
+friends of the night before either stretched on the ground or propped
+up against the walls, like a lot of mummies in an Egyptian tomb.
+
+"They were handcuffed one by one, pushed or hauled up the stairs, and
+then tied to one another in a line. When we had secured the whole lot
+of them in this way--
+
+"'Lieutenant,' said I, winking, 'will you permit me to send a ball
+into that coffin?'
+
+"'Please yourself about that, young man,' said he.
+
+"Here the old woman recommenced howling again and called upon all the
+saints in the calendar to punish us for my sacrilegious design.
+
+"'Shoot a dead body,' said I, 'where's the harm?' Besides, what is
+that salt there for?'
+
+"'To keep away evil spirits,' was the reply.
+
+"'Very well,' said I, 'my pistol will scare them away as well.' Then,
+cocking it with a loud clink, I presented it slowly at the coffin."
+
+"The lid all at once flew off--the salt-was thrown on the ground with
+a crash--the defunct suddenly returned from the other world in perfect
+health, and sat half upright in his bier. I did not recognize the
+individual at first, but, on closer inspection, found him to be my
+communicative companion of the preceding night--the horse-stealer of
+the 'Molly Bawn;' and, being a stout young fellow, he was harnessed to
+the others, and we commenced our march to the boats."
+
+"You do not appear to have had much trouble in effecting the capture,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"No; the men were unarmed, and were nearly all intoxicated. You never
+saw such a troop; scarcely one of them could walk straight; they
+assumed all sorts of figures; the file of prisoners was just like a
+bar of music, it was a string of quavers, crotchets, and zig-zags.
+Luckily, it was late at night, else we might have had the village
+about our ears, and, instead of flakes of snow and screeching
+weathercocks, we might have had a shower of dead cats and rotten eggs.
+Probably a rescue might have been attempted; at all events, we might
+have calculated on a volley of brickbats on our way to the boats.
+There would have been no end of commotion, uproar, confusion, and
+hubbub, possibly smashed noses, blackened eyes, broken beads--"
+
+"Holloa, Willis!"
+
+"You said just now that a little colouring was necessary."
+
+"Certainly; but the privilege ought not to be abused. Besides, broken
+heads and smashed faces are the realities, and not the accessories of
+the picture."
+
+"Oh, I see. If it is night, the moon should be introduced; and if it
+is day, the sun--and so on?"
+
+"Of course; and, if the circumstances are of a pleasing nature, you
+must leave horrors and terrors on your pallette; change gusts into
+zephyrs, snow into roses and violets, and the weathercocks into golden
+vanes glittering in the sunshine."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"You want to color a popular outbreak, do you not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you should introduce a tempest howling, the waves roaring, the
+lightning flashing, and discord raging in the air as well as on the
+earth."
+
+"Well, to continue my story. Although it was midnight, the disturbance
+began to wake up the villagers, and a crowd was collecting, so we
+hurried off our prisoners to the boats as speedily as we could. Some
+five and twenty able bodied men were thus added to his Majesty's
+fleet. The object of our visit to the Irish coast was accomplished,
+and the _Norfolk_ continued her voyage to the West Indies. Now you
+know what is meant by the word _pressed_, and likewise the nautical
+signification of the word _press-gang_."
+
+"And you say that Bill Stubbs has been trapped on board this ship by
+such means?"
+
+"Yes, at New Orleans."
+
+"According to your story, then, that does not say very much in his
+favor?"
+
+"No, not a great deal; still, that proves nothing--the fact of his
+calling himself Bob is a worse feature. A man does not generally
+change his name without having good, or rather bad, reasons for it."
+
+"What appears to me," remarked Fritz, "as the most singular feature of
+your press-gang adventure is, that you are alive to tell it."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because I think it ought to end thus: 'The victims of the press-gang
+strangled Willis a few days after,'"
+
+"Aye, aye, but you do not know what a sailor is; our recruits had not
+been a fortnight at sea before they entirely forgot the trick I had
+played them."
+
+Just as Willis concluded his narrative, the man at the mast-head
+called out, "Sail ho!"
+
+"Where away?" bawled the captain.
+
+"Right a-head," replied the voice.
+
+The _Hoboken_ had hitherto pursued her voyage uninterruptedly, and the
+Yankee captain now prepared to signalize himself by a capture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A SEA FIGHT--ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S--THE BOUDEUSE.
+
+
+The captain of the _Hoboken_ was rather pleased than otherwise when
+the look-out reported the strange sail to show English colors. He
+looked rather glum, however, half an hour afterwards, when the same
+voice bawled that she was a bull-dog looking craft, schooner-rigged,
+and pierced for sixteen guns. The Yankee had hoped to fall in with a
+fat West Indiaman, instead of which he had now to deal with a
+man-of-war, carrying, perhaps, a larger weight of metal than himself.
+
+The heads of the two ships were standing in towards each other, there
+was no wind to speak of, but every hour lessened the distance that
+separated the antagonists.
+
+"Pilot," said the captain, addressing Willis, "be kind enough to let
+me know what you think of that craft."
+
+"I think," said Willis, taking the telescope, "I have had my eyes on
+her before. Aye, aye, just as I thought. An old tub of a Spaniard
+converted into an English cruiser, and commanded by Commodore
+Truncheon, I shouldn't wonder. She has caught a Tartar this time,
+however. Nothing of a sailer. If a breeze springs up, you may easily
+give her the slip, if you like, captain."
+
+"Give her the slip! No, not if I can help it. My cruise hitherto has
+not been very successful, and I must send her into New York as a
+prize. Mr. Brill," added he, addressing the officer next in command,
+"prepare for action."
+
+In an instant all was commotion and bustle on deck. Half an hour
+after, the captain, now in full uniform, took a hasty glance at the
+position of his crew. A portion of the men were stationed at the guns,
+with lighted matches. Others were engaged in heating shot, and
+preparing other instruments of destruction. Jack and Fritz, armed with
+muskets, were ready to act as sharp-shooters as soon as the enemy came
+within range, and Willis was standing beside them, with his hands in
+his pockets, quietly smoking his pipe.
+
+"What, Pilot!" exclaimed the captain in passing, "don't you intend to
+take part in the skirmish?"
+
+"I am much your debtor, captain, but I cannot do that."
+
+"And these young men?"
+
+"They are not Englishmen, and your kindness to them entitles you to
+claim their assistance. I am sorry that honor and duty prevent me
+giving you mine."
+
+"No matter, captain," said Fritz, "my brother and myself will do duty
+for three."
+
+"Then, Pilot, you had better go below."
+
+"With your permission, captain, I would rather stay and look on."
+
+"But what is the use of exposing yourself here?"
+
+"It is an idea of mine, captain. But I shall remain perfectly neutral
+during the engagement."
+
+"As you like then, Pilot, as you like," said the captain, as he
+resumed his place on the quarter-deck.
+
+At this moment a cannon ball whistled through the air.
+
+"Good," said Willis; "the commodore gives the signal."
+
+"That shot," observed Jack, "passed at no great distance from your
+head, Willis. You had better take a musket in self-defence. Besides,
+that ship is English, and you are a Scotchman."
+
+"The ship is a Spaniard by birth," replied Willis, "and it is pretty
+well time it was converted into firewood, for the matter of that. But
+it is the flag, my boy--_that_ is neither Spanish nor English."
+
+"What is it, then?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"It is the union-jack, Master Fritz. It is the ensign of Scotland,
+England, and Ireland united under one bonnet; and as such, it is as
+sacred in my eyes as if it bore the cross of St. Andrew."
+
+Musket balls were now rattling pretty freely amongst the shrouds. The
+young men levelled their muskets and fired.
+
+Soon after, the two ships were abreast of each other, and almost at
+the same instant both discharged a deadly broadside. The conflict
+became general. The crashing of the woodwork and the roaring of the
+guns was deafening. A thick smoke enveloped the two vessels, so that
+nothing could be seen of the one from the other; still the firing and
+crashing went on. The sails were torn to shreds, the deck was
+encumbered with fragments of timber; men were now and then falling,
+either killed or wounded, and a fatigue party was constantly engaged
+in removing the bodies. There are people who consider such a spectacle
+magnificent; but that is only because they have never witnessed its
+horrors.
+
+Already many immortal souls had returned to their Maker; many sons had
+become orphans, and many wives had been deprived of their husbands;
+but as yet there was nothing to indicate on which side victory was to
+be declared. Soon, however, a cry of fire was raised, which caused
+great confusion; and another cry, announcing that the captain had
+fallen, increased the disorder.
+
+A ball crashed through the taffrail, near where Jack and Fritz were
+standing; it passed between them, but they were both severely wounded
+by the splinters, and were conveyed by Willis to the cockpit. The
+doctor, seeing his old friend Jack handed down the ladder, hastened
+towards him and tore out a piece of wood from the fleshy part of his
+arm. He next turned to Fritz, who had received a severe flesh-wound on
+the shoulder. When both wounds were bandaged, he left the care of the
+young men to Willis, who had escaped with a few scratches, which,
+however, were bleeding pretty freely--to these he did not pay the
+slightest attention.
+
+"How stands the contest?" inquired Fritz in a weak voice.
+
+"The _Hoboken_ is done for," replied Willis; "the commodore was
+preparing to board when we left the deck; but it does not make much
+difference; we shall go to England instead of America, that is all."
+
+"God's will be done," said Fritz.
+
+Just then Bill Stubbs was swung down in a hammock; both his legs had
+been shot off by a cannon ball. The surgeon could only now attend to a
+tithe of his patients, so numerous had the wounded become. A glance at
+the new comer satisfied him that he was beyond all human skill, and he
+directed his attention to the cases that promised some hopes of
+recovery. Willis, seeing that his old comrade was abandoned to die
+almost uncared for, staunched his wounds as well as he could, fetched
+him a panniken of water, and performed a number of other little acts
+of kindness and good will. This he did, less with a view of obtaining
+an explanation from him at a moment when no man lies, than to mitigate
+the pangs of his last convulsions. For an instant the old mariner's
+body appeared re-animated with life. His eyes were fixed upon Willis
+with an ineffable expression of recognition and regret. He
+convulsively grasped the Pilot's hand and pressed it to his breast,
+and his lips parted as if to speak. Willis bent his ear to the mouth
+of the dying man, but all that followed was an expiring sigh. His
+earthly career was ended.
+
+The hardy sailor who is supposed never to shed a tear, then wiped the
+corner of his eyes. Next he turned to the children of his adoption,
+whose pale faces indicated the amount of blood they had shed, and
+whose wounds, if he could have transferred them to himself, would have
+less pained his powerful muscles than they now grieved his excellent
+heart.
+
+A party of boarders from the enemy had taken possession of the ship.
+Willis reported himself to the officer in command, and at his request,
+Fritz and Jack, together with the cargo of the pinnace, were conveyed
+on board the victorious schooner. Shortly after the _Hoboken_ was
+despatched to Bermuda as a prize, with the prisoners, the wounded, and
+the dying.
+
+The old tub that had gained this victory was named the _Arzobispo_,
+having, as Willis supposed, been captured in the Spanish Main. It was
+under the command of Commodore Truncheon, better known in the fleet by
+the _soubriquet_ of Old Flyblow.
+
+The _Arzobispo_, though old and clumsy, was a stout-built craft; and
+so thick was its hide, that the broadsides of the Yankee had done the
+hull no damage to speak of. The superstructure, however, was
+completely shattered; the masts and rigging hung like sweeps over the
+sides; and, to the unpractised eye, the ship was a complete wreck. A
+few days, however, sufficed to put everything to rights again so far
+as regards external appearance; but how this impromptu carpentry would
+stand a storm was another question.
+
+The commodore was on his way to Europe when he fell in with the
+Yankee, and, notwithstanding the disabled condition of the ship, he
+resolved to continue his voyage. Some of the officers expostulated
+with him on the hazard of crossing the Atlantic in so shaky a trim. He
+only got red in the face, and said that he had crossed the
+herring-pond hundreds of times in crafts not half so seaworthy. He was
+like the
+
+  Froggy who would a wooing go,
+  Whether his mother would let him or no.
+
+The consequences of this defiance of advice were fatal to Old Flyblow;
+for, a week or two after his victory, he was pounced upon by the
+French corvette, _Boudeuse_, which was fresh, heavily armed, and well
+manned. The commodore's jury masts were knocked to pieces by the first
+broadside, his flag went by the board, and he was completely at the
+enemy's mercy. Willis lent a hand this time with a good will; but it
+was of no use, the wreck would not obey the helm, and the corvette
+hovered about, firing broadsides, and sending in discharges of
+musketry, when and where she liked. It was only when the commodore saw
+clearly that there was neither mast nor sail enough to yaw the ship,
+that he waved his cocked hat in token of surrender.
+
+Fritz and Jack were still confined below with their wounds, when
+Willis brought them word that they would have to shift themselves and
+their cargo once more. The captain received them on board the
+_Boudeuse_ with marked courtesy, and informed them that he was bound
+direct for Havre de Grace.
+
+"It seems, then," said the Pilot, "that neither America nor England
+is to be our destination after all. But never mind, there are no lack
+of surgeons amongst the _mounseers_."
+
+"If we go on this way much longer," said Jack, sighing, "we shall be
+carried round the world without arriving anywhere. Alas, my poor
+mother!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+DELHI--WILLIAM OF NORMANDY AND KING JOHN--ISABELLA OF BAVARIA AND JOAN
+OF ARC--POITIERS AND BOVINES--HISTORY OF A GHOST, A GRIDIRON, AND A
+CHEST OF GUINEAS.
+
+
+At first the three adventurers were regarded as prisoners of war;
+when, however, their entire history came to be known, and their
+extraordinary migrations from ship to ship authenticated, they were
+looked upon as guests, and treated as friends.
+
+"I thought I had only obtained possession of an English cruiser," said
+the captain; "but I find I have also acquired the right of being
+useful to you."
+
+The commander of the _Boudeuse_ was a very different sort of a person
+from Commodore Truncheon; the former treated his men as if every one
+of them had a title and great influence at the Admiralty, whilst the
+latter swore at his crew as if the word of command could not be
+understood without a supplementary oath. The English commodore might
+be the better sailor of the two, but certainly the French captain
+carried off the palm as regards politeness, urbanity, and gentlemanly
+bearing.
+
+The wounds of Fritz and Jack were healing rapidly under the skilful
+treatment of the French surgeon, and, with a lift from Willis, they
+were able to walk a portion of the day on deck. With reviving health,
+their cheerful hopes of the future returned, their dormant spirits
+were re-awakened, and their minds regained their wonted animation.
+
+"The corvette spins along admirably," said the Pilot, "and is steering
+straight for the Bay of Biscay."
+
+"Ah!" said Jack sighing, "it is very easy to steer for a place, but it
+is not quite so easy to get there. I am sick of your friend the sea,
+Willis; and would give my largest pearl for a glimpse of a town, a
+village, or even a street."
+
+"If you want to see a street in all its glory, Master Jack, you must
+try and get the captain to alter his course for Delhi."
+
+"But I should think, Willis, that there is nothing in the
+street-scenery of Delhi to compare with the Boulevards of Paris,
+Regent-street in London, or the Broadway of New York."
+
+"Beg your pardon there, Master Jack; I know every shop window in
+Regent-street; I have often been nearly run over in the Broadway, and
+can easily imagine the turn out on the Boulevards; but they are
+solitudes in comparison with an Indian street."
+
+"How so, Willis?"
+
+"Well, it is not that there are more inhabitants, nor on account of
+the traffic, for no streets in the world will beat those of London in
+that respect--it is because the people live, move, and have their
+being in the streets; they eat, drink, and sleep in the streets; they
+sing, dance, and pray in the streets; conventions, treaties, and
+alliances are concluded in the streets; in short, the street is the
+Indians' home, his club, and his temple. In Europe, transactions are
+negotiated quietly; in India, nothing can be done without roaring,
+screaming, and bawling."
+
+"There must be plenty of deaf people there," observed Jack.
+
+"Possibly; but there are no dumb people. Added to the endless
+vociferations of the human voice, there is an eternal barking of dogs,
+elephants snorting, cows lowing, and myriads of pigs grunting. Then
+there is the thump, thump of the tam-tam, the whistling of fifes, and
+the screeching of a horrible instrument resembling a fiddle, which can
+only be compared with the Belzebub music of Hawai. If, amongst these
+discordant sounds, you throw in a cloud of mosquitoes and a hurricane
+of dust, you will have a tolerable idea of an Indian street."
+
+"There may be animation and life enough, Willis, but I should prefer
+the monotony of Regent-street for all that. Would you like to air
+yourself in Paris a bit?"
+
+"Yes, but not just now; the less my countrymen see of France, under
+present circumstances, the better."
+
+"What is England and France always fighting about, Willis?"
+
+"Well, I believe the cause this time to be a shindy the _mounseers_
+got up amongst themselves in 1788. They first cut off the head of
+their king, and then commenced to cut one another's throats, and
+England interfered."
+
+"That," observed Fritz, "may be the immediate origin of the present
+war [1812]. But for the cause of the animosity existing between the
+two nations, you must, I suspect, go back as far as the eleventh
+century, to the time of William, Duke of Normandy."
+
+"What had he to do with it?"
+
+"A great deal. He claimed a right, real or pretended, to the English
+throne. He crossed the Channel, and, in 1066, defeated Harold, King of
+England, at the battle of Hastings."
+
+"Both William and Harold were originally Danes, were they not?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Yes; I think Rollo, William's grandfather, was a Norman adventurer,
+or sea-king, as these marauders were sometimes called. William, after
+the victory of Hastings, proclaimed himself King of England and Duke
+of Normandy, and assumed the designation of William the Conqueror."
+
+"Then how did France get mixed up in the affair?" inquired Willis.
+
+"William's grandfather, when he seized the dukedom cf Normandy, became
+virtually a vassal of the King of France, though it is doubtful
+whether he ever took the trouble to recognize the suzerainty of the
+throne. As sovereign, however, the King of France claimed the right of
+homage, which consisted, according to feudal usage, in the vassal
+advancing, bare-headed, without sword or spurs, and kneeling at the
+foot of the throne."
+
+"Was this right ever enforced?"
+
+"Yes, in one case at least. John Lackland--or, as the French called
+him, John Sans Terre--having assassinated his nephew Arthur, Duke of
+Brittany, in order to obtain possession of his lands, was summoned by
+Philip Augustus, King of France, to justify his crime. John did not
+obey the summons, was declared guilty of felony, and Philip took
+possession of Normandy. Thus the first step to hostilities was laid
+down."
+
+"The English having lost Normandy, the vassalage ceased."
+
+"Yes, so far as regards Normandy; but, in the meantime, Louis le
+Jeune, King of France, unfortunately divorced his wife, Elenor of
+Aquitaine, who afterwards married an English prince, and added
+Guienne, another French dukedom to the English crown."
+
+"So another vassalage sprung up."
+
+"Exactly. All the French King insisted upon was the homage; but Edward
+III. of England, instead of bending his knee to Philip of Valois,
+argued with himself in this way: 'If I were King of England and France
+as well, the claim of homage for the dukedom of Guienne would be
+extinguished.'"
+
+"Rather cool that," said Jack, laughing.
+
+"'We shall then,' Edward said to himself, 'be our own sovereign, and
+do homage to ourself, which would save a deal of bother.'"
+
+"Well, he was right there, at least," remarked the Pilot.
+
+"The King of France, however, entertained a different view of the
+subject. Hence arose an endless succession of sieges, battles,
+conquests, defeats, exterminations, and hatreds, which, no doubt, gave
+rise to the ill-feeling that exists at present between England and
+France. It is curious, at the same time, to observe what mischief
+individual acts may occasion. If William of Normandy had remained
+contented with his dukedom, and Louis le Jeune had not divorced his
+wife, France would not have lost the disastrous battles of Agincourt
+and Poitiers."
+
+"Nor gained the brilliant victory of Bovines," suggested Jack.
+
+"Certainly not; but she would have been spared the indignity of having
+one of her kings marched through the streets of London as a prisoner."
+
+"True; but, on the other hand, the captured monarch would not have
+had an opportunity of illustrating the laws of honor in his own
+person. He returned loyally to England and resumed his chains, when he
+found that the enormous sum demanded by England for his ransom would
+impoverish his people: otherwise he could not have given birth to the
+maxim, 'That though good faith be banished from all the world beside,
+it ought still to be found in the hearts of kings.'"
+
+"One of the kings of Scotland," remarked Willis, "was placed in a
+similar position. The Scottish army had been cut to pieces at the
+battle of Flodden, the king was captured in his harness, conveyed to
+London, and the people had to pay a great deal more to obtain his
+freedom than he was worth. But, before that, the Scotch nearly caught
+one of the Edwards. This time the English army had been cut to pieces;
+but the king did not wait to be captured, he took to his heels, or
+rather to his horse's hoofs. He was beautifully mounted, and followed
+by half a dozen Scottish troopers; away he went, over hill and dale,
+ditch and river. Dick Turpin's ride from London to York was nothing to
+it. The king proved himself to be a first-rate horseman, for, after
+being chased this way over half the country, he succeeded in baffling
+his pursuers. All these escapades between England and Scotland are,
+however, forgotten now, or at least ought to be; there are, doubtless,
+a few thick-headed persons in both sections of the empire who delight
+in keeping alive old prejudices, but they will die out in time."
+
+"It seems, however, they have not died away yet," said Fritz, "in so
+far as regards France and England, since the two countries are at war
+again. But, as I observed before, had it not been for the ambition of
+William and the anti-connubial propensities of John, the English would
+never have been masters of Paris, and a great part of France under
+Charles VI."
+
+"Still, in that case," persisted Jack, "Charles VII. would not have
+had the opportunity of liberating his country."
+
+"Then," continued Fritz, "history would not have had to record the
+shameless deeds of Isabella of Bavaria."
+
+"Nor chronicle the brilliant achievements of Joan of Arc," added Jack.
+
+"Any how," observed Willis, "the mounseers are a curious people. I
+have heard it remarked that they are occupied all day long in getting
+themselves into scrapes, and that Providence busies herself all night
+in getting them out again."
+
+By chatting in this way, Fritz, his brother, and the Pilot contrived
+to relieve the monotony of the voyage, and to pass away the time
+pleasantly enough. Each contributed his quota to the common fund;
+Fritz his judgment, Jack his humor, and Willis his practical
+experience, strong good sense, and vigorous, though untutored
+understanding. A portion of Jack's time was passed with the surgeon,
+between whom a great intimacy had sprung up. Time did not, therefore,
+hang heavily on the hands of the young men; for even during the night
+their thoughts were busy forming projects, or in embroidering the
+canvas of the future with those fairy designs which youth alone can
+create.
+
+One morning Willis arrived on deck, pale, and with an air of fatigue
+and lassitude altogether unusual. He gazed anxiously into every nook
+and cranny of the ship.
+
+"Whatever is the matter, Willis?" inquired Jack. "Have you seen the
+Flying Dutchman?"
+
+"No, Master Jack," said he in a forlorn tone; "but I have either seen
+the captain or his ghost."
+
+"What! the captain of the _Hoboken_?"
+
+"No; the captain of the _Nelson_."
+
+"In a dream?"
+
+"No, my eyes were as wide open as they are now; he looked into my
+cabin, and spoke to me."
+
+"Impossible, Willis."
+
+"I assure you it is the case though, impossible or not."
+
+"Where is he then?" exclaimed both the young men, starting.
+
+"That I know not; I have looked for him everywhere."
+
+"What did he say to you?"
+
+"At first he said, How d'ye do, Willis?"
+
+"Naturally; and what then?"
+
+"He asked me what I thought of the cloud that was gathering in the
+south-west."
+
+"Imagination, Willis."
+
+"But look there, you can see a storm is gathering in that quarter."
+
+"The nightmare, Willis. But what did you say to him?"
+
+"I could not answer at the moment; my tongue clove to the roof of my
+mouth, and I rose to take hold of his hand."
+
+"Then he disappeared, did he not?"
+
+"Yes, Master Jack."
+
+"I thought so."
+
+"But I heard the door of my cabin shut behind him, as distinctly as I
+now hear the waves breaking on the sides of the corvette at this
+moment."
+
+"You ought to have run after him."
+
+"I did so."
+
+"Well, did you catch him?"
+
+"No; I was stopped by the watch, for I had nothing on me but my shirt;
+the officers stared, the sailors laughed, and the doctor felt my
+pulse. But, for all that, I am satisfied there is a mystery
+somewhere."
+
+"But, Willis, the thing is altogether improbable."
+
+"Well, look here; Captain Littlestone is either dead or alive, is he
+not?"
+
+"Yes," replied Jack, "there can be no medium between these
+hypotheses."
+
+"Then all I can say is this, that as sure as I am a living sinner, I
+have seen him if he is alive, and, if he is dead, I have seen his
+ghost."
+
+"You believe in visitations from the other world then, Willis?"
+
+"I cannot discredit the evidences of my own senses, can I?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"Besides, this brings to my recollection a similar circumstance that
+happened to an old comrade of mine. Sam Walker is as fine a fellow as
+ever lived, he sailed with me on board the _Norfolk_, and I know him
+to be incapable of telling a falsehood. Though his name is Sam
+Walker, we used to call him 'Hot Codlins.'"
+
+"Why, Willis?"
+
+"Because he had an old woman with a child tatooed on his arm, instead
+of an anchor, as is usual in the navy."
+
+"A portrait of _Notre Dame de Bon Lecours_, I shouldn't wonder," said
+Jack; "but what had that to do with hot codlins: a codlin is a fish,
+is it not?"
+
+"I will explain that another time," said Willis, the shadow of a smile
+passing over his pale features. "The short and the long of the story
+is, that Sam once saw a ghost."
+
+"Well, tell us all about it, Willis."
+
+"But I am afraid you will not believe the story if I do."
+
+"On the contrary, I promise to believe it in advance."
+
+"Very well, Master Jack. Did you ever see a windmill?"
+
+"No, but I know what sort of things they are from description."
+
+"There are none in Scotland," continued Willis; "at least I never saw
+one there."
+
+"How do they manage to grind their corn then? There should be oats in
+the land o' cakes, at all events," said Jack, with a smile.
+
+"Well, in countries that have plenty of water, they can dispense with
+mills on land. Though there are no wind-mills in Scotland, there are
+some in the county of Durham, on the borders of England, for it
+appears my mate Sam was born in one of them. His father and mother
+died when he was very young, and he, conjointly with the rats, was
+left sole owner and occupant of the mill. Some of the neighboring
+villagers, seeing the poor boy left in this forlorn condition, got him
+into a charity school, whence he was bound apprentice to a shipmaster
+engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young
+Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the
+hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him
+about."
+
+"I thought so," said Jack; "the mark in question represents the patron
+saint of French sailors."
+
+"After a variety of ups and downs, Sam found himself rated as a
+first-class seaman on board a British man-of-war. He served with
+myself on board the _Norfolk_, and was wounded at the battle of
+Trafalgar [1806], which, I dare say, you have heard of."
+
+"Yes, Willis, it was there that your Admiral Nelson covered himself
+with immortal renown."
+
+"There and elsewhere, Master Fritz."
+
+"It cost him his life, however, Willis, and likewise shortened those
+of the French Admiral Villeneuve and the Spanish Admiral Gravina;
+that, you must admit, is too many eggs for one omelet."
+
+"As you once said yourself, great victories are not won without loss,
+and the battle of Trafalgar was no exception to the rule. Sam, having
+been wounded, was sent to the hospital, and when his wound was healed,
+he was allowed leave of absence to recruit his strength, so he thought
+he would take a run to Durham and see how it fared with the paternal
+windmill. Time had, of course, wrought many changes both outside and
+in, but it still remained perched grimly on its pedestal, but now
+entirely abandoned to the bats and owls. The sails were gone, and the
+woodwork was slowly crumbling away; but the basement being of hewn
+granite, it was still in a tolerable state of preservation. The place,
+however, was said to be haunted; exactly at twelve o'clock at night
+dismal howls were heard by the villagers to issue from the mill.
+According to the blacksmith, who was a great authority in such
+matters, Sam's father was a very avaricious old fellow, and had hid
+his money somewhere about the building; and you know, Master Jack,
+that when a man dies and leaves his money concealed, there is no rest
+for him in his grave till it is discovered."
+
+"I really was not aware of it before," replied Jack; "but I am
+delighted to hear it."
+
+"When Sam arrived, nobody disputed his title to the property, except
+the ghost; but Sam had seen a good deal of hard service, and declared
+that he would not be choused out of his patrimony for all the ghosts
+in the parish; and, in spite of the persuasions of the villagers,
+resolved to take up his abode there forthwith. Sam accordingly laid in
+a supply of stores, including a month's supply of tobacco and rum. He
+first made the place water-tight, then made a fire sufficient to roast
+an ox, and when night arrived made a jorum of grog, a little stiff, to
+keep away the damp. This done, he lit his pipe, and began to cook a
+steak for his supper. The old mill, for the first time since the
+decease of the former proprietor, was filled with the savory odor of
+roast beef."
+
+"And there are worse odors than that," remarked Jack. "Whilst the
+steak was frizzling, he took a swig at the grog; and, thinking one
+side was done, he gave the gridiron a twist, which sent the steak a
+little way up the chimney, and, strange to say, it never came down
+again.
+
+"'Ten thousand What's-a-names,' cried Sam, 'where's my steak?'
+
+"No answer was vouchsafed to this query; he looked up the chimney, and
+could see no one."
+
+"The steak had really disappeared then?" said Jack, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes, not a fragment remained; but he had more beef, so he cut off
+another; and, as his head had got a little middled with the grog, he
+thought it just possible that he might have capsized the gridiron into
+the fire, so he quietly recommenced the operation."
+
+"And the second steak disappeared like the first?" "Yes, Master Fritz,
+with this difference--there was a dead man's thigh-bone in its place."
+
+"An awkward transformation for a hungry man," said Jack.
+
+"'Here's a go!' cried Sam, like to burst his sides with laughing,
+'they expect to frighten me with bones, do they? they've got the wrong
+man--been played too many tricks of that kind at sea to be scared by
+that sort of thing. Ha, ha, ha! capital joke though.'"
+
+"Your friend Sam must have been a merry fellow, Willis."
+
+"Yes, but he was hungry, and wanted his supper; so he continued
+supplying the gridiron with steaks as long as the beef lasted, but
+only obtained human shin-bones, clavicles and tibias.
+
+"'Never mind,' said Sam to himself, 'they will tire of this game in
+course of time.'
+
+"When the beef was done, he kept up a supply of rashers of bacon, and
+threw the bones as they appeared in a corner, consoling himself in the
+meantime with his pipe and his grog."
+
+"He must have been both patient and persevering," remarked Jack.
+
+"This went on till a skull appeared on the gridiron."
+
+"A singular object to sup upon," observed Jack.
+
+"'I wonder what the deuce will come next,' said Sam to himself,
+throwing the skull amongst the rest of the bones.
+
+"The next time, however, he took the gridiron off the fire, there was
+his last rasher done to a turn.
+
+"'Now,' said Sam, 'I am going to have peace and quietness at last.'
+
+"He sat down then very comfortably, and kept eating and drinking, and
+drinking and smoking, till the village clock struck twelve."
+
+"Good!" cried Jack. "You may come in now, ladies and gentlemen; the
+performance is just a-going to begin."
+
+"Sam heard a succession of crack cracks amongst the bones, and turning
+round he beheld a frightful-looking spectre, pointing with its finger
+to the door."
+
+"Was it wrapped up in a white sheet?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Yes, I rather think it was."
+
+"Very well, then, I believe the story; for spectres are invariably
+wrapped up in white sheets."
+
+"The bones, instead of remaining quietly piled up in the corner, had
+joined themselves together--the leg bones to the feet, the ribs to the
+back-bone--and the skull had stuck itself on the top. Where the flesh
+came from, Sam could not tell; but he strongly suspected that his own
+steaks and bacon had something to do with it. But, be that as it may,
+there was not half enough of fat to cover the bones, and the figure
+was dreadfully thin. Sam stared at first in astonishment, and began to
+doubt whether he saw aright. When, however, he beheld the figure move,
+there could be no mistake, and he knew at once that it was a ghost.
+Anybody else would have been frightened out of their senses, but Sam
+took the matter philososophically and went on with his supper.
+
+"'How d'ye do, old fellow?' he said to the spectre. 'Will you have a
+mouthful of grog to warm your inside? Sit down, and be sociable.'
+
+"The spectre did not make any reply, but continued making a sign for
+Sam to follow.
+
+"'If you prefer to stand and keep beckoning there till to-morrow you
+may, but, if I were in your place, I would come nearer the fire,' said
+Sam; 'you may catch cold standing there without your shirt, you know.'
+
+"The same silence and the same gesture continued on the part of the
+ghost, and Sam, seeing that his words produced no effect, recommenced
+eating."
+
+"There is one thing," remarked Jack, "more astonishing about your
+friend Sam than his coolness, and that is his appetite."
+
+"The spectre did not appear satisfied with the state of affairs, for
+it assumed a threatening attitude and strode towards the fire-place.
+
+"'Avast heaving, old fellow,' cried Sam, 'there is one thing I have
+got to say, which is this here: you may stand and hoist signals there
+as long as ever you like; but if you touch me, then look out for
+squalls, that's all.'
+
+"The 'old fellow,' however, paid no attention to this caution. He
+strode right up to the fire-place, and, whilst pointing to the door
+with one hand, grasped Sam's arm with the other. Sam started up, shook
+off the hand that held him, and pitched into the spectre right and
+left. But, strange to say, his hands went right through its bones and
+all, just as if it had been made of the hydrogen gas you spoke of the
+other day. Sam saw that it was no use laying about him in this
+fashion, for the spectre stood grinning at him all the time, so he
+gave it up.
+
+"'I wish,' said he, 'you would be off, and go to bed, and not keep
+bothering there.'
+
+"Still the spectre maintained the same posture, and kept
+pertinaciously pointing to the door.
+
+"'Well,' said Sam, 'since you insist upon it, let us see what there is
+outside. Go a-head, I will follow.'
+
+"The spectre led him into what used to be the garden of the mill, but
+the enclosure was now overgrown with rank and poisonous weeds. There
+was a path running through it paved with flagstones; the spectre
+pointed with its finder to one of them. Sam stooped down, and, much to
+his astonishment, raised it with ease. Beneath there was an iron
+chest, the lid of which he also opened, and saw that it was filled
+with old spade guineas and Spanish dollars.
+
+"'You behold that treasure!' said the spectre, in a hollow voice.
+
+"'Ha, ha, old fellow! you can speak, can you? Now we shall understand
+each other. Yes, I see a box, filled with what looks very like gold
+and silver coins.'
+
+"'I placed that treasure there before my death,' added the spectre.
+
+"'Ah, so! than you are dead?' said Sam.
+
+"'One half of that money I wish you to give to the poor, and the other
+half you may keep to yourself, if you choose.'
+
+"'Golley!' said Sam, 'you are not much of a swab after all, though you
+look as thin as a purser's clerk. Give us a shake of your paw, my
+hearty.'
+
+"Here Sam, somehow or other, stumbled over the lamp, and when he got
+up again the spectre had vanished. He laid hold of the chest, however,
+and groped his way back to the mill. When safe inside, he made a stiff
+jorum of grog, and then fell comfortably asleep. That night he dreamt
+that he was eating gold and silver, that he was his own captain, that
+the cat-o'-nine tails was entirely abolished in the navy, and that his
+ship, instead of sailing in salt water was floating in rum. When he
+awoke, the sun was steaming through all the nooks and crannies of the
+old mill. All the marks of the preceding night's adventures were
+there--the gridiron, the empty rum jar, the the table o'erturned in
+the _mélée_ with the ghost--but the chest of money was gone."
+
+"And what did Sam conclude from that incident?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"Well, he supposed that he had slept rather long, and that somebody
+had come in before he as up and had walked off with the box."
+
+"If I had been in his place," continued Fritz, "I should have said to
+myself that the mind often gives birth to strange fancies,
+particularly after a heavy supper, and that I had muddled my brain
+with rum; consequently, that all the things I imagined I had seen were
+only the chimeras of a dream."
+
+"But that could not be, Master Fritz, for two reasons; the first, that
+the mark of the ghost's hand remained on his arm."
+
+"Very likely burnt it when he grilled the bacon."
+
+"The second, that the ghost was no more seen or heard of in the mill."
+
+"That proof is a poser for you, brother, I think," said Jack.
+
+"Did you heave that sigh just now, Master Fritz?" inquired Willis, in
+a low tone.
+
+"It was not I," said Fritz, looking at his brother.
+
+"Nor I," said Jack, looking at Willis.
+
+"Nor I," said Willis, looking behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+WILLIS FALLS IN WITH THE SLOOP ON TERRA FIRMA, INSTEAD OF AT THE
+BOTTOM OF THE SEA, AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED--ADMIRAL CICERO--THE
+DEFUNCT NOT YET DEAD.
+
+
+The corvette, notwithstanding the multitude of British cruisers
+scattered about the ocean, and the other dangers that beset her, held
+on the even tenor of her way. A gale sprung up now and then, but they
+only tended to give a filip to the common-place incidents recorded in
+the log. This quietude was not, however, enjoyed by all the persons on
+board. Willis was a prey to violent emotions; and so it often happens,
+in the midst of the profoundest calm, storms often rage in the heart
+of man.
+
+Whether in reality or in a dream, Willis declared that Captain
+Littlestone paid him a visit every night, and invariably asked him
+precisely the same questions. On these occasions, Willis asserted that
+he distinctly heard the door open and shut whilst a shadow glided
+through. That he might once, or even twice, have been the dupe of his
+own imagination, is probable enough; but a healthy mind does not
+permit a delusion to be indefinitely prolonged--it struggles with the
+hallucination, and eventually shakes it off; providing always the mind
+has a shadow, and not a reality, to deal with, and that the patient is
+not a monomaniac. The dilemma was consequently reduced to this
+position--either Willis was mad, or Captain Littlestone was on board
+the _Boudeuse_.
+
+In all other respects, Willis was perfectly sane. He himself searched
+every corner of the ship, but without other result than a confirmation
+of his own impression that there were no officers on board other than
+those of the corvette; and yet, notwithstanding his own conviction in
+daylight, he still continued to assert the reality of his interviews
+with Captain Littlestone during the night. The Italians say, _La
+speranza è il sogno d'an uomo svegliato_. Was Willis also dreaming
+with his eyes open? Might not the wish be father to the thought, and
+the thought produce the fancy? There is only one other supposition to
+be hazarded--could it be possible, in spite of all his researches,
+that Willis did see what he maintained with so much pertinacity he had
+seen?
+
+These questions are too astute to admit of answers without due
+consideration and reflection; therefore, with the reader's permission,
+we shall leave the replies over for the present.
+
+On the 12th June a voice from the mast-head called "Land ahoy!" much
+to the delight of the voyagers. The land in question was the island of
+St. Helena. This sea-girt rock had not at that time become classic
+ground. It had not yet become the prison and mausoleum of Napoleon the
+Great. The petulant squabbles between Sir Hudson Lowe and his
+illustrious prisoner had not been heard of. Little wotted then the
+proud ruler of France the fate that awaited him, for, when the
+_Boudeuse_ touched at the island, all Europe, with the single
+exception of England, was kneeling at his feet.
+
+On the 30th the Island of Ascension was reached. Here, in accordance
+with a usage peculiar to French sailors, a bottle, containing a short
+abstract of the ship's log, was committed to the deep. Willis thought
+this ceremony, under existing circumstances, would have been better
+observed in the breach than the observance, for, said he, if a British
+cruiser picked up that bottle within twenty-four hours, she stood a
+chance of picking up the _Boudeuse_ as well.
+
+On the 15th July the peak of Teneriffe hove in sight This remarkable
+basaltic rock rises to the extraordinary height of three thousand
+eight hundred yards above the level of the sea; it is consequently
+seen at a considerable distance, and constitutes a valuable landmark
+for navigators in these seas. Six weeks later the _Boudeuse_ dropped
+anchor in the Havre roads.
+
+Here the three adventurers had to encounter by far the greatest
+misfortune that had as yet befallen them. The continental system of
+Napoleon was then in force. The importation of everything English or
+Indian was strictly prohibited. The cargo the young men had brought
+with them from New Switzerland, which already had escaped so many
+perils, was, therefore, declared contraband, and seized by the French
+_fisc_--an institution that rarely permitted such a prize to quit its
+rapacious grasp.
+
+Behold now our poor friends, Fritz and Jack, in a strange land,
+deprived at once of their fortune and their chance of returning
+home--the two beacons that had cheered them on their way! All their
+bright hopes of the future were thus annihilated at one fell swoop.
+Their fortitude almost gave way under the severity of this blow; the
+excess of their distress alone saved them. Grief requires leisure to
+give itself free vent; but when we are compelled, by absolute
+necessity, to earn our daily bread, we cannot find time for tears; and
+such was the case with Willis and his two friends; they were here
+without a friend and without resources of any kind whatever.
+
+If they had only known Greek and Latin; if they had only been half
+doctors or three-quarter barristers, or if even they had been doctors
+and lawyers complete, it would have sorely puzzled their skill to have
+raised a single sous in hard cash. Fortunately, however, whilst
+cultivating their minds, they had acquired the art of handling a saw
+and wielding a hammer. The blouse of the workman, consequently, fitted
+them as well as the gown of the student, and they set themselves
+manfully to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. They were
+carpenters and blacksmiths by turns, regulating their occupations by
+the grand doctrines of supply and demand.
+
+Jack alone of the three was defective in steadiness; he only joined
+Willis and his brother at mid-day. What he did with himself during the
+forenoon was a profound mystery. He rose before daybreak, and
+disappeared no one knew where, or for what purpose. His companions in
+adversity endeavored in vain to discover his secret; he was determined
+to conceal his movements, and succeeded in baffling their curiosity.
+To judge, however, by the ardor with which he worked, he was engaged
+in some one of those schemes that are termed follies before success,
+but which, after success, are universally acknowledged to be brilliant
+and praiseworthy instances of industrial enterprise.
+
+If, after a hard day's work, when assembled together in the little
+room that served them for parlor, kitchen, and hall, the power of
+regret vanquished fatigue, and sadness drove away sleep, then Jack,
+who compared himself to Peter the Great, when a voluntary exile in the
+shipyards of Saardam, would endeavor to infuse a little mirth into the
+lugubrious party. If all his efforts to make them merry failed, all
+three would join together in a humble prayer to their Heavenly Father,
+who bestowed resignation upon them instead.
+
+If Willis and his two friends were not accumulating wealth, at all
+events they were earning the bread they ate honestly and worthily.
+They had all three laid their shoulders vigorously to the wheel and
+kept it jogging along marvellously for a month. By that time, a
+detailed report of the seizure of their property had been placed
+before the director of the Domaine Extraordinaire, who was the
+sovereign authority in all matters pertaining to the exchequer of the
+empire. He saw at once that this capture was extremely harsh, and
+probably thought that, if it became known, it would raise a storm of
+indignation about the ears of his department. Here were two young
+men--Moseses, as it were, saved from the bulrushes. Lost in the desert
+from the period of their birth, and ignorant of the dissensions then
+raging in Europe, they were unquestionably beyond the ordinary
+operation of the law. This will never do, he probably said to himself;
+the civilization which these two young men have come through so many
+perils to seek ought not to appear to them, the moment they arrived in
+Europe, in the form of spoliation and barbarism.
+
+The name of this _extraordinary_ director of Domaine Extraordinaire
+was M. de la Boullerie, and, when we fall in with the name of a really
+good-hearted man, we delight to record it. He felt that the two young
+men had been hardly dealt with, but he had not the power to order a
+restitution of the property, now that the seizure had been made, and
+sundry perquisities, of course, deducted by the excise officials.
+Accordingly, he referred the matter to the Emperor, who commanded the
+goods to be immediately restored intact. Napoleon, at the same time,
+praised the functionary we have named for calling his attention to the
+merits of the case, and thanked him for such an opportunity of
+repairing an injustice.[I]
+
+There are many such instances of generosity as the foregoing in the
+career of the great Emperor--mild rays of the sun in the midst of
+thunderstorms; sweet flowers blowing here and there, in the bosom of
+the gigantic projects of his life--which many will esteem more highly
+than his miracles of strategy and the renown of his battles. As
+nothing that tends to elevate the soul is out of place in this volume,
+we may be permitted to insert one or two of these anecdotes.
+
+In 1806, Napoleon was at Potsdam. The Prussians were humbled to the
+dust, and the outrage of Rossbach had been fearfully avenged. A letter
+was intercepted, in which Prince Laatsfeld, civil governor of Berlin,
+secretly informed the enemy of all the dispositions of the French
+army. The crime was palpable, capital, and unpardonable. There was
+nothing between the life and death of the prince, except the time to
+load half a dozen muskets, point them to his breast, and cry--Fire.
+The princess flew to the palace, threw herself at the feet of the
+Emperor, beseeched, implored, and seemed almost heart-broken. "Madam,"
+said Napoleon, "this letter is the only proof that exists of your
+husband's guilt. Throw it into the fire." The fatal paper blazed,
+crisped, passed from blue to yellow, and the treachery of Prince
+Laatsfeld was reduced to ashes.
+
+Another time, a young man, named Von der Sulhn, journeyed from Dresden
+to Paris; unless you are told, you could scarcely imagine for what
+purpose. There are people who travel for amusement, for business, for
+a change of air, or merely to be able to say they have been at such
+and such a place. Some go abroad for instruction, others, perhaps,
+with no other object in view than to eat frogs in Paris, bouillabaisse
+at Marseilles, a polenta at Milan, macaroni at Naples, an olla podrida
+in Spain, or conscoussou in Africa. Von der Sulhn travelled to
+assassinate the Emperor. Like Scævola and Brutus, he, no doubt,
+imagined the crime would hand down his name to posterity. In youth,
+all of us have erred in judgment more or less. Sulhn thought the
+Emperor ought to be slain. Unfortunately for him, the Duke of Rovigo,
+the then minister of police, entertained a different opinion. He
+thought, in point of fact, that the Emperor ought not to be killed:
+hence it was that the young Saxon found himself in chains, and that
+the Duke went to ask the Emperor what he should do with him. We ought,
+however, to mention that the young man, in his character of an
+enlightened German, testified his regret that he had not succeeded in
+carrying out his project, and protested that, in the event of
+regaining his liberty, he would renew the attempt. "Never mind," said
+the Emperor to the duke, "the young man's age is his excuse. Do not
+make the affair public, for, if it is bruited about, I must punish the
+headstrong youth, which I have no wish to do. I should be sorry to
+plunge a worthy family into grief by immolating such a scapegrace.
+Send him to Vincennes, give him some books to read, and write to his
+mother." In 1814, the young man obtained his liberty, his family, and
+his Germany, and it is to be hoped that he afterwards became a
+respectable pater-familias, a sort of Aulic councillor, and that,
+during the troublesome times in the land of Sauerkraut, he was before,
+and not behind, the barricades of his darling patria. If he be dead,
+it is to be supposed that, instead of lying a headless trunk
+ignominiously in a ditch, or in the unconsecrated cemetery of Clamort,
+he is reposing entire in the paternal tomb.
+
+On the 15th of March, 1815, the Emperor landed at Cannes--he had
+returned from the island of Elba. On the beach he was joined by one
+man, at Antibes by a company, at Digne by a battalion, at Gap by a
+regiment (that of Labedoyer), at Grenoble by an army. The hearts of
+the soldiers of France went to him like steel to the loadstone--first
+a drop, and then a torrent; the Empire, like a snowball, increased as
+it progressed. At Lyons, the Count of Artois, the setting sun, is
+obliged to go out of one gate the moment that Napoleon, the rising
+sun, comes in at another. Smiles, orations, triumphal arches, and even
+the discourses that had been prepared to welcome the Bourbons, were
+used to congratulate their successor on his return. Cockades and flags
+were altered to suit the occasion, by inserting a stripe of red here
+and another of blue there. One national guard, but only one, remained
+faithful to the Bourbons; he would neither alter his cockade nor his
+colors, and remained true to his patrons in the hour of disaster.
+Everybody asked, what would the Emperor do with him? Would he be
+imprisoned or banished? Neither; the Emperor sent him a cross of the
+order of merit! It is, no doubt, grand to have overthrown the
+brilliant army of Murad Bey in Egypt; to have vanquished Melas,
+Wurmser, and Davidowich in Italy; Bragation, Kutusoff, and Barclay de
+Tolly in Russia; Mack in Germany; and thus to have reduced the entire
+continent of Europe to subjection. But it appears to us that a still
+greater feat was the victory he gained over himself, when, in the
+midst of the fever excited by his return, and the animosity of
+parties, he gave this cross to the solitary adherent of misfortune.
+Having made these slight digressions into the future, it is proper
+that we should return to our story.
+
+The mysterious roads of Providence do not always lead to the places
+they seem to go; it often happens that, when we expect to be swallowed
+up by the breakers that surround us, we are wafted into a harbor, and
+that we encounter success where we only anticipated disappointment.
+The rigorous enactments of the continental system, that the other day
+had ruined the two brothers, became all at once the source of
+unlooked-for wealth; for, on account of the scarcity of colonial
+produce, a scarcity dating from the prohibitory laws promulgated in
+1807, the merchandise of the young men had more than quadrupled in
+value.
+
+From the grade of hard-working mechanics they were suddenly promoted
+to the rank of wealthy merchants. They consequently abandoned the
+laborious employments that for a month had enabled them to live, and
+to keep despair and misery at bay. Willis, greatly to his
+inconvenience, found himself transformed into a gentleman at large,
+which caused him to make some material alterations in the manipulation
+and quality of his pipes.
+
+Fritz busied himself in collecting in, the by no means inconsiderable
+sums, which their property realised. He did not value the gold for its
+glitter or its sound, he valued it only as a means of enabling himself
+and his brother to return promptly to their ocean home. Jack undertook
+the task of finding a scalpel to save his mother--doubtless a
+difficult task; for how was he to induce a surgeon of standing to
+abandon his connexion, his family, and his fame, and to undertake a
+perilous voyage to the antipodes, for the purpose of performing an
+operation in a desert, where there were neither newspapers to proclaim
+it, academicians to discuss it, nor ribbons to reward it? As for the
+gentlemen of the dentist and barber school, like Drs. Sangrado and
+Fontanarose of Figaro, the remedy was even worse by a great deal than
+the disease. But, as we have said, Jack promised to find a surgeon,
+and the research was so arduous, that he was scarcely ever seen during
+the day by either Willis or his brother.
+
+To Willis was confided the office of chartering a ship for the
+homeward voyage, and there were not a few obstacles to overcome in
+order to accomplish this. French ship-masters at that time engaged in
+very little legitimate business; they embarked their capital in
+privateering, prefering to capture the merchantmen of England to
+risking their own. One morning, Willis started as usual in search of a
+ship, but soon returned to the inn where they had established their
+head-quarters in a state of bewilderment; he threw himself into a
+chair, and, before he could utter a word, had to fill his pipe and
+light it.
+
+"Well," said he, "I am completely and totally flabbergasted."
+
+"What about?" inquired the two brothers.
+
+"You could not guess, for the life of you, what has happened."
+
+"Perhaps not, Willis, and would therefore prefer you to tell us at
+once what it is."
+
+"After this," continued Willis, "no one need tell me that there are no
+miracles now-a-days."
+
+"Then you have stumbled upon a miracle, have you, Willis?"
+
+"I should think so. That they do not happen every day, I can admit;
+but I have a proof that they do come about sometimes."
+
+"Very probably, Willis."
+
+"It is my opinion that Providence often leads us about by the hands,
+just as little children are taken to school, lest they should be
+tempted to play truant by the way."
+
+"Not unlikely, Willis; but the miracle!"
+
+"I was going along quietly, not thinking I was being led anywhere in
+particular, when, all at once, I was hove up by--If a bullet had hit
+me right in the breast, I could not have been more staggered."
+
+"Whatever hove you up then, Willis?"
+
+"I was hove up by the sloop."
+
+"What sloop?"
+
+"The _Nelson_."
+
+"Was it taking a walk, Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Have you been to sea since we saw you last?" asked Fritz.
+
+"If I had fallen in with the craft at sea, Master Fritz, I should not
+have been half so much astonished. The sea is the natural element of
+ships; we do not find gudgeons in corn fields, nor shoot hares on the
+ocean. But it was on land that I hailed the _Nelson_."
+
+"Was it going round the corner of a street that you stumbled upon it,
+Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Not exactly; but to make a long story short--"
+
+"When you talk of cutting anything short, we are in for a yarn," said
+Jack.
+
+"And you are sure to interrupt him in the middle of it," said Fritz.
+
+"Well, in two words," said Willis, knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
+"I was cruising about the shipyards, looking if there was a condemned
+craft likely to suit us--some of them had gun-shot wounds in their
+timbers, others had been slewed up by a shoal--and, to cut the matter
+short--"
+
+"Another yarn," suggested Jack.
+
+"I luffed up beside the hull of a cutter-looking craft that had been
+completely gutted. But, changed and dilapidated as that hull is, I
+recognized it at once to be that of the _Nelson_. Now do you believe
+in miracles?"
+
+"But are you sure, Willis?"
+
+"Suppose you met Ernest or Frank in the street to-morrow, pale,
+meagre, and in rags, would you recognize them?"
+
+"Most assuredly."
+
+"Well, by the same token, sailors can always recognize a ship they
+have sailed in. They know the form of every plank and the line of
+every bend. There are hundreds of marks that get spliced in the
+memory, and are never forgotten. But in the present case there is no
+room for any doubt, a portion of the figure head is still extant, and
+the word _Nelson_ can be made out without spectacles."
+
+"But how did it get there?"
+
+"You know, Master Fritz, it could not have told me, even if I had
+taken the trouble to inquire."
+
+"Very true, Willis."
+
+"I was determined, however, to find it out some other way, so I
+steered for a café near the harbor, where the pilots and long-shore
+captains go to play at dominoes. I was in hopes of picking up some
+stray waif of information, and, sooth to say, I was not altogether
+disappointed."
+
+"Another meeting, I'll be bound," said Jack.
+
+"My falling in with the _Nelson_ astonished you, did it not?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"Then I'll bet my best pipe that this one will surprise you still
+more. You recollect my comrade, Bill, _alias_ Bob, of the _Hoboken_?"
+
+"Yes, perfectly."
+
+"Then I met him."
+
+"What! the man who had both his legs shot off, and died in consequence
+of his wounds?" inquired Jack.
+
+"The same."
+
+"And that was afterwards thrown overboard with a twenty-four pound
+shot tied to his feet!" exclaimed Fritz.
+
+"The same."
+
+At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an
+air of apprehension.
+
+"You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?"
+
+"Whatever can we think, Willis?"
+
+"I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but
+still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by. I could scarcely
+believe my eyes when I saw him. 'Is that you, Bill Stubbs,' says I,
+'at last?'
+
+"'Lor love ye!' says he, 'is that you, Pilot?'
+
+"He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost
+wrenched it off.
+
+"'Where in all the earth did you hail from?' he said. 'I thought you
+were dead and gone?'
+
+"'And I thought you were the same,' said I, 'and no mistake.'
+
+"'Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea
+amongst the _mounseers_.'
+
+"'But what about the _Hoboken_?' says I.
+
+"'What _Hoboken_?' says he.
+
+"'Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?'
+
+"'Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,' says Bill.
+
+"And no more he was, for he never left the _Nelson_ till she was high
+and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I
+must have been wrong in that instance."
+
+"So I should think," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Yet the resemblance was very remarkable; the only difference was a
+carbuncle on the nose, which the real Bill has and the other has not,
+but which I had forgotten."
+
+"Like Cicero," remarked Jack.
+
+"Another Admiral?" inquired Willis, drily.
+
+"No, he was only an orator."
+
+"Bill soon satisfied me that he was the very identical William Stubbs,
+and that the other was only a very good imitation."
+
+"He did not receive you with a punch in the ribs, at all events, like
+the apocryphal Bill," remarked Jack.
+
+"No; but what is more to the purpose, he told me that, after having
+struggled with the terrible tempest off New Switzerland--which you
+recollect--the _Nelson_ found herself at such a distance, that Captain
+Littlestone resolved to proceed on his voyage, and to return again as
+speedily as possible.
+
+"'We arrived at the Cape all right,' added Bill, 'landed the New
+Switzerland cargo, and sailed again with the Rev. Mr. Wolston on
+board. A few days after leaving the Cape, we were pounced upon by a
+French frigate; the _Nelson_, with its crew, was sent off as a prize
+to Havre, and here I have been ever since,' said Bill, 'a prisoner at
+large, allowed to pick up a living as I can amongst the shipping.'"
+
+"And the remainder of the crew?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"Are all here prisoners of war."
+
+"And the Rev. Mr. Wolston and the captain?"
+
+"Are prisoners on parole."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here."
+
+"What! in Havre?"
+
+"Yes, close at hand, in the Hotel d'Espagne."
+
+"And we sitting here," cried Jack, snatching up his hat and rushing
+down stairs four steps at a time.
+
+Willis and Fritz followed as fast as they could.
+
+When they all three reached the bottom of the stairs.
+
+"If Captain Littlestone is here, Willis," said Jack, "he could not
+have been on board the _Boudeuse_."
+
+"That is true, Master Jack."
+
+"In that case, Great Rono, you must have been dreaming in the
+corvette as well as in the Yankee."
+
+"No," insisted Willis, "it was no dream, I am certain of that."
+
+"Explain the riddle, then."
+
+"I cannot do that just at present, but it may be cleared up by-and-by,
+like all the mysteries and miracles that surround us."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[I] This circumstance is historical, and will be found at length in
+the Memoirs of Napoleon, by Amédée Goubard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+CAPTAIN LITTLESTONE IS FOUND, AND THE REV. MR. WOLSTON IS SEEN FOR THE
+FIRST TIME.
+
+
+Jack, on arriving at the hotel, ascertained the number of the room in
+which Captain Littlestone was located. In his hurry to see his old
+friend, the young man did not stop to knock at the door, but entered
+without ceremony, with Fritz and Willis at his heels. They found
+themselves in the presence of two gentlemen, one of whom sat with his
+face buried in his hands, the other was reading what appeared to be a
+small bible.
+
+The latter was a young man seemingly of about twenty-four or
+twenty-five years of age. He had a mild but noble bearing, and his
+aspect denoted habitual meditation. His eyes were remarkably piercing
+and expressive; in short, he was one of those men at whom we are led
+involuntarily to cast a glance of respect, without very well knowing
+why; perhaps it might be owing to the gravity of his demeanour,
+perhaps to the peculiar decorum of his deportment, or perhaps to the
+scrupulous propriety of his dress. He raised his eyes from the book he
+held in his hand, and gazed tranquilly at the three figures who had so
+abruptly interrupted his reveries.
+
+"May I inquire," said he, "to what we owe this intrusion on our
+privacy, gentlemen?"
+
+"We have to apologise for our rudeness," said Fritz; "but are you not
+the Rev. Mr. Wolston?"
+
+"My name is Charles Wolston, and I am a minister of the gospel, and
+missionary of the church."
+
+"Then, sir," continued Fritz, "I am the bearer of a message from your
+father."
+
+"From my father!" exclaimed the missionary, starting up; "you come
+then from the Pacific Ocean?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here the second gentleman raised his head, and looked as if he had
+just awakened from a dream. He gazed at the speakers with a puzzled
+air.
+
+"Do you know me, captain?" said Willis.
+
+Littlestone, for it was he, continued to gaze in mute astonishment, as
+if the events of the past had been defiling through his memory; and he
+probably thought that the figures before him were mere phantom
+creations of his brain.
+
+"Willis! can it be possible?" he exclaimed, taking at the same time
+the Pilot's proffered hand.
+
+"Yes, captain, as you see."
+
+"And the two young Beckers, as I live!" cried Littlestone.
+
+"Yes," said Jack, "and delighted to find you at last."
+
+Littlestone then shook them all heartily by the hand.
+
+"It is but a poor welcome that I, a prisoner in the enemy's country,
+can give you to Europe; still I am truly overjoyed to see you. But
+where have you all come from?"
+
+"From New Switzerland," replied Jack.
+
+"But how?"
+
+"By sea."
+
+"That, of course; and I presume another ship anchored in Safety Bay?"
+
+"No, captain. Seeing you did not return to us, we embarked in the
+pinnace and came in search of you."
+
+"Your pinnace was but indifferently calculated to weather a gale,
+keeping out of view the other dangers incidental to such a voyage."
+
+"True, captain; but my brother and I, with Willis for a pilot and
+Providence for a guardian, ventured to brave these perils; and here we
+are, as you see."
+
+"And your mother consented to such a dangerous proceeding, did she?"
+
+"It was for her, and yet against her will, that we embarked on the
+voyage."
+
+"I do not understand."
+
+"For her, because, when we left, she was dying."
+
+"Dying, say you?"
+
+"Yes, and our object in coming to Europe was chiefly to obtain
+surgical aid."
+
+"And have you found a surgeon?"
+
+"Not yet, but we are in hopes of finding one."
+
+"If money is wanted, besides the value of the cargo I landed for you
+at the Cape, you may command my purse."
+
+"A thousand thanks, captain, but the merchandise we have here is
+likely to be sufficient for our purpose. Unfortunately, gold is not
+the only thing that is requisite."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"In the first place, a disinterested love of humanity is needful;
+there are few men of science and skill who would not risk more than
+they would gain by accepting any offer we can make. It is not easy to
+find the heart of a son in the body of a physician."
+
+"What, then, will you do, my poor friend?"
+
+"That is my secret, captain."
+
+During this conversation, the missionary had put a thousand questions
+to Willis and Fritz relative to his father, mother, and sisters, and a
+smile now and then lit up his features as Fritz related some of the
+family mishaps.
+
+"You must have undergone some hardships in your voyage from the
+antipodes to Havre de Grace," said Littlestone to Jack,
+"notwithstanding the skill of my friend the Pilot."
+
+"Yes, captain, a few," replied Jack. "I myself made a narrow escape
+from being killed and eaten by a couple of savages."
+
+"And how did you escape?"
+
+"Providence interfered at the critical moment."
+
+"Well, so I should imagine."
+
+"Our friend the Pilot was more fortunate; he was abducted by the
+natives of Hawaii; but, instead of converting him into mincemeat, they
+transformed him into a divinity, bore him along in triumph to a
+temple, where he was perfumed with incense, and had sacrifices offered
+up to him."
+
+"Willis must have felt himself highly honored," said the captain,
+smiling.
+
+"These fine things did not, however, last long, for next day they were
+wound up with a cloud of arrows."
+
+"And another interposition of Providence?"
+
+"Yes, none of the arrows were winged with death."
+
+"After that," remarked Willis, "we fell in with a Yankee cruiser, were
+taken on board, and carried into the latitude of the Bahamas, where we
+fell in with Old Flyblow, who, after a tough set-to, sent the Yankee a
+prize to Bermuda, and took us on board as passengers."
+
+"And," added Jack, "whilst we were under protection of the American
+flag, Willis fell in with a certain Bill Stubbs, who was shot in the
+fight and died of his wounds. This trifling accident did not, however,
+prevent Willis falling in with him alive in Havre."
+
+"You still seem to delight in paradoxes, Master Jack," said the
+captain.
+
+"The English cruiser," continued Jack, "was afterwards captured by a
+French corvette, on which it appears you were on board _incognito_."
+
+"What! I on board?"
+
+"Yes; ask Willis."
+
+"If you were not, captain, how could you come to my cabin every night
+and ask me questions?" inquired the latter.
+
+At this point, a shade of anxiety crossed Littlestone's features; he
+turned and looked at the missionary--the missionary looked at
+Fritz--Fritz stared at his brother--Jack gazed at Willis--and Willis,
+with a puzzled air, regarded everybody in turn.
+
+"At last," continued Jack, "after experiencing a variety of both good
+and bad fortune, sometimes vanquished and sometimes the victors, first
+wounded, then cured, we arrived here in Havre, where, for a time, we
+were plunged into the deepest poverty; we were blacksmiths and
+carpenters by turns, and thought ourselves fortunate when we had a
+chair to mend or a horse to shoe."
+
+"The workings of Providence," said the missionary, "are very
+mysterious, and, perhaps, you will allow me to illustrate this fact by
+drawing a comparison. A ship is at the mercy of the waves; it sways,
+like a drunken man, sometimes one way and sometimes another. All on
+board are in commotion, some are hurrying down the hatchways, and
+others are hurrying up. The sailors are twisting the sails about in
+every possible direction. Some of the men are closing up the
+port-holes, others are working at the pumps. The officers are issuing
+a multiplicity of orders at once, the boatswain is constantly sounding
+his whistle. There is no appearance of order, confusion seems to reign
+triumphant, and there is every reason to believe that the commands are
+issued at random."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Jack, "how so many directions issued on
+ship board in a gale at one and the same moment could possibly be
+obeyed."
+
+"Let us descend, however, to the captain's cabin," continued the
+missionary. "He is alone, collected, thoughtful, and tranquil, his eye
+fixed upon a chart. Now he observes the position of the sun, and marks
+the meridian; then he examines the compass, and notes the polary
+deviation. On all sides are sextants, quadrants, and chronometers. He
+quietly issues an order, which is echoed and repeated above, and thus
+augments the babel on deck."
+
+"A single order," remarked Willis, "often gives rise to changes in
+twenty different directions."
+
+"On deck," continued the missionary, "the crew appear completely
+disorganized. In the captain's cabin, you find that all this apparent
+confusion is the result of calculation, and is essential to the safety
+of the ship."
+
+"Still," said Jack, "it is difficult to see how this result is
+effected by disorder."
+
+"True; and, therefore, we must rely upon the skill of the captain; we
+behold nothing but uproar, but we know that all is governed by the
+most perfect discipline. So it is with the world; society is a ship,
+men and their passions are the mast, sails, rigging, the anchors,
+quadrants, and sextants of Providence. We understand nothing of the
+combined action of these instruments; we tremble at every shock, and
+fear that every whirlwind is destined to sweep us away. But let us
+penetrate into the chamber of the Great Ruler. He issues his commands
+tranquilly; we see that He is watching over our safety; and whatever
+happens, our hearts beat with confidence, and our minds are at rest."
+
+"Therefore," added Littlestone, "we are resigned to our fate as
+prisoners of war; but still we hope."
+
+"And not without good reason," said Willis; "for it will go hard with
+me if I do not realize your hopes, and that very shortly too."
+
+"I do not see very well how our hopes of liberty can be realized till
+peace is proclaimed."
+
+"Peace!" exclaimed Willis. "Yes, in another twenty years or so,
+perhaps; to wail for such an unlikely event will never do; my young
+friend, Master Jack Becker, is in a hurry, and we must all leave this
+place within a month at latest."
+
+"You mean us, then, to make our escape, Willis; but that is
+impossible."
+
+"I have an idea that it is not impossible, captain; the cargo Masters
+Fritz and Jack have here will realize a large sum; the pearls,
+saffron, and cochineal, are bringing their weight in gold. I shall be
+able to charter or buy a ship with the proceeds, and some dark night
+we shall all embark; and if a surgeon is not willing to come of his
+own accord, I shall press the best one in the place: it won't be the
+first time I have done such a thing, with much less excuse."
+
+"One will be willing," said Jack; "so you need not introduce One-eyed
+Dick's schooner here, Willis."
+
+"So far so good, then; it only remains for us to smuggle the captain,
+the missionary, and the crew of the _Nelson_ on board."
+
+"But we are prisoners," said Littlestone.
+
+"I know that well enough; if you were not prisoners, of course there
+would be no difficulty."
+
+"Recollect, Willis, we are not only prisoners, but we are on parole."
+
+"True," said Willis, scratching his ear, "I did not think of that."
+
+"The situation," remarked Jack, "is something like that of Louis XIV.
+at the famous passage of the Rhine, of whom Boileau said: 'His
+grandeur tied him to the banks.' Had you been only a common sailor,
+captain, a parole would not have stood in the way of your escape."
+
+"But," said Willis, "the parole can be given up, can it not?"
+
+"Not without a reasonable excuse," replied the captain.
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "you can go with the minister to the
+Maritime Prefect, and say: 'Sir, you know that everyone's country is
+dear to one's heart, and you will not be astonished to hear that
+myself and friend have an ardent desire to return to ours. This desire
+on our part is so great, that some day we may be tempted to fly, and,
+consequently, forfeit our honor; for, after all, there are only a few
+miles of sea between us and our homes. We ought not to trust to our
+strength when we know we are weak. Do us, therefore, the favor to
+withdraw our parole; we prefer to take up our abode in a prison, so
+that, if we can escape, we may do so with our honor intact."
+
+"And suppose this favor granted, we shall be securely shut up in a
+dungeon. I scarcely think that would alter our position for the
+better, or render our escape practicable."
+
+"You will, at all events, be free to try, will you not?"
+
+"That is a self-evident proposition, Willis, and, so far as that goes,
+I have no objection to adopt the alternative of prison fare. What say
+you, minister?"
+
+"As for myself," replied the missionary, "a little additional hardship
+may do me good, for the Scriptures say: Suffering purifieth the soul."
+
+"We shall, therefore, resign our paroles, Willis; but bear in mind
+that it is much easier to get into prison than to get out."
+
+"Leave the getting out to me, captain; where there's a will there's
+always a way."
+
+"Do you think," whispered the captain to Fritz, "that Willis is all
+right in his upper story?"
+
+Fritz shook his head, which, in the ordinary acceptation of the sign,
+means, I really do not know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+WILLIS PROVES THAT THE ONLY WAY TO BE FREE IS TO GET SENT TO
+PRISON--AN ESCAPE--A DISCOVERY--PROMOTIONS--SOMNAMBULISM.
+
+
+Three weeks after the events narrated in the foregoing chapter, the
+thrice-rescued produce of Oceania had been converted into the current
+coin of the empire.
+
+The greater portion of the proceeds was placed at the disposal of
+Willis, to facilitate him in procuring the means of returning to New
+Switzerland. He--like connoisseurs who buy up seemingly worthless
+pictures, because they have detected, or fancy they have detected,
+some masterly touches rarely found on modern canvas--had bought, not a
+ship, but the remains of what had once been one. This he obtained for
+almost nothing, but he knew the value of his purchase. The carcass was
+refitted under his own eye, and, when it left the ship-yard, looked as
+if it had been launched for the first time. The timbers were old; but
+the cabins and all the internal fittings were new; a few sheets of
+copper and the paint-brush accomplished the rest. When the mast was
+fitted in, and the new sails bent, the little sloop looked as jaunty
+as a nautilus, and, according to Willis himself, was the smartest
+little craft that ever hoisted a union-jack.
+
+Whether the captain and the missionary still entertained the belief
+that the Pilot's wits had gone a wool-gathering or not, certain it is
+that they had followed his instructions, in so far as to relinquish
+their parole, and thus to lose their personal liberty. They were both
+securely locked up in one of the rooms or cells of the old palace or
+castle of Francois I., which was then, and perhaps is still, used as
+the state prison of Havre de Grace. This fortalice chiefly consists of
+a battlemented round tower, supported by strong bastions, and
+pierced, here and there, by small windows, strongly barred. The foot
+of the tower is bathed by the sea, which, as Willis afterwards
+remarked, was not only a favor granted to the tower, but likewise an
+obligation conferred upon themselves.
+
+When the Pilot's purchase had been completely refitted, stores
+shipped, papers obtained, and every requisite made for the outward
+voyage, the departure of the three adventurers was announced, and a
+crowd assembled on shore to see their ship leave the harbor. She was
+towed out to the roads, where she lay tranquilly mirrored in the sea,
+ready to start the moment her commander stepped on board. Neither
+Fritz nor Jack, however, had yet completed their preparations. For the
+moment, therefore, the vessel was left in charge of some French
+seamen, whom Willis, however, had taken care to engage only for a
+short period.
+
+Somewhere about a week after this, Fritz and Jack, in a small boat,
+painted perfectly black and manned by four stout rowers, with muffled
+oars, were lurking about the fortalice already mentioned. The night
+was pitch dark, and there was no moon. The waves beat sullenly on the
+foot of the tower and surged back upon themselves, like an enraged
+enemy making an abortive attempt to storm the walls of a town. Not a
+word was uttered, and the young men were intently listening, as if
+expecting to hear some preconcerted signal.
+
+Meanwhile, in one of the rooms or cells of the round tower, about
+sixty feet above the level of the sea, Captain Littlestone, the
+missionary, and the Pilot were engaged in a whispered conversation,
+through which might be detected the dull sound of an oiled file
+working against iron. The cell was ample in size, but the stone walls
+were without covering of any kind. It was lighted during the day by
+one of the apertures we have already described; the thickness of the
+walls did not permit the rays of the sun to penetrate to the interior,
+and at the time of which we speak the apartment was perfectly dark.
+
+"I should like to see the warder," whispered Willis, "when he comes,
+with his bundle of keys and his night-cap in his hand, to wish your
+honors good morning, but, in point of fact, to see whether your
+honors are in safe custody. How astonished the old rascal will be! Ho,
+ho, ho!"
+
+"My good fellow," said the missionary, "it is scarcely time to laugh
+yet. It is just possible we may escape; but vain boasting is in no
+case deserving of approbation. It is, indeed, scarcely consistent with
+the dignity of my cloth to be engaged in breaking out of a prison;
+still, I am a man of peace, and not a man of war."
+
+"No," said Willis, "you are not; but I wish to goodness you were a
+seventy-four--under the right colors, of course."
+
+"I was going to remark," continued the missionary, "that I am a man of
+peace, and, consequently, do not think that I am justly entitled to be
+treated as a prisoner of war. Under these circumstances, I am, no
+doubt, justified in shaking off my bonds in any way that is open to
+me; the more particularly as the apostle Paul was once rescued from
+bondage in a similar way."
+
+"He was let down from a window in a basket, was he not?"
+
+"Yes; whilst journeying in the city of Damascus, the governor, whose
+name was Avetas resolved to arrest him and accordingly placed sentries
+at all the gates. Paul, however was permitted to pass through a house,
+the windows of which overhung the walls of the town, whence, as you
+say, he was let down in a basket, and escaped."[J]
+
+"I trust your reverence will be in much the same position as the
+apostle, by-and-by--only you will have to dispense with the basket,"
+said Willis.
+
+"I have no wish to remain in bondage longer than is absolutely
+necessary," said the minister; "but there still seem difficulties in
+the way."
+
+"Yes," said Willis, plying the file with redoubled energy, "this iron
+gives me more bother than I anticipated; but it is the nature of iron
+to be hard; however, it will not be long before we are all out of
+bondage, as your reverence calls it."
+
+"May not the warder discover our escape, and raise an alarm in time
+to retake us?" inquired the missionary.
+
+"No, I think not," replied the captain; "thanks to our habit of
+sleeping with our faces to the wall, he will be deceived by the
+dummies we have placed in the beds, for he always approaches on
+tip-toe not to awake us."
+
+"That may be for the first round; but the second will assuredly
+disclose our absence."
+
+"Very likely," remarked Willis; "he will then go right up to the beds,
+and shake the dummies by the shoulders, and say, Does your honor not
+know that it is ten o'clock, and that your breakfast is cooling? The
+dummies will, of course, not condescend to reply, and then--but what
+matters? By that time we shall have shaken out our top-sail, and
+pursuit will be out of the question. I should like to see the craft
+that will overtake us when once we are a couple of miles ahead."
+
+"Poor man!" said the missionary, sighing; "our escape may, perhaps,
+cost him his place."
+
+"No fear of that," said Willis; "perhaps, at first, he will make an
+attempt to tear his hair, but, as he wears a wig, that will not do
+much mischief."
+
+"I shall, however, leave my purse on the table," said the missionary;
+"as it is tolerably well filled, that may afford the poor fellow some
+consolation."
+
+"And I shall do the same," said the captain.
+
+"If that does not console him for being deprived of the pleasure of
+our society, I do not know what will," observed Willis.
+
+"It is now two o'clock," said the captain, feeling his watch, "and the
+warder goes his first rounds at three; we have therefore just one hour
+for our preparations."
+
+"I have severed one bar," said Willis, "and the other is nearly
+through at one end, so keep your minds perfectly at ease."
+
+"Your patience and equanimity, Willis, does you infinite credit," said
+the missionary. "Minister of the Gospel though I be, I fear that I do
+not possess these qualities to the same extent, for, to confess the
+truth, I feel an inward yearning to be free, and yet am restless and
+anxious."
+
+"There is no great use in being in a hurry," said the Pilot; "the
+more haste the less speed, you know."
+
+"True; but might not these bars have been sawn through before? If this
+had been done, our flight would have been, at least, less
+precipitate."
+
+"You forget, Mr. Wolston," said the captain, "that we did not know
+till nine o'clock the affair was to come off to-night."
+
+"And I could not come any sooner to tell you," remarked the Pilot; "I
+had the greatest difficulty in the world to get in here; the maritime
+commissary would not take me into custody."
+
+"I forgot to ask you how you contrived to get incarcerated," observed
+the captain; "you were not a prisoner, and could not plead your
+parole."
+
+"No; and consequently I had to plead something else."
+
+"Willis," said the missionary, "the work you are engaged in must be
+very fatiguing, let me exercise my strength upon the bars for a short
+time."
+
+"If you like, minister, but keep the file well oiled."
+
+"What, motive, then, did you urge, Willis?" inquired Captain
+Littlestone.
+
+"'Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'one of your frigates captured the English
+cutter _Nelson_ some time ago, but the capture was not complete.'
+
+"'How so?' inquired the commissary.
+
+"'Because, Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'you did not capture the
+boatswain, and a British ship without a boatswain is no good; it is
+like a body without a soul.'
+
+"'Is that all you have to tell me?' said the commissary, looking glum.
+
+"'No,' said I, 'to make the capture complete, you have still to arrest
+the boatswain, and here he is standing before you--I am the man; but
+having been detained by family affairs in the Pacific Ocean, I could
+not surrender myself any sooner.'
+
+"'And what do you want me to do with you?' said he.
+
+"'Why, what you would have done with me had I been on board the
+_Nelson_, to be sure.'
+
+"'What! take you prisoner?'
+
+"'Yes, commissary.'
+
+"'You wish me to do so?'
+
+"'Yes, certainly,'
+
+"'Is it possible?'
+
+"'Then you refuse to take me into custody, Mr. Commissary?' said I.
+
+"'Yes, positively,' said he; 'we take prisoners, but we do not accept
+them when offered.'
+
+"'Then you will not allow me to join my captain in his adversity?'
+
+"'Your captain is as great a fool as yourself,' said he; 'he need not
+have gone to prison unless he liked.'
+
+"'That was a matter of taste on his part, Mr. Commissary, but is a
+matter of duty on mine,'"
+
+"This bar is nearly through," whispered the missionary.
+
+"There is no time to be lost," said the captain; "the warder will be
+round in a quarter of an hour."
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "the commissary began to get angry, he rose
+up, and was about to leave the room, when I placed myself resolutely
+before him.
+
+"'Sir,' said I, 'one word more--you know the French laws; be good
+enough to tell me what crime will most surely and most promptly send
+me to prison.'
+
+"'Oh, there are plenty of them,' said he, laughing.
+
+"'Well, commissary,' says I, 'suppose I knock you down here on the
+spot, will that do?"
+
+"Was that not going a little too far, Willis?"
+
+"What could I do? The ship was all ready, everybody on board but
+yourselves, circumstances were pressing, and you know I would have
+floored him as gently as possible."
+
+At this moment the bar yielded. To the end of a piece of twine, which
+Willis had rolled round his body, a piece of stone was attached; this
+he let down till it touched the water, and then the caw of a crow rang
+through the air.
+
+"That was a very good imitation, Willis," said the captain. "You did
+not break any of the commissary's bones, did you?"
+
+"No; the threat was quite sufficient; he would not yield to my
+prayers, but he yielded to my impudence, and ordered me into custody.
+At first, however, I was thrust into an underground cell; but I
+obtained, or rather my louis obtained for me, permission to chum with
+you; and, by the way, what a frightful staircase I had to mount! that
+more than any thing else, obliges us to get down by the window."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Willis, who continued to hold one end of the cord, at the sound of a
+whistle drew it up, and found attached to the other end a stout rope
+ladder. This he made fast to the bars of the window that still
+remained intact. At the request of the minister, all three then fell
+upon their knees and uttered a short prayer. Immediately after,
+Wolston went out of the window and began to descend, the captain
+followed, and Willis brought up the rear. All three were cautiously
+progressing downwards, when the missionary called out he had forgotten
+to _forget_ his purse.
+
+"I have made the same omission," said the captain; "hand yours up,
+Wolston."
+
+The missionary accordingly held up his with one hand whilst he held on
+the ladder with the other. The captain bent down to take it, but found
+he could not reach it without endangering his equilibrium. They both
+made some desperate efforts to accomplish the feat, but the thing was
+impossible.
+
+"I see no help for it," said the missionary, "but to ascend all three
+again."
+
+"That is awkward," said the captain.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Willis, "three o'clock is striking on the prison
+clock; the warder will be round in two minutes."
+
+"God sometimes permits good actions to go _unrewarded_," said the
+missionary; "but he never _punishes_ them."
+
+"Let us re-ascend, then," said the captain.
+
+"So be it," said Willis, going upwards.
+
+They had scarcely time to re-enter the cell before they heard the
+sound of steps and the clank of keys in the corridor. The steps
+discontinued at their door, and a key was thrust into the lock.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried the captain from his bed, as the gaoler
+thrust his head inside the door.
+
+"Why," said the warder, "I heard a noise, and thought that your honor
+might be ill."
+
+"Thank you for your attention, Ambroise," replied the captain, in a
+half sleepy tone; "but you have been deceived, we are all quite well."
+
+"Entirely so," added the missionary.
+
+"All right old fellow!" cried Willis, with a yawn.
+
+This triple affirmation, which assured him, not only of the health,
+but also of the custody of his prisoners, seemed satisfactory to the
+gaoler.
+
+"I am sorry to have awoke your honors," said he, as he withdrew his
+head and relocked the door; "it must have been in the room overhead."
+
+"Good?" said Willis, "the old rascal expects nothing."
+
+Two well-lined purses were laid on the table, and in a few minutes
+more the three men resumed their position on the ladder in the same
+order as before. They arrived safely in the boat, where they were
+cordially welcomed by Fritz and Jack. The men were then ordered to
+pull for their lives to the ship, which they did with a hearty will.
+The instant they stepped on board the anchor was weighed, and when
+morning broke not a vestige of the old tower of Havre de Grace was
+anywhere to be seen.
+
+"Why," exclaimed the captain, looking about him with an air of
+astonishment, "this is my own vessel!"
+
+"Yes, captain," said Willis, touching his cap, "and I am its boatswain
+or pilot, whichever your honor chooses to call me."
+
+"But how did you obtain possession of her?"
+
+"By right of purchase she belongs to our friends, Masters Fritz and
+Jack, but they have agreed to waive their claim, providing you proceed
+with them to New Switzerland."
+
+"I agree most willingly to these conditions," said Captain
+Littlestone, addressing the two brothers, "the more so that my
+destination was Sydney when the _Nelson_ was captured."
+
+"In the meantime, captain," said Fritz, "my brother and I have to
+request that you will resume the command, and treat us as passengers."
+
+"Thank you, my friends, thank you. Willis, are all the old crew on
+board?"
+
+"All that were in Havre, your honor; I commissioned Bill Stubbs to
+pick them up, and he managed to smuggle them all on board."
+
+"Then pipe all hands on deck."
+
+"Aye, aye, captain," said Willis, sounding his whistle.
+
+When the men were mustered, Littlestone made a short speech to them,
+told them that they would receive pay for the time they had been in
+the enemy's power, and inquired whether they were all willing to
+continue the voyage under his command. This question was responded to
+by a general assent.
+
+"Then," he continued, turning to Willis, "the share you have had in
+the rescue of the _Nelson_ and its crew, conjointly with my interest
+at the Admiralty, will, I have not the slightest doubt, obtain for you
+the well-merited rank of lieutenant of his Majesty's navy. I have,
+therefore, to request that you will assume that position on board
+during the voyage, until confirmed by the arrival of your commission."
+
+"Thank your honor," said Willis, bowing.
+
+"And now, lieutenant, you will be kind enough to rate William Stubbs
+on the books as boatswain."
+
+"Aye, aye, captain," said Willis, handing his whistle to Bill.
+
+"Pipe to breakfast," said the captain.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied the new boatswain, sounding the whistle.
+
+"By the way," said Littlestone, turning to Jack, "I do not see the
+surgeon you spoke of on board. How is this?"
+
+"He is on board for all that," said Jack, drawing an official looking
+document out of his pocket; "be kind enough to read that."
+
+The captain accordingly read as follows:--
+
+    "_Havre, 15th October, 1812._
+
+    "This is to certify that Mr. Jack Becker has, for some time, been
+    a student in the hospitals of this town, and that he has
+    successfully passed through a stringent examination as to his
+    acquaintance with the diagnosis and cure of various diseases; as
+    also as to his knowledge of the practice of physic and surgery
+    generally.
+
+    "He has specially directed his attention to the treatment of
+    cancer, and has performed several operations for the eradication
+    of that malady to the satisfaction of the surgeon in chief and my
+    own.
+
+    (Signed) "GARAY DE NEVRES, M.D., Inspector of the Hospitals".
+
+This document was countersigned, sealed, and stamped by the mayor, the
+prefect, and other authorities of the department.
+
+"How have you contrived to obtain so satisfactory a certificate in so
+short a period?" inquired the captain.
+
+"I was introduced to the chief surgeon by the medical man on board the
+_Boudeuse_. I stated my position to him, and, probably, he threw
+facilities in my way of obtaining the object I had in view that were,
+perhaps, rarely accorded to others. All the cases of cancer, for
+example, were placed under my care; I had, therefore, an opportunity
+of observing a great many phases and varieties of that disease."
+
+"Are you determined to follow up the profession of surgery, then?"
+
+"Yes, captain; I have shipped a medicine chest on board, a complete
+assortment of instruments, and a collection of English, French, and
+German medical works. It is my intention to make myself thoroughly
+familiar with the theory of the science, and trust to chance for
+practice."
+
+"Then allow me, Mr. Becker, to rate you as surgeon of the _Nelson_ for
+the outward voyage. Will you accept the office?"
+
+"With pleasure, Captain; but, at the same time, I trust there will be
+no occasion to exercise my skill."
+
+"No one can say what may happen; disease turns up where it is least
+expected. Lieutenant," he added, turning to Willis, "be kind enough to
+rate Mr. Becker on the ship's books as surgeon."
+
+"Aye, Aye, sir."
+
+Meantime the _Nelson_ was making her way rapidly along the French
+coast, and had already crossed the Bay of Biscay. The _Nelson_ behaved
+herself admirably, and took to her new gear with excellent grace. All
+was going merrily as a marriage bell. They did not now run very much
+risk of cruisers, as Fritz had French papers perfectly _en regle_, and
+Captain Littlestone would have had little difficulty to prove his
+identity; besides, the speed of the _Nelson_ was sufficient to secure
+their safety in cases where danger was to be apprehended.
+
+One night, about four bells (ten o'clock), when Willis was lazily
+lolling in his hammock, doubtless ruminating on his newly-acquired
+dignity, his cabin-door gradually opened, and the captain entered.
+Willis stared at first, thinking he might have something important to
+communicate, but he only muttered something about a cloud gathering in
+the west. This was too much for Willis; it resembled his former
+meditations so vividly, that he leaped out of his hammock, seized
+Littlestone by the collar, and called loudly for Fritz and Jack.
+
+"It is not very respectfull, captain, to handle you in this way; but
+the case is urgent, and I should like to have the mystery cleared up."
+
+The two brothers, when they entered the cabin, beheld Willis holding
+the captain tightly in his arms.
+
+"I have caught him at last, you see," said the Pilot.
+
+"So it would appear," observed Jack; "but are you not aware the
+captain is asleep?"
+
+And so it was Littlestone had walked from his own cabin to that of
+Willis in a state of somnambulism.
+
+"What is the matter?" inquired the latter, when he became conscious of
+his position.
+
+"Nothing is the matter, captain," replied Jack, "only you have been
+walking in your sleep."
+
+"Ah--yes--it must be so!" exclaimed Littlestone; gazing about him with
+a troubled air. "Have I not paid you a visit of this kind before,
+Willis?"
+
+"Yes, often."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On board the _Boudeuse_."
+
+"That must have been the craft I was transferred to, then, after the
+capture of the _Nelson_. Just call Mr. Wolston, and let us have the
+matter explained."
+
+On comparing notes, it appeared that the captain and the missionary
+had been on board the _Boudeuse_. Both had been ill, and both had been
+closely confined to their cabin during the entire voyage, partly on
+account of their being prisoners of war, and partly on account of
+their illness. On one occasion, but on one only, the captain had
+escaped from his cabin during the night. Willis might, therefore, have
+seen him once, but that he had seen him oftener was only a dream.
+
+"It appears, then," said Littlestone, "that my illness has left this
+unfortunate tendency to sleep-walking. I shall, therefore, place
+myself in your hands, Master Jack; perhaps you may be able to chase it
+away."
+
+"I will do my best, captain; and I think I may venture to promise a
+cure."
+
+Willis was sorry for the captain's sleeplessness, but he was glad that
+the mystery hanging over them both had been so far cleared up. His
+visions and dreams had been a source of constant annoyance to him; but
+now that their origin had been discovered, he felt that henceforward
+he might sleep in peace.
+
+After a rapid run, the sloop cast anchor off the Cape. Here Captain
+Littlestone reported himself to the commander on the station, and
+received fresh papers. He also sent off a despatch to the Lords of the
+Admiralty, in which he reported the capture and rescue of his ship. He
+informed them that his own escape and that of the crew was entirely
+owing to the tact and daring of Willis, the boatswain, whom, in
+consequence, he had nominated his second in command, _vice_ Lieutenant
+Dunsford, deceased; the appointment subject, of course, to their
+lordship's approval.
+
+Willis wrote a long letter to his wife, informing her of his expected
+promotion, adding that, in a year or so after the receipt of his
+commission, he should retire on half-pay, and then emigrate to a
+delightful country, where he had been promised a vast estate. He said
+that, probably, he should have an entire island to himself, and
+possibly have the command of the fleet; but he thought it as well to
+say nothing about tigers, sharks, and chimpanzees.
+
+The missionary also wrote to England, relinquishing his charge in
+South Africa, and requesting a mission amongst the benighted
+inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, where he stated he was desirous of
+settling for family reasons, and where besides, he said, he would have
+a wider and equally interesting field for his labors.
+
+The two brothers found at the Cape a large sum of money at their
+disposal; this, however, they had now no immediate use for; they,
+consequently, left it to await the arrival of Frank and Ernest, who,
+in all probability, would return with the _Nelson_.
+
+The arrangements made, the _Nelson_ was fully armed and manned, an
+ample supply of stores and ammunition was shipped, the mails in Sydney
+were taken on board, and the sloop resumed her voyage.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[J] 2nd Cor., xi., 32.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+Three months after leaving the Cape, the coast of New Switzerland was
+telegraphed from the mast head by Bill Stubbs. A gun was immediately
+fired, and towards evening the _Nelson_ entered Safety Bay. Fritz,
+Jack, Captain Littlestone, the missionary, and Willis, were all
+standing on deck, eagerly scanning the shore.
+
+"There is father!" cried Jack, "armed with a telescope; and now I see
+Frank and Mrs. Wolston."
+
+"There comes Mr. Wolston and Master Ernest," cried Willis, "as usual,
+a little behind."
+
+"But I see nothing of my mother and the young ladies!" said Fritz.
+
+"Very odd," said Captain Littlestone, sweeping the horizon with his
+glass "I can see nothing of them either."
+
+A horrible apprehension here glided into the hearts of the young men.
+They knew well that, had their mother been able, she would have been
+the first to welcome them home. Perhaps, under the inspiration of
+despair, their lips were opening to deny the mercy of that Providence
+which had hitherto so remarkably befriended them, when at a great
+distance, and scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, they descried
+three figures advancing slowly towards the shore.
+
+One of these forms was Mrs. Becker, who was leaning upon the arms of
+Mary and Sophia Wolston.
+
+"God be thanked, we are still in time," cried Fritz and Jack.
+
+A loud cheer, led by Willis, then rent the air. Half an hour after,
+the two young men leaped on shore; they did not stay to shake hands
+with their father and brothers, but ran on to where their mother
+stood. It was a long time before they could utter a syllable; the
+greeting of the mother and her children was too affectionate to be
+expressed in words.
+
+Next morning, at daybreak, preparations for a serious operation were
+made in Mrs. Becker's room. The entire colony was in a state of
+intense excitement, and an air of anxiety was imprinted on every
+countenance. In the room itself the wing of a fly could have been
+heard, so breathless was the silence that prevailed. The patient's
+eyes had been bandaged, under pretext of concealing from her sight the
+surgical instruments and preparations for the operation. The real
+design, however, was to hide the operator, whom Mrs. Becker supposed
+to be an expert practitioner from Europe; for it was not thought
+advisable that a mother's anxieties should be superadded to the
+patient's sufferings.
+
+At the moment of trial the few persons present had sunk on their
+knees; Jack alone remained standing at the bedside of his mother. The
+Jack of the past had entirely disappeared; he was somewhat pale, very
+grave, but collected, firm, and resolute. It was, perhaps, the first
+instance on record of a son being called upon to lacerate the body of
+his mother. But the moment that God imposed such a task upon one of
+His creatures, it is God himself that becomes the operator.
+
+When, some days after, Mrs. Becker--calm, radiant, and
+saved--requested to see and thank her deliverer, it was Jack who
+presented himself. If she had known this sooner, it would, most
+undoubtedly, have augmented her terror, and increased the fever. As it
+was, it redoubled her thankfulness, and hastened her recovery.
+
+Frank and Ernest embarked on board the _Nelson_ when she returned to
+New Switzerland on her way to Europe. Two years afterwards, the former
+returned in the capacity of a minister of the Church of England,
+bringing with him a sufficient number of men, women, and children to
+furnish a respectable congregation; and it was rumored, though with
+what degree of truth I will not venture to say, that one of the young
+lady passengers in the ship was his destined bride. Ernest remained
+some years in Europe, partly to consolidate relations between the
+colony and the mother country, and partly with a view to realize his
+pet project of establishing an observatory in New Switzerland.
+
+Willis, instead of being suspended at the yard-arm as he had insisted
+on prognosticating, received his lieutenancy in due course,
+accompanied by a highly flattering letter from the Lords of the
+Admiralty, thanking him, in the name of the captain and crew of the
+_Nelson_, for his exertions in their behalf. As soon, however, as
+peace was proclaimed, he retired on half-pay, and, with his wife and
+daughter, emigrated to Oceania. He assumed his old post of admiral on
+Shark's Island, where a commodious house had been erected. We must
+premise, at the same time, that to his honorary duties as admiral,
+conjoined the humbler, but not less useful, offices of lighthouse
+keeper, manager of the fisheries, and harbor-master.
+
+As a country grows rich, and advances in prosperity, it rarely, if
+ever, happens that the sum of human life becomes happier or better. It
+is, therefore, not without regret we learn that gold has been
+discovered in a land so highly favored by nature in other respects;
+for, if such be the case, then adieu to the peace and tranquillity its
+inhabitants have hitherto enjoyed. The colony will soon be overrun
+with Chinamen, American adventurers, and ticket-of-leave convicts.
+Farewell to the kindliness and hospitality of the community, for they
+will inevitably be deluged with the refuse of the old, and also, alas!
+of the new world.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIS THE PILOT ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Willis The Pilot, by Adrien Paul
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Willis the Pilot, by Adrien Paul</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Willis the Pilot</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Adrien Paul</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Henry Frith</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14172]<br />
+[Most recently updated: May 21, 2023]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Karen Dalrymple and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIS THE PILOT ***</div>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='001'></a><img src="images/001.jpg" alt="Sailors attempting to catch a swordfish" />
+</div>
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<h1>WILLIS THE PILOT,</h1>
+
+<h2>A Sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson:</h2>
+
+<h4>OR,</h4>
+
+<h2>ADVENTURES OF AN EMIGRANT FAMILY</h2>
+<h3>WRECKED ON AN UNKNOWN COAST OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.</h3>
+
+<h4>INTERSPERSED WITH</h4>
+
+<h3>TALES, INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL, AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF
+NATURAL HISTORY.</h3>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<br/><br/>
+BOSTON:<br/>
+LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.<br/>
+NEW YORK:<br/>
+LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM.<br/>
+1875.<br/><br/><br/>
+
+LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY<br/>
+At the Office of the American Stereotype Company,<br/>
+PHOENIX BUILDING, BOSTON.<br/><br/><br/>
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY KILBURN &amp; MALLORY
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='PREFACE'></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>The love of adventure that characterises the youth of the present day,
+and the growing tendency of the surplus European population to seek
+abroad the comforts that are often denied at home, gives absorbing
+interest to the narratives of old colonists and settlers in the
+wonderful regions of the New World. Accordingly, the work known as the
+<i>Swiss Family Robinson</i> has long enjoyed a well-merited popularity,
+and has been perused by a multitude of readers, young and old, with
+profit as well as pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>A Swiss clergyman resolved to better his fortune by emigration. In
+furtherance of this resolution, he embarked with his wife and four
+sons&mdash;the latter ranging from eight to fifteen years of age&mdash;for one
+of the newly-discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean. As far as the
+coast of New Guinea the voyage had been favorable, but here a violent
+storm arose, which drove the ill-fated vessel out of its course, and
+finally cast it a wreck upon an unknown coast. The family succeeded in
+extricating themselves from the stranded ship, and landed safely on
+shore; but the remaining passengers and crew all perished. For many
+years these six individuals struggled alone against a variety of
+trials and privations, till at length another storm brought the
+English despatch-boat <i>Nelson</i> within reach of their signals. Such is
+a brief outline of the events recorded in the <i>Swiss Family Robinson</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The present volume is virtually a continuation of this narrative. The
+careers of the four sons&mdash;Frank, Ernest, Fritz, and Jack&mdash;are taken up
+where the preceding chronicler left them off. The subsequent
+adventures of these four young men, by flood and field, are faithfully
+detailed. With these particulars are mingled the experiences of
+another interesting family that afterwards became dwellers in the same
+territory; as are also the sayings and doings of a weather-beaten
+sailor&mdash;Willis the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>The scene is laid chiefly in the South Seas, and the narrative
+illustrates the geography and ethnology of that section of the
+Far-West. The difficulties, dangers, and hardships to be encountered
+in founding a new colony are truthfully set forth, whilst it is shown
+how readily these are overcome by perseverance and intelligent labor.
+It will be seen that a liberal education has its uses, even under
+circumstances the least likely to foster the social amenities, and
+that, too, not only as regards the mental well-being of its
+possessors, but also as regards augmenting their material comforts.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Swiss Family Robinson</i> the resources of Natural History have
+been largely, and perhaps somewhat freely, drawn upon. This branch of
+knowledge has, therefore, been left throughout the present volume
+comparatively untouched. Nevertheless, as it is the aim of the
+narrator to combine instruction with amusement, the more elementary
+phenomena of the Physical Sciences have been blended with the current
+of the story&mdash;thus garnishing, as it were, the dry, hard facts of
+Owen, Liebig, and Arago, with the more attractive, groupings of life
+and action.</p>
+
+<p>The reader has, consequently, in hand a <i>mélange</i> of the useful and
+agreeable&mdash;a little for the grave and a little for the gay&mdash;so that,
+should our endeavors to impart instruction prove unavailing, <i>en
+revanche</i> we may, perhaps, be more successful in our efforts to amuse.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CONTENTS'></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href='#CHAPTER_I'><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a><br/>
+The Colony&mdash;Reflections on the Past&mdash;Ideas of Willis the Pilot&mdash;Sophia
+Wolston
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href='#CHAPTER_II'><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a><br />
+To what extent Willis the Pilot had Ideas on certain Subjects&mdash;The
+Knights of the Ocean
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_III'><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a><br />
+Wherein Willis the Pilot proves &quot;Irrefragably&quot; that Ephemerides die of
+Consumption and Home-Sickness&mdash;The Canoe and its Young ones&mdash;The
+Search after the Sloop&mdash;Found&mdash;The Sword-Fish&mdash;Floating Atoms&mdash;Admiral
+Socrates
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_IV'><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a><br />
+A Landscape&mdash;Sad Houses and Smiling Houses&mdash;Politeness in China&mdash;Eight
+Soups at Dessert&mdash;Wind Merchants&mdash;Another Idea of the Pilot's&mdash;Susan,
+vice Sophia
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_V'><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a><br />
+Allotment of Quarters&mdash;A Horse Marine&mdash;Travelling Plants&mdash;Change of
+Dynasty in England&mdash;A Woman's Kingdom&mdash;Sheep converted into
+Chops&mdash;Resurrection of the Fried Fish&mdash;A Secret
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_VI'><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a><br />
+The Queen's Doll&mdash;Rockhouse to Falcon's Nest&mdash;The
+Wind&mdash;Grasses&mdash;Admiral Homer&mdash;The Three Frogs&mdash;Oat Jelly&mdash;Esquimaux
+Astronomy&mdash;An Unknown
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_VII'><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a><br />
+The Search for the Unknown&mdash;Three Fleets on Dry Land&mdash;The
+Indiscretions of a Sugar Cane&mdash;Larboard and Starboard&mdash;The supposed
+Sensibility of Plants&mdash;The Fly-trap&mdash;Vendetta&mdash;Root and Germ&mdash;Mine and
+Countermine&mdash;The Polypi&mdash;Oviparous and Viviparous&mdash;A Quid pro Quo
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a><br />
+Inhabitant of the Moon, Anthropophagian or Hobgoblin?&mdash;The Lacedemonian
+Stew of Madame Dacier&mdash;Utile Dulci&mdash;T&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te between Willis and
+his Pipe&mdash;Tobacco versus Birch&mdash;Is it for Eating?&mdash;Mosquitoes&mdash;The
+Alarm&mdash;Toby&mdash;The Nocturnal Expedition&mdash;We've got him
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_IX'><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a><br />
+The Chimpanzee&mdash;Imperfect Negro, or Perfect Ape&mdash;The Harmonies of
+Nature&mdash;A Handful of Paws&mdash;A Stone Skin&mdash;Seventeen Spectacles on one
+Nose&mdash;Animalcul&aelig;&mdash;Pelion on Ossa&mdash;Ptolemy&mdash;Copernicus to
+Galileo&mdash;Metaphysics and Cosmogonies&mdash;A live Tiger
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_X'><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a><br />
+The Pioneers&mdash;Excursion to Coromandel&mdash;Hindoo Fancies&mdash;A Caged
+Hunter&mdash;Louis XI and Cardinal Balue&mdash;A Furlong of News&mdash;Carnage&mdash;The
+Baronet and his seventeen Tigers&mdash;Fifty-four feet of Celebrity&mdash;Sterne's
+Window&mdash;Promenade of the Consciences&mdash;Emulation and Vanity
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XI'><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a><br />
+On the Watch&mdash;Fecundity of Plants and Animals&mdash;Latest News from the
+Moon&mdash;A Death-Knell every Second&mdash;The Inconveniences of being too near
+the Sun&mdash;Narcotics&mdash;Willis contralto&mdash;Hunting turned upside
+down&mdash;Electric Clouds&mdash;Partialities of Lightning&mdash;Bells and
+Bellringers&mdash;Conducting Rods&mdash;The Return&mdash;The Two Sisters&mdash;Toby
+becomes a Dragoman
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XII'><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a><br />
+Man proposes, but God disposes&mdash;The Choice of a
+Profession&mdash;Conqueror&mdash;Orator&mdash;Astronomer&mdash;Composer&mdash;Painter&mdash;Poet&mdash;Village
+Curate&mdash;The Kafirs&mdash;Occupations of Women&mdash;The Alpha and Omega of the
+Sea
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a><br />
+Herbert and Cecilia&mdash;The little Angels&mdash;A Catastrophe&mdash;The
+Departure&mdash;Marriage of the Doge with the Adriatic&mdash;Sovereigns of the
+Sea&mdash;Dante and Beatrix&mdash;Eleonora and Tasso&mdash;Laura and Petrarch&mdash;The
+Return&mdash;Surprises&mdash;What one finds in Turbots&mdash;A Horror&mdash;The
+Price of Crime&mdash;Ballooning&mdash;Philipson and the Cholera&mdash;A
+Metamorphosis&mdash;Adventure of the Chimpanzee&mdash;Are you Rich?
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'><b>CHAPTER XIV.</b></a><br />
+The Tears of Childhood and Rain of the Tropics&mdash;Charles'
+Wain&mdash;Voluntary Enlistment&mdash;A Likeness Guaranteed&mdash;The World at
+Peace&mdash;Alas, poor Mary!&mdash;The same Breath for two Beings&mdash;The first
+Pillow&mdash;The Logic of the Heart&mdash;How Fritz supported Grief&mdash;A Grain of
+Sand and the Himalaya
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XV'><b>CHAPTER XV.</b></a><br />
+God's Government&mdash;King Stanislaus&mdash;The Dauphin son of Louis XV.&mdash;The
+shortest Road&mdash;New Year's Day&mdash;A Miracle&mdash;Clever Animals&mdash;The
+Calendar&mdash;Mr. Julius C&aelig;sar and Pope Gregory XIII.&mdash;How the day after
+the 4th of October was the 15th&mdash;Olympiads&mdash;Lustres&mdash;The Hegira&mdash;A
+Horse made Consul&mdash;Jack's Dream
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'><b>CHAPTER XVI.</b></a><br />
+Separation&mdash;Guelphs and Ghibelines&mdash;Montagues and
+Capulets&mdash;Sadness&mdash;The Reunion&mdash;Jocko and his Education&mdash;The
+Entertainments of a King&mdash;The Mules of Nero and the Asses of
+Popp&aelig;a&mdash;Hercules and Achilles&mdash;Liberty and Equality&mdash;Semiramis and
+Elizabeth&mdash;Christianity and the Religion of Zoroaster&mdash;The Willisonian
+Method&mdash;Moral Discipline versus Birch
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'><b>CHAPTER XVII.</b></a><br />
+Where there's a Will there's a Way&mdash;Mucius Sc&aelig;vola&mdash;What's to be
+done?&mdash;Brutus Torquatus and Peter the Great&mdash;Australia, Botany Bay,
+and the Flying Dutchman&mdash;New Guinea and the Buccaneer&mdash;Vancouver's
+Island&mdash;White Skins&mdash;Danger of Landing on a Wave&mdash;Hanged or
+Drowned&mdash;Route to Happiness&mdash;Omens
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'><b>CHAPTER XVIII.</b></a><br />
+Bacon and Biscuit&mdash;Let Sleeping Dogs Lie&mdash;The Paternal Benediction&mdash;An
+Apparition&mdash;A Mother not easily deceived&mdash;The Adieu&mdash;The Emperor
+Constantine&mdash;hoc signo vinces&mdash;The Sailor's Postscript&mdash;C&aelig;sar and his
+Fortunes&mdash;Recollections&mdash;Mrs. Becker plucks Stockings and Knits
+Ortolans&mdash;How delightful it is to be Scolded&mdash;The Bodies vanish, but
+the Souls remain
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'><b>CHAPTER XIX.</b></a><br />
+Eighteen Hundred and Twelve&mdash;The <i>Mary</i>&mdash;Count Ugolino&mdash;The Sources of
+Rivers&mdash;The Alps demolished&mdash;No more Pyrenees&mdash;The First Ship&mdash;Admiral
+Noah&mdash;Fleets of the Israelites&mdash;The Compass&mdash;Printing&mdash;Gunpowder&mdash;Actium
+and Salamis&mdash;Dido and &AElig;olus&mdash;Steam&mdash;Don Garay and Roger Bacon&mdash;Melchthal,
+Furst, and William Tell&mdash;Going a-pleasuring&mdash;Upset versus blown up&mdash;A
+Dead Calm&mdash;The Log&mdash;Willis's Archipelago&mdash;The Island of Sophia&mdash;The Bread
+Fruit-tree&mdash;Natives of Polynesia&mdash;Striped Trowsers&mdash;Abduction of
+Willis&mdash;Is he to be Roasted or Boiled?&mdash;When the Wine is poured out,
+we must Drink it
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XX'><b>CHAPTER XX.</b></a><br />
+Jupiter Tonans&mdash;The Thunders of the Pilot&mdash;Worshippers of the
+Far West&mdash;A late Breakfast&mdash;Rono the Great&mdash;A Polynesian
+Legend&mdash;Manners and Customs of Oceanica Mr. and Mrs. Tamaidi&mdash;Regal
+Pomp&mdash;Elbow Room&mdash;Katzenmusik&mdash;Queen Tonico and the Shaving
+Glass&mdash;Consequences of a Pinch of Snuff&mdash;Disgrace of the Great
+Rono&mdash;Marins&mdash;Coriolanus&mdash;Hannibal&mdash;Alcibiades&mdash;Cimon&mdash;Aristides&mdash;A
+Sop for the Thirsty&mdash;Air something else besides Oxygen and
+Hydrogen&mdash;Maryland and Whitechapel&mdash;Half-way up the Cordilleras&mdash;Human
+Machines&mdash;Star of the Sea, pray for us!
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'><b>CHAPTER XXI.</b></a><br />
+Lying-to&mdash;Heart and Instinct&mdash;Sparrows viewed as
+Consumers&mdash;Migrations&mdash;Posting a Letter in the
+Pacific&mdash;Cannibals&mdash;Adventures of a Locket
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'><b>CHAPTER XXII.</b></a><br />
+The Utility of Adversity&mdash;An Encounter&mdash;The <i>Hoboken</i>&mdash;Bill alias Bob
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'><b>CHAPTER XXIII.</b></a><br />
+In which Willis shows, that the term Press-gang means something else
+besides the Gentlemen of the Press
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'><b>CHAPTER XXIV.</b></a><br />
+Another Idea of the Pilot's&mdash;The <i>Boudeuse</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'><b>CHAPTER XXV.</b></a><br />
+Delhi&mdash;William of Normandy and King John&mdash;Isabella of Bavaria and Joan
+of Arc&mdash;Poitier and Bovines&mdash;History of a Ghost, a Gridiron, and a
+Chest of Guineas
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'><b>CHAPTER XXVI.</b></a><br />
+Willis falls in with the Sloop on terra firma, instead of at the
+bottom of the Sea, as might have been expected&mdash;Admiral Cicero&mdash;The
+Defunct not yet Dead
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVII'><b>CHAPTER XXVII.</b></a><br />
+Captain Littlestone is found, and the Rev. Mr. Wolston is seen for the
+first time
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVIII'><b>CHAPTER XXVIII.</b></a><br />
+Willis proves that the only way to be free is to get sent to
+Prison&mdash;An Escape&mdash;A Discovery&mdash;Promotions&mdash;Somnambulism
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href='#CONCLUSION'><b>Conclusion</b></a>
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_I'></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p>THE COLONY&mdash;REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST&mdash;IDEAS OF WILLIS THE PILOT&mdash;SOPHIA
+WOLSTON.</p>
+
+<p>The early adventures of the Swiss family, who were wrecked on an
+unknown coast in the Pacific Ocean, have already been given to the
+world. There are, however, many interesting details in their
+subsequent career which have not been made public. These, and the
+conversations with which they enlivened the long, dreary days of the
+rainy season, we are now about to lay before our readers.</p>
+
+<p>Becker, his wife, and their four sons had been fifteen years on this
+uninhabited coast, when a storm drove the English despatch sloop
+<i>Nelson</i> to the same spot. Before this event occurred, the family had
+cleared and enclosed a large extent of country; but, whether the
+territory was part of an island or part of a continent, they had not
+yet ascertained. The land was naturally fertile; and, amongst other
+things that had been obtained from the wreck of their ship, were
+sundry packages of European seeds: the produce of these, together with
+that of two or three heads of cattle they had likewise rescued from
+the wreck, supplied them abundantly with the necessaries of life. They
+had erected dwellings here and there, but chiefly lived in a cave near
+the shore, over the entrance to which they had built a sort of
+gallery. This structure, conjointly with the cave, formed a commodious
+habitation, to which they had given the name of <i>Rockhouse</i>. In the
+vicinity, a stream flowed tranquilly into the sea; this stream they
+were accustomed to call <i>Jackal River</i>, because, a few days after
+their landing, they had encountered some of these animals on its
+banks. Fronting Rockhouse the coast curved inwards, the headlands on
+either side enclosing a portion of the ocean; to this inlet they had
+given the name of <i>Safety Bay</i>, because it was here they first felt
+themselves secure after having escaped the dangers of the storm. In
+the centre of the bay there was a small island which they called
+<i>Shark's Island</i>, to commemorate the capture of one of those monsters
+of the deep. Safely Bay, had, a second time, acquired a legitimate
+title to its name, for in it Providence had brought the <i>Nelson</i>
+safely to anchor.</p>
+
+<p>By unwearying perseverance, indefatigable industry, and an untiring
+reliance on the goodness of God, Becker and his family had surrounded
+themselves with abundance. There was only one thing left for them to
+desire, and that was the means of communicating with their kindred;
+and now this one wish of their hearts was gratified by the unexpected
+appearance of the <i>Nelson</i> on their shore. The fifteen years of exile
+they had so patiently endured was at once forgotten. Every bosom was
+filled with boundless joy; so true it is, that man only requires a ray
+of sunshine to change his most poignant griefs into smiles and
+gladness.</p>
+
+<p>The first impressions of their deliverance awakened in the minds of
+the young people a flood of projects. The mute whisperings that
+murmured within them had divulged to their understandings that they
+were created for a wider sphere than that in which they had hitherto
+been confined. Europe and its wonders&mdash;society, with its endearing
+interchanges of affection&mdash;that vast panorama of the arts and of
+civilization, of the trivial and the sublime, of the beautiful and
+terrible, that is called the world&mdash;came vividly into their thoughts.
+They felt as a man would feel when dazzled all at once by a spectacle,
+the splendor of which the eyes and the mind can only withstand by
+degrees. They had spelt life in the horn-book of true and simple
+nature&mdash;they were now about to read it fluently in the gilded volume
+of a nature false and vitiated, perhaps to regret their former
+tranquil ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>Becker himself had, for an instant, given way to the general
+enthusiasm, but reflection soon regained her sway; he asked himself
+whether he had solid reasons for wishing to return to Europe, whether
+it would be advisable to relinquish a certain livelihood, and abandon
+a spot that God appeared to bless beyond all others, to run after the
+doubtful advantages of civilized society.</p>
+
+<p>His wife desired nothing better than to end her days there, under the
+beautiful sky, where, from the bosom of the tempest, they had been
+guided by the merciful will of Him who is the source of all things.
+Still the solitude frightened her for her children. &quot;Might it not,&quot;
+she asked herself, &quot;be egotism to imprison their young lives in the
+narrow limits of maternal affection?&quot; It occurred to her that the
+dangers to which they were constantly exposed might remove them from
+her; to-day this one, to-morrow another; what, then, would be her own
+desolation, when there remained to her no bosom on which to rest her
+head&mdash;no heart to beat in unison with her own&mdash;no kindly hand to
+grasp&mdash;and no friendly voice to pray at her pillow, when she was
+called away in her turn!</p>
+
+<p>At length, after mature deliberation, it was resolved that Becker
+himself, his wife, Fritz and Jack, two of their sons, should remain
+where they were, whilst the two other young men should return to
+Europe with a cargo of cochineal, pearls, coral, nutmegs, and other
+articles that the country produced of value in a commercial point of
+view. It was, however, understood that one of the two should return
+again as soon as possible, and bring back with him any of his
+countrymen who might be induced to become settlers in this land of
+promise, Becker hoping, by this means, to found a new colony which
+might afterwards flourish under the name of <i>New Switzerland</i>. The
+mission to Europe was formally confided to Frank and Ernest, the two
+most sedate of the family.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the captain and crew, there was on board the ship now riding
+at anchor in the bay a passenger, named Wolston, with his wife and two
+daughters. This gentleman was on his way to join his son at the Cape
+of Good Hope, but had been taken seriously ill previous to the
+<i>Nelsons</i> arrival on the coast. He and his family were invited on
+shore by Becker, and had taken up their quarters at Rockhouse.
+Wolston was an engineer by profession, but his wife belonged to a
+highly aristocratic family of the West of England; she had been
+brought up in a state of ease and refinement, was possessed of all the
+accomplishments required in fashionable society, but she was at the
+same time gifted with strong good sense, and could readily accommodate
+herself to the circumstances in which she was now placed. Her two
+daughters, Sophia the youngest, a lively child of thirteen, and Mary
+the eldest, a demure girl of sixteen, had been likewise carefully, but
+somewhat elaborately, educated. Attracted no less by the hearty and
+warm reception of the Swiss family, than determined by the state of
+his health and the pure air of the country, Wolston resolved to await
+there the return of the sloop, the official destination of which was
+the Cape of Good Hope, where it had to land despatches from Sidney.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Littlestone, of H.B.M.'s sloop <i>Nelson</i>, had kindly consented
+to all these arrangements; he agreed to convey Ernest and Frank Becker
+and their cargo to the Cape, to aid them there with his experience,
+and, finally, to recommend them to some trustworthy correspondents he
+had at Liverpool. He likewise promised to bring back young Wolston
+with him on his return voyage.</p>
+
+<p>Everything being prepared, the departure was fixed for the next day:
+the sloop, with the blue Peter at the fore, was ready, as soon as the
+anchor was weighed, to continue her voyage. The cargo had been stowed
+under hatches. Becker had just given the farewell dinner to Captain
+Littlestone and Lieutenant Dunsley, his second in command. These two
+gentlemen had discreetly taken their leave, not to interrupt by their
+presence the final embraces of the family, the ties of which, after so
+many long years of labor and hardship, were for the first time to be
+broken asunder.</p>
+
+<p>During the voyage, Wolston had formed an intimacy with the boatswain
+of the <i>Nelson</i>, named Willis, and he, on his side, held Wolston and
+his family in high esteem. Willis was likewise a great favorite with
+his captain&mdash;they had served in the same ship together when boys;
+Willis was known to be a first-rate seaman; so great, indeed, was his
+skill in steering amongst reefs and shoals, that he was familiarly
+styled the &quot;Pilot,&quot; by which cognomen he was better known on board
+than any other. At the particular request of Wolston, who had some
+communications to make to him respecting his son, Willis remained on
+shore, the captain promising to send his gig for him and his two
+passengers the following morning.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Wolston was busy charging the pilot with a multitude of
+messages for his son, Mrs. Becker was invoking the blessings of Heaven
+upon the heads of her two boys; praying that the hour might be
+deferred that was to separate her from these idols of her soul. Becker
+himself, upon whom his position, as head of the family, imposed the
+obligation of exhibiting, at least outwardly, more courage, instilled
+into their minds such principles of truth and rules of conduct as the
+solemnity of the moment was calculated to engrave on their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>The dial now marked three o'clock, tropical time. Willis, wiping, with
+the cuff of his jacket, a drop that trickled from the corner of his
+eye, laid hold of his seal-skin sou'-wester as a signal of immediate
+departure. Ernest and Frank were bending their heads to receive the
+parting benediction of their parents, when suddenly a fierce torrent
+of wind shook the gallery of Rockhouse to its foundation, and uprooted
+some of the bamboo columns by which it was supported.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only a squall,&quot; said Willis quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A squall!&quot; exclaimed Becker, &quot;what do you call a hurricane then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
+close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this
+begins to look very like the real article.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful than
+its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
+dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
+against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
+lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain,
+but veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what
+the cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are
+to the gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river
+had converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and
+buildings appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse
+nearly impossible.</p>
+
+<p>However much of a colorist Willis might be, he could not have painted
+a storm with the eloquence of the elements that had cut short his
+observation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will not attempt to embark in weather like this?&quot; inquired Mrs.
+Becker anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My duty it is to be on board,&quot; replied the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The craft that ventures to take you there will get swamped twenty
+times on the way,&quot; observed Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The worst of it is, the wind is from the east, and evidently carries
+waterspouts with it. These waterspouts strike a ship without the
+slightest warning, play amongst the rigging, whirl the sails about
+like feathers&mdash;sometimes carry them off bodily, or, if they do not do
+that, tear them to shreds and shiver the masts. In either case, the
+consequences are disagreeable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A reason for you to be thankful you are safe on shore with us!&quot;
+remarked Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is all very well for you, Mrs. Wolston, and you, Mrs. Becker, to
+talk in that way; your business in life is that of wives and mothers.
+But what will the Lords of the Admiralty say, when they hear that the
+sloop <i>Nelson</i> was wrecked whilst Master Willis, the boatswain, was
+skulking on shore like a land-rat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, they would only say there was one useful man more, and a victim
+the less,&quot; replied Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, not exactly, Master Fritz; they would say that Willis was a
+poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely
+condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation
+when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I
+want is the use of your canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! brave this storm in a wretched seal-skin cockle-shell like
+that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Would it not be offending Providence,&quot; hazarded Mary Wolston, &quot;for
+one of God's creatures to abandon himself to certain death?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would, indeed,&quot; added Mrs. Wolston; &quot;true courage consists in
+facing danger when it is inevitable, but not in uselessly imperiling
+one's life; there stops courage, and temerity begins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If it is not pride or folly. I do not mean that with reference to
+you, Willis,&quot; hastily added Wolston; &quot;I know that you are open as day,
+and that all your impulses arise from the heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is all very fine&mdash;but I must act; let me have the canoe. I want
+the canoe: that is my idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Having lived fifteen years cut off from society,&quot; gravely observed
+Becker, &quot;it may be that I have forgotten some of the laws it imposes;
+nevertheless, I declare upon my honor and conscience&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me have the canoe, otherwise I must swim to the ship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I declare,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;that Willis exaggerates the
+requirements of his duty. There are stronger forces to which the human
+will must yield. It is one thing to desert one's post in the hour of
+danger, and another to have come on shore at the express desire of a
+superior officer, when the weather was fine, and nothing presaged a
+storm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If there is danger,&quot; continued the obstinate sailor, whom the united
+strength of the four men could scarcely restrain, &quot;I ought to share
+it; that is my duty and I must.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; said Wolston, &quot;all the boatswains and pilots in the world can
+do nothing against hurricanes and waterspouts; their duty consists in
+steering the ship clear of reefs and quicksands, and not in fighting
+with the elements.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is one thing you forget, Mr. Wolston.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is that, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is to be side by side with your comrades in the hour of calamity,
+to aid them if you can, and to perish with them if such be the will of
+Fate. At this moment, poor Littlestone may be on the point of taking
+up his winter quarters in the body of a shark. But there, if the
+sloop is lost while I am here on shore, I will not survive her; all
+that you can say or do will not prevent me doing myself justice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Jack, who had disappeared during this discussion,
+unobserved, came in saturated to the skin with water, and in a state
+difficult to describe. Like the boots of Panurge, his feet were
+floating in the water that flowed from the rim of his cap.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is this?&quot; exclaimed his mother. &quot;You wilful boy, may I ask
+where, in all the world, you have been?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have just come from the bay. O father and mother! O Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston! O Master Willis! if you had only seen! The sea is furious;
+sometimes the waves rise to the skies and mingle with the clouds, so
+that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends.
+It is frightful, but it is magnificent!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the sloop?&quot; demanded Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is not to be seen; she is no longer at anchor in the bay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gone to the open sea, to avoid being driven ashore,&quot; said Wolston.
+&quot;Captain Littlestone is not the man to remain in a perilous position
+whilst there remained a means of escape; besides, nothing that
+science, united with courage and presence of mind, could do, would
+have been neglected by him to save his ship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In addition to which,&quot; observed Becker, &quot;if he had found himself in
+positive danger, he would have fired a gun; and in that case, though
+we are not pilots, every one of us would have hastened to his
+assistance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, Willis,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;God comes to ease your mind;
+were we to allow you to go to the sloop now, the thing is simply
+impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have my own idea about that,&quot; insisted Willis, whilst he kept
+beating a tatoo on the isinglass window panes.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst thus chafing like a caged lion, Wolston's youngest daughter
+went towards him, and gently putting her hand in his, said,
+&quot;Sweetheart&quot; (for so she had been accustomed to address him), &quot;do you
+remember when, during the voyage, you used to look at me very closely,
+and that one evening I went boldly up to you and asked you why you
+did so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Miss Sophia, I recollect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you remember the answer you gave me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I told you that I had left in England, on her mother's bosom, a
+little girl who would now be about your own age, and that I could not
+observe the wind play amongst the curls of your fair hair without
+thinking of her, and that it sometimes made my breast swell like the
+mizen-top-sail before the breeze.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and when I promised to keep out of your sight, not to reawaken
+your grief, you told me it was a kind of grief that did you more good
+than harm, and that the more it made you grieve, the happier you would
+be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All true:&quot; replied the sailor, whose excitement was melting away
+before the soft tones of the child like hoar frost in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I promised to come and talk to you about your Susan every day;
+and did I not keep my word?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, Miss Sophia; and it is only bare justice to say that you
+gracefully yielded to all my fatherly whims, and even went so far as
+to wear a brown dress oftener than another, because I said that my
+little Susan wore that color the last time I kissed her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, but that is a secret, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but I am going to tell all our secrets&mdash;that is an idea of mine.
+You then went and learned Susan's mother's favorite song, with which
+you would sometimes sing me to sleep, like a great baby that I am, and
+make me fancy that I was surrounded by my wife and daughter, and was
+comfortably smoking my pipe in my own cottage, with a glass of grog at
+my elbow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis said this so earnestly, that the smile called forth by the
+oddness of the remark scarcely dared to show itself on the lips of the
+listeners.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well,&quot; resumed the little damsel, &quot;if you are not more
+reasonable, and if you keep talking of throwing your life away, I will
+never again place my hand in yours as now; I shall not love you any
+more, and shall find means of letting Susan's mother know that you
+went away and killed yourself, and made her a widow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Men can only speak coldly and appeal to reason&mdash;logic is their panacea
+in argument. Women alone possess those inspirations, those simple
+words without emphasis, that find their way directly to the heart, and
+for which purpose God has doubtless endowed them with those soft, mild
+tones, whose melodies cause our most cherished resolutions to vanish
+in the air; like those massive stone gates we have seen in some of the
+old castles in Germany, that resist the most powerful effort to push
+them open, but which a spring of the simplest construction causes to
+move gently on their formidable hinges.</p>
+
+<p>Willis was silent; but no openly-expressed submission could have been
+more eloquent than this mute acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the tempest raged with increased fury, the winds
+howled, and the water splashed; it appeared at each shock as if the
+elements had reached the utmost limit of the terrific; that the sea,
+as the poet says, had lashed itself into exhaustion! But, anon, there
+came another outburst more terrible still, to declare that, in his
+anger as in his blessings, the All-Powerful has no other limit than
+the infinite.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If it is not in the power of human beings to aid the crew of the
+<i>Nelson</i>,&quot; said Mrs. Becker kneeling, &quot;there are other means more
+efficacious which we are guilty in not having sought before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Every one followed this example, and it was a touching scene to behold
+the rough sailor yield submissively to the gentle violence of the
+child's hand, and bend his bronzed and swarthy visage humbly beside
+her cherub head.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_II'></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<p>TO WHAT EXTENT WILLIS THE PILOT HAD IDEAS ON CERTAIN SUBJECTS&mdash;THE
+KNIGHTS OF THE OCEAN.</p>
+
+
+<p>The storm continued to rage without intermission for three entire
+days. During this interval, not only was it impossible to send the
+canoe or pinnace to sea, but even to venture a step beyond the
+threshold, so completely had the tempest broken up the burning soil,
+the thirst of which the great Disposer of all things had proportioned
+to the deluges that were destined to assuage it.</p>
+
+<p>All had at length yielded to bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, for
+the seeming eternity of these three days and three nights had been
+passed in prayer, and in the most fearful apprehensions as to the fate
+of the <i>Nelson</i> and her crew.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing in the horizon as yet indicated that the thunders were tired
+of roaring, the clouds of rending themselves asunder, the winds of
+howling, or the waves of frantically beating on the cliffs.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening the ladies had retired to the sick-room with a view of
+seeking some repose. Becker, Willis, and the young men bivouacked in
+the hall, where some mattresses and bear-skins had been laid down.
+Here it was arranged that, for the common safety, each during the
+night should watch in turn. But about two in the morning, Ernest had
+no sooner relieved Fritz than, fatigue overcoming his sense of duty,
+the poor fellow fell comfortably asleep, and he was soon perfectly
+unconscious of all that was passing around him.</p>
+
+<p>Becker awoke first&mdash;it was broad daylight. &quot;Where is Willis?&quot; he
+cried, on getting up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa!&quot; exclaimed Fritz, running towards the magazine, &quot;the canoe
+has disappeared!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In an instant all were on their feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some one of you has fallen asleep then,&quot; said Becker to his children;
+&quot;for when the pilot watched I watched with him, and never lost sight
+of him for a moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am the culprit,&quot; said Ernest; &quot;and if any mischief arises out of
+this imprudence, I shall never forgive myself. But who could have
+dreamt of any one being foolhardy enough to attempt the rescue of a
+ship in a nutshell that scarcely holds two persons?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I pray Heaven that your sleepy-headedness may not result in the loss
+of human life! You see, my son, that there is no amount of duty, be it
+ever so trifling in importance, that can be neglected with impunity.
+It is the concurrent devotion of each, and the sacrifices of one for
+another, that constitutes and secures the mutual security. Society on
+a small, as on a large scale, is a chain of which each individual is a
+link, and when one fails the whole is broken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go after him,&quot; said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fritz and I will go with you,&quot; added Frank.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said Ernest; &quot;I alone am guilty, and I wish alone to remedy my
+fault&mdash;that is, as far as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not hide the canoe,&quot; observed Fritz, &quot;but I hid the oars, and
+I find them in their place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, perhaps, will have prevented him embarking,&quot; remarked one of
+the boys.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A man like Willis,&quot; replied Becker, &quot;is not prevented carrying out
+his intentions by such obstacles; he will have taken the first thing
+that came to hand; but let us go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, father, am I not then to go alone, and so bear the penalty of
+my own fault?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Ernest, that would be to inflict two evils upon us instead of
+one; it is sufficient that you have shown your willingness to do so.
+Besides, three will not be over many <i>to convince</i> Willis, even if yet
+in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And mother? and the ladies?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall leave Frank and Jack to see to them; a mere obstinate freak,
+or a catastrophe, it will be time enough, when over, to inform them of
+this new idea of the Pilot's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is something more than an idea this time,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Just as Becker and his two sons were issuing from the grotto, the
+report of a cannon-shot resounded through the air.</p>
+
+<p>Awoke and startled by the explosion, Becker's wife and Mrs. Wolston
+came running towards them. As for the girls, their guardian angel had
+too closely enveloped them in its wings to admit of their sleep being
+disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The sloop on the coast!&quot; said Frank; &quot;for the sound is too distinct
+to come from a distance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unless Willis has got upon Shark's Island,&quot; objected Fritz, running
+towards the terrace, armed with a telescope. &quot;Just so; he is there, I
+see him distinctly; he is recharging our four-pounder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God be praised! you relieve my conscience of a great burden,&quot; said
+Ernest, placing his hand on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is going to discharge it,&quot; cried Fritz&mdash;boom. Then a second shot
+reverberated in the air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If Captain Littlestone be within hearing of that signal, he will be
+sure to reply to it.&quot; said Becker. &quot;Listen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They hushed themselves in silence, each retaining his respiration, as
+if their object had been to hear the sound of a fly's wing rather than
+the report of a cannon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing!&quot; said Becker sadly, at the expiration of a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing!&quot; reiterated successively all the voices.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How in all the world did Willis contrive to get transported to
+Shark's Island?&quot; inquired Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Simply, wife, by watching when asleep, whilst one of our gentlemen
+slept when he watched.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, mother,&quot; said Ernest, &quot;and if you would not have me blush before
+Mrs. Wolston, you will not insist upon an explanation of the mystery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Wolston,&quot; she replied, &quot;is not so exacting as you seem to think,
+Master Ernest&mdash;the only difference that her presence here should make
+amongst you is that you have two mothers instead of one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston smiling, &quot;if Mrs. Becker has no
+objections to dividing the office with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall I not have compensation in your daughters?&quot; said Mrs. Becker,
+taking her by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still,&quot; interrupted Fritz, &quot;I cannot yet conceive how Willis managed
+to reach Shark's Island in a wretched canoe, without oars, through
+waves that ought to have swallowed him up over and over again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bah!&quot; exclaimed Jack; &quot;what use has a pilot for oars?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a question! You, who modestly call yourself the best
+horseman on the island, how would you do, if you had nothing to ride
+upon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could at least fall back upon broomsticks,&quot; retorted the
+imperturbable Jack. &quot;Besides, in Willis's case, the canoe was the
+steed, the oars the saddle&mdash;nothing more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall not stay here to solve the riddle,&quot; said Becker; &quot;the storm
+seems disposed to abate; and the more that it was unreasonable to face
+certain destruction in a vain endeavor to assist a problematical
+shipwreck, the more it is incumbent upon us now to go in quest of the
+<i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the sea will still be very terrible!&quot; quickly added Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If all danger were over, wife, the enterprise would do us little
+credit. It is our duty to do the best we can, according to the
+strength and means at our command. Fritz, Ernest, and Jack, go and put
+on your life-preservers&mdash;we shall take up Willis in passing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must not insist,&quot; said Mrs. Becker; &quot;the sacrifice would, indeed,
+be no sacrifice, if it could be easily borne; and yet&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Remember the time, wife, when I was obliged, in order to secure the
+precious remains of our ship, to venture with our eldest sons on a
+float of tubs, leaving you exposed, alone with a child of seven, to
+the chance of eternal isolation!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is very true, husband: I am unjust towards Providence, which has
+never ceased blessing us; but I am only a weak woman, and my heart
+often gets the better of my head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-day I leave Frank with you; but, instead of your being his
+protector, as was the case fifteen years ago, he will be yours. Then
+there is Mrs. Wolston, her daughters, and husband, quite a new world
+of sympathies and consolations, by which our island has been so
+miraculously peopled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go then, husband, and may God bring back in safety both the pinnace
+and the <i>Nelson</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, Mrs. Wolston, how does our worthy invalid get on? We live
+in such a turmoil of events and consternations, that I must beg a
+thousand pardons for not having asked after him before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;His sleep appears untroubled; and, notwithstanding all the terrors of
+the last few days, I entertain sanguine hopes of his immediate
+recovery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will at least return before night?&quot; said Mrs. Becker to her
+husband.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rely upon my not prolonging my stay beyond what the exigencies of the
+expedition imperiously require.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good gracious! what are these?&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Wolston as the three
+brothers entered, equipped in seal-gut trowsers, floating stays of the
+same material, and Greenland caps.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Knights of the Ocean,&quot; replied Jack gravely, &quot;who, like the
+heroes of Cervantes, go forth to redress the wrongs done by the
+tempest, and to break lances&mdash;oars, I mean&mdash;in favor of persecuted
+sloops.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Becker herself could scarcely refrain from smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the power of the smile that, in season or out of season, it
+often finds its way to the most pallid lips, in the midst of the
+greatest disasters and the deepest grief. It appears as if always
+listening at the door ready to take its place on the slightest notice.
+This diversion had the good effect of mixing a little honey with&mdash;if
+the expression may be used&mdash;the bitterness of the parting adieus.
+Becker took the lead in hiding his sorrow; the three young
+Greenlanders tore themselves from the maternal embrace, and
+affectionately kissed the hand held out to them by Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>Then, between those that departed and those that remained behind,
+there was nothing more than the ties of recollection, the common
+sadness, and the endless links of mutual affection.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_III'></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<p>WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES &quot;IRREFRAGABLY&quot; THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OF
+CONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS&mdash;THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES&mdash;THE
+SEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP&mdash;FOUND&mdash;THE SWORD-FISH&mdash;FLOATING ATOMS&mdash;ADMIRAL
+SOCRATES.</p>
+
+
+<p>When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought he
+saw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A sea monster!&quot; he cried, levelling his musket; &quot;I discovered it, and
+have the right to the first shot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotive
+telescope, &quot;I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or wound
+my canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nonsense, it moves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you not
+observe this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has been
+hatching,&quot; and Jack again levelled his rifle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; exclaimed Ernest, &quot;is the Pilot a triton then, that he could
+dispense with the canoe?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord,
+which would indeed make it an intelligent creature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite
+of surf and breakers&mdash;a feat almost without a parallel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bah!&quot; said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, &quot;what
+does a pilot care about surf and breakers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a
+bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no
+way suffered from the storm.</p>
+
+<p>The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making
+the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet
+by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately,
+&quot;starboard,&quot; &quot;larboard,&quot; &quot;hard-a-port,&quot; just as if these terms had
+not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.</p>
+
+<p>At last, tired of holloaing, &quot;Stop a bit,&quot; he said, &quot;I shall find a
+quicker way;&quot; with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and
+cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a
+steam engine.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of
+the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was
+soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she
+pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. He
+headed along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had first
+observed the <i>Nelson</i> was fairly doubled; some days before this point
+was called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire the
+term of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designation
+was in embryo.</p>
+
+<p>Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat
+rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last
+leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other
+circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the
+direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and
+covered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profound
+desolation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis! Willis!&quot; cried Jack, &quot;I shall tell Sophia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, nor
+the sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Willis
+continued immovable.</p>
+
+<p>Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm the
+more they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted to
+wear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to his
+own reflections.</p>
+
+<p>The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but the
+sun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, and
+the air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can descry nothing either,&quot; said Becker; &quot;and yet this is the
+direction the storm must have driven the sloop.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The sea is very capricious,&quot; suggested Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unfortunately,&quot; said Jack, &quot;it is not on sea as on land, where the
+slightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; a
+word dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, but
+here it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the <i>Nelson</i> pass this
+way?'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fire a shot,&quot; said Ernest; &quot;it may perhaps be heard, now that the air
+is less humid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fire
+to a strip of mimosa bark, with which he touched the piece, and the
+report boomed across the waters.</p>
+
+<p>Willis raised his head and listened anxiously, but soon dropped it
+again, and resumed his former attitude of hopeless despair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It may be,&quot; said Ernest, &quot;that the <i>Nelson</i> hears our signal, though
+we do not hear hers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How can that be?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, very easily. Sound increases or diminishes in intensity
+according as the wind carries it on or retards it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, is sound, that the wind can blow it about, most learned
+brother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a result of the compression of the air, that from its
+elasticity extends and expands, and which causes a sort of trembling
+or undulation, similar to that which is observed in water when a stone
+is thrown into it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you may add,&quot; said Becker, &quot;that bodies striking the air excite
+sonorous vibrations in this fluid; thus it rings under the lash that
+strikes it with violence, and whistles under the rapid impulsion of a
+switch: it likewise becomes sonorous when it strikes itself with force
+against any solid body, as the wind when it blows against the cordage
+of ships, houses, trees, and generally every object with which it
+comes in contact.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can understand,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;how this sonorous effect is
+produced on the particles of air in immediate contact with the object
+struck; but how this sound is propagated, I do not see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely; but still it travels from particle to particle, in a
+circle, at the rate of three hundred and forty yards in a second.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Three hundred and forty yards in a second!&quot; said Willis, who was
+beginning by degrees to recover his self-possession. &quot;Well, that is
+what I should call going a-head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And by what sort of compasses has this speed been measured, Master
+Ernest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first accurate measurement, Master Jack, was made at Paris in
+1738. There are there two tolerably elevated points, namely,
+Montmartre and Montlhéry&mdash;the distance between these, in a direct
+line, is 14,636 <i>toises</i>. Cannons were fired during the night, and the
+engineers on one of the elevations observed that an interval of
+eighty-six seconds and a half elapsed between the flash and the report
+of a cannon fired on the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That half-second is very amusing,&quot; said Jack laughing; &quot;if there had
+been only eighty or eighty-six net, one might still be permitted to
+entertain some doubts; but eighty-six and a half admits nothing of the
+kind. But why not three-quarters or six-eighths, they would do as
+well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirous
+of obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of no
+value? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of no
+signification to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your brother is perfectly right, Jack; you are not always successful
+in your jokes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Other experiments have been made since then,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;and
+the results have always been the same, making allowances for the wind,
+and a slight variation that is ascribed to temperature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To confirm the accuracy of this statement, the speed of light would
+have to be taken into consideration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but the velocity of light is so great, that the instant a
+cannon is fired the flash is seen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever the distance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, whatever the distance. Bear in mind that the rays of the sun
+only require eight minutes to traverse the thirty-four millions of
+leagues that extend between us and that body. Hence it follows that
+the time light takes to travel from one point to another on the earth
+may be regarded as <i>nil</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is something like distance and speed,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;and may
+be all right as regards the sun, but I should not be disposed to admit
+that there are any other instances of the same kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, Master Willis; and yet the sun is only a step from us in
+comparison to the distance of some stars that we see very distinctly,
+but which are, nevertheless, so remote, that their rays, travelling at
+the same rate as those of the sun, are several years in reaching us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis rose abruptly, whistling &quot;the Mariner's March,&quot; and went to
+join Fritz, who was steering the pinnace.</p>
+
+<p>At this <i>na&iuml;ve</i> mark of disapprobation on the part of the Pilot,
+Becker, Ernest, and Jack burst involuntarily into a violent peal of
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Laugh away, laugh away.&quot; said Willis; &quot;I will not admit your
+calculations for all that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sky had now assumed an opal or azure tint, the wind had gradually
+died away into a gentle breeze, the waves were now swelling gently and
+regularly, like the movements of the infant's cradle that is being
+rocked asleep. Never had a day, opening in the convulsions of a
+tempest, more suddenly lapsed into sunshine and smiles: it was like
+the fairies of Perrault's Tales, who, at first wrapped in sorry rags,
+begging and borne down with age, throw off their chrysalis and appear
+sparkling with youth, gaiety, and beauty, their wallet converted into
+a basket of flowers, and their crutch to a magic wand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father&quot; inquired Fritz, &quot;shall we go any farther?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Since the weather had calmed down, and there was no longer any
+necessity for exertion, the expedition had lost its charm for the
+young man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think it is useless; what say you, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; said the latter, taking Becker by the hand, &quot;in consideration of
+the eight days' friendship that connects you even more intimately with
+Captain Littlestone than my affection for him of twenty years'
+standing, keep still a few miles to the east.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If the sloop has been driven to a distance by the storm, and is
+returning towards us, which is very likely, I do not see that we can
+be of much use.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But if dismasted and leaky?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That would alter the case, only I am afraid the ladies will be uneasy
+about us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they were half prepared, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jack is right,&quot; added Fritz, whose energies were again called into
+play by the thought of the <i>Nelson</i> in distress; &quot;let us go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides, on the word of a pilot, the sea will be very calm and gentle
+for some time to come: there is not the slightest danger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what if there were?&quot; replied Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Willis, I shall give up the pinnace to you till dark,&quot; said
+Becker, &quot;and may God guide us; we shall return to-night, so as to
+arrive at Rockhouse early in the morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hurrah for the captain!&quot; cried Willis, throwing a cap into the air.</p>
+
+<p>The evolutions of a cap, thrown up towards the sky or down upon the
+ground, were very usual modes with Willis of expressing his joy or
+sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>This homage rendered to Becker, he hastened to let a reef out of the
+sheet, and the pinnace, for a moment at rest, redoubled its speed,
+like post-horses starting from the inn-door under the combined
+influence of a cheer from the postillion and a flourish of the whip.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a cockle-shell that skips along pretty fairly,&quot; said Willis;
+&quot;but it wants two very important things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What things?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A caboose and a nigger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A caboose and a nigger?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I mean a pantry and a cook; a gale for breakfast is all very
+well, one gets used to it, it is light and easily digested; but the
+same for dinner is rather too much of a good thing in one day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I observed your thoughtful mother hang a sack on one of your
+shoulders, which appeared tolerably well filled&mdash;where is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here it is,&quot; said Jack, issuing from the hatchway; &quot;here are our
+stores: a ham, two Dutch cheeses, two callabashes full of Rockhouse
+malaga, and there is plenty of fresh water in the gourds; with these,
+we have wherewithal to defy hunger till to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Capital!&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>This time, however, a cap did not appear in the air, as the last one
+had not been seen since the former ovation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us lay the table,&quot; said Jack, arranging the coils of rope that
+crowded the deck. &quot;Well, you see, Willis, we want for nothing on board
+the pinnace, not even a what-do-you-call-it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A caboose, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, not even a caboose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite true; and if the <i>Nelson</i> were in the offing, I would not
+exchange my pilot's badge for the epaulettes of a commodore; but,
+alas! she is not there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cheer up, Willis, cheer up; one is either a man or one is not. What
+is the good of useless regrets?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very little, but it is hard to be yard-armed while absent at my time
+of life&mdash;and afterwards&mdash;your health, Mr. Becker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That would be hard at any age, Willis; but I rather think it has not
+come to that yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When it has come to it, there will be very little time left to talk
+it over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you not say, brother, that the <i>Nelson</i> might hear our signals
+without our hearing hers? If so, there is a chance for Willis yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, Jack, because she has the wind in her favor to act as a
+speaking-trumpet, whilst we had it against us acting as a deafener.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is there any other influence that affects sound besides the wind?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I have already mentioned that temperature has something to do
+with it. Sound varies in intensity according to the state of the
+atmosphere. If, for example, we ring a small bell in a closed vessel
+filled with air, it has been observed that, as the air is withdrawn by
+the pump, the sound gradually grows less and less distinct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if a vacuum be formed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then the sound is totally extinguished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So, then,&quot; objected Willis, &quot;if two persons were to talk in what you
+call a vacuum, they would not hear each other?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two persons could not talk in a vacuum,&quot; replied Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because they would die as soon as they opened their mouths.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, that alters the case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If, on the contrary, a quantity of air or gas were compressed into a
+space beyond what it habitually held, then the sound,&quot; continued
+Ernest, &quot;would be more intense than if the air were free.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case a whisper would be equal to a howl!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You think I am joking, Willis; but on the tops of high mountains,
+such as the Himalaya and Mont Blanc, where the air is much rarified,
+voices are not heard at the distance of two paces.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Awkward for deaf people!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whilst, on the icy plains of the frozen regions, where the air is
+condensed by the severe cold, a conversation, held in the ordinary
+tone, may be easily carried on at the distance of half a league.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Awkward for secrets!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And how does sound operate with regard to solid bodies?&quot; inquired
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to the degree of elasticity possessed by their veins or
+fibres.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Explain yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is, solid bodies, whose structure is such that the vibration
+communicated to some of their atoms circulates through the mass, are
+susceptible of conveying sound.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give us an instance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Apply your ear to one end of a long beam, and you will hear
+distinctly the stroke of a pin's head on the other; whilst the same
+stroke will scarcely be heard through the breadth of the wood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So that, in the first case, the sound runs along the longitudinal
+fibres where the contiguity of parts is closer, than when the body is
+taken transversely?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And across water?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is heard, but more feebly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For some time Fritz had been closely observing with the telescope a
+particular part of the horizon, when all at once he cried, &quot;This time
+I see him distinctly; he is bearing down upon us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who? the sloop?&quot; cried Willis, starting up and letting fall the glass
+he had in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What an extraordinary pace! he bounds into the air, then plumps into
+the water, then leaps up again, just like an India-rubber ball, that
+touches the ground only to take a fresh spring!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Impossible, Master Fritz; the <i>Nelson</i> tops the waves honestly and
+gallantly; but as to leaping into the air, she is a little too bulky
+for that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, poor Willis, it is not the <i>Nelson</i> that is under my glass at
+present, but an enormous fish, ten or twelve feet in length.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, how you startled me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father! Ernest! prepare to fire! Jack, the harpoon! he is coming this
+way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fritz stood at the stern of the pinnace, his rifle levelled, following
+with his eyes the movements of the monster; when within reach, he
+fired with so much success and address that he hit the creature on the
+head. It then changed its course, leaving behind a train of blood.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us after him, Willis; quick!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot turned the head of the pinnace, and Jack immediately threw
+his harpoon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Struck!&quot; cried he joyfully.</p>
+
+<p>By the hissing of the line, and then the rapid impulsion of the
+pinnace, it was felt that the monster had more strength than the craft
+and its crew together.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest and his father fired at the same time; the ball of the former
+was lost in the animal's flesh, that of the latter rebounded off a
+horny protuberance that armed the monster's upper lip.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz had time to recharge his rifle; he levelled it a second time,
+and the ball went to join the former; but, for all that, the pinnace
+continued to cleave the water at a furious rate.</p>
+
+<p>Becker seized an axe and cut the rope.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, father, what a pity! such a splendid capture for our museum of
+natural history!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a sword-fish, children; a monster of a dangerous species, and
+of extreme voracity. If, by way of reciprocity, the fish have a museum
+at the bottom of the sea, they will have some fine specimens of the
+human race that have become the prey of this creature; and it may be
+that we were on the way to join the collection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you observe the formidable dentilated horn?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is by means of this horn or sword, from which it takes its name,
+that it wages a continual war with the whale, whose only mode of
+escape is by flourishing its enormous tail; but the sword-fish, being
+very agile, easily avoids this, bounds into the air as Fritz saw it
+doing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierces
+him with its sword.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, talking about the whale,&quot; said Jack, &quot;all naturalists
+seem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation,
+that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs,
+or very small fishes&mdash;what, in that case, becomes of the history of
+Jonah?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is rather unfortunate,&quot; replied Becker, &quot;that the whale has been
+associated with this miracle. There is now no possibility of
+separating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in the
+Greek translation of the Chaldean text, there is <i>Ketos</i>&mdash;in the
+Latin, there is <i>Cete</i>&mdash;and both these words were understood by the
+ancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale in
+particular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even a
+horse, without mangling it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have heard,&quot; said Jack, &quot;of navigators who have landed on the back
+of a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is nothing impossible about that,&quot; observed Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monster
+who has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming to
+be in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed to
+move all the quicker for the dose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. The
+carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a
+whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the
+way to shorten the period.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train of
+waggons, &quot;these fellows have no cares.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do you
+suppose that it dies of grief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who knows, Master Jack?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think,&quot; said Becker;
+&quot;it commences by living three years under water in the form of a
+maggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a horny
+covering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, four
+or five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the month
+of August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw off
+a jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns,
+and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect;
+then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe,
+it dies&mdash;hence it is called the day-fly, its existence being
+terminated by the shades of night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was certain of it,&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certain of what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That it died of grief at being on land. When one has been accustomed
+to the water, you see, under such circumstances life is not worth the
+having.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The day-fly,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;is an epitome of those men who
+spend a life-time hunting after wealth and glory, and who perish
+themselves at the moment they reach the pinnacle of their ambitious
+desires. Whence I conclude, my dear children, that there are nothing
+but beginnings and endings of unhappiness in this world, and that true
+felicity is only to be hoped for in another sphere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a curious series of transformations! First an aquatic insect,
+next amphibious, then throwing away the organs for which it has no
+further use, and becoming provided with those suited to its new
+state!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my dear Fritz; and yet those complicated and beautiful
+operations of Nature have not prevented philosophers from asserting
+that the world resulted from <i>floating atoms</i>, which, by force of
+combination, and after an infinity of blind movements, conglomerate
+into plants, animals, men, heaven, and earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am only a plain sailor,&quot; said Willis &quot;yet the eye of a worm teaches
+me more than these philosophers seem to have imagined in their
+philosophy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such a system could only have originated in Bedlam or Charenton.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Ernest, it is the system of Epicurus and Lucretius. Without going
+so far back, there are a thousand others quite as ridiculous, with
+which it is unnecessary to charge your young heads.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All madmen are not in confinement, and it may be that Epicurus and
+Lucretius had arrived at those limits of human reason, where genius
+begins in some and folly in others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not that, Fritz; but if men, says Malebranche somewhere,<a name='FNanchor_A_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_A_1'><sup>[A]</sup></a> are
+interested in having the sides of an equilateral triangle unequal, and
+that false geometry was as agreeable to them as false philosophy, they
+would make the problems equally false in geometry as in morality, for
+this simple reason, that their errors afford them gratification,
+whilst truth would only hurt and annoy them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good,&quot; observed Willis; &quot;this Malebranche, as you call him, must
+have been an admiral?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Willis, nothing more than a simple philosopher, but one of good
+faith, like Socrates, who admitted that what he knew best was, that he
+knew nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sun had gradually disappeared in the midst of purple tinged
+clouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then a
+simple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays,
+sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,<a name='FNanchor_B_2'></a><a href='#Footnote_B_2'><sup>[B]</sup></a> like the adieu we
+receive at the turning of a road from a friend who is leaving us.</p>
+
+<p>There was a festival in the sky that night; the firmament brought out,
+one by one, her circlet of diamonds, till the whole were sparkling
+like a blaze of light; the pinnace also left a fiery train in her
+wake, caused partly by electricity and partly by the phosphorescent
+animalculae that people the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis,&quot; said Becker, &quot;I leave it entirely to you to decide the
+instant of our return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot changed at once the course of the boat, without attempting
+to utter a word, so heavy was his heart at this unsuccessful
+termination of the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be curious,&quot; observed Fritz, &quot;if we find the <i>Nelson</i>, on our
+return, snugly at anchor in Safety Bay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a presentiment,&quot; said Jack; &quot;and you will see that we have
+been playing at hide-and-seek with the <i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are there not a thousand accidents to cause a ship to deviate from
+her route?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Master Ernest, there are typhoons, and the waterspouts of which
+I spoke to you before. In such cases, ships often deviate from their
+route, but generally by going to the bottom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis concluded this sentence with a gesture that defies description,
+implying annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Remember Admiral Socrates, Willis,&quot; said Jack; &quot;<i>what I know best is,
+that I know nothing</i>, and avow that God has other means of
+accomplishing his decrees besides typhoons and waterspouts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My excellent young friends, I know you want to inspire me with hope,
+as they give a toy to a child to keep it from crying, and I thank you
+for your good intentions. Now, for three days you have, so to speak,
+had no rest, and I insist on your profiting by this night to take some
+repose; and you also, Mr. Becker; I am quite able to manage the
+pinnace alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes providing you do not play us some trick, like that of this
+morning, for instance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All stratagems are justifiable in war. Master Ernest had fair warning
+that I had an idea to work out. Besides, a prisoner, when under
+hatches, has the right to escape if he can: under parole, the case is
+quite different.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Willis, if you give me your simple promise to steer straight
+for New Switzerland, and awake me in two hours to take the bearings&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I give it, Mr. Becker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The three Greenlanders then descended into the hold, for tropical
+nights are as chilly as the days are hot, and Becker, rolling himself
+up in a sail, lay on deck.</p>
+
+<p>In less than five minutes they were all fast asleep, and Willis paced
+the deck, his arms crossed, and mechanically gazing upon a star that
+was mirrored in the water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Several years to come to us, and that at the rate of seventy thousand
+leagues a second&mdash;that is <i>a little</i> too much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then he went to the rudder, his head leaning upon his breast, and
+glancing now and then with distracted eye at the course of the boat,
+buried in a world of thought, sad and confused, doubtless beholding in
+succession visions of the <i>Nelson</i>, of Susan, and of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_A_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_A_1'>[A]</a> &quot;Search after Truth,&quot; book ix.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_B_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_B_2'>[B]</a> The twilight is entirely owing to this.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_IV'></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p>A LANDSCAPE&mdash;SAD HOUSES AND SMILING HOUSES&mdash;POLITENESS IN CHINA&mdash;EIGHT
+SOUPS AT DESSERT&mdash;WIND MERCHANTS&mdash;ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S&mdash;SUSAN,
+VICE SOPHIA.</p>
+
+
+<p>Towards five o'clock next morning everything about Rockhouse was
+beginning to assume life and motion&mdash;within, all its inhabitants were
+already astir&mdash;without, little remained of the recent storm and
+inundation except that refreshing coolness, which, conjointly with the
+purified air, infuses fresh vigor, not only into men, but also into
+every living thing. The citrous, the aloes, and the Spanish jasmines
+perfumed the landscape. The flexible palms, the tall bananas, with
+their unbrageous canopy, the broad, pendant-leaved mangoes, and all
+the rank but luxuriant vegetation that clothed the land to the water's
+edge, waved majestically under the gentle breeze that blew from the
+sea. The Jackal River unfolded its silvery band through the roses,
+bamboos, and cactii that lined its banks. The sun&mdash;for that luminary
+plays an important part in all Nature's festivals&mdash;darted its rays on
+the soil still charged with vapor. Diamond drops sparkled in the cups
+of the flowers and on the points of the leaves. In the distance,
+pines, cedars, and richly-laden cocoa-nut trees filled up the
+background with their dark foliage. The swans displayed their
+brilliant plumage on the lake, the boughs of the trees were alive with
+parroquets and other winged creatures of the tropics. Add to the
+charms of this scene, Mrs. Becker returning from the prairie with a
+jar of warm, frothy milk&mdash;Mrs. Wolston and Mary busied in a
+multiplicity of household occupations, to which their white hands and
+ringing voices gave elegance and grace&mdash;Sophia tying a rose to the
+neck of a blue antelope which she had adopted as a companion&mdash;Frank
+distributing food to the ostriches and large animals, and admit, if
+there is a paradise on earth, it was this spot.</p>
+
+<p>Compare this scene with that presented by any of our large cities at
+the same hour in the morning. In London or Paris, our dominion rarely
+extends over two or three dreary-looking rooms&mdash;a geranium, perhaps,
+at one of the windows to represent the fields and green lanes of the
+country; above, a forest of smoking chimneys vary the monotony of the
+zig-zag roofs; below, a thousand confused noises of waggons, cabs, and
+the hoarse voices of the street criers; probably the lamps are just
+being extinguished, and the dust heaps carted away, filling our rooms,
+and perhaps our eyes, with ashes; the chalk-milk, the air, and the
+odors are scarcely required to fill up the picture.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast was spread a few paces from Mr. Wolston's bed, whom the two
+young girls were tending with anxious solicitude, and whose sickness
+was almost enviable, so many were the cares lavished upon him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are wrong, Mrs. Becker,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;to make yourself
+uneasy, the sea has become as smooth as a mirror since their
+departure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes, I know that, my dear Mrs. Wolston, but when one has already
+undergone the perils of shipwreck, the impression always remains, and
+makes us see storms in a glass of water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am certain,&quot; remarked Mr. Wolston, &quot;the cause of their delay is a
+concession made to Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely he would not consent to return, unless they went as far
+as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, madam,&quot; said Mary, &quot;now that you have got two great girls
+added to your establishment, I hope you are going to make them useful
+in some way&mdash;we can sew, knit, and spin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And know how to make preserves,&quot; added Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and to eat them too,&quot; said her mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you can spin, my dears, we shall find plenty of work for you; we
+have here the Nankin cotton plant, and I intend to dress the whole
+colony with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Delightful!&quot; exclaimed Sophia, clapping her hands; &quot;Nankin dresses
+just as at the boarding-school, with a straw hat and a green veil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To be sure, it must be woven first,&quot; reflected Mrs. Becker; &quot;but I
+dare say we shall be able to manage that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, girls,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;have you forgotten your
+lessons in tapestry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all, mamma; and now that we think of it, we shall handsomely
+furnish a drawing-room for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But where are the tables and chairs to come from?&quot; inquired Mrs.
+Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, the gentlemen will see to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the room, where is that to be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is the gallery, is there not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the wool for the carpet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you not sheep?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is true, children; you speak as if we had only to go and sit
+down in it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The piano, however, I fear will be wanting, unless we can pick up an
+Erard in the neighboring forest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, mamma, all the overtures that we have had so much trouble in
+learning will have to go for nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, &quot;by way of compensation, there is the
+vegetable and fruit garden, the pantry, the kitchen, the dairy, and
+the poultry yard; these are all my charges, and you may have some of
+them if you like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Excellent, each shall have her own kingdom and subjects.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It being understood,&quot; suggested Mrs. Wolston, &quot;that you are not to
+eat everything up, should the fruit garden or pantry come under your
+charge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is not fair, mamma; you are making us out to be a couple of
+cannibals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; continued Mrs. Wolston, &quot;these young people have not the
+slightest objection to my parading their accomplishments, but the
+moment I touch their faults they feel aggrieved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am persuaded,&quot; rejoined Mrs. Becker laughing, &quot;that there are no
+calumniators in the world like mothers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore, mamma, to punish you we shall come and kiss you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And accordingly Mrs. Wolston was half stifled under the embraces of
+her two daughters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am certainly not the offender,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, &quot;but I should not
+object to receive a portion of the punishment; these great
+boys&mdash;pointing to Frank&mdash;are too heavy to hang on my neck now; you
+will replace them, my dears, will you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most willingly, madam; but not to deprive them of their places in
+your affection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In case you should lose that, Master Frank,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;you
+must have recourse to mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But now, my friends, what do you say to going down to the shore to
+meet the pinnace, and perhaps the <i>Nelson</i>?&quot; said Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes,&quot; said Sophia; &quot;and I will stay at home to wait upon father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said Mary; &quot;I am the eldest&mdash;that is my right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, my children, do not quarrel about that,&quot; said Wolston; &quot;I feel
+rather better; and I dare say a walk will do me good. Perhaps, when I
+get tired, Frank will lend me his arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better than that,&quot; hastily added Frank; &quot;I shall saddle Blinky; and
+lead him gently, and you will be as comfortable as in an arm-chair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that you call Blinky?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, one of our donkeys.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, very good; I was afraid you meant one of your ostriches, and I
+candidly admit that my experiences in equitation do not extend to
+riding a winged horse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, &quot;to keep Blinky's brother from being
+jealous, I, shall charge him with a basket of provisions; and we shall
+lay a cloth under the mangoes, so that our ocean knights, as Jack will
+have it, may have something to refresh themselves withal as soon as
+they dismount.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little caravan was soon on the march; the two dogs cleared the
+way, leaping, bounding, and scampering on before, sniffing the bushes
+with their intelligent noses; then, returning to their master, they
+read in his face what was next to be done. Mary walked by the side of
+Blinky, amusing her father with her prattle. Sophia, with her
+antelope, was gambolling around them, the one rivalling the other in
+the grace of their movements, not only without knowing it, but rather
+because they did not know it. The two mothers were keeping an eye on
+the donkey; whilst Frank, with his rifle charged, was ready to bring
+down a quail or encounter a hyena.</p>
+
+<p>Some hours after the pinnace hove in sight, the voyagers landed, and
+received the warm congratulations of those on shore. When Willis had
+secured the boat, he took a final survey of the coast, penetrating
+with his eyes every creek and crevice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is there no trace of the <i>Nelson</i>?&quot; inquired Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I had all along thought you would find it so; the wind for four
+days has been blowing that it would drive the <i>Nelson</i> to her
+destination. Captain Littlestone, being charged with important
+despatches, having already lost a fortnight here, has, no doubt, taken
+advantage of the gale, and made sail for the Cape, trusting to find us
+all alive here on his return voyage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said the Pilot, &quot;I know very well that you have all good
+hearts, and that you are desirous of giving me all the consolation you
+can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Would you not have acted, under similar circumstances, precisely as
+we suppose Captain Littlestone to have done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I admit that the thing, is not only possible, but also that, if
+alive, it is just what he would have done. I trust, if it be so, that
+when he gets into port he will report me keel-hauled?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Keel-hauled?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I mean dead. It is a thousand times better to pass for a dead
+man than a deserter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The wisest course he could pursue, it appears to me, would be to hold
+his tongue&mdash;probably you will not be missed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! you think that her Majesty's blue jackets can disappear in that
+way, like musk-rats? But no such thing. When the captain in command at
+the station hails on board, every man and boy of the crew, from the
+powder-monkey to the first-lieutenant, are mustered in pipe-clay on
+the quarter-deck, and there, with the ship's commission in his hand,
+every one must report himself as he calls over the names.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then the captain will tell the simple truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you see, truth has nothing at all to do with the rules of the
+service, the questions printed in the orderly-book only will be asked,
+and he may not have an opportunity of stating the facts of the case;
+besides, discipline on board a ship in commission could not be
+maintained if irregularities could be patched up by a few words from
+the captain. When it is found that I had been left on shore, the
+questions will be, 'Was the <i>Nelson</i> in want of repairs?' 'No.' 'Did
+she require water?' 'No.' 'Provisions?' 'No.' 'Then Willis has
+deserted?' 'Yes.' And his condemnation will follow as a matter of
+course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, the Captain would be more to blame than you are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So he would, and it is for that reason I hope he will be able to show
+by the log that I was seized with cholera, tied up in a sack, and duly
+thrown overboard with a four-pound shot for ballast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot conceive,&quot; said Becker, &quot;that the discipline of any service
+can be so cruelly unreasonable as you would have us believe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, perhaps you think that just before the anchor is heaved, and the
+ship about to start on a long voyage, the cabin boys are asked whether
+they have the colic&mdash;that lubbers, who wish to back out have only to
+say the word, and they are free&mdash;that the pilot may go a-hunting if he
+likes, and that the officers may stay on shore and amuse themselves in
+defiance of the rules of the service? In that case the navy would be
+rather jolly, but not much worth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Willis was once fairly started there was no stopping him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dead,&quot; he continued; &quot;that is to say, without a berth, pay, or even a
+name, nothing! My wife will have the right to marry again, my little
+Susan will have another father, and I shall only be able to breathe by
+stealth, and to consider that as more than I deserve. You must admit
+that all this is rather a poor look-out a-head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really, Willis,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;you seem to take a pride in
+making things worse than they are, conjuring up phantoms that have no
+existence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is true, madam. I may be going upon a wrong tack. Judging from all
+appearances, the sloop, instead of being on her way to the Cape, is
+tranquilly reposing at the bottom of the sea. But it is only death for
+death; hanged by a court-martial or drowned with the sloop, it comes,
+in the end, to the same thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I dare say, Willis, had there really been an accident, and you had
+been on board, you would not have felt yourself entitled to escape?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly not, madam; unless the crew could be saved, it would look
+anything but well for the pilot to escape alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis, however, to do him justice, seemed trying to smother his
+grief; and, in the meanwhile, the two girls had been spreading a pure
+white cloth on a neighboring rock, cutting fruit plates out of the
+thick mangoe leaves, cooling the Rockhouse malaga in the brook, and
+giving to the repast an air of elegance and refinement which had the
+effect of augmenting the appetite of the company. The viands were not
+better than they had been on many similar occasions, but they were now
+more artistically displayed, and consequently more inviting.</p>
+
+<p>Who has not remarked, in passing through a street of dingy-looking
+houses, one of them distinguished from the others by its fresh and
+cheerful aspect, the windows garnished with a luxuriant screen of
+flowers, with curtains on either side of snowy whiteness and elaborate
+workmanship? Very likely the passer-by has asked himself, Why is this
+house not as neglected, tattered, and dirty as its wretched neighbors?
+The answer is simple; there dwells in this house a young girl, blithe,
+frolicsome, and joyous, singing with the lark, and, like a butterfly,
+floating from her book to her work-box&mdash;from her mother's cheek to her
+father's, leaving an impress of her youthfulness and purity on
+whatever she touches.</p>
+
+<p>For a like reason the <i>al fresco</i> dinner of this day had a charm that
+no such feast had been observed to possess before.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are not presentable,&quot; said Fritz, referring to his seal-gut
+uniform.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; replied Mrs. Wolston, &quot;it is your costume of war, brave knights;
+and, for my part, I admire you more in it than in the livery of Hyde
+Park or Bond Street.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case,&quot; said Ernest, &quot;we shall do as they do in China.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, the most profound remark of respect a host can pay to his
+guests, is to go and dress after dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just when they are about to leave?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly so, madam.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is very decidedly a Chinese observance. Are they not somewhat
+behind in cookery?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By no means, madam; on the contrary, they have attained a very high
+degree of perfection in that branch of the arts. It is customary, at
+every ceremonious dinner, to serve up fifty-two distinct dishes. And
+when that course is cleared off, what do you think is produced next?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The dessert, I suppose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eight kinds of soup, never either one more or one less. If the number
+were deficient, the guests would consider themselves grossly insulted,
+the number of dishes denoting the degree of respect entertained by the
+host for his guests.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I beg, Mrs. Wolston,&quot; said Mrs. Becker laughing, &quot;that you will not
+estimate our esteem for you by the dinner we offer you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; replied Mrs. Wolston in the same tone, &quot;let me see; to be
+treated as we ought to be, there are fifty-seven dishes wanting,
+therefore we must go and dine at home. John, call my carriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this sally they all laughed heartily, and even Willis chimed in
+with the general hilarity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, after the soups,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;comes the tea, and with
+that the dessert, as also sixty square pieces of silver paper to wipe
+the mouth. It is then that the host vanishes, to reappear in a
+brilliant robe of gold brocade and a vest of satin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These people ought all to perish of indigestion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; they are moderate eaters, their dishes consist of small saucers,
+each containing only a few mouthfuls of meat, and, as for Europeans,
+the want of forks and spoons&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! have they no forks?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at table&mdash;nor knives either; but, on the other hand, they are
+exceedingly expert in the use of two slender sticks of ivory, which
+they hold in the first three fingers of the right hand, and with which
+they manage to convey solids, and even liquids, to their mouths.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! I see,&quot; said Jack; &quot;the Europeans would be obliged, like Mrs.
+Wolston, to call their carriage, in spite of the fifty-two saucers of
+meat: it puts me in mind of the stork inviting the fox to dine with
+her out of a long-necked jar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are apt to judge the Chinese by the pictures seen of them on their
+own porcelain, and copied upon our pottery,&quot; said Becker; &quot;but this
+conveys only a ludicrous idea of them. They are the most industrious,
+but at the same time the vainest, most stupid, and most credulous
+people in the world; they worship the moon, fire, fortune, and a
+thousand other things; people go about amongst them selling wind,
+which they dispose of in vials of various sizes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is a trade that will not require an extraordinary amount of
+capital.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; and besides, as they carry on their trade in the open air, they
+have no rent to pay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Their bonzes or priests,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;to excite charity,
+perambulate the streets in chains, sometimes with some inflammable
+matter burning on their heads, whilst, instead of attempting to purify
+the souls of dying sinners, they put rice and gold in their mouths
+when the vital spark has fled. They have a very cruel mode of
+punishing renegade Lamas: these are pierced through the neck with a
+red-hot iron.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is a Lama, father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a designation of the Tartar priests.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For some time Willis had been closely examining a particular point in
+the bay with increasing anxiety; at last he ran towards the shore and
+leapt into the sea. Becker and his four sons were on the point of
+starting off in pursuit of him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop,&quot; said Wolston, &quot;I have been watching Willis's movements for the
+last ten minutes, and I guess his purpose&mdash;let him alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis swam to some object that was floating on the water, and
+returned in about a quarter of an hour, bringing with him a plank.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he inquired, on landing, &quot;was I wrong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wrong about what?&quot; inquired Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Nelson</i> is gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The proof, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That plank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what about the plank?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I recognise it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How! Well,&quot; replied the obstinate pilot, &quot;fish don't breed planks,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;I scarcely think this one could escape from a dockyard, and
+float here of its own accord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, Willis, according to you, there are no ships but the <i>Nelson</i>,
+no ships wrecked but the <i>Nelson</i>, and no planks but the <i>Nelson's</i>.
+Willis, you are a fool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every one has his own ideas, Mr. Wolston.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening, when they were on their way back to Rockhouse, Sophia
+confidentially called Willis aside, and he cheerfully obeyed the
+summons.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pilot,&quot; said she, &quot;I have made up my mind about one thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is that, Miss Sophia?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, this&mdash;in future, when we are alone, as just now, you must call
+me Susan, as you used to call your own little girl when at home, not
+Miss Susan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I cannot do that, Miss Sophia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I insist upon it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Miss Sophia, I will try.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did you say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Sus&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Susan, I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There now, that will do.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_V'></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p>ALLOTMENT OF QUARTERS&mdash;A HORSE MARINE&mdash;TRAVELLING PLANTS&mdash;CHANGE OF
+DYNASTY IN ENGLAND&mdash;A WOMAN'S KINGDOM&mdash;SHEEP CONVERTED INTO
+CHOPS&mdash;RESURRECTION OF THE FRIED FISH&mdash;A SECRET.</p>
+
+<p>After some days more of anxious but fruitless expectation, it was
+finally concluded that either the <i>Nelson</i> had sailed for the Cape,
+or, as Willis would have it, she had gone to that unexplored and dread
+land where there were neither poles nor equator, and whence no mariner
+was ever known to return. It was necessary, therefore, to make
+arrangements for the surplus population of the colony&mdash;whether for a
+time or for ever, it was then impossible to say. At first sight, it
+might appear easy enough to provide accommodation for the eleven
+individuals that constituted the colony of New Switzerland. It is true
+that land might have been marked off, and each person made sovereign
+over a territory as large as some European kingdoms; but these
+sovereignties would have resembled the republic of St. Martin&mdash;there
+would have been no subjects. What, then, would they have governed? it
+may be asked. Themselves, might be answered; and it is said to be a
+far more difficult task to govern ourselves than to rule others.</p>
+
+<p>Though space was ample enough as regards the colony in general, it was
+somewhat limited as regards detail. To live <i>p&ecirc;le-m&ecirc;le</i> in Rockhouse
+was entirely out of the question. Independently of accommodation, a
+thousand reasons of propriety opposed such an arrangement. Whether or
+not there might be another cave in the neighborhood, hollowed out by
+Nature, was not known; if there were, it had still to be discovered.
+Chance would not be chance, if it were undeviating and certain in its
+operations. To consign the Wolstons to Falcon's Nest or Prospect
+Hill, and leave them there alone, even though under the protection of
+Willis, could not be thought of; they knew nothing of the dangers that
+would surround them, and as yet they were ignorant of the topography
+of the island. It was, therefore, requisite that both families should
+continue in proximity, so as to aid each other in moments of peril,
+but without, at the same time, outraging propriety, or shackling
+individual freedom of action. Under ordinary circumstances, these
+difficulties might have been solved by taking apartments on the
+opposite side of the street, or renting a house next door. But, alas!
+the blessings of landlords and poor-rates had not yet been bestowed on
+the island.</p>
+
+<p>One day after dinner, when these points were under consideration,
+Willis, who was accustomed to disappear after each meal, no one knew
+why or whereto, came and took his place amongst them under the
+gallery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As for myself,&quot; said the Pilot, &quot;I do not wish to live anywhere.
+Since I am in your house, Mr. Becker, and cannot get away honestly for
+a quarter of an hour, I must of course remain; but as for becoming a
+mere dependant on your bounty, that I will not suffer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What you say there is not very complimentary to me,&quot; said Mr.
+Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your position, Mr. Wolston, is a very different thing: besides, you
+are an invalid and require attention, whilst I am strong and healthy,
+for which I ought to be thankful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not in my house,&quot; replied Becker &quot;any more than I am in
+yours; the place we are in is a shelter provided by Providence for us
+all, and I venture to suppose that such a host is rich enough to
+supply all our wants. I am only the humble instrument distributing the
+gifts that have been so lavishly bestowed on this island.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What you say is very kind and very generous,&quot; added Willis, &quot;but I
+mean to provide for myself&mdash;that is my idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And not a bad one either,&quot; continued Becker; &quot;but how? You are
+welcome here to do the work for four&mdash;if you like; and then, supposing
+you eat for two, I will be your debtor, not you mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Work! and at what? walking about with a rifle on my shoulder; airing
+myself, as I am doing now under your gallery, in the midst of flowers,
+on the banks of a river: or opening my mouth for quails to jump down
+my throat ready roasted&mdash;would you call that work?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look there, Willis&mdash;what do you see?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A bear-skin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, suppose, by way of a beginning, I were to introduce you to a
+fine live bear, with claws and tusks to match, ready to spring on you,
+having as much right to your skin as you have to his&mdash;now, were I to
+say to you, I want that animal's skin, to make a soft couch similar to
+the one you see yonder, would you call that work?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, Mr. Becker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, then; it is in the midst of such labors that we pass our
+lives. Before we fell comfortably asleep on feather beds, those
+formidable bones which you see in our museum were flying in the air;
+the cup which I now hold in my hand was a portion of the clay on which
+you sit; the canoe with which you ran away the other day was a live
+seal; the hats that we wear, were running about the fields in the form
+of angola rabbits. So with everything you see about you; for fifteen
+years, excepting the Sabbath, which is our day of rest and recreation
+as well as prayer, we have never relapsed from labor, and you are at
+liberty to adopt a similar course, if you feel so disposed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No want of variety,&quot; said Jack; &quot;if you do not like the saw-pit, you
+can have the tannery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Neither are very much in my line,&quot; replied Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What then do you say to pottery?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have broken a good deal in my day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but there is a difference between breaking it and making it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What appears most needful,&quot; remarked Fritz, &quot;is, three or four acres
+of fresh land, to double our agricultural produce.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is land dear in these parts?&quot; inquired Mrs. Wolston, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not to be had for nothing, madam; there is the trouble of
+selecting it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the labor of rendering it productive,&quot; added Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how do you manage for a lawyer to convey it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was advising Ernest to adopt that profession,&quot; said Mrs. Becker;
+&quot;wills and contracts would be in harmony with his studious
+temperament.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At present, the question before us,&quot; said Becker, &quot;is the allotment
+of quarters; in the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, with the young
+ladies, will continue to occupy our room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; said Wolston &quot;that would be downright expropriation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case the matter comes within the sphere of our lawyer, and I
+therefore request his advice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To this Ernest replied, by slowly examining his pockets; after this
+operation was deliberately performed, he said, in a <i>nisi prius</i> tone,
+&quot;That he had forgotten his spectacles, and consequently that it was
+impossible for him to look into the case in the way its importance
+demanded, otherwise he was quite of the same opinion as his learned
+brother&mdash;his father, he meant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what if we refuse?&quot; said Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you refuse, Mrs. Wolston, there is only one other course to
+adopt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is that, Master Frank?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, simply this,&quot; and rising, he cried out lustily, &quot;John, call Mrs.
+Wolston's carriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, to such an argument as that, there can be no reply; so I see you
+must be permitted to do what you like with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good,&quot; continued Becker; &quot;then there is one point decided: my
+wife and I will occupy the children's apartment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the children,&quot; said Jack, &quot;will occupy the open air. For my own
+part, I have no objection: that is a bedroom exactly to my taste.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Spacious,&quot; remarked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well-aired,&quot; suggested Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hangings of blue, inlaid with stars of gold,&quot; observed Frank.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Any thing else?&quot; inquired Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, father, I believe the extent of accommodation does not go beyond
+that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore I have decided upon something less vast, but more
+comfortable for you; you will go every night to our <i>villa</i> of
+Falcon's Nest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On foot?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On horseback, if you like and under the direction of Willis, whom I
+name commander-in-chief of the cavalry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of the cavalry!&quot; cried the sailor; &quot;what! a pilot on horseback?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not be uneasy, Willis,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;we have no horses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, well, that alters the case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But then we have zebras and ostriches.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ostriches! worse and worse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say not so, good Willis; when once you have tried Lightfoot or
+Flyaway, you would never wish to travel otherwise: they run so fast
+that the wind is fairly distanced, and scarcely give us time to
+breathe&mdash;it is delightful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, but I would rather try and get the canoe to travel on
+land.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Willis,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;that would be an achievement that would do
+you infinite credit&mdash;if you only succeed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will you allow me to make a request, Mrs. Becker?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen to Willis,&quot; said Jack, &quot;he has an idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The request I have to urge is, that you will permit me to encamp on
+Shark's Island, and there establish a lighthouse for the guidance of
+the <i>Nelson</i>, in case she should return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! the commander-in-chief of cavalry on an island?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not of the cavalry, but of the fleet; it is only necessary for
+Mr. Becker to change my position into that of an admiral, which will
+not give him much extra trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall do so with pleasure, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, since I am an admiral, the first thing I shall do, is
+to pardon myself for the faults I committed whilst I was a pilot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Capital!&quot; said Ernest, &quot;that puts me in mind of Louis XII., who, on
+ascending the throne, said that it was not for the King of France to
+revenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, is to become of the boys? I intended to make you their
+compass&mdash;on land, of course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The boys,&quot; cried the latter, &quot;are willing to enlist as seamen, and
+accompany the admiral on his cruise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will spin yarns for us, Willis, will you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, my lads, if you want a sleeping dose, I will undertake to do
+that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But there are objections to this arrangement,&quot; Mrs. Becker hastily
+added.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What are they, mother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the first place, a storm might arise some fine night&mdash;one of those
+dreadful hurricanes that continue several days, like the one that
+terrified us so much lately&mdash;and then all communication would be cut
+off between us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You could always see one another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How so, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From a distance&mdash;with the telescope.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then,&quot; continued Mrs. Becker, &quot;you would be a prey to famine, for
+though the telescope, good Master Willis, might enable you to see our
+dinner&mdash;from a distance&mdash;I doubt whether that would prevent you dying
+of starvation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We might easily guard against that, by taking over a sufficient
+quantity of provisions with us every night, and bringing them back
+next morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But could you carry over my kisses, Willis, and distribute them
+amongst my children every morning and evening, like rations of rice?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If the arrangement will really make you uneasy, Mrs. Becker, I give
+it up,&quot; said Willis, polishing with his arm the surface of his
+oil-skin sou'-wester.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all, Willis. It is for me to give up my objections. Besides, I
+observe Miss Sophia staring at me with her great eyes; she will never
+forgive me for tormenting her sweetheart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! since I have been staring at you, I have only now to eat you up
+like the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood,&quot; and in a moment her slender
+arms were clasped round Mrs. Becker's neck.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good,&quot; said Becker, &quot;there is another point settled&mdash;temporarily.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In Europe,&quot; observed Wolston, &quot;there is nothing so durable as the
+temporary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In Europe, yes, but not here. To-morrow morning we shall select a
+tree near Falcon's Nest, and in eight days you shall be permanently
+housed in an aerial tenement close to ours, so that we may chat to
+each other from our respective balconies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will be a castle in the air a little more real than those I have
+built in Spain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you have been in Spain, papa?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every one has been less or more in the Spain I refer to. Sophy&mdash;it is
+the land of dreams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And of castanets,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then my sweetheart will be alone on his island, like an exile?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Miss Sophia, we are incapable of such ingratitude. After enjoying
+the hospitality of Willis in Shark's Island, he will surely deign to
+accept ours at Falcon's Nest; so, whether here or there, he shall
+always have four devoted followers to keep him company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot shook Fritz by the hand, at the same time nearly dislocating
+his arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder why God, who is so good, has not made houses grow of
+themselves, like pumpkins and melons?&quot; said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rather a lazy idea that,&quot; said his father; &quot;our great Parent has
+clearly designed that we should do something for ourselves; he has
+given us the acorn whence we may obtain the oak.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nevertheless, there are uninhabited countries which are gorged with
+vegetation&mdash;the territory we are in, for example.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but still no plant has ever sprung up anywhere without a seed
+has been planted, either by the will of God or by the hands of man.
+With regard, however, to the distribution of vegetation in a natural
+state, that depends more upon the soil and climate than anything else;
+wherever there is a fertile soil and moist air, there seeds will find
+their way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The seeds of a great many plants are furnished with downy filaments,
+which act as wings; these are taken up by the wind and carried immense
+distances; others are inclosed in an elastic shell, from which, when
+ripe, they are ejected with considerable force.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The propagation of plants that have wings or elastic shells may, in
+that way, be accounted for; but there are some seeds that fall, by
+their own weight, exactly at the foot of the vegetable kingdom that
+produces them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is often these that make the longest voyages.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By what conveyance, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, my son, for a philosopher, I cannot say that your knowledge is
+very profound; seeds that have no wings borrow them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not from the ant, I presume?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not exactly; but from the quail, the woodcock, the swallow, and a
+thousand others, that are apparently more generous than the poor ant,
+to which &AElig;sop has given a reputation for avarice that it will have
+some trouble to shake off. The birds swallow the seeds, many of which
+are covered with a hard, horny skin, that often resists digestion;
+these are carried by the inhabitants of the air across rivers, seas,
+and lakes, and are deposited by them in the neighborhood of their
+nests&mdash;it may be on the top of a mountain, or in the crevice of a
+rock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, I never thought of that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are a great many philosophers who know more about the motions
+of stars than these humbler operations of Nature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are caught there,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are philosophers, too, who can do nothing but ridicule the
+knowledge of others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Caught you there,&quot; retaliated Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was in this way that a bird of the Moluccas has restored the clove
+tree to the islands of this archipelago, in spite of the Dutch, who
+destroyed them everywhere, in order that they might enjoy the monopoly
+of the trade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still, I must fall back upon my original idea; by sowing a brick, we
+ought to reap a wall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if a wall, a house,&quot; suggested another of the young men.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or if a turret, a castle,&quot; proposed a third.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or a hall to produce a palace,&quot; remarked the fourth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are four wishes worthy of the four heads that produced them!
+What do you think of those four great boys, Mrs. Wolston?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, madam, as they are wishing, at any rate they may as well wish
+that chinchillas and marmots wore their fur in the form of boas and
+muffs, that turkeys produced perigord pies, and that the fish were
+drawn out of the sea ready roasted or boiled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or that the sheep walked about in the form of nicely grilled chops,&quot;
+suggested Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you, young ladies, what would you wish?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mary, who was now beyond the age of dolls, and was fast approaching
+the period of young womanhood, felt that it was a duty incumbent upon
+her to be more reserved than her sister, and rarely took part in the
+conversation, unless she was directly addressed, ceased plying her
+needle, and replied, smiling,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish I could make some potent elixir in the same way as gooseberry
+wine, that would restore sick people to health, then I would give a
+few drops to my father, and make him strong and well, as he used to
+be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you for the intention, my dear child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you, Miss Sophia? It is your turn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish that all the little children were collected together, and that
+every papa and mamma could pick out their own from amongst them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Willis took out his pocket-handkerchief and appeared to be
+blowing his nose, it being an idea of his that a sailor ought not to
+be caught with a tear in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now then, Willis, we must have a wish from you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish three things: that there had not been a hurricane lately, that
+canoes could be converted into three masters, and that Miss Sophia may
+be Queen of England.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Granted,&quot; cried Jack.</p>
+
+<p>And laying hold of a wreath of violets that the young girl had been
+braiding, he solemnly placed it on her head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will make her too vain,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah mamma, do not scold,&quot; and gracefully taking the crown from her own
+fair curls, she placed it on the silvery locks of her mother; &quot;I
+abdicate in your favor, and, sweetheart, I thank you for placing our
+dynasty on the throne. Mary, you are a princess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; she replied, &quot;and here is my sceptre,&quot; holding up her spindle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well answered, my daughter, that is a woman's best sceptre, and her
+kingdom is her house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our conversation,&quot; said Becker, &quot;is like those small threads of water
+which, flowing humbly from the hollow of a rock, swell into brooks,
+then become rivers, and, finally, lose themselves in the ocean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was Ernest that led us on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it is time now to get back to your starting-point again. God
+has said that we shall earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, and
+consequently that our enjoyments should be the result of our own
+industry; that is the reason that venison is given to us in the form
+of the swift stag, and palaces in the form of clay; man is endowed
+with reason, and may, by labor, convert all these blessings to his
+use.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your notion,&quot; said Mr. Wolston, &quot;of drawing the fish out of the sea
+ready cooked, puts me in mind of an incident of college life which,
+with your permission, I will relate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh yes, papa, a story!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was at Cambridge, when I was there, a young man, who, instead
+of study and sleep, spent his days and nights in pistol practice and
+playing on the French horn, much to the annoyance of an elderly maiden
+lady, who occupied the apartments that were immediately under his
+own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These are inconveniences that need not be dreaded here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our police are too strict.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And our young men too well-bred,&quot; added Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not only that,&quot; continued Mr. Wolston, &quot;this young student, who never
+thought of study, had a huge, shaggy Newfoundland dog, and the old
+lady possessed a chubby little pug, which she was intensely fond of;
+now, when these two brutes happened to meet on the stairs, the large
+one, by some accident or other, invariably sent the little one rolling
+head over heels to the bottom; and, much to the horror of the old
+lady, her favorite, that commenced its journey down stairs with four
+legs, had sometimes to make its way up again with three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I always understood that dogs were generous animals, and would not
+take advantage of an animal weaker than themselves; our dogs would not
+have acted so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, perhaps the dog was not quite so much to blame in these affairs
+as its master; besides, in making advances to its little friend, it
+might not have calculated its own force.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and perhaps might have been sorry afterwards for the mischief it
+had done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely; still the point was never clearly explained, and,
+whether or no, the elderly lady could not put up with this sort of
+thing any longer; she complained so often and so vigorously, that her
+troublesome neighbor was served in due form with a notice to quit. The
+young scapegrace was determined to be revenged in some way on the
+party who was the cause of his being so summarily ejected from his
+quarters. Now, right under his window there was a globe belonging to
+the old lady, well filled with good-sized gold fish. His eye by chance
+having fallen upon this, and spying at the same time his fishing-rod
+in a corner, the coincidence of vision was fatal to the gold-fish;
+they were very soon hooked up, rolled in flour, fried, and gently let
+down again one by one into the globe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like to have seen the old lady when she first became aware
+of this transformation!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, one of the fish had escaped, and was floating about, evidently
+lamenting the fate of its finny companions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was very cruel,&quot; observed Mary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Elderly ladies who have no family and live alone are very apt to
+bestow upon animals the love and affection that is inherent in us
+all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which is very much to be deprecated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why so, Master Frank?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are there not always plenty of poor and helpless human beings upon
+whom to bestow their love? are there not orphans and homeless
+creatures whom they might adopt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are; but it requires wealth for such benevolences, and the
+goddess Fortune is very capricious; whilst one must be very poor
+indeed that cannot spare a few crumbs of bread once a day. Besides,
+admitting that this mania is blamable when carried to excess, still it
+must be respected, for it behoves us to reverence age even in its
+foibles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Frank, whose nature was so very susceptible, that a single grain of
+good seed soon ripened into a complete virtue, bent his head in token
+of acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now the old lady loved these gold-fish as the apples of her eyes, and
+her astonishment and grief, in beholding the state they were in, was
+indescribable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And yet it was a loss that might have been easily repaired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you think so, Jack, do you? If you were to lose Knips, would the
+first monkey that came in your way replace him in your affections?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is a very different thing&mdash;I brought Knips up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; it is precisely the same thing. She had the fish when they were
+very small, had seen them grow, spoke to them, gave each of them a
+name, and believed them to be endowed with a supernatural
+intelligence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore, I contend the student was a savage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not he, my friend, he was one of the best-hearted fellows in the
+world: hasty, ardent, inconsiderate, he resisted commands and threats,
+but yielded readily to a tear or a prayer. As soon as he saw the
+sorrowful look of the old woman, he regretted what he had done, and
+undertook to restore the inhabitants of the globe to life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With what sort of magic wand did he propose to do that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the inhabitants of the house had collected round the old lady and
+her globe, endeavoring to console her, and at the same time trying to
+account for the phenomenon; some ascribed the transformation to
+lightning, others went so far as to suggest witchcraft. Our scapegrace
+now joined the throng, took the globe in his hands, gravely examined
+his victims, and declared, with the utmost coolness that they were not
+dead. 'Not dead, sir! are you sure?' 'Confident, madam; it is only a
+lethargy, a kind of coma or temporary transformation, that will be
+gradually shaken off; I have seen many cases of the same kind, and, if
+proper care be taken as to air, repose, and diet, particularly as
+regards the latter, your fish will be quite well again to-morrow.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did she believe that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One readily believes what one wishes to be true; besides, in
+twenty-four hours, all doubt on the subject would be at an end; added
+to which, the young man was ostensibly a student of medicine, and had
+the credit in the house of having cured the washerwoman's canary of a
+sore throat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, how did he manage about the fish?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very simply; he went and bought some exactly the same size that were
+not in a lethargy; he then, at the risk of breaking his neck or being
+taken for a burglar, scaled the balcony, and substituted them for the
+defunct. Next morning, when he called to inquire after his patients,
+he found the old lady quite joyful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Had she no doubts as to their identity?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, one was a little paler and another was a trifle thinner, but
+she was easily persuaded that this difference might arise from their
+convalescence. The young man immediately became a great favorite; and
+the old lady would rather have shared her own apartments with him,
+than allow him to quit the house; he consequently remained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, became of the pistols and the French horn?&quot; inquired
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From that time on there sprung up a close friendship between the two;
+he was induced by her to convert his weapons of war into
+pharmacopoeas. Always, when she made some nice compound of jelly and
+cream, he had a share of it; he, on his side, scarcely ever passed her
+door without softening his tread; and both himself and his dog
+managed, eventually, to acquire the favor of the old lady's pug.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He appears to have been one of those medical gentlemen WHO profess to
+cure every conceivable disease by one kind of medicine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And who generally contrive to remove both the disease and the patient
+at the same time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mistake the individual altogether; he is now one of the most
+esteemed physicians in London, remarkable alike for his skill and
+benevolence. It is even strongly suspected by his friends that he is
+not a little indebted for his present eminent position to his first
+patients&mdash;the canary and the gold-fish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was now the usual hour for retiring to rest. After the evening
+prayer, which Mary and Sophia said alternately aloud, Willis and the
+four brothers prepared to start for Shark's Island, to pass their
+first night in the store-room and cattle-shed that had been erected
+there. Of course they could not expect to be so comfortable in such
+quarters as at Rockhouse or Falcon's Nest; but then novelty is to
+young people what ease is to the aged. Black bread appears delicious
+to those who habitually eat white; and we ourselves have seen
+high-bred ladies delighted when they found themselves compelled to
+dine in a wretched hovel of the Tyrol&mdash;true, they were certain of a
+luxurious supper at Inspruck. So grief breaks the monotony of joy,
+just as a rock gives repose to level plain.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the pinnace was gradually leaving the shore, loaded with
+mattresses and other movables adapted for a temporary encampment,
+Jack signalled a parting adieu to Sophia, and, putting his fingers to
+his lips, seemed to enjoin silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, Master Jack,&quot; cried she.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is all this signalling about?&quot; inquired Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A secret,&quot; said the young girl, leaping with joy; &quot;I have a secret!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And with a young man? that is very naughty, miss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, mamma, you will know it to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What if I wanted to know it to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, mamma, if you insisted&mdash;that is&mdash;absolutely&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, child, I shall wait till to-morrow; keep it till then&mdash;if you
+can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sophia dear,&quot; said Mary to her sister, when their two heads,
+enveloped in snowy caps with an embroidered fringe, were reclining
+together on the same pillow, &quot;you know I have always shared my
+<i>bon-bons</i> with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sister.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, make me a partner in your secret.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will you promise not to speak of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I promise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To no one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To no one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not even to the paroquette Fritz gave you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not even to my paroquette.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it is very likely I shall speak about it in my dreams&mdash;you
+listen and find it out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Slyboots!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Curiosity!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Like those delicate flowers that shrink when they are touched, each
+then turned to her own side; but it would have cost both too much not
+to have fallen asleep as usual, with their arms round each other's
+necks;&mdash;consequently this tiff soon blew over, and, after a prolonged
+chat, their lips finally joined in the concluding &quot;Good-night.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VI'></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p>THE QUEEN'S DOLL&mdash;ROCKHOUSE TO FALCON'S NEST&mdash;THE
+WIND&mdash;GLASSES&mdash;ADMIRAL HOMER&mdash;THE THREE FROGS&mdash;OAT JELLY&mdash;ESQUIMAUX
+ASTRONOMY&mdash;AN UNKNOWN.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, Sophia came running in with a sealed letter in her hand,
+which she opened and read as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+&quot;HEAD QUARTERS, SAFETY BAY, DAYBREAK.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&quot;The Admiral commanding the Fleet stationed in Safety Bay to her
+Most gracious Majesty Sophia, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&quot;May it please your Majesty,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&quot;The crews of your Majesty's yachts, the <i>Elizabeth</i> and the
+<i>Morse</i>, are quite entire and in perfect health. The enemy having
+kept at a respectful distance, we have not had as yet an
+opportunity of proving our courage and devotion. Mr. Midshipman
+Jack fell asleep on the carriage of a four-pounder, like Marshal
+Turenne before his first battle; but, in all other respects, the
+conduct of the officers has been most exemplary, and merits the
+utmost commendation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&quot;It is the admiral's intention to push out a reconnaissance
+towards the east, in the direction of Pearl Bay, which he has not
+yet explored. If, however, your Majesty should regard this
+expedition as likely to interfere with the good understanding that
+subsists between that government and your own, it will be only
+necessary to fire a gun, in which case we shall return to port.
+Under other circumstances, the squadron will proceed with the
+enterprise, and endeavor to obtain a collar for your Majesty's
+doll.&quot;
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&quot;For my doll!&quot; exclaimed Sophia angrily; &quot;when did Jack find out that
+I had a doll?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that, then, your secret?&quot; inquired her mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, mamma, Master Jack took a pigeon with him for the express
+purpose of playing me this trick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is worse, included yourself in the conspiracy. Dreadful!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it not&mdash;to speak of a young person of thirteen's doll?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say nearer fourteen, my dear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore, to punish your confederates, I shall fire a gun, and put a
+stop to their excursion,&quot; said Becker, turning to one of the
+six-pounders that flanked Rockhouse in the direction of the river.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Clemency being one of the dearest rights of the royal prerogative,&quot;
+replied Sophia, &quot;I shall pardon them, and I pray you not; to throw any
+obstacle in the way of their expedition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, your Majesty; but there are state reasons which should be
+allowed to overrule the impulses of your heart; those gentlemen have
+forgotten that we were to go and lay the first stone, or rather to
+cut, to-day, the first branch of your aerial residence at Falcon's
+Nest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Willis and his officers having obeyed the preconcerted signal,
+the whole party started on their land enterprise. One of the young men
+was harnessed to a sledge, containing saws, hatchets, a bamboo ladder
+that had formerly done duty as a staircase to the Nest, and everything
+else requisite for the contemplated project.</p>
+
+<p>Jack had already started when Sophia called him back, and he hastily
+obeyed the summons.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What are your Majesty's commands?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, nothing particular, only should you meet my doll in company with
+your go-cart, be pleased to pay my respects to them.&quot; Saying this, she
+made a low curtsy, and turned her back upon him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your Majesty's behests shall be obeyed,&quot; said Jack, and he ran off to
+rejoin the caravan.</p>
+
+<p>The sad ravages of the tempest presented themselves as they proceeded;
+tall chestnuts lay stretched on the ground, and seemed, by their
+appearance, to have struggled hard with the storm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all,&quot; inquired Frank, &quot;what is the wind?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wind is nothing more than air rushing in masses from one point to
+another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what causes this commotion in the elements?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The equilibrium of the atmosphere is disturbed by a variety of
+actions;&mdash;the diurnal motion of the sun, whose rays penetrate the air
+at various points; absorption and radiation, which varies according to
+the nature of the soil and the hour of the day; the inequality of the
+solar heat, according to seasons and latitude; the formation and
+condensation of vapor, that absorbs caloric in its formation, and
+disengages it when being resolved into liquid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never thought,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;that there were so many mysteries
+in a sou'-easter. Does it blow? is it on the starboard or larboard?
+was all, in fact, that I cared about knowing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a word, the various circumstances that change the actual density
+of the air, making it more rarefied at one point than another, produce
+currents, the force and direction of which depend upon the relative
+position of hot and cold atmospheric beds. Again, the winds acquire
+the temperature and characteristics of the regions they traverse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; observed Frank, &quot;is like human beings; you may generally
+judge, by the language and manners of a man, the places that he is
+accustomed to frequent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are hot and cold winds, wet and dry; then there are the trade
+winds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes,&quot; cried Willis, &quot;these are the winds to talk of, especially
+when sailing with them&mdash;that is, from east to west; but when your
+course is different, they are rather awkward affairs to get ahead of.
+The way to catch them is to sail from Peru to the Philippines.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or from Mexico to China.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, either will do; then there is no necessity for tacking, you have
+only to rig your sails and smoke your pipe, or go to sleep; you may,
+in that way, run four thousand leagues in three months.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stiff sailing that, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Master Ernest, but it does not come up to your yarn about the
+stars, you recollect, ever so many millions of miles in a second!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The trade winds, I was going to observe,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;that
+blow from the west coast of Africa, carry with them a stifling heat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That might be expected,&quot; remarked Frank, &quot;since they pass over the
+hot sands of the desert.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, can you tell me why the same wind is cooler on the east coast
+of America?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because it has been refreshed on crossing the ocean that separates
+the two continents?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By taking a glass of grog on the way,&quot; suggested Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; and so in Europe the north wind is cold because it carries, or
+rather consists of, air from the polar regions; and the same effect is
+produced by the south wind in the other hemisphere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is for a like reason,&quot; suggested Ernest, &quot;that the south wind in
+Europe, and particularly the south-west wind, is humid, and generally
+brings rain, because it is charged with vapor from the Atlantic
+Ocean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How is it, father, that the almanac makers can predict changes in the
+weather?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The almanac makers can only foresee one thing with absolute
+certainty, and that is, that there are always fools to believe what
+they say. A few meteorological phenomena may be predicted with
+tolerable accuracy; but these are few in number, and range within very
+narrow limits.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Their predictions, nevertheless, sometimes turn out correct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, when they predict by chance a hard frost on a particular day in
+January, it is just possible the prediction may be verified; out of a
+multitude of such prognostications a few may be successful, but the
+greater part of them fail. Their few successes, however, have the
+effect with weak minds of inspiring confidence, in defiance of the
+failures which they do not take the trouble to observe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At what rate does the wind travel?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The speed of the wind is very variable; when it is scarcely felt, the
+velocity does not exceed a foot a second; but it is far otherwise in
+the cases of hurricanes and tornados, that sweep away trees and
+houses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And sink his Majesty's ships,&quot; observed Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In those cases the wind sometimes reaches the velocity of forty-five
+yards in a second, or about forty leagues in an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;the wind is a blessing that could very
+well be dispensed with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your conclusions, Jack, do not always do credit to your
+understanding. The wind re-establishes the equilibrium of the
+temperature, and purifies the air by dispersing in the mass
+exhalations that would be pernicious if they remained in one spot; it
+clears away miasma, it dissipates the smoke of towns, it waters some
+countries by driving clouds to them, it condenses vapor on the frozen
+summits of mountains, and converts it into rivers that cover the land
+with fruitfulness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It likewise fills the sails of ships and creates pilots,&quot; observed
+Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And brings about shipwrecks,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It conveys the pollen of flowers, and, as I had occasion to state the
+other day, sows the seeds of Nature's fields and forests. It is
+likewise made available by man in some classes of manufactures&mdash;mills,
+for example.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And it causes the simoon,&quot; persisted Jack, &quot;that lifts the sand of
+the desert and overwhelms entire caravans; how can you justify such
+ravages?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not intend to plead the cause of either hurricanes or simoons;
+but I contend that, if the wind sometimes terrifies us by disasters,
+we have, on the other hand, to be grateful for the infinite good it
+does. In it, as in all other phenomena of the elements, the evils are
+rare and special, whilst the good is universal and constant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fritz, as usual, with the dogs and his rifle charged, acted as pioneer
+for the caravan, now and then bringing down a bird, sometimes adding a
+plant to their collection, and occasionally giving them some
+information as to the state of the surrounding country.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father,&quot; said he, &quot;I chased this quail into our corn-field; the grain
+is lying on the ground as if it had been passed over by a roller, but
+I am happy to say that it is neither broken nor uprooted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Jack, do you see how gallantly the wind behaves, prostrating the
+strong and sparing the weak? If you had been charged with the safety
+of the grain, no doubt you would have placed it in the tops of the
+highest trees.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely; and, until taught by experience, everybody else would
+have done precisely the same thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; therefore in this, as in all other things, we should admire the
+wisdom of Providence, and mistrust our own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whoever would have thought of trusting the staff of human life to
+such slender support as stalks of straw?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If grain had been produced by forests, these, when destroyed by war,
+burned down by imprudence, uprooted by hurricanes, or washed away by
+inundations, we should have required ages to replace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fruits of trees are, besides, more liable to rot than those of
+grain; the latter have their flowers in the form of spikes, often
+bearded with prickly fibres, which not only protect them from
+marauders, but likewise serve as little roofs to shelter them from the
+rain; and besides, as Fritz has just told us, owing to the pliancy of
+their stalks, strengthened at intervals by hard knots and the
+spear-shaped form of their leaves, these plants escape the fury of the
+winds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; said Willis, &quot;is like a wretched cock-boat, which often
+contrives to get out of a scrape when all the others are swamped.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;their weakness is of more service to
+them than the strength of the noblest trees, and they are spread and
+multiplied by the same tempests that devastate the forests. Added to
+this, the species to which this class of plants belong&mdash;the
+grasses&mdash;are remarkably varied in their characteristics, and better
+suited than any other for universal propagation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which was remarked by Homer,&quot; observed Ernest &quot;who usually
+distinguishes a country by its peculiar fruit, but speaks of the
+earth generally as <i>zeidoros</i>, or grain-bearing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, Willis,&quot; exclaimed Jack, &quot;is another great admiral for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An admiral, Jack?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was he who led the combined fleets of Agamemnon, Diomedes, and
+others, to the city of Troy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not in our time, I suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How old are you, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Forty-seven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case it was before you entered the navy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know that there is a Troy in the United States, but I did not know
+it was a sea-port.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is another in France, Willis; but the Troy I mean is, or rather
+was, in Asia Minor, capital of Lesser Phrygia, sometimes called Ilion,
+its citadel bearing the name of Pergamos.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never heard of it,&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To return to grain,&quot; continued Becker, laughing. &quot;Nature has rendered
+it capable of growing in all climates, from the line to the pole.
+There is a variety for the humid soils of hot countries, as the rice
+of Asia; immense quantities of which are produced in the basin of the
+Ganges. There is another variety for marshy and cold climates&mdash;as a
+kind of oat that grows wild on the banks of the North American lakes,
+and of which the natives gather abundant harvests.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God has amply provided for us all,&quot; said Frank.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Other varieties grow best in hot, dry soils, as the millet in Africa,
+and maize or Indian corn in Brazil. In Europe, wheat is cultivated
+universally, but prefers rich lands, whilst rye takes more readily to
+a sandy soil; buckwheat is most luxuriant where most exposed to rain;
+oats prefer humid soils, and barley comes to perfection on rocky,
+exposed lands, growing well on the cold, bleak plains of the north.
+And, observe, that the grasses suffice for all the wants of man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; observed Ernest, &quot;with the straw are fed his sheep, his cows,
+his oxen, and his horses; with the seeds, he prepares his food and
+his drinks. In the north, grain is converted into excellent beer and
+ale, and spirits are extracted from it as strong as brandy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Chinese obtain from rice a liquor that they prefer to the finest
+wines of Spain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is because they have not yet tasted our Rockhouse malaga.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then of roasted oats, perfumed with vanilla, an excellent jelly may
+be made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! we must get mamma to try that&mdash;it will delight the young ladies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, no doubt, you will profit by the occasion to partake thereof
+yourself, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly; but I would not, for all that, seek to gratify my own
+appetite under pretence of paying a compliment to our friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know an animal,&quot; said Willis, &quot;that, for general usefulness, beats
+grain all to pieces.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good! let us hear what it is, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is the seal of the Esquimaux; they live upon its flesh, and they
+drink its blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I scarcely think,&quot; said Jack, &quot;that I should often feel thirsty under
+such circumstances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The skin furnishes them with clothes, tents, and boats.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of which our canoe and life-preservers are a fair sample,&quot; said
+Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fat furnishes them with fire and candle, the muscles with thread
+and rope, the gut with windows and curtains, the bones with arrow
+heads and harness; in short, with everything they require.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, Willis, in so far as regards their degree of civilization,
+which is not very great, when we consider that they bury their sick
+whilst alive, because they are afraid of corpses; that they believe
+the sun, moon, and stars to be dead Esquimaux, who have been
+translated from earth to heaven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Whilst chatting in this way, the party had imperceptibly arrived at
+Falcon's Nest, wherein they had not set foot for a fortnight
+previously.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz went up first, and before the others had ascended, came running
+down again as fast as his legs would carry him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father,&quot; he cried, in an accent of alarm, &quot;there is a fresh litter of
+leaves up stairs, which has been recently slept upon, and I miss a
+knife that I left the last time we were here!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VII'></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p>THE SEARCH FOR THE UNKNOWN&mdash;THREE FLEETS ON DRY LAND&mdash;THE
+INDISCRETIONS OF A SUGAR CANE&mdash;LARBOARD AND STARBOARD&mdash;THE SUPPOSED
+SENSIBILITY OF PLANTS&mdash;THE FLY-TRAP&mdash;VENDETTA&mdash;ROOT AND GERM&mdash;MINE AND
+COUNTERMINE&mdash;THE POLYPI&mdash;OVIPAROUS AND VIVIPAROUS&mdash;A QUID PRO QUO.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have any of you been at Falcon's Nest lately?&quot; inquired Becker, when
+he had verified the truth of Fritz's intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None of us,&quot; unanimously replied all the boys.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will understand that the question I put to you is, under the
+circumstances in which we are placed, one of the greatest moment. If,
+therefore, there is any unseemly joking, any trick, or secret project
+in contemplation, with which this affair is connected, do not conceal
+it any longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All the boys again reiterated their innocence of the matter in
+question.</p>
+
+<p>Becker then called to mind the mysterious disappearance of Willis,
+and, although they were too short in duration to admit of his having
+been at Falcon's Nest, still he deemed it advisable to put the
+question to him individually.</p>
+
+<p>Willis declared that the present was the first time he had been in the
+vicinity of the Nest, and his word was known to be sacred.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There can be no mistake then,&quot; said Becker; &quot;the traces are
+self-evident. This is altogether a circumstance calculated to give us
+serious uneasiness. Nevertheless, we must view the matter calmly, and
+consider what steps we should take to unravel the mystery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us instantly beat up the island,&quot; suggested Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears to me,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;that the <i>Nelson</i> has been
+wrecked after all, and that one of the men has escaped.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; replied Ernest, &quot;is very unlikely. All the crew knew that the
+island was inhabited, and consequently, had any one of them been
+thrown on shore, he would have come at once to Rockhouse, and not
+stopped here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As regards the Captain or Lieutenant Dunsley,&quot; said Willis, &quot;who were
+on shore, and could easily find their way, what you say is quite true;
+but the men were kept on board; and if we suppose that a sailor had
+been thrown on the opposite coast, he would not be able to determine
+his position in fifteen days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Much less could he expect to find a villa in a fig-tree.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To say nothing of the light that has been kept burning recently on
+Shark's Island, nor of the buildings with which the land is strewn,
+nor the fields and plantations that are to be met with in all
+directions. For, although a swallow alone is sufficient to convey the
+seeds of a forest from one continent to another, still it requires the
+hand of man to arrange the trees in rows and furnish them with props.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps we may have crossed each other on the way; and the stranger,
+after passing the night here, has steered, by some circuitous route,
+in the direction of Safety Bay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May it not have been a large monkey,&quot; suggested Jack, &quot;who has
+resolved to play us a trick for having massacred its companions at
+Waldeck?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monkeys,&quot; replied Ernest, &quot;do not generally open doors, and, seeing
+no bed prepared for them, go down stairs and collect material for a
+mattress. You may just as well fancy that the monkey, in this case,
+came to pass the night at Falcon's Nest with a cigar in its mouth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he must have been dreadfully annoyed to find neither slippers
+nor a night-cap.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is, unquestionably, a wide field of supposition open for us,&quot;
+said Becker; &quot;but that need not prevent us taking active measures to
+arrive at the truth. Our first duty is to care for the safety of the
+ladies; Mr. Wolston is still ailing and feeble, so that, if a stranger
+were suddenly to appear amongst them, they might be terribly
+alarmed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are six of us here,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;the cream of our sea and
+land forces; we could divide ourselves into three squadrons, one of
+which might sail for Rockhouse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so; let Fritz and Frank start for Rockhouse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what shall we say to the ladies, father?&quot; inquired the latter;
+&quot;it does not seem to me necessary to alarm our mother, Mrs. Wolston,
+and the young ladies, until something more certain is ascertained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your idea is good, my son, and I thank you for bringing it forward;
+it is one of those that arise from the heart rather than the head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have, only to find a pretext for their sudden return,&quot; observed
+Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well,&quot; said Jack, &quot;they have only to say it is too hot to work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just as if it were not quite as hot for us as for them. Your excuse,
+Jack, is not particularly artistic.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Might they not as well say they had forgotten a tool or a pocket
+handkerchief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or, better still, that they had forgotten to shut the door when they
+left, and came back to repair the omission.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall say,&quot; replied Fritz, &quot;that, finding there were twelve strong
+arms here to do what my father accomplished fifteen years ago by
+himself&mdash;for the assistance of us boys could not then be reckoned&mdash;we
+were ashamed of ourselves, and had returned to Rockhouse to make
+ourselves useful in repairing the damage to the gallery caused by the
+tempest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, that excuse has, at least, the merit of being reasonable; and
+let it be so. Fritz and Frank will return to Rockhouse; Ernest and
+myself will continue the work in hand, and receive the friend or enemy
+which God has sent us, should he return to resume his quarters; Willis
+and Jack will investigate the neighborhood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By land or water, Willis?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By land, Master Jack, for this cruise. I shall abandon the helm to
+you, for I know nothing of the shoals here-abouts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;though highly improbable, any thing important
+should have happened, or should happen at Rockhouse, you will fire a
+cannon, and we will be with you immediately. Willis and Jack will
+discharge a rifle if threatened with danger; and we shall do the same
+on our side, if we require assistance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a pity,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;that we had not two or three
+four-pounders amongst the provisions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I scarcely regard this matter as altogether a subject for joking,&quot;
+continued Becker, &quot;and sincerely hope that all our precautions may
+prove useless. Take each of you a rifle and proceed with caution;
+above all, do not go far apart from each other; do not fire without
+taking good aim, and only in case of self-defence or absolute
+necessity; for this time it does not appear to be a question of bears
+and hyenas, but, as far as we are able to judge, one of our own
+species.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Two of the squadrons then hauled off in different directions,
+carefully examining the ground as they went, beating up the thickets,
+and endeavoring to obtain some further trace of the stranger, in order
+to confirm those at Falcon's Nest.</p>
+
+<p>The squadron of observation, in the meanwhile set diligently to work.
+A tree having been selected at about fifteen paces from that already
+existing, it was necessary, as on the former occasion, to discharge an
+arrow carrying the end of a line, and in such a way that the cord
+might fall across some of the strongest branches; this done, the
+bamboo ladder was drawn up from the opposite side and held fast until
+Ernest had ascended and fastened it with nails to the top of the tree.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest then commenced lopping off the branches to the right and left,
+so as to form a space in the centre for their contemplated dwelling;
+whilst Becker himself below was making an entrance into the trunk,
+taking care to avoid an accident that formerly happened, by assuring
+himself that a colony of bees had not already taken possession of the
+ground. The gigantic fig-trees at Falcon's Nest being for the most
+part hollow, and supported in a great measure by the bark&mdash;like the
+willows in Europe when they reach a certain stage of their growth&mdash;it
+was easy to erect a staircase in the interior; still this was a work
+of time, and Becker had resolved in the meantime to give up the
+habitation already constructed to Wolston and his family, at least
+until such time as an entrance was attached to the new one that did
+not require any extraordinary amount of gymnastics.</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='002'></a><img src="images/002.jpg" alt="Man chopping a tree with an ax" />
+</div>
+
+<p>A portion of the day had been occupied in these operations, when
+Willis and Jack returned to the camp.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have seen no one,&quot; said the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; said Jack, &quot;we are on the track of Fritz's knife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be good enough to explain yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, father, at the entrance to the cocoa-nut tree wood we stumbled
+upon two sugar canes completely divested of their juice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which proves&mdash;&quot; said Ernest; but his remark was cut short by Jack,
+who continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a bit of it; a philosopher would have passed these two worthless
+sugar canes just as a place-hunter passes an overthrown minister, that
+is, as unworthy of notice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what did you do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I, the headless, the thoughtless, the stupid&mdash;for these are the
+epithets I am usually favored with&mdash;I took them up, scrutinized them
+carefully, and discovered&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That they were sugar canes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the first instance, yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very clever, that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then that they had not been torn up&mdash;<i>they had been cut</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, most wise and learned brother, that is all; and I leave you to
+draw the inferences.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I may add,&quot; observed the sailor, &quot;that, as we were steering for the
+plantation, myself on the starboard and Jack on the larboard&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Master Jack on the left and myself on the right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I pitched right over these canes without ever noticing them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which is not much to be wondered at; Willis has been so long at sea
+that he has no confidence in the solidity of the land; during our
+cruise, he kept a look-out after the wind, expecting, I suppose, that
+it would perform some of the wonderful things you spoke of this
+morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all,&quot; observed Becker, &quot;this is another link in the chain of
+evidence, and I congratulate Jack on his sagacity in tracing it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the affair is as much a mystery as ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; and the solution may probably be awaiting us at Rockhouse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The united squadrons then started on their homeward voyage, Jack
+thrusting his nose into every bush, and carefully scanning all the
+stray objects that seemed to be out of their normal position.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If these plants and bushes had tongues,&quot; said Jack, &quot;they could
+probably give us the information we require.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think,&quot; inquired Ernest, &quot;that plants and bushes are utterly
+without sensation?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Faith, I can't say,&quot; replied Jack; &quot;perhaps they can speak if they
+liked&mdash;probably they have an idiom of their own. You, that know all
+languages, and a great many more besides, possibly can converse with
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like to know,&quot; said Becker, &quot;why you two gentlemen are
+always snarling at each other; it is neither amusing nor amiable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ernest is continually showing me up, father, and it is but fair that
+I should be allowed to retort now and then. But to return to plants,
+Ernest; you say they have nerves?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they have,&quot; said Willis, &quot;they do not seem to possess the bottle
+of salts that most nervous ladies usually have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; replied Ernest, &quot;they have no nerves, properly so called; but
+there are plants, and I may add many plants, which, by their
+qualities&mdash;I may almost say by their intelligence&mdash;seem to be placed
+much higher in the scale of creation than they really are. The
+sensitive plant, for example, shrinks when it is touched; tulips open
+their petals when the weather is fine, and shut them again at sunset
+or when it rains; wild barley, when placed on a table, often moves by
+itself, especially when it has been first warmed by the hand; the
+heliotrope always turns the face of its flowers to the sun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A still more singular instance of this kind was recently discovered
+in Carolina,&quot; remarked Becker; &quot;it is called the <i>fly-trap</i>. Its round
+leaves secrete a sugary fluid, and are covered with a number of ridges
+which are extremely irritable: whenever a fly touches the surface the
+leaf immediately folds inwards, contracts, and continues this process
+till its victim is either pierced with its spines or stifled by the
+pressure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is probably a Corsican plant,&quot; observed Jack, &quot;whose ancestors
+have had a misunderstanding with the brotherhood of flies, and have
+left the <i>Vendetta</i> as a legacy to their descendants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is nothing in Nature,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;so obstinate as a
+plant. Let us take one, for example, at its birth, that is, to-day, at
+the age when animals modify or acquire their instincts, and you will
+find that your own will must yield to that of the plant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you mean to say that the plant will refuse to play on the flute or
+learn to dance, were I to wish it to do so, I am entirely of your
+opinion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but suppose you were to plant it upside down, with the plantule
+above and the radicle below; do you think it would grow that way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Plantule and radicle are ambitious words, my dear brother; recollect
+that you are speaking to simple mortals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I mean root uppermost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right; I prefer that, don't you, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At first the radicle or root would begin by growing upwards, and the
+plantule or germ would descend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is quite in accordance with my revolutionary idiosyncracies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You accused me just now of using ambitious words.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I understand a revolution to mean, placing those above who
+should be below.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nature then,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;very soon begins to assert her
+rights; the bud gradually twists itself round and ascends, whilst the
+root obeys a similar impulse and descends&mdash;is not this a proof of
+discernment?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see nothing more in it than a proof of the wonderful mechanism God
+has allotted to the plant, and is analogous to the movements of a
+watch, the hands of which point out the hours, minutes, and seconds of
+time, and are yet not endowed with intelligence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, Jack,&quot; said Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suppose,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;that the ground in the neighborhood of
+your plant was of two very opposite qualities, that on the right, for
+example, damp, rich, and spongy; that on the left, dry, poor, and
+rocky; you would find that the roots, after growing for a time up or
+down, as the case might be, will very soon change their route, and
+take their course towards the rich and humid soil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And quite right too,&quot; said Willis; &quot;they prefer to go where they will
+be best fed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If, then, these roots stretched out to points where they would
+withdraw the nourishment from other plants in the neighborhood&mdash;how
+could you prevent it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By digging a ditch between them and the plants they threaten to
+impoverish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And do you suppose that would be sufficient?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, unless the plant you refer to was an engineer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therein lies the difficulty. Plants are engineers; they would send
+their roots along the bottom of the ditch, or they would creep under
+it&mdash;at all events, the roots would find their way to the coveted soil
+in spite of you; if you dug a mine, they would countermine it, and
+obtain supplies from the opposite territory, and revenge themselves
+there for the scurvy treatment to which they had been subjected. What
+could you do then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, I should admit myself defeated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;we present a sponge saturated with water to
+the naked roots of a plant, they will slowly, but steadily, direct
+themselves towards it; and, turn the sponge whichever way you will,
+they will take the same direction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It has been concluded,&quot; remarked Becker, &quot;from these incontestable
+facts, that plants are not devoid of sensibility; and, in fact, when
+we behold them lying down at sunset as if dead, and come to life again
+next morning, we are forced to recognise a degree of irritability in
+the vegetable organs which very closely resemble those of the animal
+economy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In future,&quot; said Jack, &quot;I shall take care not to tread upon a weed,
+lost, being hurt, it should scream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the other hand, they have not been found to possess any other sign
+of this supposed sensibility. All their other functions seem perfectly
+mechanical.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah then, father,&quot; exclaimed Jack, &quot;you are a believer in my system!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We make them grow and destroy them, without observing anything
+analogous to the sensation we feel in rearing, wounding, or killing an
+animal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the fly-trap, father, what of that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is no exception. The fly-trap seizes any small body that touches
+it, as well as an insect, and with the same tenacity; hence, we may
+readily conclude that these actions, so apparently spontaneous, are in
+reality nothing more than remarkable developments of the laws of
+irritability peculiar to plants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It does not, then, spring from a family feud, as Jack supposed?&quot;
+remarked Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;if plants really existed, possessing
+what is understood by the term sensation, they would be animals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For a like reason, animals without sensation would be plants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evidently. Moreover, the transition from vegetable to animal life is
+almost imperceptible, so much so, that polypi, such as corals and
+sponges, were for a long time supposed to be marine plants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what are they?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Insects that live in communities that form a multitude of contiguous
+cells; some of these are begun at the bottom of the sea and
+accumulated perpendicularly, one layer being continually deposited
+over another till the surface is reached.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then the coral reefs, that render navigation so perilous in unknown
+seas, are the work of insects?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly so, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Might they not as well consist of multitudes of insects piled heaps
+upon heaps?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is in a great measure as you say, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I&mdash;I do not say it&mdash;quite the contrary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Willis, you are at liberty to believe it or not, as you think
+proper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope so; we shall, therefore, put the polypi with Ernest's stars
+and Jack's admirals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So be it, Willis; but to resume the subject. There is a remarkable
+analogy in many respects between the lower orders of animals and
+plants, the bulb is to the latter what the egg is to the former. The
+germ does not pierce the bulb till it attains a certain organization,
+and it remains attached by fibres to the parent substance, from which,
+for a time, it receives nourishment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not unlike the young of animals,&quot; remarked Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the germ has shot out roots and a leaf or two, it then, but not
+till then, relinquishes the parent bulb. The plant then grows by an
+extension and multiplication of its parts, and this extension is
+accompanied by an increasing induration of the fibres. The same
+phenomena are observed as regards animals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Curious!&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Animals, however, are sometimes oviparous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oviparous?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that is, they lay eggs; others are viviparous, producing their
+young alive. A few are multiplied like plants by cuttings, as in the
+case of the polypi.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bother the polypi,&quot; said Willis, laughing, &quot;since we have to thank
+them for destroying some of his Majesty's ships.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then again,&quot; continued Becker, &quot;both plants and animals are subject
+to disease, decay, and death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, father, if the analogies are remarkable, the differences are not
+less marked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Ernest, I shall leave you to point them out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Without reckoning the faculty of feeling, that cannot be denied to
+the one nor granted to the other, the most striking of these
+distinctions consists in the circumstance that animals can change
+place, whilst this faculty is absolutely refused to plants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If we except those,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;that insist upon travelling to
+the succulent parts of the earth, and are as indefatigable in digging
+tunnels as the renowned Brunel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then plants are obliged to accept the nourishment that their fixed
+position furnishes to them; whilst animals, on the contrary, by means
+of their external organs, can range far and near in search of the
+aliments most congenial to their appetites.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which is often very capricious,&quot; remarked Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, considered with regard to magnitude, the two kingdoms present
+remarkable distinctions; the interval between a whale and a mite is
+greater than between the moss and the oak.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho!&quot; cried Jack, &quot;there is Miss Sophia coming to meet us, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps they have news at the grotto.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; inquired the child, &quot;have you seen them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good,&quot; thought Becker, &quot;our chatterers have not been able to hold
+their tongues; I am surprised at that as regards Frank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We expected to have found them at Rockhouse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To have found whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The sailors from the wreck.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What wreck?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sincerely hope that the <i>Nelson</i> has not been wrecked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, whom do you refer to yourself, Miss Sophia?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To your go-cart and my doll, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VIII'></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<p>HABITANT OF THE MOON, ANTHROPOPHAGIAN OR HOBGOBLIN?&mdash;THE LACEDEMONIAN
+STEW OF MADAME DACIER&mdash;UTILE DULCI&mdash;TETE-A-TETE BETWEEN WILLIS AND HIS
+PIPE&mdash;TOBACCO VERSUS BIRCH&mdash;IS IT FOR EATING?&mdash;MOSQUITOES&mdash;THE
+ALARM&mdash;TOBY&mdash;THE NOCTURNAL EXPEDITION&mdash;WE'VE GOT HIM.</p>
+
+<p>Some days passed without anything having occurred to ruffle the
+tranquil existence of the island families. Every morning the <i>élite</i>
+of the sea and land forces continued to divide themselves into three
+squadrons of observation; one of which remained at Rockhouse on some
+pretext or other, whilst the other two were occupied in exploring the
+country, or in carrying on the works at Falcon's Nest.</p>
+
+<p>The mysterious stranger, whether shipwrecked seaman, savage, or
+hobgoblin, who kept all the bearded inhabitants of Rockhouse on the
+alert, had reappeared in his old quarters, where another litter of
+leaves had been miraculously strewn exactly in the same place the
+former had occupied.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this, however, and sundry gashes here and there&mdash;of which
+Fritz's knife was clearly guilty, but which could not have been
+perpetrated without an accomplice&mdash;nothing had transpired to enable
+them to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to who or what this
+personage could be.</p>
+
+<p>Though the hypothesis was highly improbable, still Willis persisted in
+his theory of the shipwreck; he only doubted whether the individual on
+shore was a marine or the cabin-boy, an officer or a foremast man,
+and, if the latter, whether it was Bill, Tom, Bob, or Ned.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest rather inclined to think that the invisible stranger was an
+inhabitant of the moon, who, in consequence of a false step, had
+tumbled from his own to our planet.</p>
+
+<p>The warlike Fritz was impatient and irritated. He would over and over
+again have preferred an immediate solution of the affair, even were it
+bathed in blood, rather than be kept any longer in suspense.</p>
+
+<p>Frank, on the contrary, took a metaphysical view of the case; and,
+believing that Providence had not entirely dispensed with miracles in
+dealing with the things of this world, came to the conclusion that it
+was no earthly visitor they had to deal with; and he even went so far
+as to hint that prayer was a more efficacious means of solving the
+mystery than the methods his brothers were pursuing.</p>
+
+<p>Jack, coinciding in some degree with Ernest, shifted his view from an
+ape to an anthropophagian, and blamed the latter for not coming
+earlier; when he and his brothers were younger, and consequently more
+tender, they would have made a better meal, and been more easily
+digested.</p>
+
+<p>As to what opinion Becker himself entertained, with regard to the
+occurrence at Falcon's Nest that kept his sons in a feverish state of
+anxiety, and had awakened all the fears of the Pilot for the safety of
+his friends on board the <i>Nelson</i>, nothing could be clearly
+ascertained; in so far as this matter was concerned he kept his own
+counsel; and, to use an expression of Madame de Sevigné, &quot;had thrown
+his tongue to the dogs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The close of the day had, as usual, collected all the members of the
+family round the domestic hearth; and it may be stated here that Mrs.
+Wolston, Mary, and Mrs. Becker alternately undertook the preparations
+of the viands for the diurnal consumption of the community. By this
+means, uniformity, that palls the appetite, was entirely banished from
+their dishes. One day they would have the cooked, or rather
+half-cooked, British joints of Mrs. Wolston and her daughter, varied
+occasionally, to the great delight of Willis, with a tureen of
+hotch-potch or cocky-leekie. The next there would be a display of the
+cosmopolite and somewhat picturesque cookery of Mrs. Becker; there was
+her famous peccary pie, with ravansara sauce, followed by her
+delicious preserved mango and seaweed jelly. Nor did she hesitate to
+draw upon the raw material of the colony now and then for a new hash
+or soup, taking care, however, to keep in view the maxim that
+prudence is the mother of safety&mdash;an adage that was rather roughly
+handled by the renowned French linguist, Madame Dacier, who, on one
+occasion nearly poisoned her husband with a Lacedemonian stew, the
+receipt for which she had found in Xenophon.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily Becker's wife did not know Greek, consequently he ran no risk
+of being entertained with a classic dinner; but he was often reminded
+by his thoughtful partner of Meg Dod's celebrated receipt: before you
+cook your hare, first&mdash;catch it.</p>
+
+<p>Sophia desired earnestly to have a share in the culinary government;
+but having shown on her first trial, too decided a leaning towards
+puddings and pancakes, her second essay was put off till she became
+more thoroughly penetrated with the value of the eternal precept
+<i>utile dulci</i>, which signifies that, before dessert it is requisite to
+have something substantial.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they had finished their afternoon meal, Willis departed on
+one of his customary mysterious excursions; and Jack, who, like the
+birds that no sooner hop upon one branch than they leap upon another,
+had also disappeared. It was not long, however, before he made his
+appearance again; he came running in almost out of breath, and cried
+at the top of his voice,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have discovered him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whom?&quot; exclaimed half a dozen voices.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The inhabitant of the moon?&quot; inquired Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know,&quot; said Sophia playfully, &quot;your go-cart and my doll.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I have discovered Willis' secret.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you have been watching him, it is very wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, father; seeing some thin columns of smoke rising out of a
+thicket, I thought a bush was on fire; but on going nearer, I saw that
+it was only a tobacco-pipe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Was the pipe alone, brother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not exactly, it was in Willis' mouth; and there he sat, so
+completely immersed in ideas and smoke, that he neither heard nor saw
+me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That he does not smoke here,&quot; remarked Becker, &quot;I can easily
+understand; but why conceal it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; replied Mrs. Wolston, &quot;you do not know Willis yet;&mdash;beneath that
+rough exterior there are feelings that would grace a coronet: he is,
+no doubt, afraid of leading your sons into the habit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is very thoughtful and considerate on his part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was always smoking on board ship, and it must have been a great
+sacrifice for him to leave it off to the extent he has done lately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we shall not allow him to punish himself any longer; and as for
+the danger of contagion from his smoking here, that evil may perhaps
+be avoided.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not be afraid, father; it will not be necessary to establish
+either a quarantine or a lazaretto on our account.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides, any of the boys,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, &quot;that acquire the habit,
+will, by so doing, voluntarily banish themselves from my levees.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is an extraordinary habit that, smoking,&quot; observed Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Becker; &quot;and what makes the habit more singular is, that
+it holds out no allurements to seduce its votaries. Generally, the
+path to vice, or to a bad habit, is strewn with roses that hide their
+thorns, but such is not the case with smoking; in order to acquire
+this habit, a variety of disagreeable difficulties have to be
+overcome, and a considerable amount of disgust and sickness must be
+borne before the stomach is tutored to withstand the nauseous fumes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In point of fact,&quot; observed Wolston, &quot;if, instead of being made part
+and parcel of the appliances of a fashionable man, cigars and
+meershaums were classed in the pharmacopoeia with emetics and
+cataplasms, there is not a human being but would bemoan his fate if
+compelled to undergo a dose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so,&quot; added Becker; &quot;the great and sole attraction of tobacco to
+young people consists in its being to them a forbidden thing; the
+apple of Eve is of all time&mdash;it hangs from every tree, and takes
+myriads of shapes. If I had the honor of being principal of a college
+I should no more think of forbidding the pupils to use tobacco than I
+should think of commanding them not to use the birch for purposes of
+self-chastisement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps you would be quite right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Instead of lecturing them on the pernicious effects of tobacco, I
+should hang up a pipe of punishment in the class-room, and oblige
+offending pupils to inhale a fixed number of whiffs proportionate to
+the gravity of their delinquency.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An excellent idea,&quot; observed Wolston; &quot;for it is often only necessary
+to show some things in a different light in order to give them a new
+aspect and value. This puts me in mind of an illustration in point;
+these two girls, when children, were the parties concerned, and I will
+relate the circumstance to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case,&quot; said Mary, &quot;I shall go and feed the fowls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I,&quot; said Sophia, &quot;must go and water the flowers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, then,&quot; cried Jack laughing, &quot;it is another doll story, is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Master Jack, it is not a doll story; and, besides, we girls were
+no bigger at the time than that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On saying this Sophia placed her two hands about a foot and a half
+from the floor and then the two girls vanished.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When Mary was about six years old,&quot; began Wolston, &quot;a slight rash
+threatened to develope itself, and the doctor ordered a small blister
+to be applied to one of her arms. Now, there was likely to be some
+difficulty about getting her to submit quietly to this operation, so,
+after an instant's reflection, I called both her and her sister, and
+told them that the most diligent of the two should have a vesicatory
+put on her arm at night. 'Oh,' cried both the girls quite delighted,
+'it will be me, papa, I shall be so good. Mamma, mamma&mdash;such a
+treat&mdash;papa has promised us a vesicatory for to-night!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was simplicity itself,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, laughing till the
+tears came into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The day passed, the one endeavoring to excel the other in the
+quantity of leaves they turned over; and, from time to time, I heard
+the one asking the other in a low voice, 'Have you ever seen a
+vesicatory? What is it made of? Is it for eating? And each in turn
+regarded her arms, to judge in advance the effect of the marvellous
+ornament.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like much to have seen them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Night came, and I declared gravely that the eldest was fairly
+entitled to the prize. The latter jumped about with joy, and Sophia
+began to cry. 'Don't cry,' said Mary, 'if you are good, papa will,
+perhaps, give you one to-morrow, too,' Then the joyful patient,
+turning to me, said, 'On which arm, papa?' and I told her that the
+ceremony of placing it on must take place when she was in bed. To bed
+accordingly she went, the ornament was applied, she looked at it, was
+pleased with it, thanked me for it, and fell asleep as happy as a
+queen. But, alas! like that of many queens, the felicity did not last
+long; before morning, I heard her saying to her sister, in a doleful
+tone, 'Soffy, will you have my vesicatory?' 'Oh, yes, just lend it to
+me for a tiny moment.' At this I hurried to the spot, and, as you may
+readily suppose, opposed the transfer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Poor Sophia!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; she was quite heart-broken, and said, sobbing, 'It is always
+Mary that gets everything, nobody ever gives anything to me.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next day, Willis laid hold of his sou'-wester, and was starting off on
+his customary pilgrimage, when Becker stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis,&quot; said he, &quot;have you any objections to state what the
+engagements are, that require you to leave us at pretty much the same
+hour every day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I merely go for a walk, Mr. Becker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see I require to take a turn just after dinner for the sake of my
+health.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A habit that you contracted on board ship; eh, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On board ship; yes Mr. Becker, that is to say&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so,&quot; observed Mrs. Wolston; &quot;and by the way, Willis, I regret
+that you do not smoke now; they say there is plenty of tobacco on the
+island.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Smoke!&quot; cried Willis, raising his ears like a war-horse at the sound
+of the trumpet, &quot;why so, Mrs. Wolston?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because we are dreadfully tormented with those horrid mosquitoes, and
+you might help us to get rid of them. You smoked at sea, did you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, madam; but then my constitution&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bah!&quot; said Wolston, &quot;I thought you were as strong as a horse,
+Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I have no cause to complain neither; but then they say tobacco
+would kill even a horse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course, Willis, your health is a most necessary consideration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still for all that, if the mosquitoes really do annoy Mrs. Wolston, I
+should have no objection to take a whiff now and then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not put yourself about though, on our account, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About; no, it would not put me about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good; then it only remains to be seen whether there is a pipe in
+the colony.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; said Willis, feeling his pockets, &quot;yes, exactly&mdash;here is one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Curious how things do turn up, isn't it, Willis?&quot; said Becker; &quot;but
+the mosquitoes would not be frightened away by the smoke, if applied
+at long intervals, so you will have to repeat the dose at least two or
+three times every day, always supposing it does not affect your
+constitution.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sailors, you see,&quot; replied Willis, &quot;are like chimneys, they always
+smoke when you want them, and sometimes a great deal more than you
+want them,&quot; And on turning round, he beheld Sophia holding a light,
+and a good-sized case of Maryland, which had been preserved from the
+wreck.</p>
+
+<p>Ever after that time the mosquitoes had a most persevering enemy in
+Willis; and, notwithstanding his health, his daily walks entirely
+ceased.</p>
+
+<p>For some time the Pilot and the four young men passed the night in a
+tent erected about midway between Rockhouse and the Jackal River. The
+apparent reason for this modification of their plans was the greater
+facility it afforded for their all meeting at daybreak, breakfasting
+together, and setting out for Falcon's Nest before the temperature
+reached ninety degrees in the shade, which junction could not be so
+easily effected with one party encamped at Rockhouse and the other
+bivouacked on Shark's Island, with an arm of the sea between them.</p>
+
+<p>The real motive, however, was that all might be within hail of each
+other, and prepared for every emergency, in the event of the stranger
+appearing in a more palpable shape, and assuming a hostile attitude.
+We say the stranger, because, judging from the indications, there was
+only one&mdash;still that did not prove that there might not be several.</p>
+
+<p>One night, as Fritz was lying with one eye open, he observed Mary's
+little black terrier suddenly prick up the fragments of its ears, and
+begin sniffing at the edge of the tent. This shaggy little cur was
+called Toby; it had accompanied the Wolstons on their voyage, and was
+Mary's exclusive property; but Fritz had found the way to the animal's
+heart as usual through its stomach, and Mary was in no way jealous of
+his attentions to her favorite, but rather the reverse.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz, feeling convinced by the actions of the dog, which was of the
+true Scotch breed, that something extraordinary was passing outside
+the tent, seized his rifle, hastened out, and was just in time to
+distinguish a human figure on the opposite bank of the Jackal River,
+which, on seeing him, took to its heels and disappeared in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>He was soon joined by the Pilot and his brothers; the dogs leaped
+about them, and the alarm became general throughout the encampment.
+Fritz re-established order, enjoined silence, and said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am determined this time to follow the affair up; who will accompany
+me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will!&quot; said all the four voices at once.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Scouting parties ought not to be numerous,&quot; said Fritz; &quot;I will,
+therefore, take Willis, in case this mystification has anything to do
+with the <i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And me,&quot; said Jack, &quot;to serve as a dessert, in case the individual
+should turn out to be an anthropophagian.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be it so; but no more. Frank and Ernest will remain to tranquilize
+our parents, in case we should not return before they are up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if so, what shall we say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell them the truth. We shall proceed direct to Falcon's Nest; and if
+the stranger&mdash;confiding in our habit of sleeping during the night&mdash;be
+there as usual, we shall do ourselves the honor of helping him to get
+up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Providing he does not nightly change his quarters like Oliver
+Cromwell&mdash;not so much to avoid enemies, as to calm his uneasy
+conscience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, we shall be no worse than before; we shall have tried to
+restore our wonted quietude, and, if we fail, we can say, like Francis
+I. at Pavia, '<i>All is lost except our honor</i>.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes after this conversation, three shadows might have been
+seen stealing through the glades in the direction of Falcon's Nest.
+Nothing was to be heard but the rustling of the leaves&mdash;the deafened
+beating of the sea upon the rocks&mdash;and, to use the words of Lamartine,
+&quot;those unknown tongues that night and the wind whisper in the air.&quot;
+The trees were mirrored in the rays of the moon, and the ground, at
+intervals, seemed strewn with monstrous giants; their hearts beat, not
+with fear, but with that feverish impatience that anticipates decisive
+results.</p>
+
+<p>When they arrived at the foot of the tree on which the aerial dwelling
+was situated, Fritz opened the door, and resolutely, but stealthily,
+ascended.</p>
+
+<p>Willis and Jack followed him with military precision.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the top of the staircase, and held the latch of the door
+that opened into the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>A train of mice, in the strictest incognito, could not have performed
+these operations with a greater amount of secretiveness. On opening
+the door they stood and listened.</p>
+
+<p>Not a sound. Jack fired off a pistol, and the fraudulent occupier of
+the room instantly started up on his feet. Fritz rushed forward, and
+clasped him tightly round the body.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho, ho, comrade,&quot; said he, &quot;this time you do not get off so easily!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_IX'></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p>THE CHIMPANZEE&mdash;IMPERFECT NEGRO, OR PERFECT APE&mdash;THE HARMONIES OF
+NATURE&mdash;A HANDFUL OF PAWS&mdash;A STONE SKIN&mdash;SEVENTEEN THOUSAND SPECTACLES
+ON ONE NOSE&mdash;ANIMALCUL&AElig;&mdash;PELION ON OSSA&mdash;PTOLEMY&mdash;COPERNICUS TO
+GALILEO&mdash;METAPHYSICS AND COSMOGONIES&mdash;ISAIAH&mdash;A LIVE TIGER.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The chimpanzé or chimpanzee,&quot; says Buffon, the French naturalist, &quot;is
+much more sagacious than the <i>ourang outang</i>, with which it has been
+inaccurately confounded; it likewise bears a more marked resemblance
+to the human being; the height is the same, and it has the same
+aspect, members, and strength; it always walks on two feet, with the
+head erect, has no tail, has calves to its legs, hair on its head, a
+beard on its chin, a face that Grimaldi would have envied, hands and
+nails like those of men, whose manners and habits it is susceptible of
+acquiring.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Buffon knew an individual of the species that sat demurely at table,
+taking his place with the other guests; like them he would spread out
+his napkin, and stick one corner of it into his button-hole just as
+they did, and he was exceedingly dexterous in the use of his knife,
+fork, and spoon. Spectators were not a little surprised to see him go
+to a bed made for him, tie up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, place
+it sideways on a pillow, tuck himself carefully in the bed-clothes,
+pretend to be sick, stretch out his pulse to be felt, and affect to
+undergo the process of being bled.</p>
+
+<p>The naturalist adds that he is very easily taught, and may be made a
+useful domestic servant, at least as regards the humbler operations of
+the kitchen; he promptly obeys signs and the voice, whilst other
+species of apes only obey the stick; he will rinse glasses, serve at
+table, turn the spit, grind coffee, or carry water. Add to his virtues
+as a domestic, that he is not much addicted to chattering about the
+family affairs, has no followers, and is very accommodating in the
+matter of wages.</p>
+
+<p>It was neither more nor less than a chimpanzee that Fritz had caught
+in the dark at Falcon's Nest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now then, old fellow,&quot; said he, &quot;you will help us to clear up this
+mysterious affair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The caged stranger made no reply to this observation; Willis and Jack
+then questioned him, the one in English and the other in French.</p>
+
+<p>Still no reply.</p>
+
+<p>He did not submit, however, to be interrogated quietly; on the
+contrary, his struggles to get away were most vigorous, so much so
+that Fritz adopted the precaution of binding him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If it had been one of our sailors,&quot; said Willis, &quot;he would have
+recognized my voice long ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who are you?&quot; asked one.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where do you come from?&quot; inquired another.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not attempt to escape,&quot; said a third.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We mean you no harm; on the contrary, we are friends, disposed to do
+you good if we can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If all his brothers and sisters are as talkative as himself,&quot;
+remarked Jack, &quot;they must be a very amusing sort of people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He can walk at all events,&quot; said Fritz giving him a smart push.</p>
+
+<p>The chimpanzee fell flat on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears, sir, that you are determined to have your own way, we
+must therefore wait till daylight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>An hour passed in polyglot expostulations with the stranger on the
+score of his obstinacy, but all to no purpose; to use a popular
+expression, he was as dumb as the Doges. He deigned, however, to empty
+at a single draught a calabash of Malaga that Willis gave him, but
+there his condescension stopped.</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot, who now encountered mosquitoes in all directions, made
+preparations for smoking; the light he struck, however, instead of
+clearing up the mystery, only perplexed them more and more; there lay
+their new companion, stretched on the ground, staring at them with a
+ludicrous grin.</p>
+
+<p>If, on the one hand, it occurred to them this man was an animal, on
+the other the animal was a man, and Buffon did not happen to be there
+at the time to assign him officially a place in the former kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The next difficulty that presented itself was, how they were to get
+him along; when they broke in the onagra, they ran a prong through his
+ear; in reducing the buffalo to subjection, they did not feel the
+slightest compunction in thrusting a pin through the cartilage of his
+nose; then, in order to give elasticity to the legs of the ostrich,
+they yoked him to two or three other animals, and, willing or
+unwilling, he was compelled ultimately to yield obedience to the lords
+of creation. But whether the creature before them was a lower order of
+negro or a higher order of ape, there was too great a resemblance
+between the captured and the capturers to admit of any of these
+methods of impulsion being adopted. It was, therefore, stretched on a
+plank, like a nabob in his palanquin, that the chimpanzee made his
+first appearance at Rockhouse.</p>
+
+<p>When the cavalcade arrived there, all the family, with the exception
+of Ernest and Frank, were still asleep. The first thing they did was
+to clothe the creature they had captured in a sailor's pantaloons and
+jacket, with which he seemed rather pleased, and the result of this
+operation was, that he began to assume a less ferocious aspect, and
+behave more respectfully towards his captors. All the family had sat
+down to breakfast, when Fritz and Jack, taking him by the hands, led
+him gravely into the gallery. A cord was attached to his legs,
+allowing him to walk, but was so arranged that he could not run.</p>
+
+<p>On his appearance the young girls fled at once; and, more accustomed
+to drawing-rooms than the rude realities of savage life, Mrs.
+Wolston's first impulse was to do the same.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Goodness gracious!&quot; she cried with an air of alarm, &quot;what horror is
+that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, madam, is precisely what we have been anxious for the last two
+or three hours to find out,&quot; replied Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does the creature speak?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Up till now, madam,&quot; replied Willis, &quot;he has only opened his mouth to
+swallow my calabash of Malaga; beyond that, he has kept as close as a
+purser's locker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When the first shock had passed, and the company had regained their
+self-possession, Jack related, with his customary originality, the
+incidents of the nocturnal expedition, of which Fritz was the
+originator, leader, and hero. The ladies then, for the first time,
+were made acquainted with the doubts, fears, perplexities, and
+battues, which, out of gallantry, they had hitherto been kept in
+ignorance of. Becker then, having carefully investigated the creature,
+pronounced it to be (as we already know) a full-grown specimen of a
+kind of ape, called by the Africans &quot;the wild man of the woods,&quot; and
+by naturalists the <i>jocko</i> or chimpanzee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is naturally very savage,&quot; added Becker; &quot;but this individual
+seems already to have received some degree of education.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As a proof of this, the chimpanzee seated himself amongst them very
+much at his ease; he scanned the faces surrounding him with an air of
+curiosity, and seemed to search for a particular countenance that it
+annoyed him not to find. Some fruit and nuts that were given him put
+him in excellent humor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He has, without doubt, been on board some ship, wrecked on the
+coast,&quot; said Wolston, &quot;for I recollect having read that his kindred
+are only found in Western Africa and the adjacent islands; do you not
+recognize him, Willis, to belong to the <i>Nelson</i>, like the plank of
+the other day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We do not ship such cattle on board his Majesty's ships,&quot; added the
+Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>The girls, ashamed of their fear, now came peeping in at the door,
+and, seeing that nobody had been devoured, took refuge by the side of
+their mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here, father,&quot; said Ernest, feeling the creature's crania,
+after having facetiously begged pardon for the liberty, &quot;its head is
+precisely like our own; that is very humiliating.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my son, but his tongue and other organs are also exactly like
+ours, yet he cannot utter a word. His head is of the same form and
+proportion, but he does not for all that possess human intelligence.
+Is this not a very striking proof that mere matter, though perfectly
+organized, neither produces words nor thought; and that it requires a
+special manifestation of the Divine will to call these attributes into
+existence?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but, father, some writers say that apes have been observed to
+profit by fires lighted in the forest, and have gone and warmed
+themselves when the travellers left.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, my son, is instinct, nothing more; the operation of keeping up
+a fire, by throwing a few branches upon it, is exceedingly simple, but
+their instinct has never been known to rise to that amount of
+intelligence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You recollect, father, that heathcock we saw some years ago
+displaying his glossy plumage to the dazzled hens; is that not a
+well-marked proof of coquetry? and is not this coquetry an indication
+of something more than mere instinct?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will permit me to believe, my son, at least till the contrary has
+been proved, that these actions to which you refer have nothing at all
+to do with coquetry. Those brilliant colors are designed for a purpose
+other than that which you suppose; they serve as signals to keep the
+community together, or, in other words, they are a common centre round
+which the hens may revolve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The transition from apes to heathcocks,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;appears to
+me somewhat abrupt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so abrupt as you think, Master Jack,&quot; said Wolston; &quot;those who
+take the trouble to study Nature, observe an admirable gradation and
+easy progression from a simple to a complex organization. There is no
+race or species that is not connected by a perceptible link with that
+which precedes and that which follows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What relation is there, for example,&quot; inquired Jack, &quot;between an
+oyster and a horse?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No immediate relation certainly, but there are intermediate links by
+which the two are brought together: they may be regarded, however, as
+the opposite extremes of the brotherhood&mdash;the two poles in the chain
+of existence. A horse bears even less resemblance to a turnip than to
+an oyster; a relationship may, nevertheless, be traced, step by step,
+between them, dissimilar as they are. There is the polypus, that
+singular product of Nature, which, regarded in one light, performs all
+the functions of animal life, whilst, when regarded in another, it has
+the ordinary attributes of a plant; does this not clearly and
+distinctly mark the transition from the vegetable to the animal
+kingdom? Again, certain species of worms blend the animal with the
+insect tribe, those which are covered with a horny substance unite
+them with the crustaceae. These approach fish on the one hand, and
+reptiles on the other, whilst reptiles in some species become
+moluscs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is a molusc?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The term <i>molusc</i> is applied by naturalists to creatures which have
+no vertebrae, as for example, the cuttle fish and the oyster.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I believe <i>you</i>, Mr. Wolston; but if I had asked Ernest or Jack, they
+would have told me that it was a commodore or an admiral.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Reptiles, I was going to say, are connected at one end of the chain
+with moluscs by the slug, and at the other with fish by the eel. From
+flying-fish to birds the transition is by no means abrupt. The
+ostrich, whose legs are like goat's, and runs rather than flies,
+connects birds with quadrupeds; these again return to fish through the
+cetacea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but the interval between such creatures and man is still great.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; to connect the two would be a process replete with
+insurmountable difficulties, and only possible to creative power. The
+projecting snout would have to be flattened, and the features of
+humanity imprinted upon it&mdash;that head bent upon the ground would have
+to be directed upwards&mdash;that narrow breast would have to be flattened
+out&mdash;those legs would have to be converted into flexible arms, and
+those horny hoofs into nimble fingers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To accomplish which,&quot; remarked Frank, &quot;God had only to say, 'Let it
+be so.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Assuredly; and as there is nothing incongruous in Nature, as
+everything is admirably adapted for its purpose, as unity of design is
+perceptible in all things, as every effect proceeds from a cause, and
+becomes a cause in its turn of succeeding effects, so God has willed
+that there should be a chain of resemblance running through all his
+works, and the link that connects man with the animal kingdom&mdash;the
+highest type of the mammiferous race, and the nearest approach to
+humanity amongst the brutes&mdash;is the creature before you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As if to illustrate this position, and prove his title to the place
+awarded him, the chimpanzee quietly laid hold of Mr. Wolston's straw
+hat and stuck it on his crispy head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is, perhaps, afraid of catching cold,&quot; said Jack, thrusting a mat
+under his feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Compare birds with quadrupeds,&quot; continued Mr. Wolston, &quot;and you will
+find analogies at every step. Does the powerful and kingly eagle not
+resemble the noble and generous lion?&mdash;the cruel vulture, the
+ferocious tiger?&mdash;the kite, buzzard, and crow preying upon carrion,
+hyenas, jackals, and wolves? Are not falcons, hawks, and other birds
+used in the chase, types of foxes and dogs? Is the owl, which prowls
+about only at night, not a type of the cat? The cormorants and herons,
+that live upon fish, are they not the otters and beavers of the air?
+Do not peacocks, turkeys, and the common barn-door fowl bear a
+striking affinity to oxen, cows, sheep, and other ruminating animals?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During these remarks, Jack's monkey, Knips, had found its way into the
+gallery, and, observing the newcomer, went forward to accost him as if
+an old friend; the latter, however, uttered a menacing cry, and was
+about to seize Knips with evidently no amiable design, but was
+prevented by the cords that bound his legs. Knips leaped upon the back
+of one of the boys, and there, as if on the tower of an impregnable
+fortress, commenced making a series of grimaces at the chimpanzee,
+these being the only missiles within reach that he could launch at his
+relation. The enemy retorted, and kept up a smart fire of like
+ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears,&quot; remarked Mrs Wolston, &quot;that apes are something like men:
+the great and the little do not readily amalgamate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must make them amalgamate,&quot; said Jack, taking one of Knips's paws,
+whilst Ernest held that of the chimpanzee; thus they compelled them to
+shake hands, but with what degree of cordiality we are unable to
+state.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You ought to oblige them now to take an oath of fealty,&quot; said Mrs.
+Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chimpanzee,&quot; said Jack, speaking for Knips, &quot;I promise always to
+treat you in future with smiles, delicacies, and respect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Knips,&quot; replied the wild man of the woods, through the organs of
+Ernest, &quot;I promise to have for you only the most generous intentions;
+to share with you the nuts I may have occasion to crack, that is, by
+giving you the shells and keeping the kernel; I promise, moreover, not
+to immolate you at the altar of my just rage, unless it is impossible
+for me to avoid an outburst of temper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now the embrace of peace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, madam,&quot; said Jack, &quot;you must excuse that ceremony, their
+friendship is too new for such intimacy, and Knips don't much like
+being bitten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Need we other proofs,&quot; remarked Becker, when the scene between the
+monkeys was concluded, &quot;that everything has been premeditated,
+weighed, and calculated? It was necessary for that most arid country,
+Arabia, that we should have a sober animal, susceptible of existing a
+long time without water, and capable of treading the hot sands of the
+desert. God has accordingly given us the camel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the dromedary,&quot; remarked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So everywhere,&quot; continued Becker; &quot;and add to these evidences of
+Divine wisdom the brilliant colors, the silken furs, the golden
+plumage, and the ever-varying forms, yet, in all this diversity,
+there is unison&mdash;a harmony. Like the various objects which a clever
+artist introduces into his sketch, they are placed without uniformity,
+but still with reference to their effect upon each other, and so to
+the unity of the general design.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore,&quot; remarked Ernest, &quot;we have an animal whose skin is of
+stone, which it throws off annually to assume a new one&mdash;whose flesh
+is its tail and in its feet&mdash;whose hair is found inside in its
+breast&mdash;whose stomach is in its head, which, like the skin, is renewed
+every year, the first function of the new being to digest the old
+one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here the Pilot manifested some symptoms of incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is not all, Willis,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;the animal of which I
+speak carries its eggs in the interior of its body till they are
+hatched, and then transfers them to its tail. It has pebbles in its
+stomach, can throw off its limbs when they incommode it, and replace
+them with others more to its fancy. To finish the portrait, its eyes
+are placed at the tip of long flexible horns.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you really mean me to believe that yarn?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Willis, unless you intend to deny the existence of lobsters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lobsters! Ah! you are talking of them, are you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have not,&quot; continued Ernest, &quot;six thousand three hundred and
+sixty-two eyes been counted in one beetle? sixteen thousand in a fly?
+and as many as thirty-four thousand six hundred in a butterfly? Of
+course, facets understood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Supposing these facets myope or presbyte,&quot; observed Jack, &quot;that gives
+seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty-five pairs of spectacles
+on one nose!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How wonderfully varied are the forms of Nature. If, from the mastodon
+and the fossil mammoth, to which Buffon attributes five or six times
+the bulk and size of the elephant, we descend to those animalculae, of
+which Leuwenhoek estimates that a thousand millions of them would not
+occupy the place of an ordinary grain of sand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Willis lost all patience and left the gallery, whistling as
+usual, under such circumstances, the &quot;Mariner's March.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Malesieu has detected animals by the microscope twenty-seven times
+smaller than a mite. A single drop of water under this instrument
+assumes the aspect of a lake, peopled by an infinite multitude of
+living creatures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore,&quot; observed Wolston, &quot;it is not the great works of Nature,
+or those of which the organization is most perfect, that alone
+presents to the mind of man the unfathomable mysteries of creation;
+atoms become to him problems, that utterly defy the utmost efforts of
+his intelligence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which,&quot; suggested Becker, &quot;does not prevent us believing ourselves a
+well of science, nor hinder us from piling Pelion on Ossa to scale the
+skies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What becomes, in the presence of these facts, of the metaphysics and
+cosmogonies that have succeeded each other for two thousand years?
+What of all the theories, from Ptolemy to Copernicus, from Copernicus
+to Galileo, Descartes and his zones, Leibnitz and his monads, Wolf and
+his fire forces, Maupertuis and his intelligent elements, Broussais,
+who, in his anatomical lectures, has oftener than once shown to his
+pupils, on the point of his scalpel, the source of thought; what, I
+say, becomes of all these?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is less wisdom in such vain speculation than in these simple
+words: '<i>I believe in God the Father, the Creator of all things</i>.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Worlds,&quot; says Isaiah, &quot;are, before Him, like the dew-drops on a blade
+of grass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are now, however, getting into the clouds,&quot; remarked Wolston; &quot;let
+us return to the earth by the shortest route. What do you mean to do
+with the chimpanzee?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, we must cage him in some way,&quot; replied Becker; &quot;to let him loose
+again would be to create fresh uneasiness for ourselves. To kill him
+would be almost a kind of homicide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can I come in now?&quot; inquired Willis, thrusting his head into the
+gallery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, with perfect safety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, when Master Ernest begins to spin, he gets into the chapter
+of miracles, and forgets that we have ears.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot help seeing them sometimes though, Willis; when they are a
+little longer than usual, it is difficult to hide them altogether.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; replied Willis, &quot;I confess I am a bit of a fool, and as you
+are at a loss what to do with our friend here, I shall take him over
+with me to Shark's Island: there will be a pair of us there then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you will undertake to be his guide and instructor, he is yours,
+Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What shall I call him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jocko.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It shall go hard with me if I do not make a gentleman of him in a
+month's time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like,&quot; said Frank, &quot;if you could convert him into a tiger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A tiger?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, we want a footman in livery to fetch Mrs. Wolston's carriage
+next time she calls for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I feel highly flattered by the compliment,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;but
+fear you will not be able to turn him out entire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why so, madam?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where are the top boots to come from?&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_X'></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<p>THE PIONEERS&mdash;EXCURSION TO COROMANDEL&mdash;HINDOO FANCIES&mdash;A CAGED
+HUNTER&mdash;LOUIS XI. AND CARDINAL BALUE&mdash;A FURLONG OF NEWS&mdash;CARNAGE&mdash;THE
+BARONET AND HIS SEVENTEEN TIGERS&mdash;FIFTY-FOUR FEET OF CELEBRITY&mdash;STERNE'S
+WINDOW&mdash;PROMENADE OF THE CONSCIENCES&mdash;EMULATION AND VANITY.</p>
+
+<p>When a country is released from the presence of an enemy that annoyed
+and harassed them, the people feel as if a weight had been taken off
+their shoulders; so the inhabitants of New Switzerland had breathed
+more freely since the capture of the chimpanzee.</p>
+
+<p>The works at Falcon's Nest were completed, and the two families had
+taken possession of their aerial dwellings, where they were perched
+like a pair of rookeries within call of each other.</p>
+
+<p>The confined air of towns has a tendency to plunge men into lethargy
+and indolence, and to precipitate the decadence of a constitution in
+which the seeds of disease have been sown; whilst, on the other hand,
+the pure air of the country braces the nerves, excites a healthy
+action in the system, and invigorates a shattered frame; so it was
+with Mr. Wolston&mdash;under the benign influences of the genial climate
+and the refreshing sea breeze, he gradually, but steadily, recovered
+health and strength.</p>
+
+<p>A larger breadth of land had been cleared and fitted for receiving
+grain, which it was susceptible of reproducing a hundred-fold. Such is
+the sublime contract God has made with man, that, in exchange for his
+labor and skill, a single grain of wheat will produce seven or eight
+stalks, each bearing an ear containing fifty grains; a single grain
+has been known to yield twenty-eight ears, and Pliny states that Nero
+received a grain bearing the enormous number of three hundred and
+sixty ears. Strange that such a singular instance of fecundity should
+present itself during the domination of a man, or rather monster, who
+dared to wish that the Roman people had only one head, so that he
+might cut it off at a single blow!</p>
+
+<p>Willis and the Wolstons were as yet ignorant of the extent and limits
+of the colony; there were two inclosed and cultivated sections, named
+respectively Waldeck and Prospect Hill, which they had not yet
+inspected. With a view to enable them to form a more accurate
+conception of the boundaries of the territory they inhabited, a grand
+excursion was decided upon that would enable them leisurely to
+investigate every nook and cranny of the settlement.</p>
+
+<p>The storehouse was accordingly overhauled, and the ladies called in to
+prepare viands for the journey; they were likewise invited to furnish
+a supply of certain enchanted travelling bags, in which the gentlemen
+were often astonished to find, during their distant expeditions, a
+thousand and one useful things that they would never have dreamt of
+bringing with them of their own accord.</p>
+
+<p>Becker, Wolston, Ernest, and Frank set about the construction of a
+vehicle on four wheels for the luggage and the ladies; they did not
+contemplate erecting a machine with elastic springs and gilded panels,
+like the Lord Mayor's state coach&mdash;their object was to produce a
+machine that would ease, without dislocating, the limbs of the
+travellers, and that would move at least more gently than a gardener's
+cart, loaded with hampers of greens for Covent Garden Market. It may
+readily be supposed that Ernest's Latin was not of much service in
+these operations, for even Wolston's mechanical skill was sorely tried
+in elaborating the design.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz, Willis, and Jack had already started as pioneers of the
+expedition to examine the buildings, and to see that no more apes or
+other piratical marauders had established themselves on their
+premises; and, in compliance with a request made by Willis, who
+strongly objected to becoming a bushranger, they had gone by water. It
+was further arranged that, on their return, all should start
+together&mdash;the entire community in one cavalcade, like an army on the
+march.</p>
+
+<p>The young ladies were as much pleased in anticipation with this
+journey as if the destination of the travellers had been Brighton or
+Ramsgate. To children of their age, change is always pleasing. Often,
+in consequence of a death, the collapse of a bank, the loss of a
+law-suit, or some dire disaster of that sort, parents have seen
+themselves compelled to abandon the home of their fathers, endeared to
+them by many gentle recollections, perhaps to embark for some far
+distant land; they stifle their sighs, and bid a mute farewell to each
+stone and each tree, familiar to them as household words; they depart
+with reluctance, and often turn to cast a lingering look behind at
+objects so dear to their memory. Not so the children; they issue from
+the door like a flock of caged pigeons just let loose; they sing and
+leap and laugh with glee; the old house has no charms for them, they
+are as glad to depart as their elders are wishful to stay; the trunk
+desires to multiply its roots on the soil, but the buds prefer to blow
+elsewhere&mdash;for the latter life resolves itself into the word FUTURE,
+and for the former into the word PAST.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Wolston, Becker, and his two sons hard at work on the
+carriage, let us turn to the pinnace which was now making its way
+along the shore under the guidance of the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like much,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;to present Mr. and Mrs. Wolston
+with a couple of bear, leopard, or tiger skins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So should I,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish you could think of some other sort of gift,&quot; suggested Willis;
+&quot;what do you say to a couple of seal or shark skins?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Won't do,&quot; replied both Fritz and Jack in one voice. &quot;What objections
+have you to the others?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you are in some sort consigned to my care; I should like you to
+return to your parents with your own skins entire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you think it is a terrific affair to kill a tiger or two? You
+have been accustomed to the sea, and fancy landsmen are good for
+nothing but shooting crows and wild-cats; that is a mistake, however;
+we are familiar with larger game.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shiver my timbers! do you call bears and tigers game?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am afraid, Willis, you are a bit of a milksop.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Avast heaving there, Master Fritz! as it is, I am a half-hanged man
+already, so death has now no terrors Dov me; it is the first pang that
+is most felt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but in the case of tigers, they never give you time to feel a
+second pang; miss your aim, and it is all over with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; and therefore I wish you would give up the project. As for
+myself, I would face anything with a four-pounder, but rifle practice
+on board ship is mostly confined to the marines; it is not that,
+however, I am troubled about; I am certain your worthy father would
+never forgive me if I countenance this project.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You need not tell him anything about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where, then, are the skins to come from? Can you say you bought them
+at the furrier's? You must really hit upon some other fancy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it is not a fancy, Willis, it is a necessity; it is not our own
+amusement we are consulting. Just imagine yourself what will happen
+during the excursion now being arranged. Our parents will, of course,
+offer their bear skins to Mr. and Mrs. Wolston; there will be refusals
+on the one side and entreaties on the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, as is usual in these sort of discussions,&quot; added Jack, &quot;Mrs.
+Wolston will call her carriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;and my mother will most certainly deprive
+herself of a covering that is absolutely indispensable during the cold
+nights of this climate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is reason in what you say,&quot; observed Willis, scratching his
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, Willis, the thing ought and must be done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you put it, yes; but it will take time to prepare the skins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They will not be ready in time for this expedition certainly, and my
+mother must do without her skin this journey; but it is our duty to
+prevent anything of the sort happening in future.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were I to consent to this project,&quot; said Willis, &quot;there is still
+something more required.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, the tigers and what's-a-names; it is necessary to find the brute
+before you can get its skin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Granted; there would be a difficulty in the case had we not here
+quite handy a magnificent covering of wild animals, all ready to kill
+or to be killed. Just steer a point to the east, Willis; there, that
+will do. Just beyond that bluff you see yonder, there is a low flat
+plain covered with brushwood and tufted with trees; on the left, this
+prairie is bounded by a chain of low hills, and on the right a broad
+river, which last we have named the St. John, because it bears some
+resemblance to a stream of that name in Florida; beyond this plain
+there is a swamp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And,&quot; added Jack, &quot;behind this swamp there is a magnificent forest of
+cedars, peopled with the finest furs imaginable, but garnished,
+however, with formidable claws and rows of teeth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was not aware,&quot; said Willis, &quot;that we were within reach of such
+amiable neighbors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, they cannot reach us; thanks to the conformation of that chain of
+hills you see yonder, there is only one pass that opens into our
+settlement, and that we have taken care to shut up and fortify.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears then,&quot; said Willis, &quot;that there will be no difficulty in
+finding the animals, but&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, Willis, no more buts; you hunt in your own way from morning
+till night, let us for once hunt in ours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I go a-hunting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, there you are, charging your piece just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, my pipe you mean; but look at the difference; mosquitoes bite
+human beings, they don't eat them!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, you may add, their skins don't make bed-clothes. Besides, if my
+mother takes rheumatism or the ague, it will be you that is to blame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I would rather face all the tigers in Bengal and all the lions in
+Africa than incur such a responsibility. I will, therefore, take a
+part in your cruise, and if any accident happens to either of you, I
+shall stay in the forest till nothing is left of me but my cap and my
+bones. In this way I will escape all reproach in this world, and I may
+as well, after all, rejoin my old commander, Captain Littlestone, by
+this road as by any other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, they had reached the coast of Waldeck, and having
+landed, they found the outhouses and sheds that had been erected there
+in satisfactory order; the apes had not forgotten a battue that had
+once been got up for their special behoof, as not an individual was to
+be seen in the neighborhood. A morass of the district that had been
+converted into a rice plantation, promised an abundant crop; and the
+cotton plants, that Frank had once mistaken for flakes of snow, reared
+their woolly blossoms, looking for all the world like the powdered
+heads of our ancestors. After a slight repast, the pinnace was once
+more in motion, and the party steering for Prospect Hill.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; sighed Willis, &quot;I wish we had only Sir Marmaduke Travers' cage
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cage!&quot; cried Fritz, laughing, &quot;what, to shut up the game first and
+shoot it afterwards?&quot; &quot;No, quite the reverse: to shut up the hunters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you would serve us in the same way as Louis XI. served Cardinal
+Balue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know nothing of either Louis XI. or Cardinal Balue; but the cage I
+speak of was an excellent invention, for all that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which you would like to prove to us by caging ourselves, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Marmaduke Travers,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;was an English gentleman,
+and he was travelling in Coromandel, no one knew why or for what
+purpose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For the fun of the thing, probably,&quot; suggested Jack; the English are
+said to be great oddities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At that time there happened to be a Hindoo widow somewhere in those
+parts. This lady was very rich, very young, very beautiful, and very
+fond of tormenting her admirers. And, as fate would have it, the
+travelling Englishman was completely taken captive by this dark
+beauty; and taking advantage of the hold she had obtained upon his
+heart, she amused herself by making him do all sorts of out of the way
+things. Sometimes she would bid him let his moustache grow, then she
+would order him to cut it off; he had to worship Brahma, adopt the
+fashion of the Hindoos, and had even to undergo the indignity of
+having his head tied up in a dirty pocket-handkerchief.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is to say,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;that the lady, not having a pug or a
+monkey, made Sir Marmaduke a substitute for both.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely, but still Sir Marmaduke was no fool; he was, on the
+contrary, a gentleman and a philosopher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I doubt that,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are wrong, then. You have been brought up in an out of the way
+part of the world, and are not familiar with the usages of civilized
+society. When once a man has allowed the tender passion to take root
+in his breast, it cannot afterwards be extinguished at will; it grows
+and grows like an oil spot, so that what might easily have been
+mastered at first, makes us in time its devoted slave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot admit,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;that any sensible man would allow
+himself to be treated in the way you state.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The wisest and bravest have often, for all that, been obliged to bend
+their heads to such circumstances; in fact, those only escape whose
+hearts have been steeled by time or adversity. Well, nothing would
+please the lady in one of her caprices short of Sir Marmaduke's going
+alone to the jungle and killing a tiger or two for her. This caused
+him some little uneasiness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should think so,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;unless he had been accustomed to
+face the animals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;However, the widow's hand was to be the reward of the achievement,
+and the thing must consequently be done. Being, however, as I have
+said, a bit of a philosopher, he considered with himself that if, by
+chance, he should perish in the attempt he would lose the widow all
+the same, and that he could not think of with any thing like
+equanimity. To extricate himself from this dilemma he sent a despatch
+to an enterprising friend of his, then stationed with his regiment at
+Calcutta, requesting his advice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this friend, no doubt, sent him a couple of tigers all ready
+trussed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, better than that; he sent him a strong iron cage fifteen feet
+square, very solid. This was shipped on board a cutter commanded by
+Captain Littlestone, and I was entrusted with the task of erecting it
+on shore, whilst an express was sent off to Sir Marmaduke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; said Jack, &quot;I begin to understand now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he rigged himself in tiger-hunting costume, went and bade the
+lady good-bye, who coolly wished him good sport, mounted a horse, and
+rode off to conquer a lady who, as a proof of her affection, had so
+cavalierly consigned him to the tender mercies of the wild beasts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, it was dooming him to certain destruction,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the meantime the cage had been conveyed to a valley surrounded
+with mountains, the caves of which were known to shelter entire
+colonies of tigers. Here also came Sir Marmaduke. The cage was firmly
+embedded in the soil, the exterior was thickly studded over with sharp
+spikes screwed into the bars; inside were placed a table and a sofa,
+with crimson velvet cushions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A lady's boudoir in the wilderness,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In one corner there was a case containing a dozen bottles of pale
+ale, and as many of champagne; in another was a second case containing
+curry pies and a variety of preserved meats; in a third case were five
+and twenty loaded rifles, together with a complete magazine in
+miniature of powder and shot. On the table were sundry cases of
+havannahs, a box of <i>allumettes</i>, the last number of the <i>Edinburgh
+Review</i>, and a copy of the <i>Times</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the <i>Times</i>?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a furlong of paper, folded up and covered with news,
+advertisements, and letters from the oldest inhabitant of everywhere.
+Leaving, then, Sir Marmaduke seated in the centre of his cage, we
+towards night returned to the cutter, first scattering two or three
+quarters of fresh beef in the vicinity of the cage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That should have assembled all the tigers in Coromandel,&quot; said
+Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anyhow, it brought enough. Towards midnight Sir Marmaduke could count
+thirty noble brutes capering in the moonlight and feasting upon the
+beef that had been provided for them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did the Englishman do then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He took aim at the most magnificent specimen of the herd and fired.
+No sooner had he done this than the whole pack came scampering towards
+the cage, thinking, doubtless, they had nothing to do but scrunch the
+bones of the solitary hunter. This was the signal for a regular
+slaughter. Sir Marmaduke discharged his rifles point blank in the
+noses of the animals that environed him on all sides; those who were
+not wounded by the balls were severely injured by the spikes of the
+cage in their furious efforts to seize their enemy. The howling,
+yelling, and fury was quite a new sensation for Sir Marmaduke; he
+rather enjoyed the thing whilst the excitement lasted. However, all
+things must have an end; when the sun appeared on the horizon the
+wounded retired, leaving the dead masters of the situation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose, in the meantime,&quot; remarked Fritz, &quot;that the amiable Hindoo
+was considering whether or not, under the circumstances, she should
+wear mourning for her defunct cavalier.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be that as it may, the defunct made his appearance, safe and sound,
+that same day, whilst the cutter stood out to sea with every vestige
+of the cage except the dead tigers. Shortly after, the widow was
+astonished to see an army of coolies marching in procession towards
+her door, all, like the slaves of Aladdin, heavily laden; and she was
+not awakened from her surprise till the master of the ceremonies had
+placed the following letter in her hands:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Madam,&mdash;With this you will receive seventeen fall-grown tigers, which
+I have had the honour of shooting for you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Marmaduke Travers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was a choice bijou for a lady,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='003'></a><img src="images/003.jpg" alt="Main aiming a rifle out a window" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; added Fritz; &quot;and if the ladies of Coromandel have stands in
+their drawing-rooms, to display the tributes to their charms, Sir
+Marmaduke's present afforded abundant material for adorning those of
+the widow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, the consequence was, that Sir Marmaduke's name rung from one
+end of India to the other. The feat of killing, single-handed,
+seventeen tigers, converted him into a hero of the first magnitude. No
+festival was complete without him, he was courted by the fashionables
+and worshipped by the mob; some enthusiasts even proposed to erect a
+tomb for him, that being the way they honor their great men in eastern
+nations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every country,&quot; remarked Fritz, &quot;has its own peculiarities in this
+respect. The memory of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome was
+perpetuated in the intrinsic merit of the works of art erected in
+their names. In England quantity takes the place of quality; there is
+said to be in London a statue of a hero disguised as Achilles, six
+yards in height, and perched upon a pedestal twelve yards high.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Making in all,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;exactly eighteen yards of fame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The handsome Hindoo,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;was proud of the feat her
+charms had inspired. She gloried in showing off the redoubtable
+tiger-slayer at her <i>réunions</i>, and ended in being completely
+fascinated herself with her former slave. The match that she had
+formerly sneezed at she now earnestly desired, and, as Sir Marmaduke
+did not declare himself so speedily as she desired, she determined to
+give him a little encouragement by sending one of the most inviting
+and most odoriferous of notes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Marmaduke must then have considered himself one of the happiest
+of men,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;neither man nor woman can, in affairs of
+this kind, depend upon themselves for two consecutive hours. The
+aspirations of a whole life-time may be dispelled in five minutes, and
+the wishes of to-day may become the detestations of to-morrow. The new
+sensations awakened in Sir Marmaduke by the affair of the cage&mdash;his
+recollection of the ferocious brutes as they clung with expiring
+energy to the bars of the cage, their streaked skins streaming with
+blood, the fearful howling and terrific death yells, the formidable
+claws that were often within an inch of his face&mdash;had, somehow or
+other, chased the passion he had felt for the widow completely out of
+his breast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, the scamp of a Travers!&quot; said Jack, energetically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He began to ask himself coolly what a lady, who had made such
+extraordinary demands upon him before marriage, might not require him
+to do after; and the result of his cogitations is expressed in the
+following reply that he sent to the now smiling widow:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Sir Marmaduke Travers is highly flattered by the charming note of
+the adorable daughter of Brahma; he shall gladly continue to bask in
+the sunshine of her smiles, out his ambition desires and will accept
+nothing more.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Flowery and laconic,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; inquired Willis, &quot;was I not right in wishing to have the cage
+of Sir Marmaduke here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but we cannot get it. We have no ingenious trend at Calcutta to
+send us such a machine, and furnish it with crimson-cushioned sofas
+and pale ale, so we shall have to rest satisfied with our own
+ingenuity, tact, and agility.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack were justified in relying upon their own resources.
+They had been often sorely tried, and never had been found wanting in
+cases of emergency. Since the arrival of the Wolstons their courage
+had become almost temerity; previous to that event, they had been
+content to meet danger bravely when it was inevitable, and never went
+deliberately in search of it. Now, however, if we apply the glass of
+which Sterne speaks to their breasts and spy what is passing therein,
+we shall fad that an imperious desire to become heroes had taken
+possession of their inward souls&mdash;a determination to make themselves
+conspicuous at all hazards was burning within them; that, in fact,
+they were courting the admiration of the new audience that Providence
+had sent to the colony, the praise of which found more favor in their
+hearts than the paternal admonitions.</p>
+
+<p>This was far from being commendable; but, although emulation and
+vanity have some features in common, still they must not be
+confounded: the former consists in generous efforts to equal or
+surpass some one in something praiseworthy; the second is a kind of
+self-love, that seeks to purchase respect or flattery at no matter
+what cost;&mdash;the one is a vice, the other a virtue.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack were not actuated by vanity; they were urged on by
+their impulses, without weighing the circumstances that gave them
+rise; and indeed they were not even conscious of being more desirous
+of renown now than they had been hitherto.</p>
+
+<p>The temperament of Ernest and Frank was of another kind. Their natures
+were much less excitable, and it did not appear that the recent
+arrivals had altered their outward demeanor in the slightest degree;
+they continued calm, staid, and reflective, as they had ever been.</p>
+
+<p>All four were a singular mixture of the child and the man&mdash;knowing
+many things that young people are ignorant of, they were yet almost
+totally unacquainted with the ordinary attributes of social
+life&mdash;unsophisticated and naive to an extreme degree, they would have
+appeared in a fashionable drawing-room downright fools. On the other
+hand, they possessed great clearness of perception, presence of mind
+in danger, promptitude in action, and the utmost coolness in the face
+of apparently insurmountable obstacles&mdash;qualities that would have
+utterly confounded the young men who shine in the saloons of Europe,
+whose chief merit often consists in their being familiar with the
+unmeaning conventionalisms of fashionable life.</p>
+
+<p>At Prospect Hill they found the outhouses and plantations in much the
+same position as at Waldeck. Here the crimson flowers of the caper
+plant, the white flowers of the tea plant, and the rich blossoms of
+the clove tree, perfumed the air and promised a fragrant harvest. This
+was a charming caravansary, all ready with its smiles to welcome the
+illustrious colonists as soon as they presented themselves.</p>
+
+<p>These points being settled to the satisfaction of the three pioneers,
+a sheep was taken on board the pinnace at the request of Willis&mdash;who
+seemed to have taken a violent fancy for mutton chops&mdash;and they set
+sail towards the east.</p>
+
+<p>In the first instance they made for a projecting head-land that seemed
+to bar their progress in that direction, and, much to the astonishment
+of the Pilot, they entered a cavern that formed the entrance to a
+natural tunnel. This, besides being an interesting feature in the
+coast scenery, was one of the treasures of the colony, for it
+contained vast quantities of edible birds' nests, so much prized by
+the Chinese. The voyagers did not, however, tarry here; these were not
+the objects they were now in search of. Nautilus Bay and the Bay of
+Pearls were likewise traversed unheeded, nor could the attractive
+banks of the St. John, fringed with verdant foliage, divert them from
+the project they had in contemplation.</p>
+
+<p>Wise men, when they indulge in folly, are often more foolish than real
+fools; so it was with Willis: now that he had joined in the scheme, he
+evinced more ardor in its execution than the young men themselves. He
+said that it would not be enough to capture skins for Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston, they must also capture one a-piece for Mary and Sophia
+likewise, and talked as if the adventure of Sir Marmaduke and his
+seventeen tigers had been a bagatelle.</p>
+
+<p>Some hours before dark they landed at a spot well known to both Fritz
+and Jack; it was a place where Becker and his sons had some time
+before been engaged in deadly conflict with a herd of lions, and where
+one of their dogs had fallen a victim to the enraged monarchs of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My plan,&quot; said Willis, &quot;is to kill the sheep and place the quarters
+on the shore, just as bait is thrown into the water to bring the fish
+within the net.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A reminiscence of Sir Marmaduke,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;we shall light a fire to take the place of
+the sun, who is about to retire for the night. This done, I propose
+that we should return to the pinnace, keep the mutton within rifle
+range, and riddle the skins that come to feast upon it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After some opposition on the part of Fritz and Jack, who preferred to
+encounter their antagonists on more equal terms, the proposal of
+Willis was ultimately agreed to.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XI'></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p>ON THE WATCH&mdash;FECUNDITY OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS&mdash;LATEST NEWS FROM THE
+MOON&mdash;A DEATH-KNELL EVERY SECOND&mdash;THE INCONVENIENCES OF BEING TOO NEAR
+THE SUN&mdash;NARCOTICS&mdash;WILLIS CONTRALTO&mdash;HUNTING TURNED UPSIDE
+DOWN&mdash;ELECTRIC CLOUDS&mdash;PARTIALITIES OF LIGHTNING&mdash;BELLS AND
+BELL-RINGERS&mdash;CONDUCTING RODS&mdash;THE RETURN&mdash;THE TWO SISTERS&mdash;TOBY
+BECOMES A DRAGOMAN.</p>
+
+<p>As is usual in tropical climates, a blazing hot day was succeeded by
+an intensely dark night. The fire that the hunters had made on shore
+cast a lurid glare on the prominent objects round about. The flames,
+as they fitfully lit up the landscape into that dim distinctness
+termed by artists the <i>chiar oscuro</i>, made the bushes and trunks of
+trees appear like monsters issuing stealthily from the forest that
+lined the background. There seemed to be some attraction, however,
+elsewhere for the real monsters, not a single wild beast having as yet
+appeared on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>The two young men were eagerly straining their eyes from the stern of
+the pinnace, whilst the dogs kept diligently wagging their tails in
+expectation of a signal for the onset. The position of Willis could be
+ascertained now and then by an eye of fire, which opened and shut as
+he inhaled or exhaled the fumes of his Maryland. The ripple beat
+gently on the sea-line of the boat, which oscillated with the
+regularity and softness of a cradle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is always so,&quot; said Jack, impatiently; &quot;if we don't want wild
+beasts, there are shoals of them to be seen; but if we do want them,
+then they are all off to their dens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps, there are none now,&quot; suggested Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say rather,&quot; observed Fritz, &quot;that there ought to be thousands; for
+on the one hand they multiply rapidly, and on the other there is no
+one to destroy them. Spaniards once left a few cattle on St. Domingo,
+and they increased at such a rate, that the island very soon would not
+have been able to support them, had they not been kept down by
+constant slaughter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;the bovine race reproduce themselves more
+slowly than other animals; a single sow, according to a calculation
+made by Vauban, if allowed to live eleven years, would produce six
+millions of pigs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a cargo of legs of pork and sides of bacon!&quot; exclaimed Willis,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then fish; there are more than a hundred and sixty thousand eggs in a
+single carp. A sturgeon contains a million four hundred and
+sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty, whilst in some codfish
+the number exceeds nine millions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you need not favor us with the 'Mariner's March,' Willis; what my
+brother says is perfectly correct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, do these shoals of creatures live upon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The big ones upon the little ones; fish devour each other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A beautiful harmony of Nature,&quot; remarked Fritz drily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then plants,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;are still more prolific than animals.
+Some trees can produce as many of their kind as they have branches, or
+even leaves. An elm tree, twelve years old, yields sometimes five
+hundred thousand pods; and, by the way, Willis, to encourage you in
+carrying on the war against the mosquitoes, a single stalk of tobacco
+produces four thousand seeds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The leaves, however, are of more use to me than the seeds,&quot; replied
+Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This admirable proportion between the productiveness of the two
+kingdoms demonstrates the far-seeing wisdom of Providence. If the
+power of multiplication in vegetables had been less considerable, the
+fields, gardens, and prairies would have been deserts, with only a
+plant here and there to hide the nakedness of the land. Had God
+permitted animals to multiply in excess of plants, the entire
+vegetation would soon have been devoured, and then the animals
+themselves would of necessity have ceased to exist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How is it, then,&quot; inquired Willis, &quot;with this continual
+multiplication always going on, the inhabitants of land and sea do not
+get over-crowded?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, as regards man, for example, if thirteen or fourteen human
+beings are born within a given period, death removes ten or eleven
+others; but though this leaves a regular increase, still the
+population of the globe always continues about the same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It may be so, Master Jack, but when I was a little boy at school, I
+generally came in for a whipping, if I made out two and two to be
+anything else than four.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And served you right too, Willis; but if the human family did not
+continually increase, if the number of deaths exceeded continually
+that of the births, at the end of a few centuries the world would be
+unpeopled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good; but if, on the other hand, there is a continual increase,
+how can the population continue the same?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because the increase supposes a normal state; that is to say, the
+births are only estimated as compared with deaths from disease or old
+age. But then there are shipwrecks, inundations, plagues, and war,
+which sometimes exterminate entire communities at one fell swoop. Then
+whole nations die out and give place to the redundant populations of
+others; phenomena now observed in the cases of the aborigines of
+Australia and America.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No signs of furs yet,&quot; cried Fritz, who was every now and then
+levelling his rifle at the phantoms on shore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We need not dread,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;ever being hustled or jostled on
+the earth; life will fail us before space. There are now eight hundred
+millions of human beings in existence, and, according to the most
+moderate computation, room enough for twice that number. As it is, the
+most fertile sections of the earth are not the most populous; there
+are four hundred millions in Asia, sixty millions in Africa, forty in
+America, two hundred and thirty in Europe, and only seventy millions
+in the islands and continent of Oceanica!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To which,&quot; remarked Fritz, &quot;you may add the eleven inhabitants of New
+Switzerland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Assuming, then, this calculation to be nearly accurate, though
+authorities vary materially in their computations of the earth's
+inhabitants, and regarding it in connexion with the average duration
+of human life, a thousand millions of mortals must perish in
+thirty-three years; to descend to detail, thirty millions every year,
+three thousand four hundred every hour, sixty every minute, or ONE
+EVERY SECOND.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;we are here to-day and gone to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suppose, then, that the population of the earth were twice as great,
+cultivation would be extended, territories that are now lying waste
+would be teeming with life and covered with fertile fields, but the
+same beautiful equilibrium would be maintained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the inhabitants of the planets,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;what are they
+about?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What planets do you mean?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, all in general; the moon, for example, in particular.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The moon,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;has, in the first place, no atmosphere.
+This we know, because the rays of the stars passing behind her are
+not, in the slightest degree, refracted; and this proves that neither
+men, nor animals, nor vegetables of any kind, are to be found in that
+planet, for they could not exist without air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That should settle the question,&quot; remarked Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; remarked Fritz; &quot;but some theorists, nevertheless, insist that
+there may be living creatures in the moon, for all that&mdash;of course,
+differently constituted from the inhabitants of our earth, and
+susceptible of existing without air. There is, however, no evidence of
+any kind to support such a theory; it is a mere fancy, the dream of an
+imaginative brain. Upon the same grounds, it may be argued, that the
+interior of the earth is inhabited, and that elves and gnomes are
+possible beings. Besides, the telescope has been brought to so high a
+degree of perfection, that objects the size of a house can now be
+detected in the moon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems, I am afraid,&quot; remarked Jack, who, like his brother, was
+getting annoyed by the phantasmagoria on shore, &quot;that we were about
+as well supplied with wild beasts here as they are with men in the
+planets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In speaking of the moon, however,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;I do not imply
+all the planets; for, certain as we are that the moon has no
+atmosphere, so we are equally certain that some of the planets possess
+that attribute. Still there are other circumstances that render the
+notion of their being inhabited by beings like ourselves exceedingly
+improbable. Mercury, for example, is so embarrassed by the solar rays,
+that lead must always be in a state of fusion, and water, if not
+reduced to a state of vapor, will be hot enough to boil the fish that
+are in it. Uranus, at the other extremity of the system, receives four
+hundred times less heat and light than we do, consequently neither
+water nor any thing else can exist there in a liquid state; what is
+fluid on our earth must be frozen up into a solid mass. Good, I
+declare my brother has fallen asleep!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very&mdash;interesting&mdash;however,&quot; said Willis, making ineffectual
+efforts to smother a yawn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same difficulty with comets; there must have been some very
+urgent necessity for human beings in order to have peopled them. When
+they pass the perihelion&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The what?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The point where they approach nearest the sun&mdash;when they pass the
+perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific;
+when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the
+cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five
+thousand <i>myriam&egrave;tres</i> of the sun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Friends coming within that distance of each other should at least
+shake hands,&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still, even at that distance, the heat, according to Newton, must be
+like red-hot iron, and if constituted like our earth, when heated to
+that degree, must take fifty thousand years to cool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fifty thousand years!&quot; said Willis, yawning from ear to ear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The central position between these extremes, which would either
+congeal our earth into a mass of ice or burn it up into a heap of
+cinders, is therefore the most congenial to such beings as ourselves.
+Whence I conclude&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here the crimson flashes of Willis's pipe, which had been gradually
+diminishing in brilliance suddenly ceased; <i>contralto</i> notes issued
+from the profundities of his breast, and it became evident to the
+orator that all his audience were sound asleep.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whence I conclude,&quot; said Fritz, addressing himself, &quot;that my orations
+must be somewhat soporiferous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Being thus left alone to keep a look-out on shore, his thoughts
+gradually receded within his own breast, where all was rose-colored
+and smiling, for at his age rust has not had time to corrupt, nor
+moths to eat away. And it was not long before he himself, like his two
+companions, was fast locked in the arms of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>How long this state of things lasted the chronicle saith not; but the
+three sleepers were eventually awakened by a simultaneous howl of the
+dogs. They were instantly on their feet, with their rifles levelled.</p>
+
+<p>It was too late; day had broken, and there was light enough to
+convince them that nothing was to be seen. The sheep's quarters had,
+however, entirely disappeared, and they had the satisfaction of
+knowing that they had politely given the denizens of the forest a
+feast gratis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, they shall pay us for it yet,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is a case of the hunters being caught instead of the game,&quot;
+remarked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The poor sheep! If Ernest had been here, he would have erected a
+monument to its memory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I doubt that; epitaphs are generally made rather to please the living
+than to compliment the defunct. But, Willis, we must deprive you of
+your office of huntsman in chief&mdash;I shall go into the forest and
+revenge this insult.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no objection to abdicate the office of huntsman, but must
+retain that of admiral, in which capacity I announce to you that there
+will be a storm presently, and that we shall just have time to make
+Rockhouse before it overtakes us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is rather a reason for our remaining where we are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have come for skins, and skins we must have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides, we are two to one, and in all constitutional governments the
+majority rules.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you both made up your minds?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, we are quite decided.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case,&quot; said Willis, &quot;let us hoist the anchor and be off
+home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Home! but we are determined to have the skins first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, you are not,&quot; said Willis; &quot;I know you better than you know
+yourselves. You are both brave fellows, but I know you would not, for
+all the skins in the world, have your good mother suppose that you
+were buffeted about by the waves in a storm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; up with the anchor, Willis,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be it so,&quot; said Jack, shaking his fist menacingly at the silent
+forest, &quot;but we shall lose nothing by waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sailor had not erred in his calculations, for they had scarcely
+unfurled the sail before they heard the distant rumbling of the storm.
+As soon as the first flash of lightning shot across the sky, Jack put
+his forefinger of one hand on the wrist of the other, and began
+counting one&mdash;two&mdash;three.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you feel feverish?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not personally,&quot; replied Jack; &quot;I am feeling the pulse of the
+storm&mdash;twenty-four&mdash;twenty-five&mdash;twenty-six&mdash;it is a mile off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye! how do you make that out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very easily; you recollect Ernest telling us that light travelled so
+rapidly, that the time it occupied in passing from one point to
+another of the earth's surface was scarcely perceptible to our
+senses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but I thought he was spinning a yarn at the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You were wrong, Willis; he likewise told us that sound travels at the
+rate of four hundred yards in a second.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, but&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have patience, Willis! When the lightning flashes, the electric spark
+is discharged, is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I was never high enough aloft to see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But others have been; Newton and Franklin have seen it. Now, if the
+sound reaches our ears a second after the flash, it has travelled four
+hundred yards. If we hear it twelve or thirteen seconds after, it has
+travelled twelve or thirteen times four hundred yards, or about half a
+mile, and so on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what has that to do with your pulse?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the first place, I am in perfect health, am I not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope so, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then when our systems are in good order, the pulse, keeping fractions
+out of view, beats once in every second; and consequently, though we
+do not always carry a watch, we always have our arteries about us, and
+may therefore always reckon time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now I understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! then we are to escape this time without the 'Mariner's March.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears, Master Jack, that you have turned philosopher as well as
+your brothers. Can you tell me what causes lightning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I can, Willis. You must know, in the first place, that all the
+layers of the atmosphere are, more or less, charged with electricity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask him how,&quot; said Fritz drily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you hope to puzzle me,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;but thanks to Mr. Wolston,
+I am too well up in physics to be easily driven off my perch, and
+therefore may safely take my turn in philosophising.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, we are listening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The air, by means of the vapor it contains, absorbs electricity from
+terrestrial bodies, and so becomes a sort of reservoir of this
+invisible fluid. All chemical combinations evolve electricity, the air
+collects it and stores it up in the clouds. There, worshipful brother,
+your question is answered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good, go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Willis, you must know, in the second place, the clouds are very
+good fellows, and share with each other the good things they possess.
+When one cloud meets another, the one over-supplied with this fluid
+and the other in its normal state, there is an immediate interchange
+of courtesies, the negative electricity of the one is exchanged for
+the positive of the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There does not appear, however, to be much generosity in this
+transaction, since the surcharged cloud does not cede its superfluous
+abundance without a consideration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very rarely that philanthropy amongst us goes much further,&quot;
+remarked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, everybody is not like Willis,&quot; rejoined Jack, &quot;who acts like a
+prince, and gives legs of mutton gratis to hyenas and tigers. The
+discharges of electricity from one cloud to another are the flashes of
+lightning, and it is to be observed that the thunder is nothing more
+than the noise made by the fluid rushing through the air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, is the thunderbolt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no such thing as what is popularly understood by the term
+thunderbolt. The lightning itself, however, often does mischief. This
+happens when the discharge, instead of being between two clouds in the
+air, takes place between a cloud and the ground&mdash;a cloud surcharged
+with electricity understood. Then all intervening objects are struck
+by the fluid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, however, you are wrong,&quot; said Fritz. &quot;All objects are not
+struck; on the contrary, the fluid avoids some things and searches out
+others, even moving in a zig-zag direction to manifest these caprices;
+it often discharges itself on or into hard substances, and passes by
+those which are soft or feeble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I might say this arose from a sentiment of generosity,&quot; added Jack,
+&quot;but I have other reasons to assign.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;as I should scarcely be satisfied
+with the first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;lightning has its likings and dislikings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like men and women,&quot; suggested Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It has a partiality for metal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An affection that is not returned, however,&quot; observed Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If the fluid enters a room, for example, it runs along the bell
+wires, inspects the works of the clock, and sometimes has the audacity
+to pounce upon the money in your purse, even though a policeman should
+happen to be in the kitchen at the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;it is Socialist or Red Republican in its
+notions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It does not, however, patronise war,&quot; replied Jack; &quot;I once heard of
+it having melted a sword and left the scabbard intact.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, to say the least of it, is improbable,&quot; remarked Fritz. &quot;The
+hilt, or even the point, might have been fused; but even supposing the
+electric fluid to have been capable of such flagrant preference, the
+scabbard could not have held molten metal without being itself
+consumed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;there are plenty of non-sensical stories of
+that kind in circulation, because nobody takes the trouble to test
+their truth. Still, according to your own account, a man or woman runs
+no danger from the lightning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I beg your pardon there, Willis; the electric fluid does not go out
+of its way to attack a human being, but if one should-happen to be in
+its way, it does not take time to request that individual to stand
+aside, it simply passes through him, and leaves him or her, as the
+case may be, a coagulated mass of inanimate tissues.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a variety of ways there are of getting out of the world!&quot; said
+Willis lugubriously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Again,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;anything that happens to be in the vicinity
+of the clouds when this interchange of courtesies is going on, is apt
+to draw the storm upon itself, hence the continual war that is carried
+on between the lightning and the steeples.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Something like an individual coming within range of a cloud of
+mosquitoes,&quot; suggested Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A learned German&mdash;one of us,&quot; said the scapegrace, laughing,
+&quot;calculated, in 1783, that in the space of thirty-three years there
+had been, to his own knowledge, three hundred and eighty-six spires
+struck, and a hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed by lightning,
+without reckoning a much larger number wounded.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And yet,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;I never heard of an insurance against
+accidents by lightning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are plenty of them, however, in Roman Catholic countries,&quot; said
+Fritz. &quot;Every village has one, and the charge is almost nominal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How, then, do these companies make it pay?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They find it answer somehow, and they never collapse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then everybody ought to insure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but there are some obstinate people who do not see the good of
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If my life had not already been forfeited, I should insure it. But
+how is it done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you have only to go into a church, fall down on your knees
+before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the
+cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind,
+you are perfectly safe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! that is the way you insure your lives, is it, trusting to the
+priests rather than to Providence? For my own part, I should prefer a
+policy of insurance&mdash;that is to say, if my life were of any value.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Next to steeples,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;come tall trees, such as poplars
+and pines. Should you ever be caught by a storm in the open country,
+Willis, never take shelter under a tree; face the storm bravely, and
+submit to be deluged by the rain. Dread even bushes, if they are
+isolated. An entire forest is less dangerous than a single reed when
+it stands alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you forget, brother, that when a man stands alone he is quite as
+prominent an object as the trunk of a tree four or five feet high,
+particularly in an open plain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite so. It is therefore advisable, when severe storms are close
+upon us, to lie down flat on the ground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suppose,&quot; remarked Fritz, smiling, &quot;a brigade of soldiers on the
+march suddenly to collapse in this way, as if before a discharge of
+grape.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And why not? If it is done in the case of grape-shot, why may it not
+be done when the artillery is a thousand times more effective?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I suspect it would rather astonish the commanding officer,
+that is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, Willis,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;you must not run during a storm,
+because the air you put in motion by so doing may draw the electricity
+into the current.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do the conductors not prevent the lightning from doing harm?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but you cannot carry one of them on your hat. These rods are
+only useful in protecting buildings, and then to nothing more than
+double the area of their length; it is for this last reason that roofs
+of public buildings have them projecting in all directions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are a sort of trap set for the lightning, are they not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and into which it is pretty sure to fall. Franklin, of whom I
+spoke just now, was the first to suggest that bars of steel would draw
+lightning out of a cloud surcharged with electricity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What becomes of it when it is caught?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Keeping in view its partiality for bell-pulls, a wire is attached to
+the rod down which the unconscious fluid glides.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like a powder-monkey from the main-top.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly; till it enters a well, and there it is left at the bottom in
+company with Truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A practical storm had begun to mix itself up with the theory as
+developed by Jack, but not before they had very nearly reached their
+destination, where they were waited for with the greatest anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had they landed than Sophia ran to meet Willis, who was
+advancing with Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, sweetheart,&quot; she said, &quot;Susan has been so uneasy about you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a good girl, Miss Soph&mdash;Susan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, if you only knew how frightened we have been!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, do you admit fear to be one of your accomplishments, Miss
+Sophia?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, when others are concerned, Master Jack. But, by the way,
+do you recollect the chimpanzee?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, what about the rascal?&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='004'></a><img src="images/004.jpg" alt="Woman petting a dog" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I must not tell you, mamma would call me a chatterbox; you will
+know by-and-by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Mary, on her side, was congratulating Toby, who kept
+scampering between herself and Fritz, at one moment receiving the
+caresses of the one and at the next of the other, with every
+demonstration of joy. This had become an established mode of
+communication between the young people when Fritz arrived from a
+lengthened ramble; the intelligent, brute, in point of fact, had
+assumed the office of dragoman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, ah, Becker, glad to see you again,&quot; said Willis. &quot;Your sons are
+fountains of knowledge, whilst I am&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A very worthy fellow, Willis, and I know it,&quot; replied Becker, shaking
+him heartily by the hand.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XII'></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p>MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES&mdash;THE CHOICE OF A
+PROFESSION&mdash;CONQUEROR&mdash;ORATOR&mdash;ASTRONOMER&mdash;COMPOSER&mdash;PAINTER&mdash;POET&mdash;VILLAGE
+CURATE&mdash;THE KAFIRS&mdash;OCCUPATIONS OF WOMEN&mdash;THE ALPHA AND OMEGA OF THE
+SEA.</p>
+
+<p>To the storm succeeded one of those diluvian showers that have already
+been described. Rain being merely a result of evaporation, it was
+evident that sea and land in those climates must perspire at an
+enormous rate to effect such cataclysms. In consequence of this
+deluge, the proposed excursion was indefinitely postponed. The
+provisions, the marvellous kits, the waggon, were all ready; but
+Nature, as often happens under such circumstances, had assumed a
+menacing attitude, and for the present forbade the execution of the
+project.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of vague sadness, that generally accompanies a gloomy
+atmosphere, weighed upon the spirits of the colonists. Recollections
+of the <i>Nelson</i> and her sudden disappearance thrust themselves more
+vividly than ever upon their memory; and Willis was observed to throw
+his sou'-wester unconsciously on the ground&mdash;a proof that remembrances
+of the past occupied his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>One of the ladies was occupied in the needful domestic operations of
+the household, whilst the other sat with a stocking on her left arm,
+busily occupied in repairing the ravages of tear and wear upon that
+useful though humble garment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do
+the great ladies of the court of King Alfred, and as Hercules himself
+is said to have done when he changed his club and lion's skin for a
+spindle and distaff with the Queen of Lybia; Jack was apparently
+sketching, Fritz had a collection of hunting apparatus before him, and
+the other two young men, each with a book, were deeply immersed in
+study.</p>
+
+<p>This state of things was by no means cheerful, and Wolston determined
+to break up the monotony by introducing a subject of conversation
+likely to interest them all, the old as well as the young.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, gentlemen,&quot; said he, &quot;it occurs to me that you have not
+yet thought of selecting a profession; your future career seems at
+present somewhat obscure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What would you have?&quot; inquired Jack; &quot;there is no use for lawyers and
+judges in our colony, except to try plundering monkeys or protect
+jackal orphans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but suppose you were to find yourselves, by some chance, again
+in the great world, there it is necessary to possess a qualification
+of some kind; a blacksmith or a carpenter, expert in his handicraft,
+has a better chance of acquiring wealth and position than a man
+without a profession, however great his talents may be; an idler is a
+mere clog in the social machine, and is often thrust aside to browse
+in a corner with monks and donkeys.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But to acquire a profession, is not instruction and practice
+necessary?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly; it is impossible to become a proficient in any art or
+science by mere study alone; but before sowing a field, what is done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is ploughed and manured.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And should there be only a few seeds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We can sow what we have, and reserve the harvest till next season. By
+economising each crop in this way, we shall soon have seeds enough to
+cover any extent of land.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I request you, Master Ernest, to draw a conclusion from that as
+regards sowing the seeds of a future career?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I would infer, from your suggestion, that we might adapt ourselves
+for such and such a profession by preparing our minds to receive
+instruction in it, and we might also avail ourselves in the meantime
+of such sources of information regarding it as are at present open to
+us. The physician in prospective, for example, might make himself
+familiar with the medical properties of such plants as are within his
+reach; he might likewise examine the bones of an ape, and thus, by
+analogy, become acquainted with the framework of the human body. The
+would-be lawyer might, in the same way, avail himself of the library
+to obtain an insight into those social mysteries that bind men in
+communities and necessitate human laws for the preservation of peace
+and order. Thus, by directing our thoughts into one line of study, we
+may form a basis upon which the superstructure may be easily erected,
+and the necessary academical degrees or sanction of the university
+obtained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, when you see this, why not adopt so commendable a course?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because we may probably be destined to remain here, where, according
+to Jack, the learned professions, at least, are not likely to be much
+in demand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The study of a particular science or art has charms in itself, which
+amply compensate the student for his labor. But, even admitting you do
+not return to the Old World, you forget that it is your intention to
+colonise this territory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems, however, that God has willed it otherwise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What God does not will in one way, he may bring about in another.
+What reason have you for supposing that the <i>Nelson</i> may not return
+with colonists?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be from the other world then,&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, from the other world,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;but not in the sense you
+imply.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides, should the <i>Nelson</i> not reappear, that is no reason why
+another accident may not drive another ship upon the coast that will
+be more fortunate; what has happened to-day may surely happen again
+to-morrow. And in the event of colonists arriving, will there not be
+sick to cure, boundaries to determine, differences of opinion to
+decide, and opposing claims to adjudge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, Mr. Wolston.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, admitting these necessities, what profession will each of you
+select? Let us begin with you, Master Fritz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The career,&quot; replied Fritz, &quot;that would be most congenial to my
+taste is that of a conqueror.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A conqueror!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; Alexander, Scipio, Timour the Tartar, and Gengis Khan are the
+sort of men I should like to resemble. They have made a tolerable
+figure in the world, and I should have no objection to follow in their
+footsteps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you forget that their footsteps are marked with tears, disasters,
+terror, and bloodshed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These are indispensable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once, when a great commander was asked the same question, he replied,
+that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; remarked Becker, &quot;but if you had read the anecdote entire, you
+would have seen that he was asked in return, 'What use there was for
+so many omelets.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Added to which,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;that is not a normal career;
+there is no diploma required for it; it is an accident arising out of
+adventitious circumstances, sometimes fostered by ambition, but no
+course of study can produce a conqueror.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, is the use of military schools?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are, to the best of my knowledge, instituted for rearing
+defenders for one's country, and not with a view to the subjugation of
+another's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My poor Fritz,&quot; said Mrs. Becker laughing, &quot;I hope when you conquer
+half the world, you will find an occupation for your mother more in
+consonance with your dignity than mending your stockings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, again,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;war cannot be waged by a single
+individual.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There must be an enemy somewhere,&quot; suggested Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The difficulty does not, however, lie there,&quot; observed Jack; &quot;for, if
+we have no enemies, it is easy enough to make them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There must, at all events, be armies, magazines, and a treasury&mdash;or
+eggs, as the great commander in question hinted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True,&quot; replied Fritz; &quot;but there is the same difficulty as regards
+all professions; there can be no barristers without briefs, no
+physicians without patients.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will admit, however, that clients and patients are not so rare as
+hundreds of thousands of armed men and millions of money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Brother,&quot; said Jack, &quot;your cavalry are routed and your infantry
+outflanked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you are determined to be a conqueror, let it be by the pen rather
+than by the sword&mdash;or, what do you say to oratory? It is not easier,
+perhaps, but, at all events, eloquence is not denied to ordinary
+mortals. You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Hannibals, the
+Tamerlanes, or the C&aelig;sars; but you may attain a place with
+Demosthenes, who was more dreaded by Philip of Macedon than an army of
+soldiers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or Cicero,&quot; remarked Becker, &quot;who preserved his country from the
+rapacity of Cataline.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or Peter the Hermit,&quot; remarked Frank, &quot;who by his eloquence roused
+Europe against the Saracens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or Bossuet,&quot; added Wolston, &quot;and then you may venture to assert in
+the face of kings that <i>God alone is Great</i>, should they, like Louis
+XIV., assume the sun as an emblem, and adopt such a silly scroll as
+'<i>Nec pluribus impar</i>.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bossuet, Peter the Hermit, Cicero, and Demosthenes, are not so bad,
+after all, as a last resource,&quot; remarked Mrs. Wolston, &quot;and I would
+recommend you to enrol yourself in that list of conquerors, Master
+Fritz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The more especially,&quot; observed Jack, &quot;as you have no impediment in
+your voice, and would not have to undergo a course of pebbles like
+Demosthenes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So far as that goes, Jack,&quot; replied Fritz, &quot;you would possess a like
+advantage for the profession as myself; but I will take time to
+reflect.&quot; Then, turning towards his mother, he said, &quot;Conqueror or
+Jack Pudding, mother, you shall always find me a dutiful son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His mother was more gratified by this expression of attachment than
+she would have been had he laid at her feet the four thousand golden
+spurs found, in 1302, on the field of Courtray.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now, Ernest, what profession do you intend to adopt? what is
+your dream of the future?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I, Mr. Wolston! Well, having no taste for artillery, brilliant
+charges, blood-stained ruins, and the other <i>agrémens</i> of war, I
+cannot be a hero. Do you know when I feel most happy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, let us hear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is towards evening, when I am reposing tranquilly on the banks of
+the Jackal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, I thought so,&quot; cried Jack; &quot;no position so congenial to the true
+philosopher as the horizontal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the sun,&quot; continued Ernest, gravely, &quot;is retiring behind the
+forest of cedars that bounds the horizon; when the palms, the mangoes,
+and gum trees, mass their verdure in distinct and isolated groups;
+when nature is making herself heard in a thousand melodious voices;
+when the hum of the insect is ringing in my ears, and the breeze is
+gently murmuring through the foliage; when thousands of birds are
+fluttering from grove to grove, sometimes breaking with their wings
+the smooth surface of the river; when the fish, leaping out of their
+own element, reflect for an instant from their silvery scales the
+departing rays of the sun; when the sea, stretching away like a vast
+plain of boundless space, loses itself in the distance, then my eyes
+and thoughts are sometimes turned upwards towards the azure of the
+firmament, and sometimes towards the objects around me, and I feel as
+if my mind were in search of something which has hitherto eluded its
+grasp, but which it is sure of eventually finding. Under these
+circumstances, I assure you, I would not exchange the moss on which I
+sat for the greatest throne in Christendom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But surely you do not call such a poetical exordium a profession?&quot;
+remarked Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must be admitted,&quot; said Wolston, &quot;that the sun and trees have
+their uses, especially when the one protects us from the other; the
+sun, for example, dries up the moisture that falls from the trees, and
+the trees shelter us from the burning rays of the sun. Still, I am at
+a loss myself to connect these things with a profession in a social
+point of view.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What would you have thought,&quot; inquired Ernest, &quot;if you had seen
+Newton and Kepler gazing at the sky, before the one had determined the
+movements of the celestial bodies, and the other the laws of
+gravitation? What would you have thought of Parmentier passing hours
+and days in manipulating a rough-looking bulb, that possessed no kind
+of value in the eyes of the vulgar, but which afterwards, as the
+potato, became the chief food of two-thirds of the population of
+Europe? What would you think of Jenner, with his finger on his brow,
+searching for a means of preserving humanity from the scourge of the
+small-pox?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But these men had an object in view.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jenner, yes; but not the other two. They thought, studied,
+contemplated, and reflected, satisfied that one day their thoughts,
+calculations, and reflections would aid in disclosing some mystery of
+Nature; but it would have perplexed them sorely to have named
+beforehand the nature and scope of their discoveries.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to you, then,&quot; said Jack, &quot;there could not be a more
+dignified profession than that of the scarecrow. The greatest
+dunderhead in Christendom might simply, by going a star-gazing, pass
+himself off as an adept in the occult sciences, and claim the right of
+being a benefactor of mankind in embryo.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At all events,&quot; replied Ernest, &quot;you will admit that, so long as I am
+ready to bear my share of the common burdens, and take my part in
+providing for the common wants, and in warding of the common dangers,
+it is immaterial whether I occupy my leisure hours in reflection or in
+rifle practice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Jack, &quot;when you have made some discovery that will enrol
+your name with Descartes, Huygens, Cassini, and such gentlemen, you
+will do us the honor of letting us know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With the greatest pleasure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a pity that Herschell has invented the telescope: he might have
+left you a chance for the glory of that invention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I have not discovered a new star, brother, I discovered long ago
+that you would never be one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I hope not; their temperature is too unequal for me&mdash;they are
+either freezing or boiling: at least, so said Fritz the other day,
+whilst we were&mdash;all, what were we doing, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We were supposed to be hunting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, so we were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Master Jack, it is your turn to enlighten us as to your future
+career.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is quite clear, Mr. Wolston, that, since my brothers are to be so
+illustrious, I cannot be an ordinary mortal; the honor of the family
+is concerned, and must be consulted. I am, therefore, resolved to
+become either a great composer, like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; a
+renowned painter, like Titian, Carrache, or Veronese; or a great poet,
+like Homer, Virgil, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton, Goethe, and Racine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is to say,&quot; remarked Mrs. Wolston, &quot;that you are resolved to be
+a great something or other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Decidedly, madam; on reflection, however, as I value my eyesight, I
+must except Homer and Milton.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But have you not determined to which of the muses you will throw the
+handkerchief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought of music at first. It must be a grand thing, said I to
+myself, that can charm, delight, and draw tears from the eyes of the
+multitude&mdash;that can inspire faith, courage, patriotism, devotion and
+energy, and that, too, by means of little black dots with tails,
+interspersed with quavers, crotchets, sharps and flats.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you composed a sonata yet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, madam; I was going to do so, but it occurred to me that I should
+require an orchestra to play it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And not having that, you abandoned the idea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly, madam. I then turned to poetry. That is an art fit for the
+gods; it puts you on a level with kings, and makes you in history even
+more illustrious than them. You ascend the capitol, and there you are
+crowned with laurel, like the hero of a hundred fights.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the subject of your principal work in this line?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, madam, I once finished a verse, and was going on with a second,
+but, somehow or other, I could not get the words to rhyme.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then it occurred to you that you had neither a printer nor readers,
+and you broke your lyre?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was about to reproach you, Master Jack,&quot; said Wolston, &quot;for
+undertaking too many things at once; but I see the ranks are beginning
+to thin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Beautiful as poetry may be,&quot; continued Jack, one gets tired of
+reading and re-reading one's own effusions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is even often intensely insipid the very first time,&quot; remarked
+Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There still remains painting,&quot; continued Jack. &quot;Painting is vastly
+superior to either music or poetry. In the first place, it requires no
+interpreter between itself and the public;&mdash;what, for example, remains
+of a melody after a concert? nothing but the recollection. Poesy may
+excite admiration in the retirement of one's chamber; your nostrils
+are, as it were, reposing on the bouquet, though often you have still
+a difficulty in smelling anything. But if once you give life to
+canvas, it is eternal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eternal is scarcely the proper word,&quot; remarked Wolston: &quot;the
+celebrated fresco of Leonardo da Vinci, in the refectory of the
+Dominicans at Milan, is nothing but a confused mass of colors and
+figures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I answer that by saying that the painting in question is only a
+fresco. Besides, I use the word eternal in a modified or relative
+sense. A painting is preserved from generation to generation, whilst
+its successive races of admirers are mingled with the dust. Then
+suppose a painter in his studio; he cannot look around him without
+awakening some memory of the past. He can associate with those he
+loves when they are absent, nay, even when they are dead, and they
+always remain young and beautiful as when he first delineated them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take care,&quot; cried Ernest, pushing back his seat, &quot;if you go on at
+that rate you will take fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fear of that, brother, unless you have a star or a comet in your
+pocket, in which case you are not far enough away yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These occasional bickerings between Ernest and Jack were always given
+and taken in good part, and had only the effect of raising a
+good-humored laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let the painter,&quot; he continued, &quot;fall in with a spot that pleases
+him, he can take it with him and have it always before his eyes. The
+hand of God or of man may alter the original, the forest may lose its
+trees, the old castle may be destroyed by fire or time, the green
+meadow may be converted into a dismal swamp, but to him the landscape
+always retains its pristine freshness, the same butterfly still
+flutters about the same bush, the same bee still sucks at the same
+flower.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;it is a pity, after all, that you did
+not achieve your second verse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And yet,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;that is only a copy. How much more sublime
+when we regard the painter as a creator! If there is in the past or
+present a heroic deed&mdash;if there is in the infinity of his life one
+moment more blessed than another, like Pygmalion he breathes into it
+the breath of life, and it becomes imperishable. Who would think a
+century or two hence of the victories of Fritz, unless the skill of
+the painter be called in to immortalize them!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I agree with you in thinking that the arts you name are the source of
+beautiful and legitimate emotions. But generally it is better to view
+them as a recreation or pastime, rather than a profession. They have
+doubtless made a few men live in posterity, but, on the other hand,
+they have embittered and shortened the lives of thousands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will never guess what led me to adopt this art in preference to
+the two others. It was the discovery, that we made some years ago, of
+a gum tree, the name of which I do not recollect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The myrica cerifera,&quot; said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From the gum of this tree the varnish may be made. Now, like my
+brother, who, when he sees the sun overhead, considers he ought to
+profit by the circumstance and become a discoverer, so I said to
+myself: You have varnish, all you want, therefore, to produce a
+magnificent painting is canvas, colors, and talent; consequently, you
+must not allow such an opportunity to pass&mdash;it would be unpardonable.
+Accordingly, I set to work with an energy never before equalled; and,&quot;
+added he, showing the design he had just finished, &quot;here are two eyes
+and a nose, that I do not think want expression.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Capital!&quot; said Mrs. Wolston; &quot;your painting will be in admirable
+keeping with the hangings my daughters have promised to work for your
+mamma.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nobody can deny,&quot; continued Jack, laughing, &quot;that the colony is
+advancing in civilization; it already possesses a conqueror, a member
+of the Royal Society minus the diploma, and an Apelles in embryo.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is now your turn, Frank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I,&quot; replied Frank, in his mild but penetrating voice, &quot;if I may be
+allowed to liken the flowers of the garden to the occupations of human
+life, I should prefer the part of the violet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It hides itself,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston, &quot;but its presence is not the
+less felt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I have allowed myself to indulge in dreams of the future, I have
+pictured myself dwelling in a modest cottage, partially shrouded in
+ivy, not very far from the village church. My coat is a little
+threadbare.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why threadbare?&quot; inquired Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because there are a number of very poor people all round me, and I
+cannot make up my mind to lay out money on myself when it is wanted by
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such a coat would be sacred in our eyes,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the morning I take a walk in my little garden; I inspect the
+flowers one after the other; chide my dog, who is not much of a
+florist; then, perhaps, I retire to my study, where I am always ready
+to receive those who may require my aid, my advice, or my personal
+services.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Mrs. Wolston shook Frank very warmly by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes I go amongst the laborers in the fields, talk to them of
+the rain, of the fine weather, and of HIM who gives both. I enter the
+home of the artizan, cheer him in his labors, and interest myself in
+the affairs of his family; I call the children by their names, caress
+them, and make them my friends. I talk to them of our Redeemer, and
+thus, in familiarly conversing with the young, I find means of
+instructing the old. They, perhaps, tell me of a sick neighbor; I
+direct my steps there, and endeavor to mitigate the pangs of disease
+by words of consolation and hope; I strive to pour balm on the wounded
+spirit, and, if the mind has been led away by the temptations of the
+world, I urge repentance as a means of grace. If death should step in,
+then I kneel with those around, and join them in soliciting a place
+amongst the blessed for the departed soul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall all gladly aid you in such labors of love,&quot; said Mrs.
+Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When death has deprived a family of its chief support, then I appeal
+to those whom God has blessed with the things of this world for the
+means of assisting the widow and the fatherless. To one I say, 'You
+regret having no children, or bemoan those you have lost; here are
+some that God has sent you.' I say to another, 'You have only one
+child, whilst you have the means of supporting ten; you can at least
+charge yourself with two.' Thus I excite the charity of some and the
+pity of others, till the bereaved family is provided for. I obtain
+work for those that are desirous of earning an honest living, I bring
+back to the fold the sheep that are straying, and rescue those that
+are tottering on the brink of infidelity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here the girls came forward and volunteered to assist Frank in such
+works of mercy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I accept your proffered aid, my dear girls, but, as yet, I am only
+picturing a future career for myself. After a day devoted to such
+labors as these, I return to my home, perhaps to be welcomed by a
+little circle of my own, for I hope to be received as a minister of
+the Protestant Church, and, as such, may look forward to a partner in
+my joys and troubles. Should Providence, however, shape my destiny
+otherwise, I shall have the poor and afflicted&mdash;always a numerous
+family&mdash;to bestow my affections upon. But, whilst much of my time is
+thus passed amongst the sorrowing and the sick, still there are hours
+of gaiety amongst the gloom&mdash;there are weddings, christenings, and
+merrymakings&mdash;there are happy faces to greet me as well as sad
+ones&mdash;and I am no ascetic. I take part in all the innocent amusements
+that are not inconsistent with my years or the gravity of my
+profession&mdash;but you seem sad, Mrs. Wolston.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Frank; you have recalled my absent son, Richard, so vividly to
+my memory, that I cannot help shedding a tear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is your son in orders then, madam?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is precisely what you have pictured yourself to be, a minister of
+the gospel, and a most exemplary young man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If,&quot; remarked Becker, &quot;we have hitherto refrained from inquiring
+after your son, madam, it was because we had no wish to recall to your
+mind the distance that separated you from him, and we should be glad
+to know his history.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is little to relate; he is very young yet, and as soon as he
+had obtained his ordination, he was offered a mission to Oregon, which
+he accepted; but the ship having been detained at the Cape of Good
+Hope, he regarded the accident as a divine message, to convert the
+heathen of Kafraria, where he now is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is no sinecure to live amongst these copper-colored rascals,&quot; said
+Willis; &quot;they are constantly stealing the cattle of the Dutch settlers
+in their neighborhood. About twelve years ago, our ship was stationed
+at the Cape, and I was sent with a party of blue jackets into the
+interior, as far as Fort Wiltshire, on the Krieskamma, the most remote
+point of the British possessions in South Africa. There we dispersed a
+cloud of them that had been for weeks living upon other people's
+property. They are tall, wiry fellows, as hardy as a pine tree, and as
+daring as buccaneers. The chief of the <i>kraals</i>, or huts, wear leopard
+or panther skins, and profess to have the power of causing rain to
+fall, besides an endless number of other miraculous attributes.
+Amongst them, a wife of the ordinary class costs eight head of cattle,
+but the price of a young lady of the higher ranks runs as high as
+twenty cows. When a Kafir is suspected of a crime, his tongue is
+touched seven times with hot iron, and if it is not burnt he is
+declared innocent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am afraid,&quot; said Jack, &quot;if they were all subjected to that test,
+they would be found to be a very bad lot. But now, since we have all
+decided upon a profession, let us hear what the young ladies intend
+doing with themselves; let them consult their imagination for a
+beautiful future gilded with sunshine, and embroidered with gold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is only one occupation for women,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, &quot;and that
+is too well defined to admit of speculation, and too important to
+admit of fanciful embellishments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, mother, let us hear what it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is to nurse you, and rear you, when you are unable to help
+yourselves; to guide your first steps, and teach you to lisp your
+first syllables. For this purpose, God has given her qualities that
+attract sympathy and engender love. She is so constituted as to impart
+a charm to your lives, to share in your labors, to soothe you when you
+are ruffled, to smooth your pillow when you are in pain, and to
+cherish you in old age; bestowing upon you, to your last hour, cares
+that no other love could yield. These, gentlemen, are the duties and
+occupations of women; and you must admit, that if it is not our
+province to command armies, or to add new planets to the galaxy of the
+firmament; that if we have not produced an Iliad or an &AElig;nead, a
+Jerusalem Delivered, or a Paradise Lost, an Oratorio of the Creation,
+a Transfiguration, or a Laocoon, we have not the less our modest
+utility.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should think so, mother,&quot; replied Jack; &quot;it would take no end of
+philosophers to do the work of one of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It surprises me,&quot; said Willis, &quot;that not one of you has selected the
+finest profession in the world&mdash;that of a sailor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The finest profession of the sea, you mean, Willis. There is no doubt
+of its being the finest that can be exercised on the ocean, since it
+is the only one. If it is the best, Willis, it is also the worst.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It has also produced great men,&quot; continued Willis; &quot;there are
+Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Captain Cook, to whom you are indebted
+for a new world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No thanks to them for that,&quot; said Jack; &quot;if they had not discovered a
+new world we should have been in an old one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That does not follow,&quot; remarked Ernest; &quot;the new world would have
+existed even if it had not been discovered, and you might have found
+your way there all the same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not very likely,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;unless one of the stars you intend
+to discover had shown us the way; otherwise it would only have existed
+in conjecture; and as nobody under such circumstances would have
+dreamt of settling in it, they would not have been shipwrecked during
+the voyage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very true,&quot; remarked Fritz; &quot;if we had not been here we should, very
+probably, have been somewhere else, and perhaps in a much worse
+plight. Let me ask if there is any one here who regrets his present
+position?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis was about to reply to this question, but Sophia observing that
+there was something wrong with the handkerchief that he wore round his
+neck, hastened towards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.</p>
+
+<p>The hour had now arrived when the families separated for the night.
+Mary was preparing as usual to recite the evening prayer, but before
+doing so she whispered a few words in her mother's ear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my child;&quot; and, turning to Frank, she added, &quot;Since you are
+determined to adopt the ministry as a profession, it is but right that
+we should for the future entrust ourselves to your prayers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The two families were now located in their respective eyries; and
+Jack, whilst escorting the Wolstons to the foot of their tree, said to
+Sophia,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought the chimpanzee had been playing some prank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So he has. Has nobody told you of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not a soul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I will be as discreet as my neighbors; good night, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XIII'></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p>HERBERT AND CECILIA&mdash;THE LITTLE ANGELS&mdash;A CATASTROPHE&mdash;THE
+DEPARTURE&mdash;MARRIAGE OF THE DOGE WITH THE ADRIATIC&mdash;SOVEREIGNS OF THE
+SEA&mdash;DANTE AND BEATRIX&mdash;ELEONORA AND TASSO&mdash;LAURA AND PETRARCH&mdash;THE
+RETURN&mdash;SURPRISES&mdash;WHAT ONE FINDS IN TURBOTS&mdash;A HORROR&mdash;THE
+PRICE OF CRIME&mdash;BALLOONING&mdash;PHILIPSON AND THE CHOLERA&mdash;A
+METAMORPHOSIS&mdash;ADVENTURE OF THE CHIMPANZEE&mdash;ARE YOU RICH?</p>
+
+<p>Next day the sky was shrouded in dense masses of cloud, some grey as
+lead, some livid as copper, and some black as ink. Towards evening the
+two families, as usual, resolved themselves into a talking party, and
+Wolston, requesting them to listen, began as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There were two rich merchants in Bristol, between whom a very close
+intimacy had for a long time existed. One of them, whom I shall call
+Henry Foster, had a daughter; and the other, Nicholas Philipson, had a
+son, and the two fathers had destined these children for one another.
+The boy was a little older than the girl, and their tastes, habits,
+and dispositions seemed to fit them admirably for each other, and so
+to ratify the decision of the parents. Little Herbert and Cecilia were
+almost constantly together. They had a purse in common, into which
+they put all the pieces of bright gold they received as presents on
+birthdays and other festive occasions. In summer, when the two
+families retired to a retreat that one of them had in the country, the
+children were permitted to visit the cottagers, and to assist the
+distressed, if they chose, out of their own funds&mdash;a permission which
+they availed themselves of so liberally that they were called by the
+country people the two little angels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a pity there are no poor people here!&quot; said Sophia, dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot; inquired her mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because we might assist them, mamma.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is much better, however, as it is, my child; our assistance might
+mitigate the evils of poverty, but might not be sufficient to remove
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This reasoning did not seem conclusive to Sophia, who shook her head
+and commenced plying her wheel with redoubled energy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When Herbert Philipson was twelve years of age he was sent off to
+school, and Cecilia was confided to the care of a governess, who,
+under the direction of Mrs. Foster, was to undertake her education.
+But neither music nor drawing, needlework, grammars nor exercises,
+could make little Cecilia forget her absent companion. Absence, that
+cools older friendships, had a contrary effect on her heart; the
+months, weeks, days, and hours that were to elapse before Herbert
+returned for the holidays, were counted and recounted. When that
+period&mdash;so anxiously desired&mdash;at length arrived, there was no end of
+rejoicing: she told Herbert of all the little boys and little girls
+she had clothed and fed, of the old people she had relieved, of the
+tears she had shed over tales of woe and misery, how she had carried
+every week a little basket covered with a white napkin to widow
+Robson, how often she had gone into the damp and dismal cottage of the
+dying miner, and how happy she always made his wife and their nine
+pitiful looking children.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is a way of conquering human hearts,&quot; remarked Mrs. Becker,
+&quot;often more effective than those referred to the other day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once, when Herbert was at home for the holidays, he accompanied
+Cecilia on her charitable visits, and was greatly surprised to find
+that blessings were showered upon his own head wherever they went;
+people, whom he had never seen before, insisted upon his being their
+benefactor. This he could not make out. At last, by an accident, he
+discovered the secret&mdash;Cecilia had been distributing her gifts in his
+name! He remonstrated warmly against this, declaring that he had no
+wish to be praised and blessed for doing things that he had no hand
+in. Finding that his protestations were of no avail, he determined,
+on the eve of his returning to school, to have his revenge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He did not buy Cecilia a doll, did he?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; he collected all the eatables, clothing, blankets, and money he
+could obtain; went amongst the poorest of the cottages, and
+distributed the whole in Cecilia's name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; remarked Mrs. Becker, &quot;it is a pity we could not all remain at
+the age of these children, with the same purity, the same innocence,
+and the same freshness of sensation; the world would then be a
+veritable Paradise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For some years this state of things continued, the affection between
+the young people strengthened as they grew older, the occasional
+holiday time was always the happiest of their lives. Herbert, in due
+course, was transferred from school to college, where he obtained a
+degree, and rapidly verged into manhood. Cecilia from the girl at
+length bloomed into the young lady. A day was finally fixed when they
+were to be bound together by the holy ties of the church; everything
+was prepared for their union, when the commercial world was startled
+by the announcement that Philipson was a ruined man. A ship in which
+he had embarked a valuable freight had been wrecked, and an agent to
+whom he had entrusted a large sum of money had suddenly disappeared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How deplorable!&quot; cried Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so very unfortunate, after all,&quot; remarked Mary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What makes you think so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because nothing had occurred to interrupt the marriage; only one of
+the families was ruined, and there was still enough left for both.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;even admitting that the friendship between the two
+families continued uninterrupted, and that the father of Cecilia was
+willing to share his property with the father of Herbert, still the
+young man, in the parlance of society, was a beggar; and it is always
+hard for a man to owe his position to a woman, and to become, as it
+were, the <i>protégé</i> of her whom he ought rather to protect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If that is the view you take, Master Fritz, then I agree with you
+that the misfortune was deplorable,&quot; said Mary, bending at the same
+time to hide her blushes, under pretence of mending a broken thread.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what if Cecilia's father had been ruined instead of Herbert's?&quot;
+inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should say,&quot; replied Sophia, &quot;that we have as much right to be
+proud and dignified as you have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The best way in such a case,&quot; observed Willis, laughing, &quot;would be
+for both parties to get ruined together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herbert,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;was a youth of resolution and energy.
+He entertained the same opinion as Fritz; and instead of wasting his
+time in idle despondency, got together some articles of merchandise,
+and sailed for the Indian Archipelago, promising his friends that he
+would return to his native land in two years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two years is a long time,&quot; remarked Mary; &quot;but sometimes it passes
+away very quickly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; observed Sophia, Cecilia, in the meantime, would redouble her
+charities and her prayers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The two years passed away, then a third, and then a fourth, but not a
+single word had either been heard of or from the absentee. Cecilia was
+rich, and her hand was sought by many wealthy suitors, but hitherto
+she had rejected them all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The dear, good Cecilia,&quot; cried Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Up till this period the family had permitted her to have her own way.
+But as it is necessary for authority to prevent excesses of all kinds,
+they thought it time now to interfere; they could not allow her to
+sacrifice her whole life for a shadow. Her parents, therefore,
+insisted upon her making a choice of one or other of the suitors for
+her hand. She requested grace for one year more, which was granted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come back, truant, quick; come back, Master Herbert!&quot; cried Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There now, Willis,&quot; cried Jack, &quot;you see the effect of your new
+world; people go away there, and never come back again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, but you must bring him back in time, father; you must indeed,&quot;
+urged Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If it were only a romance I were relating to you, Sophia, I could
+very easily bring him back; but the narrative I am giving you is a
+matter of fact, which I cannot alter at will. There would be no
+difficulty in bringing a richly-laden East Indiaman, commanded by
+Captain Philipson, into the Severn, and making Herbert and Cecilia
+conclude the story in each other's arms, but it would not be true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then if I had been Cecilia, I should have become a nun,&quot; said Mary,
+timidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exaggeration, my daughter, is an enemy to truth. It is easy to say,
+'I would become a nun,' and in Roman Catholic countries it is quite as
+easy to become one; but, though it may be sublime to retire in this
+way from the world, it is frightful when a woman has afterwards to
+regret the inconsiderate step she has taken, and which is often the
+case with these poor creatures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you said of myself,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;it is a crime to go down
+with a sinking ship so long as there is a straw to cling to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I presume,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;that during this year poor Cecilia
+prayed fervently for the return of her old playfellow; but her prayers
+were all in vain, the year expired, and still no news of the young
+man; at last she despaired of ever seeing him again, and, after a
+severe struggle with herself, she decided upon complying with the
+desire of her parents and her friends. A few months after the expiring
+of the year of grace, she was the affianced bride of a highly
+respectable, well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman. John Lindsey, her
+intended husband, could not boast of his good looks; he was little,
+rather stout, was deeply pitted in the face with the small-pox, and
+had a very red nose, but he was considered by the ladies of Bristol as
+a very good match for all that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Cecilia, how ridiculous!&quot; exclaimed Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better, at all events, than turning nun,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The family this season had gone to pass the summer at the sea-coast;
+and one day that Cecilia and her intended were taking their accustomed
+walk along the shore&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa!&quot; cried Jack, &quot;the truant is going to appear, after all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;John Lindsey, observing a ring of some value upon Cecilia's finger,
+politely asked her if she had any objections to tell him its history.
+She replied that she had none, and told him it was a gift of young
+Philipson's. 'I am well acquainted with your story,' said Lindsey,
+'and do not blame the constancy with which you have treasured the
+memory of that young man; on the contrary, I respect you for it&mdash;in
+fact, it was the knowledge of your self-sacrifice to this affection
+and all its attendant circumstances, that led me to solicit the honor
+of your hand; for, said I to myself, one who has evinced so much
+devotion for a mere sentiment, is never likely to prove unfaithful to
+sacred vows pledged at the altar,' 'Come what may, you may at least
+rely upon that, sir,' she answered. 'Then,' continued Lindsey, 'as an
+eternal barrier is about to be placed between yourself and your past
+affections, perhaps you will pardon my desire to separate you, as much
+as possible, from everything that is likely to recal them to your
+mind.' Saying that, he gently drew the ring from her finger, and threw
+it into the sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was strongly suspected that Mary shed a tear at this point of the
+recital.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is all over with you now, Herbert,&quot; cried Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You had better make a bonfire of your ships, like Fernando Cortez in
+Mexico; or, if you are on your way home, better pray for a hurricane
+to swallow you up, than have all your bright hopes dashed to atoms,
+when you arrive in port.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am only a little girl,&quot; said Sophia; &quot;but I know what I should have
+said, if the gentleman had done the same thing to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what would you have said, child?&quot; inquired her mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should have said, that I was not the Doge of Venice, and had no
+intention of marrying the British Channel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you describe the ceremony to which you refer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but it would interrupt papa's story, and Jack would laugh at
+me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind my story,&quot; replied her father, &quot;there is plenty of time
+to finish that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And as for me,&quot; said Jack, &quot;though I do not wear a cocked hat and
+knee breeches, and though, in other respects, my tailor has rather
+neglected my outward man, still I know what is due to a lady and a
+queen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, he begins already!&quot; said Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind him, child; go on with your account of the marriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; began Sophia, &quot;for a long time, there had been disputes
+between the states of Bologna, Ancona, and Venice, as to which
+possessed the sovereignty of the Adriatic.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If it had been a dispute about the Sovereignty of the ocean in
+general,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;there would have been another competitor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Venice,&quot; continued Sophia, &quot;carried the day, and about 1275 or 76 she
+resolved to celebrate her victory by an annual ceremony. For this
+purpose, a magnificent galley was built, encrusted with gold, silver,
+and precious stones. This floating <i>bijou</i> was called the
+<i>Bucentaure</i>, was guarded in the arsenal, whence it was removed on the
+eve of the Ascension. Next day the Doge, the patriarch, and the
+Council of Ten embarked, and the galley was towed out to the open sea,
+but not far from the shore. There, in the presence of the foreign
+ambassadors, whilst the clergy chanted the marriage service, the Doge
+advanced majestically to the front of the galley, and there formally
+wedded the sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He might have done worse,&quot; observed Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The ceremony,&quot; continued Sophia, &quot;consisted in the Doge throwing a
+ring into the sea, saying, 'We wed thee, O sea! to mark the real and
+perpetual dominion we possess over thee.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And it may be added,&quot; observed Becker, &quot;that the history of Venice
+shows how religiously the spouses of the Adriatic kept their vows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; said Sophia, &quot;that I have told my tale, let us hear what became
+of Cecilia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, the marriage took place the morning after Herbert's ring had
+been thrown to the fishes. Whilst the bride, bridegroom, and their
+friends were congratulating each other over the wedding breakfast, as
+is usual in England on such occasions, Cecilia's father was called out
+of the room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Too late,&quot; remarked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herbert Philipson had arrived that same morning; but, as Fritz
+observes, he was just an hour too late. He had acquired a fortune, but
+his long-cherished hopes of happiness were completely blasted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did he stay away five years without writing?&quot; inquired Mrs.
+Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He had written several times, but at that time no regular post had
+been established, and his letters had never reached their
+destination.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When did he find out that Cecilia was married?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, some people think it more humane to kill a man by inches rather
+than by a single blow of the axe. Not so with Herbert's friends; the
+first news that greeted him on landing were, that his ever-remembered
+Cecilia was probably at that moment before the altar pledging her vows
+to another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should rather have had a chimney-pot tumble on my head,&quot; remarked
+Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herbert was a man in every sense of the word&mdash;the mode of his
+departure proves that. On hearing this painful intelligence, he simply
+covered his face with his hands, and, after a moment's thought,
+resolved to see his lost bride at least once more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Poor Herbert!&quot; sighed Mary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Foster was thunderstruck when the stranger declared himself to be the
+son of his old friend; and, after cordially bidding him welcome,
+sorrowfully asked him what he meant to do. 'I should wish to see Mrs.
+Lindsey in presence of her husband,' he replied, 'providing you have
+no objections to introduce me to the company.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bravo!&quot; ejaculated Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Foster could not refuse this favor to an unfortunate, who had just
+been disinherited of his dearest hopes. He, therefore, took Herbert by
+the hand and led him into the room. Nobody recognized him. 'Ladies and
+gentlemen,' said he, 'permit me to introduce Mr. Herbert Philipson,
+who has just arrived from Sumatra.' You may readily conceive the
+dismay this unexpected announcement called up into the countenances of
+the guests. There was only one person in the room who was calm,
+tranquil, and unmoved&mdash;that person was Cecilia herself. She rose
+courteously, bade him welcome, hoped he was well, coolly asked him why
+he had not written to his friends, and politely asked him to take a
+seat beside herself and husband, just, for all the world, as if he had
+been some country cousin or poor relation to whom she wished to show a
+little attention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I would rather have been at the bottom of the sea than in her place,
+for all that,&quot; said Mary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why? She had nothing to reproach herself with. Had she not waited
+long enough for him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Young heads,&quot; remarked Becker, &quot;are not always stored with sense. A
+foolish pledge, given in a moment of thoughtlessness is often
+obstinately adhered to in spite of reason and argument. The young idea
+delights in miraculous instances of fidelity. What more charming to a
+young and ardent mind than the loves of Dante and Beatrix, of Eleonora
+and Tasso, of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, or of Dean
+Swift and Stella? Young people do not reflect that most of these
+stories are apocryphal, and that the men who figure in them sought to
+add to their renown the prestige of originality; they put on a passion
+as ordinary mortals put on a new dress, they yielded to imagination
+and not to the law of the heart, and almost all of them paid by a life
+of wretchedness the penalty of their dreams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is, I presume,&quot; remarked Mrs. Wolston, &quot;you do not object to any
+reasonable amount of constancy, but you object to its being carried to
+an unwarrantable excess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly so, madam,&quot; replied Becker; &quot;constancy, like every thing else
+when reasonable limits are exceeded, becomes a vice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The merriments of the marriage breakfast,&quot; continued Wolston
+&quot;slightly interrupted by the arrival of the new guest, were resumed.
+Fresh dishes were brought in, and, amongst others, a fine turbot was
+placed on the table. The gentleman who was engaged in carving the
+turbot struck the fish-knife against a hard substance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know what!&quot; exclaimed two or three voices.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I rather think not,&quot; said Wolston, drily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, the ring! the ring!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, it was merely the bone that runs from the head to the tail of the
+fish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, father,&quot; cried Sophia, &quot;how can you tease us so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they had found the ring,&quot; replied Wolston, laughing, &quot;I should
+have no motive for concealing it. Fruit was afterwards placed before
+Herbert, and, when nobody was looking, he pulled a clasped dagger out
+of his pocket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Sophia pressed her hands closely on her ears, in order to avoid
+hearing what followed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was a very beautiful poignard,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;and rather a
+bijou than a weapon; and, as the servants had neglected to hand him a
+fruit-knife, he made use of it in paring an apple.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it all over?&quot; inquired Sophia, removing a hand from one ear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas! yes!&quot; said Jack, lugubriously, &quot;he has been and done it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O the monster!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Travelling carriages having arrived at the door for the bridal party,
+Herbert quietly departed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; exclaimed Sophia, &quot;did they not arrest and drag him to
+prison?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;the crime was not so atrocious as it appears.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not atrocious!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; you must bear in mind that young Philipson had passed the
+preceding five years of his life amongst demi-savages, whose manners
+and customs he had, to a certain extent, necessarily contracted. In
+some countries, what we call crimes are only regarded as peccadillos.
+In France, for example, till very lately, there existed what was
+called the law of <i>combette</i>, by right of which pardon might be
+obtained for any misdeed on payment of a certain sum of money. There
+was a fixed price for every imaginable crime. A man might
+consequently be a Blue Beard if he liked, it was only necessary to
+consult the tariff in the first instance, and see to what extent his
+means would enable him to indulge his fancy for horrors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On quitting the house,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;Herbert Philipson bent
+his way to the shore, and shortly after was observed to plunge into
+the sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better,&quot; exclaimed Sophia; &quot;it saved his friends a more
+dreadful spectacle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The weather being fine and the water warm, Herbert enjoyed his bath
+immensely; he then returned to his hotel, went early to bed, and slept
+soundly till next morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The wretch!&quot; cried Sophia, &quot;to sleep soundly after assassinating his
+old playfellow, who had suffered so much on his account.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is pretty certain,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;that, if Philipson had
+been left entirely to himself, he would always have shown the same
+degree of moderation he had hitherto displayed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, moderation!&quot; said Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But his friends began to prate to him about the shameful way he had
+been jilted by Cecilia, and, by constantly reiterating the same thing,
+they at last succeeded in persuading him that he was an ill-used man.
+His self-esteem being roused by this silly chatter, he began to affect
+a ridiculous desolation, and to perpetrate all manner of outrageous
+extravagances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bad friends,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;are like sinking ships; they drag you
+down to their own level.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first absurd thing he did was to purchase a yacht, and when a
+storm arose that forced the hardy fishermen to take shelter in port,
+he went out to sea, and it is quite a miracle that he escaped
+drowning. Then, if there were a doubtful scheme afloat, he was sure to
+take shares in it. Nothing delighted him more than to go up in a
+balloon; he would have gladly swung himself on the car outside if the
+proprietor had allowed him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have often seen balloons in the air,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;but I could
+never make out their dead reckoning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A balloon,&quot; replied Ernest, &quot;is nothing more than an artificial
+cloud, and its power of ascension depends upon the volume of air it
+displaces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, Master Ernest, so far as the balloon itself is concerned;
+but then there is the weight of the car, passengers, provisions, and
+apparatus to account for.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hydrogen gas, used in the inflation of balloons, is forty times
+lighter than air. If a balloon is made large enough, the weight of the
+car and all that it contains, added to that of the gas, will fall
+considerably short of the weight of the air displaced by the machine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose it rises in the air just as an empty bottle well corked
+rises in the water?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very nearly. Air is lighter than water; consequently, any vessel
+filled with the one will rise to the surface of the other. So in the
+case of balloons. The gas, in the first place, must be inclosed in an
+envelope through which it cannot escape. Silk prepared with
+India-rubber is the material usually employed. As the balloon rises,
+the gas in the interior distends, because the air becomes lighter the
+less it is condensed by its superincumbent masses; hence it is
+requisite to leave a margin for this increase in the volume of the
+gas, otherwise the balloon would burst in the air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If a balloon were allowed to ascend without hindrance where would it
+stop?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would continue ascending till it reached a layer of air as light
+as the gas; beyond that point it could not go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if the voyagers do not wish to go quite so far?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then there is a valve by which the gas may be allowed to escape, till
+the weight of the machine and its volume of air are equal, when it
+ceases to ascend. If a little more is permitted to escape, the balloon
+descends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And should it land on the roof of a house or the top of a tree, the
+voyagers have their necks broken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That can only happen to bunglers; there is not the least necessity
+for landing where danger is to be apprehended. When the aeronaut is
+near the ground, and sees that the spot is unfavorable for
+debarkation, he drops a little ballast, the balloon mounts, and he
+comes down again somewhere else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fellow that made the first voyage must have been very daring.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first ascent was made by Montgolfier in 1782, and he was followed
+by Rosiers and d'Arlandes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With your permission, father,&quot; said Ernest, &quot;I will claim priority in
+aerial travelling for Icarus, Doedalus, and Phaeton.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly; you are justified in doing so. Gay-Lussac, a philosophic
+Frenchman, rose, in 1804, to the height of seven thousand yards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He must have felt a little giddy,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most of the functions of the body were affected, more or less, by the
+extreme rarity of the air at that height. Its dryness caused wet
+parchment to crisp. He observed that the action of the magnetic needle
+diminished as he ascended, sounds gradually ceased to reach his ear,
+and the wind itself ceased to be felt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, of course,&quot; remarked Ernest, &quot;was when he was travelling in the
+same direction and at the same speed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Jack, &quot;we can find materials here for a balloon; the
+ladies have silk dresses, there is plenty of India-rubber&mdash;we used to
+make boots and shoes of it; hydrogen gas can be obtained from a
+variety of substances. What, then, is to prevent us paying a visit to
+some of Ernest's friends in the skies?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unfortunately for your project, Jack, no one has discovered the art
+of guiding a balloon; consequently, instead of finding yourself at
+<i>Cassiope</i>, you might land at <i>Sirius</i>, where your reception would be
+somewhat cool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what became of Herbert?&quot; inquired one of the ladies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Singularly enough, he escaped all the dangers he so recklessly
+braved, and all the bad speculations he embarked in turned out good.
+Somehow or other, the moment he took part in a desperate scheme it
+became profitable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; exclaimed Sophia, &quot;his victim, like a guardian angel, continued
+to watch over him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the cholera appeared in England, he was sure to be found where
+the cases were most numerous. He followed up the pest with so much
+pertinacity and publicity, that it was no unusual thing to find it
+announced in the newspapers that Philipson and the cholera had arrived
+in such and such a town.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The bane and the antidote,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If Cecilia had been one of those women who delight in horse-racing,
+fox-hunting, opera-boxes, and public executions, she would have been
+highly amused to see her old friend's name constantly turning up under
+such extraordinary circumstances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is she not dead, then?&quot; inquired Sophia, with astonishment,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears that her wounds were not mortal,&quot; quietly replied her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides,&quot; observed Jack, &quot;there are human frames so constituted that
+they can bear an immense amount of cutting and slashing. So in the
+case of animals; there, for instance, is the fresh-water polypus&mdash;if
+you cut this creature lengthwise straight through the middle, a right
+side will grow on the one half and a left side on the other, so that
+there will be two polypi instead of one. The same thing occurs if you
+cut one through the middle crosswise, a head grows on the one half and
+a tail on the other, so that you have two entire polypi either way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you may add,&quot; observed Ernest, &quot;since so interesting a subject is
+on the <i>tapis</i>, that if two of these polypi happen to quarrel over
+their prey, the largest generally swallows the smallest, in order to
+get it out of the way; and the latter, with the exception of being a
+little cramped for space, is not in the slightest degree injured by
+the operation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And does that state of matters continue any length of time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The polypus that is inside the other may probably get tired of
+confinement, in which case it makes its exit by the same route it
+entered; but, if too lazy to do that, it makes a hole in the body of
+its antagonist and gets out that way. But, what is most curious of
+all, these processes do not appear to put either of the creatures to
+the slightest inconvenience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am quite at a loss to make you all out,&quot; said Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, my child,&quot; replied her mother, &quot;you should not close up your
+ears in the middle of a story.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cecilia, or rather Mrs. Lindsey, however,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;was a
+pious, painstaking, simple-minded woman, who devoted her whole
+attention to her domestic duties. Notwithstanding her fortune, she did
+not neglect the humblest affairs of the household, and thought only of
+making her husband pleased with his home. When she was told of the
+vagaries of Philipson, she prayed in private that he might be led from
+his evil ways, and could not help thanking Providence that she was not
+the wife of such a dreadful scapegrace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should think so,&quot; remarked Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At last, Herbert Philipson astonished even his own companions by a
+crowning act of folly. There was then a young woman in Bristol, of
+good parentage, but an unmitigated virago; her family were thoroughly
+ashamed of her temper and her exploits. They allowed her to have her
+own way, simply for fear that, through contradiction, she might plunge
+herself into even worse courses than those she now habitually
+followed. In short, she was the talk and jest of the whole town.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a charming creature!&quot; remarked Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No servant of her own sex could put up with her for two days
+together; she styled everybody that came near her fools and asses, and
+did not hesitate to strike them if they ventured to contradict her.
+She got on, however, tolerably well with ostlers, stable-boys, cabmen,
+and such like, because they could treat her in her own style, and were
+not ruffled by her abuse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How amiable!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herbert heard of this young person, and, through a fast friend of his
+own, obtained an introduction to her, and on the very first interview
+he offered her his hand. He was known still to be a wealthy man, so
+neither the lady herself nor anybody connected with her made the
+slightest objection to the match, thinking probably that, if there
+were six of the one, there were at least half a dozen of the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They ought to have gone to Bedlam, instead of to church,&quot; said
+Willis; &quot;that is my idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nevertheless, they went to church; and, after the marriage, Cecilia
+sought and obtained an introduction to the lady, and, whether by
+entreaties or by her good example, I cannot say; be this as it may,
+the unpromising personage in question became one of the best wives and
+the best mothers that ever graced a domestic circle&mdash;in this respect
+even excelling the pattern Cecilia herself; and, what is still more to
+the purpose, she succeeded in completely reforming her husband. When I
+left England there was not a more prosperous merchant, nor a more
+estimable man in the whole city of Bristol, than Herbert Philipson.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From which we may conclude,&quot; remarked Mrs. Becker, &quot;it is always
+advisable to have angels for friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We may also conclude,&quot; remarked Mrs. Wolston, &quot;that when a stroke of
+adversity, or any other misfortune, overturns the edifice of happiness
+we had erected for the future, we may build a new structure with fresh
+material, which may prove more durable than the first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Talking of having angels for friends,&quot; said Becker, &quot;puts me in mind
+of the association of Saint Louis Gonzaga, at Rome. On the anniversary
+of this saint, the young and merry phalanx forming the association
+march in procession to one of the public gardens. In the centre of
+this garden a magnificent altar has been previously erected, on which
+is placed a chafing-dish filled with burning coals. The procession
+forms itself into an immense ring round the altar, broken here and
+there by a band of music. These bands play hymns in honor of the
+saints, and other <i>morceaux</i> of a sacred character. Each member of the
+association holds a letter inclosed in an embossed and highly
+ornamented envelope, bound round with gay-colored ribbons and threads
+of gold. These letters are messages from the young correspondents to
+their friends in heaven, and are addressed to 'Il Santo Giovane Luigi
+Gonzaga, in Paradiso.' At a given signal, the letters, in the midst of
+profound silence, are placed on the chafing-dish. This done, the music
+resounds on all sides, and the assembly burst out into loud
+acclamations, during which the letters are supposed to be carried up
+into heaven by the angels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A curious and interesting ceremony,&quot; remarked Mrs. Wolston, &quot;and one
+that may possibly do good, inasmuch as it may induce the young people
+composing the association to persevere in generous resolutions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The two families again separated for the night. And whilst the young
+men were escorting the Wolstons to their tree, Sophia went towards
+Jack. &quot;Will you tell me,&quot; inquired she, &quot;what happened whilst I had my
+ears closed up, Jack?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, with all my heart, if you will tell me first what the chimpanzee
+had been about during our absence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he got up into our tree when we were out of the way. After
+soaping his chin, he had taken one of papa's razors, and just as he
+was beginning to shave himself, some one entered and caught him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, is that all? What I have to tell you is a great deal more
+appalling than that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, be quick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I am afraid you will be shocked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it very dreadful?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More so than you would imagine. If you dream about it during the
+night, you will not be angry with me for telling you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I will be courageous, and am prepared to hear the worst.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was your father saying when you shut up your ears?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herbert had just pulled out a dagger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when you took your hands away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All was then over; Herbert had done some dreadful thing with the
+dagger, and I want to know what it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He pared an apple with it,&quot; replied Jack, bursting into a roar of
+laughter, and, running off, he left Sophia to her reflections.</p>
+
+<p>A few seconds after he returned. This time he had almost a solemn air,
+the laughter had vanished from his visage, like breath from polished
+steel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Sophia,&quot; inquired he gravely, &quot;are you rich?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, Master Jack; are you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I have not the slightest idea either.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XIV'></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p>THE TEARS OF CHILDHOOD AND RAIN OF THE TROPICS&mdash;CHARLES'S
+WAIN&mdash;VOLUNTARY ENLISTMENT&mdash;A LIKENESS GUARANTEED&mdash;THE WORLD AT
+PEACE&mdash;ALAS, POOR MARY!&mdash;THE SAME BREATH FOR TWO BEINGS&mdash;THE FIRST
+PILLOW&mdash;THE LOGIC OF THE HEART&mdash;HOW FRITZ SUPPORTED GRIEF&mdash;A GRAIN OF
+SAND AND THE HIMALAYA.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak next morning, all the eyes in the colony were busily
+engaged in scrutinizing the sky. This time the operation seemed
+satisfactory, for immediately afterwards, all the hands were, with
+equal diligence, occupied in packing up and making other preparations
+for the meditated excursion to the remote dependencies of New
+Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>The dense veil that the day before had shrouded them in gloom was now
+broken up into shreds. The azure depths beyond had assumed the
+appearance of a blue tunic bespattered with white, and the clouds
+suggested the idea of a celestial shepherd, driving myriads of sheep
+to the pasture. Children alone can dry up their tears with the
+rapidity of Nature in the tropics; perhaps we may have already made
+the remark, and must, therefore, beg pardon for repeating the simile a
+second time.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time, the two families were assembled on the lawn, in front
+of the domestic trees of Falcon's Nest, ready to start on their
+journey. The cow and the buffalo were yoked to the carriage, which was
+snugly covered over with a tarpauling, thrown across circular girds,
+like the old-fashioned waggons of country carriers. Frank mounted the
+box in front; Mrs. Becker, Wolston, and Sophia got inside; whilst
+Ernest and Jack, mounted on ostriches that had been trained and broken
+in as riding horses, took up a position on each side, where the doors
+of the vehicle ought to have been. These dispositions made, after a
+few lashes from the whip, this party started off at a brisk rate in
+the direction of Waldeck.</p>
+
+<p>It had been previously arranged that one half of the expedition should
+go by land, and the other half by water, and that on their return this
+order should be reversed, so that both the interior and the coast
+might be inspected at one and the same time. The only exception was
+made in favor of Willis, who was permitted both to go and return by
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>The second party, consisting of Mrs. Wolston, Becker, Mary, and Fritz,
+started on foot in the direction of the coast. They had not gone far
+before Becker observed a large broadside plastered on a tree.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that?&quot; he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody could give a satisfactory reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps,&quot; suggested Mrs. Wolston, &quot;paper grows ready made on the
+trees of this wonderful country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They all approached, and, much to their astonishment, read as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;TAKE NOTICE.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The renowned Professor Ernest Becker is about to enlighten the
+benighted inhabitants of this country, by giving a course of lectures
+on optics. The agonizing doubts that have hitherto enveloped
+astronomical science, particularly as regards the interiors of the
+moon and the stars, have arisen from the absurd practice of looking at
+them during the night. These doubts are about to be removed for ever
+by the aforesaid professor, as he intends to exhibit the luminaries in
+question in open day. He will also place Charles's Wain<a name='FNanchor_C_3'></a><a href='#Footnote_C_3'><sup>[C]</sup></a> at the
+disposal of any one who is desirous of taking a drive in the Milky
+Way. The learned professor will likewise stand for an indefinite
+period on his head; and whilst in this position will clearly
+demonstrate the rotundity of the earth, and the tendency of heavy
+bodies to the centre of gravity. In order that the prices of admission
+may be in accordance with the intrinsic value of the lectures, nothing
+will be charged for the boxes, the entrance to the pit will be gratis,
+and the gallery will be thrown open for the free entry of the people.
+The audience will be expected to assume a horizontal position. Persons
+given to snoring are invited to stay at home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I rather think I should know that style,&quot; remarked Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a pity Ernest is not with us,&quot; observed Fritz; &quot;but the placard
+will keep for a day or two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They say laughing is good for digestion,&quot; remarked Mrs. Wolston; &quot;and
+if so, it must be confessed that Master Jack is a useful member of the
+colony in a sanitary point of view.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The party had scarcely advanced a hundred paces farther, when Fritz
+called out,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa! there is another broadside in sight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This one was headed by a smart conflict between two ferocious looking
+hussars, and was couched in the following terms:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;PROCLAMATION.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the inhabitants of this colony capable of bearing arms, who are
+panting after glory, are invited to the Fig Tree, at Falcon's Nest,
+there to enrol themselves in the registry of Fritz Becker, who is
+about to undertake the conquest of the world. Nobody is compelled to
+volunteer, but those who hold back will be reckoned contumacious, and
+will be taken into custody, and kept on raw coffee till such time as
+they evince a serious desire to enlist. There will be no objection to
+recruits returning home at the end of the war, if they come out of it
+alive. Neither will there be any objections to the survivors bringing
+back a marshal's baton, if they can get one. The Commander-in-chief
+will charge himself with the fruits of the victory. Surgical
+operations will be performed at his cost, and cork legs will be served
+out with the rations. In the event of a profitable campaign, a
+monument will be erected to the memory of the defunct, by way of a
+reward for their heroism on the field of battle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Fritz,&quot; said Becker, with a merry twinkle in his eye, &quot;you were
+sorry that Ernest was not present to hear the last placard read;
+fortunately, you are on the spot yourself this time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fritz tried to look amused, but the attempt was a decided failure.</p>
+
+<p>When the party had gone a little farther, another announcement met
+their gaze; all were curious to know whose turn was come now; as they
+approached, the following interesting question, in large letters,
+stared them in the face:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;HAVE YOU HAD YOUR PORTRAIT TAKEN YET?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It has been reserved for the present age, and for this prolific
+territory, so exuberant in cabbages, turnips, and other potables, to
+produce the greatest of living artists&mdash;real genius&mdash;who is destined
+to outshine all the Michel Angelos and Rubenses of former ages. Not
+that these men were entirely devoid of talent, but because they could
+do nothing without their palette and their paint brushes. Now that
+illustrious <i>maestro</i>, Mr. Jack Becker, has both genius and ingenuity,
+for he has succeeded in dispensing with the aforementioned troublesome
+auxiliaries of his art. His plan which has the advantage of not being
+patented, consists in placing his subject before a mirror, where he is
+permitted to stay till the portrait takes root in the glass. By this
+novel method the original and the copy will be subject alike to the
+ravages of time, so that no one, on seeing a portrait, will be liable
+to mistake the grand-mother for the grand-daughter. Likenesses
+guaranteed. Payments, under all circumstances, to be made in advance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, well,&quot; said Becker, laughing, &quot;it appears that the scapegrace has
+not spared himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope there is not a fourth proclamation,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are no more trees on our route, at all events,&quot; replied
+Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Glad to hear that; Jack must respect the avocation chosen by Frank,
+since he sees nothing in it to ridicule.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As they drew near the Jackal River, in which the pinnace was moored,
+Mary and Fritz were a little in advance of the party.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you really determined to turn the world upside down, Master
+Fritz?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At present, Miss Wolston, I am myself the sum and substance of my
+army, in addition to which I have not yet quite made up my mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is an odd fancy to entertain to say the least of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does it displease you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In order that it could do that, I must first have the right to judge
+your projects.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if I gave you that right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should find the responsibility too great to accept it. Besides, a
+determination cannot be properly judged, without putting one's self in
+the position of the person that makes it. You imagine happiness
+consists in witnessing the shock of armies, whilst I fancy enjoyment
+to consist in the calm tranquility of one's home. You see our views of
+felicity are widely different.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so very widely different as you seem to think, Miss Wolston. As
+yet my victories are <i>nil</i>; I have not yet come to an issue with my
+allies; to put my troops on the peace establishment I have only to
+disembody myself, and I disembody myself accordingly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh!&quot; exclaimed Mary, &quot;you are very easily turned from your purpose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Easily! no, Miss Wolston, not easily; you cannot admit that an
+objection urged by yourself is a matter of no moment, or one that can
+be slighted with impunity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! here we are at the end of our journey.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Already! the road has never appeared so short to me before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Wolston, coming up to her daughter, &quot;you appear
+very merry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, not without reason, mamma; I have just restored peace to the
+world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The pinnace was soon launched, and, under the guidance of Willis, was
+making way in the direction of Waldeck. The sea had not yet recovered
+from the effects of the recent storm; it was still, to use an
+expression of Willis, &quot;a trifle ugly.&quot; Occasionally the waves would
+catch the frail craft amidships, and make it lurch in an uncomfortable
+fashion, especially as regarded the ladies, which obliged Willis to
+keep closer in shore than was quite to his taste. The briny element
+still bore traces of its recent rage, just as anger lingers on the
+human face, even after it has quitted the heart.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the pinnace was in the midst of a series of irregular
+gyrations, a shrill scream suddenly rent the air, and at the same
+instant Fritz and Willis leaped overboard.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mary had fallen into the sea</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Becker strained every nerve to stay the boat. Mrs. Wolston fell on her
+knees with outstretched hands, but, though in the attitude of prayer,
+not a word escaped her pallid lips.</p>
+
+<p>The two men floated for a moment over the spot where the poor girl had
+sunk; suddenly Fritz disappeared, his keen eye had been of service
+here, for it enabled him to descry the object sought. In a few seconds
+he rose to the surface with Mary's inanimate body in his left arm.
+Willis hastened to assist him in bearing the precious burden to the
+boat, and Becker's powerful arms drew it on deck.</p>
+
+<p>The joy that all naturally would have felt when this was accomplished
+had no time to enter their breasts, for they saw that the body evinced
+no signs of life, and a fear that the vital spark had already fled
+caused every frame to shudder. They felt that not a moment was to be
+lost; the resources of the boat were hastily put in requisition;
+mattresses, sheets, blankets, and dry clothes were strewn upon the
+deck. Mrs. Wolston had altogether lost her presence of mind, and could
+do nothing but press the dripping form of her daughter to her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Friction must be tried instantly,&quot; cried Becker; &quot;here, take this
+flannel and rub her body smartly with it&mdash;particularly her breast and
+back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wolston instinctively followed these directions.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is of importance to warm her feet,&quot; continued Becker; &quot;but,
+unfortunately, we have no means on board to make a fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wolston, in her trepidation, began breathing upon them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have heard,&quot; said the Pilot, &quot;that persons rescued from drowning
+are held up by the feet to allow the water to run out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nonsense, Willis; a sure means of killing them outright. It is not
+from water that any danger is to be apprehended, but from want of air,
+or, rather, the power of respiration. What we have to do is to try and
+revive this power by such means as are within our reach.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot, meantime, endeavored to introduce a few drops of brandy
+between the lips of the patient. Fritz stood trembling like an aspen
+leaf and deadly pale; he regarded these operations as if his own life
+were at stake, and not the patient's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There remains only one other course to adopt, Mrs. Wolston,&quot; said
+Becker, &quot;you must endeavor to bring your daughter to life by means of
+your own breath.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only tell me what to do, Mr. Becker, and, if every drop of blood in
+my body is wanted, all is at your disposal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must apply your mouth to that of your daughter, and, whilst her
+nostrils are compressed, breathe at intervals into her breast, and so
+imitate the act of natural respiration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Stronger lungs than those of a woman might have been urgent under such
+circumstances, but maternal love supplied what was wanting in physical
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot had turned the prow of the pinnace towards home; he felt
+that, in the present case at least, the comforts of the land were
+preferable to the charms of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This time it is not my breath, but her own,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Her pulse beats,&quot; said Becker; &quot;she lives.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank God!&quot; exclaimed Fritz and Willis in one voice.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour had scarcely yet elapsed since the patient's
+first immersion in the sea; but this brief interval had been an age of
+agony to them all. As yet, her head lay quiescent on her mother's
+bosom, that first pillow, common alike to rich and poor, at the
+threshold of life.</p>
+
+<p>The%signs of returning animation gradually became more and more
+evident; at length, the patient gently raised her head, and glanced
+vacantly from one object to another; then, her eyes were turned upon
+herself, and finally rested upon Fritz and Willis, who still bore
+obvious traces of their recent struggle with the waves. Here she
+seemed to become conscious, for her body trembled, as if some terrible
+thought had crossed her mind. After this paroxysm had passed, she
+feebly inclined her head, as if to say&mdash;&quot;I understand&mdash;you have saved
+my life&mdash;I thank you.&quot; Then, like those jets of flame that are no
+sooner alight than they are extinguished, she again became insensible.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they reached the shore, Fritz hastened to Rockhouse, and
+made up a sort of palanquin of such materials as were at hand, into
+which Mary was placed, and thus was conveyed, with all possible care
+and speed, on the shoulders of the men to Falcon's Nest. A few hours
+afterwards she returned to consciousness and found herself in a warm
+bed, surrounded with all the comforts that maternal anxiety and
+Becker's intelligent mind could suggest.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz was unceasing in his exertions; no amount of fatigue seemed to
+wear him out. As soon as he saw that everything had been done for the
+invalid that their united skill could accomplish, he bridled an
+untrained ostrich, and rode or rather flew off in search of the land
+portion of the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mary is saved,&quot; he cried, as he came up with them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From what?&quot; inquired Wolston, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From the sea, that was about to swallow her up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And by whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Willis, myself, and us all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The same evening, the two families were again assembled at Falcon's
+Nest, and thus, for a second time, the long talked-of expedition was
+brought to an abrupt conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; said Willis, &quot;we must cast anchor for a bit; yesterday it was
+the sky, to-day it was the sea, to-morrow it will be the land,
+perhaps&mdash;the wind is clearly against us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>How often does it not happen, in our pilgrimage through life, that we
+have the wind against us? We make a resolute determination, we set out
+on our journey, but the object we seek recedes as we advance; it is no
+use going any farther&mdash;the wind is against us. We re-commence ten,
+twenty, a hundred times, but the result is invariably the same. How is
+this? No one can tell. What are the obstacles? It is difficult to say.
+Perhaps, we meet with a friend who detains us; perhaps, a recollection
+that our memory has called, induces us to swerve from the path&mdash;the
+blind man that sung under our window may have something to do with
+it&mdash;perhaps, it was merely a fly, less than nothing.</p>
+
+<p>It is not our minor undertakings, but rather our most important
+enterprises, that are frustrated by such trifles as these; for it must
+be allowed that we strive less tenaciously against an obstacle that
+debars us from a pleasure, than against one that separates us from a
+duty&mdash;in the one case we have to stem the torrent, in the other we
+sail with the current.</p>
+
+<p>When we observe some deplorable instance of a wrecked career&mdash;when we
+see a man starting in life with the most brilliant prospects
+collapsing into a dead-weight on his fellows, we are apt to suppose
+that some insurmountable barrier must have crossed his path&mdash;some
+Himalaya, or formidable wall, like that which does not now separate
+China from Tartary; but no such thing. Trace the cause to its source,
+and what think you is invariably found? A grain of sand; the
+unfortunate wretch has had the wind against him&mdash;nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>Rescued from the sea, Mary Wolston was now a prey to a raging fever.
+Ill or well, at her age there is no medium, either exuberant health or
+complete prostration; the juices then are turbulent and the blood is
+ardent.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow or other, a good action attaches the doer to the recipient;
+so, in the case of Fritz, apart from the brotherly affection which he
+had vaguely vowed to entertain for the two young girls that had so
+unexpectedly appeared amongst them, he now regarded the life of Mary
+as identical with his own, and felt that her death would inevitably
+shorten his own existence; &quot;for,&quot; said he to himself, &quot;should she die,
+I was too late in drawing her out of the water.&quot; In his tribulation
+and irreflection, he drew no line between the present and the past,
+but simply concluded, that if he saved her too late, he did not save
+her at all. Hope, nevertheless, did not altogether abandon him. He
+would sometimes fancy her restored to her wonted health, abounding in
+life and vigour. Then the pleasing thought would cross his mind that,
+but for himself, that charming being, in all probability, would have
+been a tenant of the tomb. Would that those who do evil only knew the
+delight that sometimes wells up in the breasts of those who do good!</p>
+
+<p>The first day of Mary's illness, Fritz bore up manfully. On the
+second, he joined his father and brothers in their field labors; but,
+whilst driving some nails into a fence, he had so effectually fixed
+himself to a stake that it was only with some difficulty that he could
+be detached. The third day, at sunrise, he called Mary's dog,
+shouldered his rifle, and was about to quit the house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where are you going?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know&mdash;anywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anywhere! Well, I am rather partial to that sort of place; I will go
+with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I must do something that will divert my thoughts. There may be
+danger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well I can help you to look up a difficulty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Every day the two brothers departed at sunrise, and returned together
+again in the evening. Mrs. Becker felt acutely their sufferings. She
+watched anxiously for the return of the two wanderers, and generally
+went a little way to meet them when they appeared in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She does not run to meet us,&quot; said Fritz, one day; &quot;that is a bad
+sign.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a bit of it,&quot; replied Jack. &quot;If she had any bad news to give us,
+she would not come at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_C_3'></a><a href='#FNanchor_C_3'>[C]</a> The constellation known in astronomy as the <i>Great Bear</i>
+is in, some parts of England termed the <i>Plough</i>, and in others
+<i>Charles's Wain</i> or <i>Waggon</i>. It may be added, that the same
+constellation is popularly known in France as the <i>Chariot of David</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XV'></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<p>GOD'S GOVERNMENT&mdash;KING STANISLAUS&mdash;THE DAUPHIN SON OF LOUIS XV.&mdash;THE
+SHORTEST ROAD&mdash;NEW YEAR'S DAY&mdash;A MIRACLE&mdash;CLEVER ANIMALS&mdash;THE
+CALENDAR&mdash;MR. JULIUS C&AElig;SAR AND POPE GREGORY XIII.&mdash;HOW THE DAY AFTER
+THE 4TH OF OCTOBER WAS THE 15TH&mdash;OLYMPIAD&mdash;LUSTRES&mdash;THE HEGIRA&mdash;A
+HORSE MADE CONSUL&mdash;JACK'S DREAM.</p>
+
+<p>Some men, when they regard the sinister side of events, are apt to
+call in question the axiom, Nothing is accomplished without the will
+of God. Why, they ask, do the wicked triumph? Why are the just
+oppressed? Why this evil? What is the use of that disaster? Was it
+necessary that Mary Wolston should be thrown into the sea, and that
+she should afterwards die in consequence of the accident?</p>
+
+<p>To these questions we reply, that God does not interrupt the ordinary
+course of His works. Man is a free agent in so far as regards his own
+actions; were it otherwise, we should not be responsible for our own
+crimes. We might as well plunge into vice as adhere to virtue; for we
+could not be called upon to expiate the one, nor could we hope to be
+rewarded for the other. It is not to be expected that God is to
+perform miracles at every instant for our individual benefit. It is
+unreasonable in us to suppose that, in obedience to our wishes or
+desires, He will alter His immutable laws.</p>
+
+<p>A foot slips on the brink of a precipice, and we are dashed to atoms.
+Our boat is upset in a squall, and we are drowned. Like Stanislaus
+Leszinsky, King of Poland, we fall asleep in the corner of a chimney,
+our clothes take fire, and we are burned to death. We go a hunting; we
+mistake a grey overcoat for the fur of a deer, and we kill our friend
+or his gamekeeper, as once happened to the son of Louis XV., who in
+consequence almost died of grief, and renounced forever a sport of
+which he was passionately fond. Did Providence will, exact, or
+pre-ordain all these calamities? Certainly not; but our Creator has
+seen fit to tolerate and permit them, since he did not interpose to
+prevent them.</p>
+
+<p>The government of God is a conception so wonderful, so sublime, that
+none but Himself can fathom its depths. Human intelligence is too
+finite to penetrate or comprehend a system so complex, and yet so
+uniform. The mind of man can only form a just idea of a cause when the
+effect has been made manifest to his understanding. There might have
+been a reason for the death of Mary Wolston&mdash;who knows? But if it were
+so, that reason was beyond the pale of mortal ken.</p>
+
+<p>Let us not, however, anticipate. Mary Wolston is not yet dead. On the
+contrary, when the ninth day of her illness had passed, Fritz and Jack
+were returning from an expedition, the nature of which was only known
+to themselves, but which, to judge from the packs that they bore on
+their backs, had been tolerably productive. The two young men observed
+their mother advancing, as usual, to meet them, but this time <i>she
+ran</i>. They had no need to be told in words that Mary Wolston was now
+out of danger; the serenity of their mother's countenance was more
+eloquent than the most elaborate discourse that ever stirred human
+souls.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Becker herself felt that words were superfluous, so she quietly
+took her son's arm, and they walked gently homewards, whilst Jack
+strode on before. On turning a corner of the road, the latter stumbled
+upon Wolston and Ernest, who, in the exuberance of their joy, had also
+come out to meet the hunters. They were, however, a little behind; but
+that was nothing new. These two members of the colony had become quite
+remarkable for procrastination and absence of mind. When Wolston the
+mechanician, and Ernest the philosopher, travelled in company, it was
+rare that some pebble or plant, or question in physics, did not induce
+them to deviate from their route or tarry on their way. One day they
+both started for Rockhouse to fetch provisions for the family dinner,
+but instead of bringing back the needful supplies of beef and mutton,
+they returned in great glee with the solution of an intricate problem
+in geometry. All fared very indifferently on that occasion, and, in
+consequence, Wolston and Ernest were, from that time on, deprived of
+the office of purveyors.</p>
+
+<p>In the present instance, instead of running like Mrs. Becker, they had
+philosophically seated themselves on the trunk of a tree. At their
+feet was a diagram that Wolston had traced with the end of his stick;
+this was neither a tangent nor a triangle, as might have been
+expected, but a figure denoting how to carve one's way to a position,
+amidst the rugged defiles of life.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In all things,&quot; observed Wolston, &quot;in morals as well as physics, the
+shortest road from one point to another, is the straight line.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unless,&quot; objected Ernest, &quot;the straight line were encumbered with
+obstacles, that would require more time to surmount than to go round.
+Two leagues of clear road would be better than one only a single
+league in length, if intersected by ditches and strewn with wild
+beasts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bah!&quot; cried Jack, who had just come up out of breath, &quot;you might leap
+the one and shoot the others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your argument,&quot; replied Wolston, &quot;is that of the savage, who can
+imagine no obstacles that are not solid and tangible. The obstacles
+that retard our progress in life neither display yawning chasms nor
+rows of teeth; they dwell within our own minds&mdash;they are versatility,
+disgust, ennui, thirst after the unknown, and love of change. These
+lead us to take bye-paths and long turnings, and fritter away the
+strength that should be used in promoting a single aim. Hence arise a
+multiplicity of hermaphrodite avocations and desultory studies, that
+terminate in nothing but vexation of spirit. Let us suppose, for
+example, that Peter has made up his mind to be a lawyer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not see any particular reason why Peter should not be a lawyer,&quot;
+said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor I either; but unfortunately when Peter has pored a certain time
+over Coke upon Littleton, and other abstruse legal authorities, he
+accidentally witnesses a review; he throws down his books, and
+resolves to become a soldier.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After the manner and style of our Fritz,&quot; suggested Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He changes the Pandects for Polybius, and Gray's Inn for a military
+school. All goes well for awhile; the idea of uniform helps him over
+the rudiments of fortification and the platoon exercise. He passes two
+examinations creditably, but breaks down at the third, in consequence
+of which he throws away his sword in disgust. He does not like now to
+rejoin his old companions in the Inn, who have been working steadily
+during the years he has lost. He therefore, perhaps, adopts a middle
+course, and gets himself enrolled in the society of solicitors, which
+does not exact a very elaborate diploma.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, after all, the difference between a barrister and a solicitor
+is not so great.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but the exercises to which he has been accustomed previously
+unfit him for the drudgeries of his new employment, and he soon
+abandons that, just as he abandoned the other two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your friend Peter is somewhat difficult to please,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He then goes into business, a term which may mean a great deal or
+nothing at all; it admits of one's going about idle with the
+appearance of being fully occupied. Then a few unsuccessful
+speculations bring him back, at the end of his days, to the point
+whence he started&mdash;that is, zero.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes, I see now,&quot; cried Jack, whilst he traced a diagram on the
+ground. &quot;Poor Peter has always stopped in the middle of each
+profession and gone back to the starting point of another, thus
+passing his life in making zig-zags, and only moving from one zero to
+another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; added Wolston: &quot;whilst those who persevered in following up
+the profession they chose at first finally succeeded in attaining a
+position, and that simply by adhering to a straight line.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Fritz and his mother arrived, arm in arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! there you are,&quot; cried Ernest. &quot;We were on our way to meet you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You surely do not call sitting down there being on your way to meet
+us, do you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, yes, mother,&quot; suggested Jack, &quot;on the principle that two bodies
+coming into contact meet each other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Like those flowers that droop during a storm, but recover their
+brilliancy with the first rays of the sun, so a few days more sufficed
+to restore Mary Wolston to better health than she had ever enjoyed in
+her life before. Some months now elapsed without giving rise to any
+event of note. All the men, women, and children in the colony had been
+busily employed from early morn to late at e'en. No sooner had one
+field been sown than there was another to plant; then came the grain
+harvest and its hard but healthy toil; next, much to the delight of
+Willis, herrings appeared on the coast, followed by their attendant
+demons, the sea-dogs; salmon-fishing, hunting ortolans, the foundries
+and manufactories, likewise exacted a portion of their time.
+Frequently parties were occupied for weeks together in the remote
+districts; so that, with the exception of one day each week&mdash;the
+Sabbath&mdash;the two families had of late been rarely assembled together
+in one spot.</p>
+
+<p>The hope of ever again beholding the <i>Nelson</i> had gradually ceased to
+be entertained by anybody. Like an echo that resounds from rock to
+rock until it is lost in the distance, this hope had died away in
+their breasts. Willis nevertheless continued to keep the beacon on
+Shark's Island alight; but he regarded it more as a sepulchral lamp in
+commemoration of the dead, than as a signal for the living.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, the break of day was announced by a cannon-shot. All
+instantly started on their feet and gazed inquiringly in each other's
+faces. One thing forced itself upon all their thoughts&mdash;daybreak
+generally arrives without noise; it is not accustomed to announce
+itself with gunpowder; like real merit, it requires no flourish of
+trumpets to announce its advent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good,&quot; said Becker; &quot;Fritz and Jack are not visible, therefore we may
+easily guess who fired that shot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Particularly,&quot; added Wolston, &quot;as this is the first of January. Last
+night I observed an unusual amount of going backwards and forwards,
+so, I suppose, nobody need be much at a loss to solve the mystery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye,&quot; sighed Willis, &quot;New Year's Day brings pleasing recollections to
+many, but sad ones to those who are far away from their own homes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after, the absentees arrived, each mounted on his favorite
+ostrich.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Wolston,&quot; said Fritz, spreading out a fine leopard's skin, &quot;be
+good enough to accept this, with the compliments of the season.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Wolston,&quot; said Jack, at the same time, &quot;here is the outer
+covering of a panther, who, stifling with heat, commissioned me to
+present you with his overcoat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am very proud of your gift, Master Fritz,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston; &quot;it
+is really very handsome.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It may, perhaps, be useful at all events, madam,&quot; said Fritz; &quot;for,
+in the absence of universal pills and such things, it is a capital
+preventative of coughs and colds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have been over the way again, then?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but, as you see, we adopted a more efficacious mode of
+operations than the one you suggested.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; replied Willis, drily, &quot;you did not light a fire this time to
+frighten the brutes away, and go to sleep when it went out!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sophia then presented Willis with a handsome tobacco pouch, on which
+the words, &quot;From Susan,&quot; were embroidered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bless your dear little heart!&quot; said the sailor, whilst a tear
+sparkled in the corner of his eye, &quot;you make me almost think I am in
+Old England again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the matter?&quot; inquired Mrs. Wolston, as Mary came running in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, such a miracle, mamma! my parrot commenced talking this morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what did it say, child?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Mary blushed and hesitated; Mrs. Wolston glanced at Fritz, and
+thought it might be as well not to inquire any further.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps somebody has changed it,&quot; suggested Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not very likely that a strange parrot could pronounce my own name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, perhaps your own has been learning to spell for a long time,
+and has just succeeded in getting into words of two or more syllables.
+These creatures abound in sell-esteem; and yours, perhaps, would not
+speak till it could speak well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Odd, that it should pitch upon New Year's morning to say all sorts of
+pretty things. They do not carry an almanack in their pockets, do
+they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;parrots do say and do odd things. I heard of
+one that once frightened away a burglar, by screaming out, 'The
+Campbells are coming;' so, Miss Wolston, perhaps yours does keep a
+log.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By counting its knuckles,&quot; suggested Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Counting one's knuckles is an ingenious, but rather a clumsy
+substitute for the calendar,&quot; remarked Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And who invented the calendar?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am not aware that the calendar was ever invented,&quot; replied Wolston.
+&quot;Fruit commences by being a seed, the admiral springs from the
+cabin-boy, words and language succeed naturally the babble of the
+infant; so, I presume, the calendar has grown up spontaneously to its
+present degree of perfection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Mr. Wolston, but some one must have laid the first plank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The motions of the sun, moon, and stars would, in all probability,
+suggest to the early inhabitants of our globe a natural means of
+measuring time. God, in creating the heavenly bodies, seems to have
+reflected that man would require some index to regulate his labors and
+the acts of his civil life. The primary and most elementary
+subdivisions of time are day and night, and it demanded no great
+stretch of human ingenuity to divide the day into two sections, called
+forenoon and afternoon, or into twelve sections, called hours. Such
+subdivisions of time would probably suggest themselves simultaneously
+to all the nations of the earth. Necessity, who is the mother of all
+invention, doubtless called the germs of our calendar into existence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, so far as the days and hours are concerned. There are other
+divisions&mdash;weeks, for example.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The division of time into weeks is a matter that belongs entirely to
+revelation; the Jews keep the last day of every seven as a day of
+rest, in accordance with the law of Moses, and the Christians dedicate
+the first day of every seven to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then there are months.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The month is another natural division. The return of the moon in
+conjunction with the sun, was observed to occur at regular intervals
+of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and some minutes. This interval is
+called the <i>lunar month</i>, which for a long time was regarded as the
+radical unit in the admeasurement of time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the year is now the unit, is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, in course of time the moon, in this respect, gave place to the
+sun. It was observed that the earth, in performing her revolution
+round the sun, always arrived at the same point of her orbit at the
+end of three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, fifty-eight
+minutes, and forty-five seconds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does the earth invariably pass the same point at that interval?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, invariably; and the interval in question is termed the solar
+year.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;the perseverance of the earth is very
+much to be admired. It goes on eternally, always performing the same
+journey, never deviates from its path, and is never a minute too
+late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If the earth had performed her annual voyage in a certain number of
+entire days, the solar year would have been an exact unit of time; but
+the odd fraction defied all our systems of calculation. Originally, we
+reckoned the year to consist of three hundred and sixty-five days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And left the fraction to shift for itself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but the consequence was, that the civil year was always nearly a
+quarter of a day behind; so that at the end of a hundred and
+twenty-one years the civil year had become an entire month behind. The
+first month of winter found itself in autumn, the first month of
+spring in the middle of winter, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rather a lubberly sort of log, that,&quot; remarked Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This confusion became, with time, more and more embarrassing. Another
+evil was, likewise, eventually to be apprehended, for it was seen
+that, on the expiring of fourteen hundred and sixty revolutions of the
+earth round the sun, fourteen hundred and sixty-one civil years would
+be counted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But where would have been the evil?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All relations between the dates and the seasons would have been
+obliterated, astronomical calculations would have become inaccurate,
+and the calendar virtually useless.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Willis, you that are so fertile in ideas, what would you have
+done in such a case?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I! Why I scarcely know&mdash;perhaps run out a fresh cable and commenced a
+new log.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your remedy,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;might, perhaps, have obviated the
+difficulty; but Julius C&aelig;sar thought of another that answered the
+purpose equally well. It was simply to add to every fourth civil year
+an additional day, making it to consist of three hundred and sixty-six
+instead of three hundred and sixty-five, This supplementary day was
+given to the month of February.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why February?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because February, at that time, was reckoned the last month of the
+year. It was only in the reign of Charles IX. of France, or in the
+second half of the sixteenth century, that the civil year was made to
+begin on the 1st of January. As the end of February was five days
+before the 1st or kalends of March, the extra day was known by the
+phrase <i>bis sexto</i> (<i>ante</i>) <i>calendus martii</i>. Hence the fourth year
+is termed in the calendar <i>bissextile</i>, but is more usually called by
+us in England <i>leap year</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The remedy is certainly simple; but are your figures perfectly
+square? If you add a day every four years, do you not overleap the
+earth's fraction?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, from ten to eleven minutes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what becomes of these minutes? Are they allowed to run up another
+score?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not exactly. In 1582, the civil year had got ten clear days the
+start of the solar year, and Pope Gregory XIII. resolved to cancel
+them, which he effected by calling the day after the 4th of October
+the 15th.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That manner of altering the rig and squaring the yards,&quot; said Willi
+laughing, &quot;would make the people that lived then ten days older. If it
+had been ten years, the matter would have been serious. Had the Pope
+said to me privately, 'Willis, you are now only forty-seven, but
+to-morrow, my boy, you will fill your sails and steer right into
+fifty-seven,' I should have turned 'bout ship and cleared off. Few men
+care about being put upon a short allowance of life, any more than we
+sailors on short rations of rum.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your
+age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a
+latitude than Mr. Julius C&aelig;sar&mdash;but what are you laughing at?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing; only Julius C&aelig;sar is not generally honored with the prefix
+<i>Mr</i>. It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of <i>Sir
+Newton</i> and <i>Mr. William Shakespeare</i>; the latter, however, by way of
+amends, they sometimes style the <i>immortal Williams</i>.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed
+the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder. But who
+was Julius C&aelig;sar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Julius C&aelig;sar,&quot; replied Jack, sententiously, &quot;was first of all an
+author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin
+Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England,
+and gave <i>Mr.</i> Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He must have been a clever fellow to do all that; still, my idea
+continues the same. When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to
+have finished the business in a workmanlike manner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, however,&quot; continued Wolston, &quot;he left to Pope Gregory, who
+decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries.
+Thus, the years 1700 and 1800, which should have been leap years, did
+not reckon the extra day; so the years 2000 and 2400 will likewise be
+deprived of their supplementary four-and-twenty hours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is one difficulty about this mode of stowing away extra days;
+these leap years may be forgotten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not if you keep in mind that leap years alone admit of being divided
+by four.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did the Pope manage to get entirely rid of the fraction?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not entirely; but the error does not exceed one day in four thousand
+years, and is so small that it is not likely to derange ordinary
+calculations; and so, Willis, you now know the origin of the calendar,
+and likewise how time came to be divided into weeks, months, and
+years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have only spoken of the Christian calendar,&quot; remarked Ernest.
+&quot;There have been several other systems in use. Those curious people
+that call themselves the children of the sun and moon, possess a mode
+of reckoning that carries them back to a period anterior to the
+creation of the world. Then, the Greeks computed by Olympiads, or
+periods of four years. The Romans reckoned by lustri of five years,
+the first of which corresponds with the 117th year of the foundation
+of Rome.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when does our calendar begin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It dates only from the birth of Christ, but may be carried back to
+the creation, which event, to the best of our knowledge, occurred four
+thousand and four years before the birth of our Savior. This period,
+added to the date of the present, or any future year, gives us, as
+nearly as we can ascertain, the interval that has elapsed since our
+first parents found themselves in the garden of Eden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our calendar,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;appears simple enough; it is to be
+regretted that there have been, and are, so many other modes of
+reckoning extant. What with the Greek Olympiads, the Roman lustres,
+the Mahometan hegira, and Chinese moonshine, there is nothing but
+perplexity and confusion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is possible, however,&quot; said Becker, &quot;to accommodate all these
+systems with each other. Leaving the Chinese out of the question, we
+have only to bear in mind, that the Christian era begins on the first
+year of the 194th Olympiad, 753 years after the building of Rome, and
+622 years before the Mahometan hegira. These three figures will serve
+us as flambeaux to all the dates of both ancient and modern history.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The discourse was here interrupted by Toby, who entered the room, and
+was gleefully frisking and bounding round Mary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really,&quot; observed Mrs. Becker, &quot;Toby does seem to know that this is
+New Year's Day, he looks so lively and so smart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The animal, in point of fact, wore a new collar, and seemed conscious
+that he was more than usually attractive that particular morning. At a
+sign from Mary, the intelligent brute went and wagged his tail to
+Fritz. Hereupon the young man, observing the collar more closely,
+noticed the following words embroidered upon it: <i>I belong now
+entirely to Master Fritz, who rescued my mistress from the sea</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Miss Wolston,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;you forget I only did my duty; you
+must not allow your gratitude to over-estimate the service I rendered
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I declare,&quot; cried Mrs. Wolston, laughing &quot;here is another
+animal that speaks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The age of Aesop revived,&quot; suggested Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you say, Master Jack?&quot; inquired Mrs. Wolston. &quot;Do you suppose
+that Toby has learned embroidery in the same way that the parrot
+learned grammar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, more astonishing things than that have happened! Mr. Wolston
+there will tell you that he has seen a wooden figure playing at chess;
+why, therefore, should the most sagacious of all the brutes not learn
+knitting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I fear, in speaking so highly of the dog,&quot; replied Mrs. Wolston, &quot;you
+are doing injustice to other animals. Marvellous instances of
+sagacity, gratitude, and affection, have been shown by other brutes
+beside the dog. A horse of Caligula's was elevated to the dignified
+office of consul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and talking of the affection of animals,&quot; observed Ernest, &quot;puts
+me in mind of an anecdote related by Aulus Gellius. It seems that a
+little boy, the son of a fisher man, who had to go from Bai&aelig; to his
+school at Puzzoli, used to stop at the same hour each day on the brink
+of the Lucrine lake. Here he often threw a bit of his breakfast to a
+Dolphin that he called Simon, and if the creature was not waiting for
+him when he arrived, he had only to pronounce this name, and it
+instantly appeared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing very wonderful in that,&quot; said Jack; &quot;the common gudgeon,
+which is the stupidest fish to be found in fresh water, would do that
+much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but listen a moment. The dolphin, after having received his
+pittance, presented his back to the boy, after having tacked in all
+his spines and prickles as well as he could, and carried him right
+across the lake, thus saving the little fellow a long roundabout walk;
+and not only that, but after school hours it was waiting to carry him
+back again. This continued almost daily for a year or two; but at last
+the boy died, and the dolphin, after waiting day after day for his
+reappearance, pined away, and was found dead at the usual place of
+rendezvous. The affectionate creature was taken out of the lake, and
+buried beside its friend.<a name='FNanchor_D_4'></a><a href='#Footnote_D_4'><sup>[D]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, on the other hand,&quot; added Jack, &quot;if animals sometimes attach
+themselves to us, we attach ourselves to them. We are told that
+Crassus wore mourning for a dead ferret, the death of which grieved
+him as much as if it had been his own daughter.<a name='FNanchor_E_5'></a><a href='#Footnote_E_5'><sup>[E]</sup></a> Augustus crucified
+one of his slaves, who had roasted and eaten a quail, that had fought
+and conquered in the circus.<a name='FNanchor_F_6'></a><a href='#Footnote_F_6'><sup>[F]</sup></a> Antonia, daughter-in-law of Tiberius,
+fastened ear-rings to some lampreys that she was passionately fond
+of.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_G_7'></a><a href='#Footnote_G_7'><sup>[G]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, at all events, was attachment in one sense of the word,&quot; said
+Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Without reference to the dog in particular,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;proofs
+of sagacity in animals are very numerous. The nautilus, when he wants
+to take an airing, capsizes his shell, and converts it into a gondola;
+then he hoists a thin membrane that serves for a sail; two of his
+arms are resolved into oars, and his tail performs the functions of a
+rudder. There are insects ingenious enough to make dwellings for
+themselves in the body of a leaf as thin as paper. At the approach of
+a storm some spiders take in a reef or two of their webs, so as to be
+less at the mercy of the wind. Beavers will erect walls, and construct
+houses more skilfully than our ablest architects. Chimpanzees have
+been known spontaneously to sit themselves down, and perform the
+operation of shaving.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop, Jack,&quot; cried Mrs. Wolston; &quot;I must yield to such a deluge of
+argument, and admit that Toby may have acquired the art of embroidery
+with or without a master, only I should like to see some other
+specimen of his skill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Probably you will by-and-by,&quot; replied Jack, laughing, &quot;if you keep
+your eyes open.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Sophia came into the room leading her gazelle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, just in time,&quot; said Mrs. Wolston; &quot;here is another animal that
+probably has something to say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wrong, mamma,&quot; replied Sophia; &quot;my gazelle is as mute as a mermaid.
+Very provoking, is it not, when all the other animals in the house
+talk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You had better apply to Master Jack; he may, probably, be able to hit
+upon a plan to make your gazelle communicative.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will you, Master Jack?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, Miss Sophia. The plan I would suggest is very simple. Feed
+him for a week or two with nouns, adjectives, and verbs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Sophia, addressing her gazelle, said, &quot;Master Jack Becker is a
+goose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Fritz was leaning on the back of Mary's chair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Wolston,&quot; said he, &quot;did you not tell me that you had brought
+Toby up, and that you were very fond of him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Fritz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then it would be unfair in me to withdraw his allegiance from you
+now, and, consequently, I must refuse your present&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But where would have been the merit of the gift if I did not hold
+him in some esteem? Besides, I thought you were fond of Toby.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So I am, Miss Wolston.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you will not be indebted to me for anything&mdash;I owe you much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No such thing; you owe me nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My life, then, is nothing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I did not mean that; I must beg your pardon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which I will only grant on condition you accept my gift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, if you insist upon it, I will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can see him as before; the only difference will be that you are his
+master, in all other respects he will belong to us both.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I know what your knight-errant is saying to you, Mary?&quot; inquired
+Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I have been so angry with him; he was going to refuse my
+present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was very naughty of him, certainly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He has, however, consented, like a dutiful squire, to obey my
+behests.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, mother, Toby is henceforth to be divided between us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Divided?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; that is, he is to be nominally mine, but virtually to belong to
+us both. Is it not so, Miss Wolston?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Master Fritz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On his side, Jack had approached Miss Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you won't give me your gazelle?&quot; he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, certainly not, Mr. Jack,&quot; replied Sophia; &quot;if you had saved my
+life, as Fritz saved my sister's, I should then have had the right to
+make you a present. But you know it is not my fault.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor mine either,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps not; but if I had fallen into the sea, you would have allowed
+the sharks to swallow me, would you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I only wish we had been attacked by a hyena or a bear on our way to
+Waldeck.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God be thanked, that we were not!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, but look here, Miss Sophia; let me paint the scene. You have
+fainted, as a matter of course, and fallen prostrate on the ground,
+insensible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is likely enough, if we had encountered one of the animals you
+mention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I throw myself between you and the savage brute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Supposing you were not half a mile off at the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fear of that&mdash;he rises, on his hind legs, and glares.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it a hyena or a bear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, whichever you like&mdash;he opens his jaws, and growls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like the wolf at Little Red Riding Hood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I plunge my arm down his throat and choke him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Clever, very; but are you not wounded?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I beg your pardon, however; all my thoughts are centred in you&mdash;I
+think of nothing else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am insensible, am I not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, more than ever&mdash;we all run towards you, and exert ourselves to
+bring you back to your senses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I come to life again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, stop a bit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it is tiresome to be so long insensible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My mother has luckily a bottle of salts, which she holds to your
+nose&mdash;I run off to the nearest brook, and return with water in the
+crown of my cap, with which I bathe your temples.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, in that case, I should open one eye at least. Which eye is opened
+first after fainting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I really don't know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, to avoid mistakes, I should open both.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is only then, when I find you are recovering, that I discover the
+brute has severely bitten my arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then comes my turn to nurse you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You express your thanks in your sweetest tones, and I forget my
+wounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sweet tones do no harm, if they are accompanied with salves and
+ointment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In short, I am obliged to carry my arm in a sling for three months
+after.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that not rather long?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; because your arm, in some sort, supplies, meantime, the place of
+mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your picture has, at least, the merit of being poetic. Is it
+finished?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not till next New Year's Day, when you present me with an embroidered
+scarf, as the ladies of yore used to do to the knights that defended
+them from dragons and that sort of thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a pity all this should be only a dream!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I am not particularly extravagant, at all events; others dream
+of fortune, honor, and glory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whilst you confine your aspirations to a bear, a bite, and a scarf.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see nothing was wanted but the opportunity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And foresight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Foresight?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; if you had previously made arrangements with a bear, the whole
+scene might have been realized.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are joking, whilst I am taking the matter <i>au serieux</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That order is usually reversed; generally you are the quiz and I am
+the quizzee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will admit, at all events, that I would not have permitted the
+bear to eat you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Sophia burst into a peal of laughter, and vanished with her
+gazelle.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_D_4'></a><a href='#FNanchor_D_4'>[D]</a> Aulus Gellius, VII., 8.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_E_5'></a><a href='#FNanchor_E_5'>[E]</a> Macrobius, <i>Saturn</i>, XL, 4.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_F_6'></a><a href='#FNanchor_F_6'>[F]</a> Plutarch.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_G_7'></a><a href='#FNanchor_G_7'>[G]</a> Pliny, IX., 53.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XVI'></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<p>SEPARATION&mdash;GUELPHS AND GHIBELINES&mdash;MONTAGUES AND
+CAPULETS&mdash;SADNESS&mdash;THE REUNION&mdash;JOCKO AND HIS EDUCATION&mdash;THE
+ENTERTAINMENTS OF A KING&mdash;THE MULES OF NERO AND THE ASSES OF
+POPP&AElig;A&mdash;HERCULES AND ACHILLES&mdash;LIBERTY AND EQUALITY&mdash;SEMIRAMIS AND
+ELIZABETH&mdash;CHRISTIANITY AND THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER&mdash;THE WILLISONIAN
+METHOD&mdash;MORAL DISCIPLINE VERSUS BIRCH.</p>
+
+<p>Winter was now drawing near, with its storms and deluges. Becker
+therefore felt that it was necessary to make some alterations in their
+domestic arrangements; and he saw that, for this season at all events,
+the two families must be separated&mdash;this was to create a desert within
+a desert; but propriety and convenience demanded the sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided that Wolston and his family should be quartered at
+Rockhouse, whilst Becker and his family should pass the rainy season
+at Falcon's Nest, where, though these aerial dwellings were but
+indifferently adapted for winter habitations, they had passed the
+first year of their sojourn in the colony. The rains came and
+submerged the country between the two families, thus, for a time,
+cutting off all communication between them. The barriers that
+separated the Guelphs from the Ghibelines, the Montagues from the
+Capulets, the Burgundians from the Armagnacs, and the House of York
+from that of Lancaster, could not have been more impenetrable than
+that which now existed between the Wolstons and Beckers.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever a lull occurred in the storm, or a ray of sunshine shot
+through the murky clouds, all eyes were mechanically turned to the
+window, but only to turn them away again with a sigh; so completely
+had the waters invaded the land, that nothing short of the dove from
+Noah's Ark could have performed the journey between Rockhouse and
+Falcon's Nest.</p>
+
+<p>Dulness and dreariness reigned triumphant at both localities. The calm
+tranquility that Becker's family formerly enjoyed under similar
+circumstances had fled. They felt that happiness was no longer to be
+enjoyed within the limits of their own circle. Study and conversation
+lost their charms; and if they laughed now, the smile never extended
+beyond the tips of their lips. The young people often wished they
+possessed Fortunatus's cap, or Aladdin's wonderful lamp, to transport
+them from the one dwelling to the other; but as they could obtain no
+such occult mode of conveyance, there was no remedy for their miseries
+but patience. To the Wolstons this interval of compulsory separation
+was particularly irksome, as this was the first time in their lives
+that they had been entirely isolated for any length of time.</p>
+
+<p>At Falcon's Nest, Ernest was the most popular member of the domestic
+circle. His astronomical predilections made him the Sir Oracle of the
+storm, and he was constantly being asked for information relative to
+the progress and probable duration of the rains. Every morning he was
+called upon for a report as to the state of the weather; but, with all
+his skill, he could afford them very little consolation.</p>
+
+<p>But all things come to an end, as well as regards our troubles as our
+joys. One morning, Ernest reported that less rain had fallen during
+the preceding than any former night of the season; the next morning a
+still more favorable report was presented; and on the third morning
+the floods had subsided, but had left a substratum of mud that
+obliterated all traces of the roads. Notwithstanding this, and a smart
+shower that continued to fall, Fritz and Jack determined to force a
+passage to Rockhouse.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening, the two young men returned, soaking with wet and
+covered with mud, but with light hearts, for they had found their
+companions in the enjoyment of perfect health and in the best spirits.
+They brought back with them a missive, couched in the following
+terms:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, greeting, desire the favor of Mr. and Mrs.
+Becker's company to dinner, together with their entire family, this
+day se'nnight, weather permitting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ernest was hereupon consulted, and stated that, in so far as the rain
+was concerned, they should in eight days be able to undertake the
+journey to Rockhouse. This assurance was not, however, entirely relied
+upon, for between this and then many an anxious eye was turned
+skywards, as if in search of some more conclusive evidence. Those who
+possess a garden&mdash;and he who has not, were it only a box of
+mignionette at the window&mdash;will often have observed, in consequence of
+absence or forgetfulness, that their flowers have begun to droop; they
+hasten to sprinkle them with water, then watch anxiously for signs of
+their revival. So both families continued unceasingly during these
+eight days to note the ever-varying modifications of the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>At length the much wished-for day arrived; the morning broke with a
+blaze of sunshine, and though hidden with a dense mist, the ground was
+sufficiently hardened to bear their weight. Wolston awaited his guests
+at a bridge of planks that had been thrown across the Jackal River,
+where he and Willis had erected a sort of triumphal arch of mangoe
+leaves and palm branches. Here Becker and his family were welcomed, as
+if the one party had just arrived from Tobolsk, and the other from
+Chandernagor, after an absence of ten years.</p>
+
+<p>Another warm reception awaited them at Rockhouse, where an abundant
+repast was already spread in the gallery. Mrs. Becker had often
+intended to work herself a pair of gloves, but the increasing demand
+for stockings had hitherto prevented her. She was pleased, therefore,
+on sitting down to dinner, to discover a couple of pairs under her
+plate, with her own initials embroidered upon them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; said she, &quot;I was almost afraid I had lost my daughters, but I
+have found them again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After dinner the girls showed her a quantity of cotton they had spun,
+which proved that, though they might have been dull, they had, at
+least, been industrious.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mary span the most of it,&quot; said Sophia; &quot;but you know, Mrs. Becker,
+she is the biggest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, then,&quot; said Jack, &quot;the power of spinning depends upon the bulk
+of the spinner?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Master Jack, I thought you had been ill, that you had not
+commenced quizzing us before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind him, Soffy,&quot; said her father; &quot;to quote Hudibras,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&quot;There's nothing on earth hath so perfect a phiz,<br/>
+As not to give birth to a passable quiz.&quot;
+</p>
+
+<p>Here Willis led in the chimpanzee, who made a grimace to the assembled
+company.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, ladies and gentlemen,&quot; said Willis, &quot;Jocko is about to show you
+the progress he has made in splicing and bracing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good!&quot; said Becker, &quot;you have been able to make something of him,
+then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will see presently. Jocko, bring me a plate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon the chimpanzee seized a bottle of Rockhouse malaga, and
+filled a glass.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He has erred on the safe side there,&quot; said Jack, drily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; added Willis, laughing, &quot;we must let that pass. Jocko,&quot; said
+he, assuming a sententious tone, &quot;I asked you for a plate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The chimpanzee looked at him, hesitated a moment, then seized the
+glass, and drank the contents off at a single draught. A box on the
+ears then sent him gibbering into a corner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your servant,&quot; remarked Mrs. Wolston, &quot;has been taking lessons from
+Dean Swift as well as yourself, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will serve him out for that, the swab; he does not play any of
+those tricks when we are alone. I must admit, however, that I am
+generally in the habit of helping myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here attention was called to the parrot, who was screaming out
+lustily, &quot;I love Mary, I love Sophia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa,&quot; exclaimed Fritz, &quot;Polly loves everybody now, does she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you see,&quot; replied Sophia, &quot;I grew tired of hearing him scream
+always that he loved my sister, so by means of a little coaxing, and a
+good deal of sugar, I got him to love me too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The poultry were next mustered for the inspection of their old
+masters. These did not consist of the ordinary domestic fowls alone;
+amongst them were a beautiful flamingo, some cranes, bustards, and a
+variety of tame tropical birds. With the fowls came the pigeons, which
+were perching about them in all directions.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are now something like the court of France in the fourteenth
+century,&quot; said Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How so?&quot; inquired Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the reign of Charles V., they were obliged to place a trellis at
+the windows of the Palace of St. Paul to prevent the poultry from
+invading the dining room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rural anyhow,&quot; observed Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course, most other features of the palace were in unison with this
+primitive state of matters. The courtiers sat on stools. There was
+only one chair in the palace, that was the arm-chair of the king,
+which was covered with red leather, and ornamented with silk fringes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So that we may console ourselves with the reflection, that we are as
+comfortable here as kings were at that epoch in Europe,&quot; remarked
+Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; historians report, that when Alphonso V. of Portugal went to
+Paris to solicit the aid of Louis XI. against the King of Arragon, who
+had taken Castile from him, the French monarch received him with great
+honor, and endeavored to make his stay as agreeable as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Reviews, I suppose, feasts, tournaments, spectacles, and so forth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A residence was assigned him in the Rue de Prouvaires, at the house
+of one Laurent Herbelot, a grocer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! amongst dried peas and preserved plums?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Precisely; but the house of Herbelot might then have been one of the
+most commodious buildings in all Paris. Alphonso was afterwards
+conducted to the palace, where he pleaded his cause before the king.
+Next day he was entertained at the archiepiscopal residence, where he
+witnessed the induction of a doctor in theology. The day after that a
+procession to the university was organized, which passed under the
+grocer's windows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These were singular marvels to entertain a king withal,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such were the amusements peculiar to the epoch. It must be observed
+that the Louis in question was somewhat close-fisted, and rarely drew
+his purse-strings unless he was certain of a good interest for his
+money. But courts in those days were very simple and frugal. The
+sumptuary laws of Philip le Bel (1285) had fixed supper at three
+dishes and a lard soup. The king's own dinner was likewise limited to
+three dishes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These three dishes might, however, have yielded a better repast than
+the fifty-two saucers of the Chinese,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one could obtain permission to give his wife four dresses a year,
+unless he had an income of six thousand francs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What business had the laws to interfere with these things, I should
+like to know?&quot; inquired Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Those who possessed two thousand francs income were only allowed to
+wear one dress a year, the cloth for which was not permitted to exceed
+tenpence a yard; but ladies of rank could go as high as fifteen
+pence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Philip le Bel must have been an old woman,&quot; insisted Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No private citizen was permitted to use a carriage, and such persons
+were likewise interdicted the use of flambeaux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They were permitted to break their necks at all events, that is
+something.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In England, the same primitive simplicity prevailed; Queen Elizabeth
+is said to have breakfasted on a gallon of ale, her dining-room floor
+was strewn every day with fresh straw or rushes, and she had only one
+pair of silk stockings in her entire wardrobe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At the same time,&quot; observed Ernest, &quot;these usages stand in singular
+contradiction to those that prevailed at an earlier age. The supper of
+Lucullus rarely cost him less than thirty thousand francs, and he
+could entertain five and twenty thousand guests. Six citizens of Rome
+possessed a great part of Africa. Domitius had an estate in France of
+eighty thousand acres.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Poor fellow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When Nero went to Baize he was accompanied by a thousand chariots and
+two thousand mules caparisoned with silver. Popp&aelig;a followed him with
+five hundred she asses to furnish milk for her bath. Cicero purchased
+a dining-room table that cost him a million sesterces, or about two
+hundred thousand francs. I can understand the progress of
+civilization, and I can also understand civilization remaining
+stationary for a given period; but I cannot understand why a citizen
+of ancient Rome should be able to lodge twenty-five thousand men,
+whilst a king of France could scarcely keep the ducks from waddling
+about his apartments, and a queen of England could fare no better than
+a ploughman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If,&quot; replied Frank, &quot;there were no other criterion of civilization
+than luxury and riches, you would have good grounds for surprise; but
+such is not the case. Between ancient and modern times, Christianity
+arose, and that has tended in some degree to keep down the ostentation
+of the rich, and to augment, at the same time, the comforts of the
+poor. In place of the heroes, Hercules and Achilles, we have had the
+apostles Peter and Paul; so Luther and Calvin have been substituted
+for Semiramis and Nero. Pride has given place to charity, and
+corruption to virtue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Would that it were so, Frank,&quot; continued Ernest. &quot;Christianity has,
+doubtless, effected many beneficial changes, and produced many able
+men; but in this last respect antiquity has not been behind. It has
+also its sages: Thales, Socrates, and Pythagoras, for example.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True,&quot; replied Frank, &quot;antiquity has produced some virtuous men, but
+their virtue was ideal, and their creed a dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the Stoics?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Stoics despised suffering, and Christians resign themselves to
+its chastisements; this constitutes one of the lines of demarcation
+between ancient and modern theology.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But there were many signal instances of virtue manifested in ancient
+times.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but for the most part, it was either exaggerated or false;
+unyielding pride, obstinate courage, implacable resentment of
+injuries. Errors promenaded in robes under the porticos. Ambition was
+honored in Alexander, suicide in Cato, and assassination in Brutus.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what say you to Plato?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The immolation of ill-formed children, and of those born without the
+permission of the laws, prosecution of strangers and slavery; such
+were the basis of his boasted republic, and the gospel of his
+philosophy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, then, are these men held up as models for our imitation?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because they are distant and dead; likewise, because they were, in
+many respects, great and wise, considering the paganism and darkness
+with which they were surrounded. Life was then only sacred to the few;
+the many were treated as beasts of burden. The Emperor Claudian even
+felt bound to issue an edict prohibiting slaves from being slain <i>when
+they were old and feeble</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which leaves a margin for us to suppose that they might be slain when
+they were young and strong,&quot; observed Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the constitution of Constantine certain cases were defined, where
+a master might suspend his slave by the feet, have him torn by wild
+beasts, or tortured by slow fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does slavery and its horrors not still exist, for example, in Russia
+and the United States of America?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Slavery does exist, to the great disgrace of modern civilization, in
+the countries you mention; but, so far as I am aware, its horrors are
+not recognized by the laws.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, Mr. Frank,&quot; said Wolston, &quot;I am very sorry to be under the
+necessity of contradicting you. I have visited the slave states of
+North America, and have witnessed atrocities perhaps less brutal, but
+not less heart-rending, than those you mention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But do the laws recognize them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, tacitly; the testimony of the slaves themselves is not received
+as evidence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do a people that call their county a refuge for the down-trodden
+nations of Europe suffer such abominations?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, according to themselves, it is entirely a question of the
+<i>almighty dollar</i>. If there were no slaves, the swamps and morasses of
+the south could not be cultivated. It has been found that the negro
+will dance, and sing, and starve, but he will not work in the fields
+when free. Besides, they assert, that the slaves are generally well
+cared for, and that it is only a few detestable masters that beat them
+cruelly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, at all events, dollars are preferred to humanity by the United
+States men, in spite of their vaunted emblems&mdash;liberty and equality.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite so. In all matters of internal policy, the dollar reigns
+supreme.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Admitting,&quot; continued Frank, &quot;that the evils of slavery may exist in
+a section of the American Union, and amongst the barbarous hordes of
+Russia, these evils are trifling in comparison with others that stain
+the annals of antiquity. We are told that a hundred and twenty persons
+applied to Otho to be rewarded for killing Galba. That so many men
+should contend for the honor of premeditated murder, is sufficiently
+characteristic of the epoch. There was then no corruption, no brutal
+passion, that had not its temple and its high priest. In the midst of
+all this wickedness and vice there appeared a man, poor and humble,
+who accomplished what no man ever did before, and what no man will
+ever do again&mdash;he founded a moral and eternal civilization. Judaism
+and the religion of Zoroaster were overthrown. The gods of Tyre and
+Carthage were destroyed. The beliefs of Miltiades and of Pericles, of
+Scipio and Seneca, were disavowed. The thousands that flocked annually
+to worship the Eleusinian Ceres ceased their pilgrimage. Odin and his
+disciples have all perished. The very language of Osiris, which was
+afterwards spoken by the Ptolemies, is no longer known to his
+descendants. The paganisms which still exist in the East are rapidly
+yielding to the march of western intelligence. Christianity alone,
+amidst all these ring and fallen fabrics, retains its original
+vitality, for, like its author, it is imperishable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a curious thing what we call conversation,&quot; observed Mrs.
+Wolston. &quot;No sooner is one subject broached than another is
+introduced; and we go on from one thing to another until the original
+idea is lost sight of. Leaving the palace of Charles V., to go with
+the King of Portugal to a grocer's shop in some street or other of
+Paris, we cross the Alps, the Himalaya, and the Atlantic. Lucullus,
+Nero, Achilles, Peter, Paul, Tyre and Sidon, Semiramis and
+Elizabeth&mdash;queens, saints, and philosophers, are all passed in review,
+and why? Because the pigeons put my husband in mind of the Palace of
+St. Paul!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No wonder,&quot; observed Jack; &quot;these pigeons are carriers, and naturally
+suggest wandering.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Once more seated round the table, Fritz, observing that the
+misunderstanding between Willis and the chimpanzee still continued,
+thrust a plate into the hand of the latter, and pointed with his
+finger to Willis. This time Jocko obeyed, for the language was
+intelligible, and he went and placed the plate before his master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho, ho!&quot; cried Willis, &quot;so you have come to your senses at last, have
+you? Well, that saves you an extra lesson to-morrow, you lubber you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He takes rather long to obey your orders, though, Willis; it is
+rather awkward to wait an hour for anything you ask for. What system
+do you pursue in educating him&mdash;the Pestalozzian or the parochial?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We follow the system in fashion aboard ship,&quot; replied Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what does that consist of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A rope's end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, then, you are an advocate for the birch, are you?&quot; said Wolston;
+&quot;it is, doubtless, a very good thing when moderately and judiciously
+administered. That puts me in mind of the missionary and the king of
+the Kuruman negroes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A tribe of Southern Africa, is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, the missionary and the king were great friends. The king not
+only permitted him to baptize his subjects, but offered to whip them
+all into Christianity in a week. This summary mode of proselytism did
+not, however, coincide with the Englishman's ideas, and he refused the
+offer, although the king insisted that it was the only kind of
+argument that could ever reach their understandings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The day at length drew to a close, and, though no one asked the time
+yet all felt that the moment of departure was approaching; whether
+they were willing to go was doubtful, but at they were loth to depart
+was certain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is time to return now,&quot; said Becker, rising.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Already!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are some clouds in the distance that bode no good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing more than a little rain at worst,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And your mother?&quot; inquired Decker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! we can make a palanquin for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your plan, Jack, is not particularly bright; it puts me in mind of
+some genius or other that took shelter in the water to keep out of the
+wet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very odd,&quot; said Jack, &quot;we are always wishing for rain, and when it
+comes, we do all we can to keep out of its way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is, because we are neither green pease nor gooseberries,&quot; said
+Ernest, drily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, brother; and as the rain is your affair, perhaps you will be
+good enough to delay it for an hour or so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am sorry on my own account, as well as yours, that I have not yet
+discovered the art of controlling the skies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Fritz whispered a few words in his mother's ear, that called up
+one of those ineffable smiles that the maternal heart alone can
+produce.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, &quot;if you think so, deliver the message
+yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Wolston,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;I am charged to invite you and your
+family to Falcon's Nest this day week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The invitation is accepted, unless my daughters have any objections
+to urge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How can you fancy such a thing, mamma?&quot; said both girls.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fact is, that my daughters have got such a dread of cold water,
+that they dread to wet the soles of their shoes, unless one or other
+of you gentlemen is within hail.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mamma does so love to tease us,&quot; said Mary; &quot;we are afraid of nothing
+but putting you to inconvenience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, in that case, we shall be at Falcon's Nest on the appointed
+day, unless the roads are positively submerged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case,&quot; said Jack, &quot;a line of canoes will be placed upon the
+highway, between the two localities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the prospect of a prize incites the young scholar to increased
+exertion&mdash;as the prospect of worldly honors urges the ambitious man on
+in his career&mdash;as the oasis cheers the weary traveller on his journey
+through the desert, and makes him forget hunger and thirst&mdash;as the
+dreams of comfort and home warm the blood of a wayfarer amongst snow
+and ice&mdash;as hope smooths the ruggedness of poverty and softens the
+calamities of adversity, so the prospect of meeting again mitigates
+the regrets of parting.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XVII'></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<p>WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY&mdash;MUCIUS SC&AElig;VOLA&mdash;WHAT'S TO BE
+DONE?&mdash;BRUTUS TORQUATUS AND PETER THE GREAT&mdash;AUSTRALIA, BOTANY BAY,
+AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN&mdash;NEW GUINEA AND THE BUCCANEER&mdash;VANCOUVER'S
+ISLAND&mdash;WHITE SKINS&mdash;DANGER OF LANDING ON A WAVE&mdash;HANGED OR
+DROWNED&mdash;ROUTE TO HAPPINESS&mdash;OMENS.</p>
+
+<p>The old saw, <i>Where there's a will there's a way</i>, means&mdash;if it means
+anything&mdash;that a great deal may be effected by energy. A man without
+energy is a helpless character, and invariably lags behind his fellow
+mortals in the stream of life; like a cork in an eddy, he is rebuffed
+here and jostled there, and goes on travelling in a circle to the end
+of the chapter. Not so the man of action; no jostling thwarts him, no
+rebuffs retard him; he breaks through all sorts of obstacles, and
+floats along with the current.</p>
+
+<p>Such a man was Becker. Though surrounded with dangers, and harassed by
+the elements, almost alone he had converted a wilderness into fertile
+fields; he pursued the track that his judgment suggested, and followed
+it up with invincible resolution; he manfully resisted the severest
+trials, and cheerfully bore the heaviest burdens; his reliance on
+Truth or Virtue and on God were unfaltering; but had he provided for
+every emergency? Is mortal power capable of overcoming every
+difficulty? We shall see.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two after the entertainment at Rockhouse, Becker whispered to
+the Pilot&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis, take a rifle, and come along with me; I have something to say
+to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They walked a quarter of an hour or so without uttering a word, when
+Willis broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You seem sad, Mr. Becker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Willis, I am almost distracted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still, you seem well enough; you are as hale and hearty as if you
+had just been keel-hauled and got a new rig.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not my body that is suffering, Willis; it is my mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever is the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis, <i>my wife is dying</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so it was. For a long period Becker's wife had been a prey to
+racking pains, which, so to speak, she hid from herself, the better to
+conceal them from others, just as if suffering had been a crime. After
+having resisted for fourteen years the afflictions of exile, long and
+perilous expeditions, nights passed under tents, humid winters and
+fierce burning summers, her health had, at length, succumbed, not all
+at once, like fabrics sapped by gunpowder, but little by little, like
+those that are demolished piecemeal with the pickaxe of the workman.
+Day by day she grew more and more feeble, without those who were
+constantly by her side observing the insidious workings of disease.
+Like Mucius Sc&aelig;vola, who held his hands in a burning brazier without
+uttering a word, she so effectually hid her griefs within the recesses
+of her own bosom, that no one even suspected her illness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Mr. Becker,&quot; said Willis, &quot;I saw your wife this morning, and she
+seemed as well as usual.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, <i>seemed</i>, Willis, that is true enough; not to give us pain, she
+has concealed her illness from us all. It is only within the last
+twelve hours that I accidentally discovered that she has been long
+laboring under some fearful malady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know the nature of the disease?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, that I have no means of ascertaining; it may be a distinct form
+of disease, or it may be a complication of disorders, which I know
+not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would not signify about the name if we only knew a remedy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but I dread some malady of a cancerous type, which could not be
+eradicated without surgical skill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish I had been born a doctor instead of a pilot,&quot; sighed Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot see her perish before my eyes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly not, Mr. Becker; it would never do to allow a ship to sink
+if she can be saved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what is to be done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There lies the difficulty; had it been a question of anything that
+floats on the water, I might have suggested a remedy; but, in this
+case, I am fairly run aground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know too well what must be done, Willis. In cases of ordinary
+maladies, with care and due precaution, proper nourishment and time,
+Nature will generally effect a cure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nature has no diploma, but she accomplishes more cures than those
+that have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unfortunately this is not a malady that can be cured by such means;
+and, unless its progress be checked in time, it may ultimately assume
+a form that will render a cure impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is death, then, inevitable?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A patient may retain a languishing life under such circumstances for
+some time; but if the disease be cancer, a cure is hopeless without
+instruments and scientific skill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought I was the only wretched being in the colony,&quot; said Willis,
+sighing, &quot;but I find I am not alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are no hopes of the <i>Nelson</i>, are there?&quot; inquired Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None now; for some time Mr. Wolston and yourself almost persuaded me
+that she had escaped; but had she reached the Cape, we should have
+heard of her ere now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The probabilities of another vessel touching here are small, are they
+not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are not in the direct track to anywhere; therefore, unless a ship
+has been driven out of her course by a gale, there is not a chance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unfortunate that I am!&quot; exclaimed Becker, covering his face with his
+hands. &quot;Brutus, Manlius Torquatus, and Peter the Great, condemned
+their sons to death, but they were guilty; still the sacrifice must be
+made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Willis stared aghast, and began to fear Becker's intellect had
+been affected by his troubles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not exactly understand you, Mr. Becker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two of my sons have gone on before us; they were to embark in the
+canoe for Shark's Island, and wait for us there. I must have courage,
+and you also, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This exordium did not tend to alter the Pilot's impression. They
+walked on for some time in silence towards the coast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know the latitude and longitude of this coast, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good!&quot; thought the Pilot, &quot;he has changed the subject.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; we are in the South Sea, and no great distance from the line.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What continent is nearest us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We cannot be very far off the south coast of New Holland, or, as it
+is named in some charts, Australia. You know that the <i>Nelson</i> hailed
+from Botany Bay, or Sydney, as the convict colony which the English
+Government has just founded there is called.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How far do you suppose we are from Sydney?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I should say, with a fair wind and a smart craft, Sydney is not
+above two months' sail, if so much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is the coast inhabited?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What character do the inhabitants bear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to the Dutch sailors, who have been on the coast, they are
+the most plundering and lubberly set of rascals to be met with
+anywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are not acquainted with the use of fire-arms, are they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No not of fire-arms; but they have a machine of their own that they
+call a waddy, or something of that sort, which they throw like a
+harpoon; but the thing takes a twist in the air, and strikes behind
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is the coast accessible?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; it is fringed with reefs, and, in some places, the surf runs for
+miles out to sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The navigation along shore, then, is extremely perilous?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever can he be driving at?&quot; thought Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; such a lee shore in a gale would terrify the Flying Dutchman
+himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Becker shook his head dolefully, and they walked on a little
+further in silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What islands do you suppose are nearest us, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should say we are in or near the group marked in the chart
+Papuasia; beyond them is the territory of New Guinea, and a point to
+nor'ard are a whole nest of islands discovered by the celebrated
+buccaneer, Dampi&egrave;re.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And their inhabitants?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, some of them are pretty fair; but, taking them in the lump, they
+are a bad lot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The islands to the west are those discovered by Cook, Vancouver, and
+Bougainville, are they not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are marked Polynesia in the charts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know of any European settlements on these islands?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, there is a fort of the Hudson's Bay Company on Vancouver's
+Island, but that is a long way north; and, I believe, a factory has
+recently been anchored in New Zealand, but that is a long way south.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what are the principal islands between?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the
+Societies' Islands, the Marquesas, Tahite, and the Pelew Islands; but
+each navigator gives them a new name, so that it is hard to say which
+is which; all you can do is to say that there is an island in latitude
+so and so and longitude so and so, but the name is almost out of the
+question.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the natives?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some of them are remarkably tame, and trade freely with strangers;
+but others have strongly marked cannibal propensities, and dote upon a
+white-skin feast when they can get one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Becker shuddered, and uttered an exclamation of horror.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That would be a terrible fate, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever can he mean?&quot; thought the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis, to reach Europe from here, what course do you think would be
+best?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now I think I shall fix him at last,&quot; said the Pilot, levelling his
+rifle at an imaginary bird.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will only waste gunpowder,&quot; said Becker; &quot;I see nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You asked me just now what course I should steer for Europe, did you
+not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, the most direct course would be to make the Straits of
+Macassar, and then steer for Java.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You would then be fifteen or sixteen hundred leagues from the Cape.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that is about the distance in a straight line across the Indian
+Ocean. When at the Cape, another fifteen days' sail will bring you to
+the line; five or six weeks after that St. Helena will heave in sight;
+then you fall in with the Island of Ascension; leaving which a week or
+two will bring you to the Straits of Gibraltar, where you get the
+first glimpse of Europe. But if you are bound for England, your
+daughter may commence working a pair of slippers for you; they will be
+ready by the time you get there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had now arrived at the point of the Jackal River where the
+pinnace was moored.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you think of this boat?&quot; inquired Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The pinnace is well enough for fair weather; but it is not the sort
+of craft I should like to command in a storm at sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So that to venture to sea in it would be to incur imminent danger?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no denying that, Mr. Becker; if she shipped a moderately
+heavy sea, down she must go to the bottom, like a four and twenty
+pound shot; and if she should spring a leak, you cannot land to put
+her to rights; the waves are by no means solid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just as I thought!&quot; exclaimed Becker; &quot;I was right in judging that it
+would be a sacrifice. It is almost certain death; but they must go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To Europe if need be, if God in his mercy spares the pinnace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have the means of purchasing surgical skill, and I must use all the
+sacrifices at my command to obtain it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Avast heaving, Mr. Becker,&quot; cried Willis; &quot;now I understand; the
+thing is as clear as the tackle of the best bower, and when a
+resolution is once formed, nothing like paying it out at the word of
+command. When shall we start?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am not talking of either you or myself, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of whom then, may I ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fritz and Jack. Fritz knows something of navigation; and if they
+succeed, they will have saved their mother; if they perish, they will
+have died to save her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fritz, as you say, does know something of navigation, particularly as
+regards coasting; but here you have a pilot, accustomed to salt water,
+quite handy, why not engage him also?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis, you have yourself said that the undertaking is perilous in
+the extreme, and your life is not bound up like theirs in that of
+their mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but do you not see that I am sick of dry land, and that I am
+getting rusty for the want of a little sea air?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I felt ashamed to ask you to share in so desperate an enterprise,
+otherwise I would have proposed it to you, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you might have seen that I was growing thin, absolutely pining
+away, and drying up on land. There are ducks that can live without
+water, but I am not one of them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Am I, then, to understand that you offer to risk your life in this
+forlorn hope?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, Mr. Becker; a man condemned to be hanged, running the risk
+of being drowned is no great sacrifice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis, I accept your offer, to share in the dangers of this
+enterprise, most gratefully. I thank you in the name of my sons and of
+their mother, and trust that God may enable me to recompense you for
+your devotion to them and to myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='005'></a><img src="images/005.jpg" alt="Two young men and a cannon" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&quot;You forget,&quot; added Willis, wiping a tear from the corner of his
+eye, that he ascribed to a grain of dust, &quot;you forget that I was on
+the point of venturing out to sea in the canoe, had you yourself and
+Mr. Wolston not prevented me. There is work to be done, I admit; and
+it is not impossible to cross even the Indian Ocean in the pinnace.
+But we may find a doctor, perhaps, at some of the settlements&mdash;for
+instance, at Manilla, in the Philippines.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is not to be hoped for, Willis; there is, probably, only one
+skilful medical man in each colony, and he will be prevented leaving
+by Government engagements.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; then we had better hoist sail for Europe direct, and trust to
+falling in with a ship now and then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas!&quot; sighed Becker, &quot;in a path so wide as the ocean, it would be
+unwise to trust to such chances; you will have to rely, I fear,
+entirely upon the resources of the pinnace alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I dare say, though we may have to put up with half rations, we
+shall not starve on the voyage, at all events.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had unmoored the pinnace, and were on their way to Shark's
+Island.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are about to announce to your sons their departure?&quot; said Willis,
+inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but my heart almost fails me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The iron must be struck while it is hot. Will you commission me to
+whisper a few words in their ear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thanks, Willis; but what right have I to expect courage from them, if
+I exhibit weakness myself? No, my friend, I may shed tears in your
+presence, but not before them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A man ought never to allow his feelings to get the better of his
+courage,&quot; said Willis, in whose eyes, however, the dust was evidently
+playing sad havoc.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These boys have almost never been absent from me. I have watched them
+grow up from infancy to adolescence, and from adolescence to manhood;
+they have always been dutiful and obedient, and with gratitude I have
+blessed them every night of their lives. But stern are the decrees of
+Fate; I must command them to depart from me&mdash;perhaps for ever!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are evils that lead to good,&quot; said Willis, &quot;even though these
+evils be the Straits of Magellan or the storms of the Indian Ocean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here the pinnace reached the offing of Shark's Island, where Fritz and
+Jack, leaning on the battery, watched the progress of the boat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you observe how downcast my father looks?&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis does not look much gayer,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you believe in omens, Jack?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now and then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, mark me, there is a screw loose somewhere, or I am no oracle.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XVIII'></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<p>BACON AND BISCUIT&mdash;LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE&mdash;THE PATERNAL BENEDICTION&mdash;AN
+APPARITION&mdash;A MOTHER NOT EASILY DECEIVED&mdash;THE ADIEU&mdash;THE EMPEROR
+CONSTANTINE&mdash;IN HOC SIGNO VINCES&mdash;THE SAILOR'S POSTSCRIPT&mdash;C&AElig;SAR AND
+HIS FORTUNES&mdash;RECOLLECTIONS&mdash;MRS. BECKER PLUCKS STOCKINGS AND KNITS
+ORTOLANS&mdash;HOW DELIGHTFUL IT IS TO BE SCOLDED&mdash;THE BODIES VANISH, BUT
+THE SOULS REMAIN.</p>
+
+<p>On their return from Shark's Island, Fritz and Jack were deeply
+affected, not by the dread of the perils they were destined to
+encounter&mdash;these never gave them a moment's uneasiness&mdash;but by the
+knowledge that a merciless vulture was preying upon the vitals of
+their beloved mother.</p>
+
+<p>Willis on the contrary, appeared as lively as if he had just received
+notice of promotion; but whether the idea of again dwelling on the
+open sea had really elevated his spirits, or whether this gaiety was
+only assumed to encourage Becker and his sons, was best known to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was arranged amongst them that no one, under any circumstances,
+should be made acquainted with the design they had in contemplation.
+By this means all opposition would be vanquished, and the regrets of
+separation would, in some degree, be avoided. Besides, if the project
+were divulged, might not Frank and Ernest insist upon their right to
+share its dangers? This eventuality alone was sufficient to impress
+upon them all the urgency of secrecy. The really strong man knows his
+weakness, and therefore dislikes to run the risk of exposing it, so
+Becker dreaded the tears and entreaties that this desperate
+undertaking would inevitably exercise, were it generally known
+beforehand to the rest of the family; whereas, if once the pinnace
+were fairly at sea, it could not be recalled, and time would do the
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>Since, then, all the preparations had to be made in such a way as not
+to excite suspicion that any thing extraordinary was on foot, the
+progress was necessarily slow. Willis, under pretext of amusing
+himself, refitted the pinnace, and strengthened it so far as he could
+without impairing its sailing efficiency. He called to mind that, when
+Captain Cook reached Batavia, after his first voyage round the world,
+he observed with astonishment that a large portion of the sides of his
+famous ship the <i>Endeavor</i> was, under the water line, no thicker than
+the sole of a shoe.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the weather had settled, and the tropical heats set in, the
+Wolstons resumed their abode at Falcon's Nest; whilst, under some
+plausible pretext or other, Willis, Fritz, and Jack took up their
+quarters at Rockhouse. This arrangement gave the destined navigators
+the means of carrying on their operations unobserved, especially as
+regards salting provisions and baking for the voyage.</p>
+
+<p>Along with the stores, a portion of the valuables, that still remained
+in the magazines of Rockhouse, were placed on board the pinnace; for,
+though gold and precious stones were not of much value in New
+Switzerland, Becker had not forgotten that such was not the case in
+other portions of the world; he reflected that his sons must be
+furnished with the means of returning to the colony with comfort.
+There was also a man of science and education to be bought, and that,
+he knew, could not be done without as the French proverb has it,
+having some hay in one's boots.</p>
+
+<p>Storms are usually heralded by some premonitory symptoms: the
+atmosphere becomes oppressive, the clouds increase in density, the sky
+gradually becomes obscure and large drops of rain begin to fall, then
+follows the deluge, and the elements commence their strife. It is much
+the same with impending misfortunes: gloom gathers on the countenance,
+our movements become constrained, our thoughts wander, and a tear
+lingers in the corner of the eye. Fritz and Jack endeavored in vain to
+appear unconcerned, but, in spite of their efforts, it was painfully
+evident that their minds were burdened by some heavy weight. They
+were more tender and more affectionate, particularly towards their
+mother. Towards evening, when they quitted the family circle for
+Rockhouse, their adieus were so earnest, so warm, and so often
+repeated, that it almost appeared as if they were laying in a stock of
+them for their voyage, to store up and preserve with the bacon and
+biscuits. Even the animals came in for an extra share of caresses,
+and, if they were capable of reflection, it must have puzzled them
+sorely to account for all the endearments that were lavished upon them
+by the two brothers.</p>
+
+<p>Becker himself was no less affected than his sons; sometimes, when the
+latter were busily occupied with some preparation for the voyage, he
+would fix his eyes sadly upon them, just as if every trait of these
+cherished features had not already been deeply graven on his soul.</p>
+
+<p>During the preceding rainy season, the two young men felt the days
+long and tedious, and wished in their inmost hearts that they would
+pass away more swiftly; now, the hours seemed to fly with
+unaccountable rapidity, and they would gladly have lengthened them if
+they had had the power. But no one can arrest</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Le temps, cette image mobile<br />
+De l'immobile éternité.</p>
+
+<p>And time is right in holding on the even tenor of its way; for if it
+once yielded to the desires of mortals, there would be no end of
+confusion and perplexity. It takes unto itself wings and flies away,
+say the fortunate; it lags at a snail's pace, say the unfortunate. The
+idler knows not how to pass it away. The man of action does not
+observe its progress. Those who are looking forward to some favorite
+amusement exclaim, &quot;Would that it were to-morrow!&quot; but how many there
+are that might well ejaculate, from the bottom of their souls, &quot;Would
+that to-morrow may never arrive!&quot; How, then, could such wishes be met
+in a way to satisfy all?</p>
+
+<p>A day at length arrived when everything was ready for departure, and
+when nothing was wanted to weigh anchor but courage on the part of
+the voyagers. The pinnace was laden to the gunwale, the compass was in
+its place, the casks were filled with fresh water from the Jackal
+River, and Willis reported that both wind and sea were propitious for
+a start.</p>
+
+<p>The morning of that day was lovely in the extreme. Willis, Fritz, and
+Jack were early at Falcon's Nest; the two families breakfasted
+together under the trees in the open air. After breakfast an
+adjournment to the umbrageous shade of the bananas was proposed and
+agreed to.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mother,&quot; said Fritz, taking Mrs. Becker's arm, &quot;I want you all to
+myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I object to that, if you please,&quot; cried Jack, taking her other arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, you boys seem extravagantly fond of your mother to-day,&quot; said
+Mrs. Becker, gaily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you see, mother, we have the right to have an idea now and
+then&mdash;Willis has one every week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So long as your ideas are about myself, I have no reason to object to
+them,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have always been dutiful sons, have we not, mother?&quot; inquired
+Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, always.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are well pleased with us then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, surely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have never caused you any uneasiness, have we?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is to say, inadvertently,&quot; added Fritz; &quot;designedly is out of
+the question.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not even inadvertently,&quot; replied their mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you very sorry when Frank and Ernest were going to leave us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my children, the tears still burn my cheek.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nevertheless, you knew that it was for the common welfare, and you
+felt resigned to the separation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why do you ask such a question now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, <i>&agrave; propos de rien</i>, mother,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;simply because we
+love you, and, like misers, we treasure your love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Towards the afternoon both families were again assembled under the
+trees at Falcon's Nest This time it was dinner that brought them
+together; the repast consisted of cold meats of various kinds, but the
+chief dish was a wonderful salad, the rich, fresh odor of which
+perfumed the air. Wolston, Frank, and Ernest kept up a lively
+conversation, yet, though all seemed happy and pleased, there were
+bursting hearts at the table that day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to take a turn in the pinnace to-morrow,&quot; said Willis,
+quietly; &quot;who will go with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will!&quot; cried all the four brothers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall require you, Frank and Ernest, to take a look at the rice
+plantation to-morrow,&quot; said Becker, &quot;so I wish you to put off the
+excursion till another time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are at your orders, father,&quot; replied the two young men.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where are you going, Willis?&quot; inquired Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I am anxious to discover whether we inhabit an island or a
+continent, and may, consequently, extend the survey beyond the points
+already known; so you must not be disappointed should we not return
+the same night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what is the good of such an expedition?&quot; inquired Mrs. Becker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The country may be inhabited, or there may be inhabited islands in
+the vicinity,&quot; replied Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If there be natives anywhere near,&quot; said Mrs. Becker, &quot;they have left
+us at peace hitherto, and, in my opinion, since the dog sleeps, it
+will be prudent for us to let it lie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not a question of creating any inconvenience,&quot; suggested
+Becker, &quot;but only to ascertain more accurately our geographical
+position: such a knowledge can do us no possible harm, but, some day,
+it may be of immense service to us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What if you should fall in with a ship?&quot; inquired Mrs. Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case we shall give your compliments to the commander,&quot;
+replied Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may do that if you like, but try and bring it back with you if
+you can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you wish to leave us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not mean that,&quot; hastily added Mrs. Wolston, &quot;but I am beginning
+to get anxious about my son, poor fellow. If the <i>Nelson</i> has not
+arrived at the Cape, then he will suppose we are all drowned, and I
+should like to fall in with some means of assuring him of our safety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh yes,&quot; cried the two girls, &quot;do try and fall in with a ship; our
+poor brother will be so wretched.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You might say our brother as well,&quot; added the two young men.</p>
+
+<p>Here the two mothers interchanged a glance of intelligence, which
+might mean very little, but which likewise might signify a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>A moment of intense anxiety had now arrived for Becker and his two
+sons; they could scarcely refrain from shedding tears, but they felt
+that the slightest imprudence of that nature would divulge everything.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come now, my lads, look alive,&quot; cried Willis, in a voice which he
+meant to be gruff; &quot;if you intend to take a few hours' repose before
+we start in the morning, it is time to be off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack, had it been to save their lives, could not now have
+helped throwing more than usual energy into their parting embraces
+that particular afternoon; but they passed through the ordeal with
+tolerable firmness, and then with heavy hearts turned towards the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think I will walk with you as far as Rockhouse,&quot; said Becker.</p>
+
+<p>All four then departed; and when the party were about fifty yards from
+Falcon's Nest, Fritz and Jack turned round and waved a final adieu to
+those loved beings whom probably, they might never see again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is well,&quot; said Becker. &quot;I am satisfied with your conduct
+throughout this trying interval.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was now an hour when there is something indescribably sombre about
+the country; day was declining, the outlines of the larger objects in
+the landscape were becoming less distinct, and the trees were assuming
+any sort of fantastical shape that the mind chose to assign to them.
+Here and there a bird rustled in the foliage, but otherwise the
+silence was only broken by footsteps of the four men.</p>
+
+<p>In ordinary life children quit the parental home by easy and almost
+imperceptible gradations. First, there is the school, then college;
+next, perhaps, the requirements of the profession they have adopted.
+Thus they readily abandon the domestic hearth; friends, intercourse,
+and society divide their affection, and the separation from home
+rarely, if ever, costs them a pang. Not so with Becker's two sons;
+their world was New Switzerland; therefore, like the rays of the sun
+absorbed by the mirror of Archimedes, all their affections were
+concentrated on one point.</p>
+
+<p>On the former occasion when the family ties were on the eve of being
+rent asunder, the case was very different. It is true, Frank and
+Ernest were about to leave for an indefinite period of time; but then,
+every comfort that the most fastidious voyager could desire was
+awaiting them on board the <i>Nelson</i>; for a well-appointed ship is like
+a well-appointed inn on shore, all your wants are ministered to with
+the utmost celerity. Besides, Captain Littlestone had taken the young
+men under his special protection, and had promised to see them
+properly introduced and cared for in Europe. How dissimilar was the
+position of Fritz and his brother; they were about to tumble into the
+old world should they be so fortunate as to reach it, much as if they
+had dropped from the skies, without a guide and without a friend. They
+were about to entrust themselves to the ocean, separated from its
+treacherous floods by a few wretched planks; to be exposed for months,
+almost unsheltered, to wind, rain, and the mercy of pitiless storms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If God in His mercy preserves you, my sons,&quot; said Becker, breaking at
+last the silence, &quot;you will find yourselves launched in an ocean still
+more turbulent than that you have escaped&mdash;an ocean where falsehood
+and cunning assume the names of policy and tact; where results always
+justify the means, whatever these may be; where everything is
+sacrificed to personal interest and ambition; where fortune is honored
+as a virtue that dispenses with all others, and where profligacies of
+the most odious kinds are decorated with gay and seductive colors. It
+is difficult for me to foresee the various circumstances amidst which
+you may be placed; but there are certain rules of conduct that
+provide for nearly every emergency. I have no need to urge loyalty or
+courage&mdash;these qualities are inseparable from your hearts. Strive only
+for what is just and honest. Submit to be cheated rather than be
+cheats yourselves; ill-gotten gains never made any one rich. Put your
+trust in Providence. Seek aid from on high, when you find yourselves
+surrounded with difficulties. Never forget that there is no corner on
+the earth's surface, however obscure, that the eyes of the Lord are
+not there to behold your actions. Act promptly and with energy. Bear
+in mind that every moment lost will be to your mother an age of
+suffering, and that her life is suspended on the fragile thread of
+your return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The party had now reached the banks of the Jackal River, where the
+pinnace was moored. Fritz and Jack were shedding tears unrestrainedly,
+and had dropped on their knees at their father's feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I call,&quot; said Becker, in a trembling voice, &quot;the benediction of
+Heaven upon your heads, my sons.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, but they must not go!&quot; cried Mrs. Becker, rushing out from behind
+some tall brushwood that hid her from their view; &quot;they shall not go!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack were instantly inclosed within their mother's arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; cried she, pushing aside the hair from their brows, the better
+to observe their features, &quot;you thought to deceive your mother, did
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pardon!&quot; exclaimed both the young men.</p>
+
+<p>Here Becker thought it necessary to interfere; and, summoning all the
+courage he could muster to the task, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why should they not go? Is this the first expedition they have
+undertaken?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, it is not the first expedition they have undertaken, but it is
+the first time their eyes and their looks betokened an eternal adieu.
+It is the first time that I felt they were forsaking me for ever, and
+it is the first time you ever addressed them with the words you just
+now uttered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Becker saw that it was useless to attempt to carry deceit any
+further; he therefore withdrew his eyes from the piercing glance of
+his wife. Willis, caught in the act, as it were, was completely thrown
+off his guard, and had not a word to say for himself. Fritz and Jack
+had again fallen on their knees, this time at the feet of their
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! I begin to understand,&quot; she screamed, as she glanced around on
+the scared group that surrounded her, like a wounded lioness whose
+cubs were being carried off; &quot;now the bandage begins to drop from my
+eyes. A thousand inexplicable things dart into my mind. You are
+sending the boys on an impracticable voyage to secure the safety of
+their mother; but you did not think that in order to prolong my
+existence for a few years, you would kill me instantly with grief!
+What right have you to impose a remedy upon me that is a thousand
+times worse than the malady? Have I ever complained? May my sufferings
+not be agreeable to me? May I not like them? Is pain and suffering not
+our lot from the cradle to the tomb? But I am not ill, I was never
+better in my life than I am at this moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here she was seized with a paroxysm of nervous tremors that convulsed
+her frame most fearfully, and completely belied her words. Becker
+rushed forward and held her firmly in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God give me strength!&quot; he murmured. &quot;Go, my children, where your duty
+calls you; go, my friend, do not prolong this terrible scene an
+instant longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Not another word was spoken, the pinnace was unmoored; Fritz, Jack,
+and Willis embarked. When at some little distance from the shore,
+there was just light enough for Fritz to notice that his father was
+directing the feeble steps of his mother in the direction of Falcon's
+Nest. In a few moments more all the objects on shore were one confused
+mass of unfathomable shadow. The pinnace dropped anchor at Shark's
+Island, where some few final preparations for the voyage had to be
+made. Fritz here took a pen and wrote:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We part. We are gone. When you read this letter, the sea, for some
+distance, will extend between us. We shall live and move elsewhere,
+but our hearts still with you. We wish that Ernest and Frank would
+erect a flagstaff on the spot where we last parted with our parents.
+It may be to us what the celestial standard bearing the scroll, <i>in
+hoc signo vinces</i> was to the Emperor Constantine. The place is already
+sacred, and may be hallowed by your prayers for us. Our confidence in
+the divine mercy is boundless. Do not despair of seeing us again. We
+have no misgivings, not one of us but anticipates confidently the
+period when we shall return and bring with us health, happiness, and
+prosperity to you all.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me add a word,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The sea is calm, our hearts are firm, our enterprise is under the
+protection of Heaven&mdash;there never was an undertaking commenced under
+more favorable auspices. Farewell then, once more, farewell. All our
+aspirations are for you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;FRITZ.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;JACK.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;P.S.&mdash;Willis was going to write a line or two when, lo and behold! a
+big tear rolled upon the paper. 'Ha!' said he, 'that is enough, I will
+not write a word, they will understand that, I think,' and he threw
+down the pen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How is the letter to be sent on shore?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a cage of pigeons on board the pinnace,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;but
+I do not want them to know that, for, if they should expect to hear
+from us, and some accident happen to the pigeons, they might be
+dreadfully disappointed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We can return on shore,&quot; observed Willis, &quot;and place it on the spot,
+where we embarked; they are sure to be there to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion was incontinently adopted. The letter was attached to
+a small cross, and fixed in the ground. The voyagers had all
+re-embarked in the pinnace, which was destined to bear even more than
+C&aelig;sar and his fortunes. Willis had already loosened the warp, when, a
+thought crossed the mind of Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must revisit Falcon's Nest once more,&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; cried Willis, &quot;you are not going to get up such another scene
+as we witnessed an hour or two ago?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Willis, I mean to go by stealth like the Indian trapper, so as to
+be seen by no mortal eye. I wish to take one more look at the old
+familiar trees, and endeavor to ascertain whether my mother has
+reached home in safety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the dogs?&quot; objected Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The dogs know me too well to give the slightest alarm at my approach.
+I shall not be long gone; but really I must go, the desire is too
+powerful within me to be resisted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go with you,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Here Willis shook his head and reflected an instant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not angry with us, Willis, are you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all,&quot; he replied, &quot;and I think the best thing I can do, under
+the circumstances, is to go too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, make fast that warp again, and come along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The party then disappeared amongst the brushwood.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some time ago,&quot; remarked Fritz, &quot;we followed this track about the
+same hour; there was danger to be apprehended, but the enterprise was
+bloodless, though successful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mean the chimpanzee affair,&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; this time we have only an emotion to conquer, but I am afraid it
+is too strong for us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These are the trees,&quot; said Jack, as they debouched upon the road,
+&quot;that I stuck my proclamations upon. We had very little to think of in
+those days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the party drew near Falcon's Nest, the dogs approached and welcomed
+them with the usual canine demonstrations of joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have half a mind to carry off Toby,&quot; said Fritz; &quot;but I fear Mary
+would miss him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Externally all appeared tranquil at Falcon's Nest; this satisfied the
+young men that their mother had succeeded in reaching home, at least,
+in safety; a light streaming through the window of Becker's dwelling,
+however, showed that the family had not yet retired for the night.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they only knew we were so near them!&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>The entire party then sat down upon a rustic bench, shrouded with
+flowering orchis and Spanish jasmine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How often, on returning from the fields or the chase, we have seen
+our mother at work on this very seat,&quot; observed Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye,&quot; added Jack; &quot;once I observed she had fallen asleep whilst
+knitting stockings. I advanced on tip-toe, removed gently her knitting
+apparatus, stockings, and all, and placed on her lap some ortolans
+that I had caught and strangled; but I first plucked one of them, and
+scattered the feathers all about, and then retreated into a thicket to
+watch the <i>dénouement</i> of my scheme. She awoke, put down her hand to
+take up a stocking, and laid hold of a bird. She stared, rubbed her
+eyes, stared again, looked about, and could find nothing but the
+ortolan feathers. I then ran forward and embraced her, looking as if I
+had just come from unearthing turnips. 'Well, I declare,' she said
+with a bewildered air, 'I could have sworn that I was knitting just
+now, and here I find myself plucking ortolans; and what is more, I
+have not the slightest idea where, in all the world, the birds have
+come from!' Of course, I looked as innocent as possible; so that the
+more she stared and reflected, the less she could make the matter out.
+At last, she went on plucking the birds, and when this was done she
+stuck them on the spit. When the ortolans were roasted and ready to be
+served up, I went into the kitchen, carried them off, and put my
+mother's knitting apparatus on the spit. Imagine her surprise when she
+beheld her worsted and stockings at the fire, knowing, at the same
+time, that four hungry stomachs were waiting for their dinners! At
+last, fearing that she was going to ascribe the metamorphosis to some
+hallucination of her own, I went up to her, threw my arms round her
+neck, told her the whole story, and we both of us enjoyed a hearty
+laugh over it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, Jack, those were laughing times,&quot; said Fritz, sadly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not only that, but our mother was always so even&mdash;tempered; she was
+never ruffled in the slightest degree by my nonsense; though she often
+had the right to be very angry, yet she never once took offence. On
+another occasion, Mary and Sophia Wolston were working here at those
+mysterious embroideries which they always hid when we came near.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Toby's collar, I suppose,&quot; remarked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My tobacco pouch,&quot; suggested Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I approached,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;with the muffled softness of a cat,
+and was just on the point of discovering their secret, when my monkey,
+Knips, who was cracking nuts at their feet, made a spring, and drew a
+bobbin of silk after it; this caused them to look round, and great was
+my astonishment to find myself caught at the very moment I expected to
+surprise them. They commenced scolding me at an immense rate, but then
+it was so delightful to be scolded!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye,&quot; murmured Fritz, &quot;that is all over now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Like a file of sheep, one recollection dragged another after it, so
+that the whole of the past recurred to their memories. Some faint
+streaks of light now warned them that day was about to break; the
+cocks began to crow one after the other, and to fill the air with
+their shrill voices.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; said Willis, &quot;it is high time to be off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jack hastily gathered two bouquets of flowers, which he suspended to
+the lintel of each dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These,&quot; said he, &quot;will show them that we have paid them another
+visit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They then bent down all three on their knees, uttered a short prayer,
+and afterwards disappeared amidst the shadows of the chestnut trees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen!&quot; said Willis, seeing that his companions were about to make a
+halt, &quot;if you stop again, or speak of returning any more, I will cease
+to regard you as men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour afterwards, on the morning of the 8th March, 1812, the
+pinnace bore out to sea, and when day broke, the crew could not descry
+a single trace of New Switzerland on any point of the horizon.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XIX'></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<p>EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE&mdash;THE MARY&mdash;COUNT UGOLINO&mdash;THE
+SOURCES OF RIVERS&mdash;THE ALPS DEMOLISHED&mdash;NO MORE PYRENEES&mdash;THE
+FIRST SHIP&mdash;ADMIRAL NOAH&mdash;FLEETS OF THE ISRAELITES&mdash;THE
+COMPASS&mdash;PRINTING&mdash;GUNPOWDER&mdash;ACTIUM AND SALAMIS&mdash;DIDO AND
+AENEAS&mdash;STEAM&mdash;DON GARAY AND ROGER BACON&mdash;MELCHTHAL, FURST, AND
+WILLIAM TELL&mdash;GOING A-PLEASURING&mdash;UPSET VERSUS BLOWN UP&mdash;A DEAD
+CALM&mdash;THE LOG&mdash;WILLIS'S ARCHIPELAGO&mdash;THE ISLAND OF SOPHIA&mdash;THE BREAD
+FRUIT-TREE&mdash;NATIVES OF POLYNESIA&mdash;STRIPED TROWSERS&mdash;ABDUCTION OF
+WILLIS&mdash;IS HE TO BE ROASTED OR BOILED?&mdash;WHEN THE WINE IS POURED OUT,
+WE MUST DRINK IT.</p>
+
+<p>At the date of the events narrated in the preceeding chapter,
+comparatively little was known of Oceania, that is, of the islands and
+continents that are scattered about the Pacific Ocean. Most of them
+had been discovered, named, and marked correctly enough in the charts,
+but beyond this all was supposition, hypothesis, and mystery. The
+mighty empire of England in the east was then only in its infancy,
+Sutteeism and Thuggism were still rampant on the banks of the Ganges,
+but the power of the descendants of the Great Mogul was on the wane.
+California was only known as the hunting-ground of a savage race of
+wild Indians. The now rich and flourishing colonies of Australia were
+represented by the convict settlement of Sydney. The Dutch had
+asserted that the territory of New Holland was utterly uninhabitable,
+and this was still the belief of the civilized world; nor was it
+without considerable opposition on the part of <i>soi-disant</i>
+philanthropists that the English government succeeded in establishing
+a prison depot on what at the time was considered the sole spot in
+that vast territory susceptible of cultivation. At the present time,
+these formerly-despised regions send <i>one hundred tons of pure gold</i>
+to England. The political state of Europe itself had at this time
+assumed a singular aspect. Napoleon had made himself master of nearly
+all the continental states; Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and a
+part of Germany were at his feet; and, by the Peace of Tilsit, he had
+secured the co&otilde;peration of Alexander, Emperor of Russia, in his
+schemes to ruin the trade and commerce of Great Britain. England, by
+her opportune seizure of the Danish fleet, broke up the first great
+northern confederacy that was formed against her. This act, though
+much impugned by the politicians of the day, is now known not only to
+have been perfectly justifiable, but also highly creditable to the
+political foresight of Canning and Castlereagh, by whom it was
+suggested, to say nothing of the daring and boldness that Nelson
+displayed in executing the manoeuvre. When news of this event reached
+the Russian Emperor it threw him into a paroxysm of rage, and he
+declared war against England in violent language. He had the insolence
+to make peace with France the <i>sina qua non</i> of his friendship. At the
+distance of nearly half a century, the actual language employed has a
+peculiar flavor. The emperor, after detailing his grievances, declares
+that henceforth there shall be no connection between the two
+countries, and calls on his Britannic Majesty to dismiss his
+ministers, and conclude a peace forthwith. The British Government
+replied to this by ordering Nelson to set sail forthwith for the mouth
+of the Neva. A bitter and scorching manifesto was at the time
+forwarded to the emperor. It accused him flatly of duplicity, and
+boldly defied him and all his legions. The whole document is well
+worthy of perusal in these lackadaisical times. It is dated
+Westminister, December 18, 1807. It sets forth anew the principles of
+maritime war, which England had then rigidly in force. Napoleon had
+declared the whole of the British Islands in a state of blockade. The
+British Government replied by blockading <i>de facto</i> the whole of
+Europe. This was done by those celebrated orders in council, which,
+more than anything else, precipitated the downfall of Napoleon. They
+threw the trade of the world into the hands of England. Of course,
+Russia was deeply affected, so was Spain and all the other maritime
+states; and they were all, one way or another, in open hostility with
+this country. But England laughed all their threats to scorn; and in
+the whole history of the country, there was not a more brilliant
+period in her eventful history. She stood alone against the world in
+arms. Even the blusterings of the United States were unheeded, and in
+no degree disturbed her stern equanimity. She saw the road to victory,
+and resolved to pursue it. But England then had great statesmen, and,
+of them all, Lord Castlereagh was the greatest, although he served a
+Prince Regent who cared no more for England or the English people,
+than the Irish member, who, when reproached for selling his country,
+thanked God that he had a country to sell.</p>
+
+<p>At length the ill-will of the Americans resolved itself into open
+warfare, and the United States was numbered with the overt enemies of
+England. This resulted in British troops marching up to Washington and
+burning the Capitol, or Congress House, about the ears of the members
+who had stirred up the strife. Meanwhile, all the islands of France in
+the east and west had been taken possession of; the British flag waved
+on the Spanish island of Cuba, and in the no less valuable possessions
+of Holland, in Java. Everywhere on the ocean England held undisputed
+sway. This state of things gave rise to one great evil&mdash;the sea
+swarmed with cruisers and privateers, English, French, and American;
+so that no vessel, unless sailing under convoy, heavily armed, or a
+very swift sailer, but ran risk of capture.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Mary</i>&mdash;for so Fritz now called the pinnace&mdash;had been ten days at
+sea, the wind had died away, and for some time scarcely a zephyr had
+ruffled the surface of the water, the sails were lazily flapping
+against the mast, and but for the currents, the voyagers would have
+been almost stationary. It may readily be supposed that, under such
+circumstances, their progress was somewhat slow, and, as Jack
+observed, to judge from their actual rate of sailing, they ought to
+have started when very young, in order to arrive at the termination of
+the voyage before they became bald-headed old men.</p>
+
+<p>They prayed for a breeze, a gale, or even a storm; their fresh water
+was beginning to get sour, and they reflected that, if the calm
+continued any length of time, their provisions would eventually run
+short, and the ordinary resource of eating one another would stare
+them in the face. Jack, being the youngest, would probably disappear
+first, next Fritz, then Willis would be left to eat himself, in order
+to avoid dying of hunger, just as the unfortunate Count Ugolino
+devoured his own children to save them from orphanage.</p>
+
+<p>As yet, however, there were no symptoms of such a dire disaster; they
+were in excellent health and tolerable spirits; they had provisions
+enough to last them for six months at least, and consequently had not
+as yet, at all events, the slightest occasion to manifest a tendency
+to anthropophagism.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can understand the sea,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;as I understand the land
+and the sky; God created them, that is enough; but I cannot understand
+how a mighty river like the Nile or the Ganges can continue eternally
+discharging immense deluges of water into the sea without becoming
+exhausted. From what fathomless reservoirs do the Amazon and the
+Mississippi receive their endless torrents?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The reservoirs of the greatest rivers,&quot; replied Fritz, &quot;are nothing
+more than drops of water that fall from the crevice of some rock on or
+near the summit of a hill; these are collected together in a pool or
+hollow, from which they issue in the form of a slender rivulet. At
+first, the smallest pebble is sufficient to arrest the course of this
+thread of water; but it turns upon itself, gathers strength, finally
+surmounts the obstacle, dashes over it, unites itself with other
+rivulets, reaches the plain, scoops out a bed, and goes on, as you
+say, for ever emptying its waters into the sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but it is the source of these sources that I want to know the
+origin of. You speak of hills, whilst we know that water naturally, by
+reason of its weight and fluidity; seeks to secrete itself in the
+lowest beds of the earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that water may come down
+a hill, although it never goes up. Rain, snow, dew, and generally all
+the vapors that fall from the atmosphere, furnish the enormous masses
+of water that are constantly flowing into the sea. The vapor alone
+that is absorbed in the air from the sea is more than sufficient to
+feed all the rivers on the face of the earth. Mountains, by their
+formation, arrest these vapors, collect them in a hole here and in a
+cavern there, and permit them to filter by a million of threads from
+rock to rock, fertilizing the land and nourishing the rivers that
+intersect it. If, therefore, you were to suppress the Alps that rise
+between France and Italy, you would, at the same time, extinguish the
+Rhone and the Po.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would be a pity to do that,&quot; said Jack; &quot;there was a time though
+when there were no Pyrenees.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That must have been, then, at a period prior to the formation of
+granite, which is esteemed the oldest of rocks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No such thing,&quot; insisted Jack; &quot;it was so late as 1713, when, by the
+peace of Utrecht, the crown of Spain was secured to the Duke of Anjou,
+grandson of Louis XIV.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Howsomever,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;all the mariners in the French fleet
+could not convince me that the Pyrenean mountains are only a hundred
+years old.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My brother is only speaking metaphorically,&quot; said Fritz; &quot;when the
+crown of Spain was assigned to the Duke of Anjou, his grandfather
+said&mdash;<i>Qu il n'y avait plus de Pyrénées</i>. He meant by that simply,
+that France and Spain being governed by the same prince, the moral
+barrier between them existed no longer. The formidable mountains still
+stood for all that, and he who removes them would certainly be
+possessed of extraordinary power.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am always putting my foot in it,&quot; said Willis, &quot;when the yarn is
+about the land; let us talk of the sea for a bit. Who built the first
+ship?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; replied Fritz, &quot;I should say that the first ship was the ark.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whence we may infer,&quot; added Jack, &quot;that Noah was the first admiral.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We learn from the Scriptures,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;that the first
+navigators were the children of Noah, and it appears from profane
+history that the earliest attempts at navigation were manifested near
+where the ark rested; consequently, we may fairly presume that the art
+of ship-building arose from the traditions of the deluge and the ark.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, the art in question dates very far back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, since it dates from 2348 years before the birth of Christ; but
+the human race degenerated, the traditions were forgotten, and
+navigation was confined to planks, rafts, bark canoes, or the trunk of
+a tree hollowed out by fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is the sort of craft used by the inhabitants of Polynesia at the
+present day,&quot; remarked Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears, however, by the Book of Job, that pirates existed in
+those days, and that they went to sea in ships and captured
+merchantmen, which proves, to a certain extent, that there were
+merchantmen to conquer. We know also that David and Solomon equipped
+large fleets, and even fought battles on sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whether an ancient or modern, a Jew or a Gentile,&quot; said Willis, &quot;he
+must have been a brave fellow who launched the first ship, and risked
+himself and his goods at sea in it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True,&quot; continued Fritz; &quot;but when once the equilibrium of a floating
+body was known, there would be no longer any risk; as soon as it came
+to be understood that any solid body would float if it were lighter
+than its bulk of water, the matter was simple enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good,&quot; interrupted Jack; &quot;but the words 'when' and 'as soon as'
+imply a great deal; <i>when</i>, or <i>as soon as</i>, we know anything, the
+mystery of course disappears. But before! there is the difficulty.
+Particles of water do not cohere&mdash;how is it, then, that a ship of war,
+that often weighs two millions of pounds, does not sink through them,
+and go to the bottom? Individuals, like myself for example, who are
+not members of a learned society, may be pardoned for not knowing how
+water bears the weight of a seventy-four.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The seventy-four would, most undoubtedly, sink if it were heavier
+than the weight of water it displaced; but this is not the case; wood
+is generally lighter than water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The wood, yes; but the cannon, the cargo, and the crew?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You forget the cabooses, the cockpits, and the cabins, that do not
+weigh anything. Allowing for everything, the weight of a ship, cargo
+and all, is much lighter than its bulk of water, and consequently it
+cannot sink.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how is it, then, that the immense bulk of a seventy-four moves so
+easily in the water? One would think that its prodigious weight would
+make it stick fast, and continue immoveable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the seventy-four in question has displaced its weight of water,
+its own weight is substituted for the water, and is in consequence
+virtually annihilated; it does not, in point of fact, weigh anything
+at all, and therefore is easily impelled by the wind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When there is any, understood,&quot; added Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And a yard or so of canvas,&quot; suggested Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;a sail or two would be very desirable; these
+instruments of propulsion do not appear, however, to have been used by
+the ancients. We first hear of a sail being employed at the time when
+Isis went in search of her husband Osiris, who was killed by his
+brother Typhon, and whose quarters were scattered in the Nile. This
+lady, it seems, took off the veil that covered her head, and fastened
+it to an upright shaft stuck in the middle of the boat, and, much to
+her astonishment, it impelled her onwards at a marvellous speed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A clever young woman that,&quot; said Willis; &quot;but I doubt whether veils
+would answer the purpose on board a seventy-four, particularly as
+regards the mainsail and mizentops.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Phoenicians were the most enterprising of the early navigators.
+They appeared to have sailed round Africa without a compass, for they
+embarked on the Red Sea and reappeared at the mouth of the Nile, and
+the compass was not invented till the fourteenth century.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And who was the inventor of the compass?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to some authorities, it was invented by a Neapolitan named
+Jean Goya; according to others, the inventor was a certain Hugues de
+Bercy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then,&quot; said Jack, &quot;you do not admit the claims of the Chinese and
+Hindoos, who assert priority in the discovery?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I neither deny nor admit their claims, because I do not know the
+grounds upon which they are founded; like the invention of gunpowder
+and printing, the discovery of the compass has many rival claimants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am of opinion,&quot; said Jack, &quot;that Guttenberg is entitled to the
+honor of discovering printing, and that Berthold Schwartz invented
+gunpowder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps you are right; but there is scarcely any invention of
+importance that has not two or three names fastened to it as
+inventors; they stick to it like barnacles, and there is no way to
+shake any of them off. So, in the case of illustrious men, nations
+dispute the honor of giving them birth; there are six or seven towns
+in Asia Minor that claim to be the birth-place of Homer. National
+vanities justly desire to possess the largest amount of genius; hence,
+no sooner does anything useful make its appearance in the world, than
+half a dozen nations or individuals start up to claim it as their
+offspring. The wisest course, under such circumstances, is to side
+with the best accredited opinion, which I have done in the case of the
+compass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was no joke,&quot; said Willis, &quot;to circumnavigate Africa without a
+compass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are quite right, Willis, if you judge the navigation of those
+days by the modern standard; but it is to be borne in mind that the
+ancients never lost sight of the coast. They steered from cape to
+promontory, and from promontory to cape, dropping their anchor every
+night and remaining well in-shore till morning. If by accident they
+were driven out into the open sea, and the stars happened to be hidden
+by fog or clouds, they were lost beyond recovery, even though within a
+day's sail of a harbor; because, whilst supposing they were making for
+the coast, they might, in all probability, be steering in precisely
+the opposite direction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is certainly marvellous,&quot; said Jack, &quot;that a piece of iron stuck
+upon a board should be a safe and sure guide to the mariner through
+the trackless ocean, even when the stars are enveloped in obscurity
+and darkness!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a symbol of faith,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;that supplies the doubts
+and incertitudes of reason.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As for the ships, or rather galleys, of the ancients,&quot; continued
+Fritz, &quot;with the exception of the ambitious fleets of the Greeks and
+Romans that fought at Salamis and Actium, one of the modern ships of
+war could sweep them all out of the sea with its rudder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Jack, &quot;at the period of which you speak, the ancients
+possessed a great advantage over us. The winds in those days were
+personages, and were very well known; they were called Aeolus, Boreas,
+and so forth. They were to be found in caves or islands, and, if
+treated with civility, were remarkably condescending. Queen Dido,
+through one of these potentates, obtained contrary winds, to prevent
+Aeneas from leaving her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way,&quot; said Willis, &quot;there is, or at least was, in one of the
+Scottish rivers, a ship without either oars or sails.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, very likely; but it did not move.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It did though, and, what is more, against both wind and tide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish we had your wonderful ship here just now, it is just the thing
+to suit us under present circumstances,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it would, Master Jack, for it sails against currents, up rivers,
+and the crew care no more about the wind than I do about the color of
+the clouds when I am lighting my pipe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't happen to mean that the <i>Flying Dutchman</i> has appeared on
+the Scotch coast, do you, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a bit of it, I mean just exactly what I say. It is a real ship,
+with a real stern and a real figure-head, but manned by blacksmiths
+instead of mariners.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, but how does it move? Does somebody go behind and push it, or
+is it dragged in front by sea-horses and water-kelpies?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, it moves by steam.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, there lies the mystery. The affair has often been discussed by
+us sailors on board ship; some have suggested one way and some
+another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Neither of which throws much light on the subject,&quot; observed Jack;
+&quot;at least, in so far as we are concerned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All I can tell you,&quot; said Willis, &quot;is, that the steam is obtained by
+boiling water in a large cauldron, and that the power so obtained is
+very powerful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That it certainly is, if it could be controlled, for steam occupies
+seventeen or eighteen hundred times the space of the water in its
+liquid state; but then, if the vessel that contains the boiling water
+has no outlet, the steam will burst it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears that it can be prevented doing that, though,&quot; replied
+Willis, &quot;even though additional heat be applied to the vapor itself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By heating the steam, the vapor may acquire a volume forty thousand
+times greater than that of the water; all that is well known; but as
+soon as it comes in contact with the air, nothing is left of it but a
+cloud, which collapses again into a few drops of water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That may be all very true, Master Fritz, if the steam were allowed to
+escape into the air; but it is only permitted to do that after it has
+done duty on board ship. It appears that steam is very elastic, and
+may be compressed like India-rubber, but has a tendency to resist the
+pressure and set itself free. Imagine, for example, a headstrong young
+man, for a long time kept in restraint by parental control, suddenly
+let loose, and allowed scope to follow the bent of his own
+inclinations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, Willis; for argument's sake, let us take your headstrong
+young man, or rather the steam, for granted, and let us admit that it
+is as elastic as ever you please&mdash;but what then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you must imagine a piston in a cylinder, forced upwards when
+the steam is heated, and falling downwards when the steam is cooled.
+Next fancy this upward and downward motion regulated by a number of
+wheels and cranks that turn two wheels on each side of the ship,
+keeping up a constant jangling and clanking, the wheels or paddles
+splashing in the water, and then you may form a slight idea of the
+thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh!&quot; cried Jack, &quot;we invented a machine of that kind for our canoe,
+with a turnspit. Do you recollect it, Fritz?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I recollect it well enough; and I also recollect that the canoe
+went much better without than with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You spoke just now,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;of rival nations, who pounce
+like birds of prey upon every new invention; and so it is with the
+steamship. An American, named Fulton, made a trial in the Hudson with
+one in 1807&mdash;that is about five years ago&mdash;and I believe the Yankees,
+in consequence, are laying claim to the invention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now that you bring the thing to my recollection,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;the
+idea of applying steam in the arts is by no means new, although, I
+must candidly admit, I never heard of it being used in propelling
+ships before. The Spaniards assert that a captain of one of their
+vessels, named Don Blas de Garay, discovered, as early as the
+sixteenth century, the art of making steam a motive power.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't believe that,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because a real Spaniard has never less than thirty-six words in his
+name. If you had said that the steam engine was discovered by Don
+Pedrillo y Alvares y Toledo y Concha y Alonzo y Martinez y Xacarillo,
+or something of that sort, then I could believe the man to have been a
+genuine Spaniard, but not otherwise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Spaniard or no Spaniard, the Spanish claim the discovery of steam
+through Don Blas; the Italians likewise claim the discovery for a
+mechanician, named Bianca; the Germans assign its discovery to
+Solomon de Causs; the French urge Denis Papin; and the English claim
+the invention for Roger Bacon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have forgotten the Swiss,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Swiss,&quot; replied Fritz, with an air of dignity, &quot;put forward no
+candidate: steam and vapor and smoke are not much in their line. They
+discovered something infinitely better&mdash;the world is indebted to them
+for the invention of liberty. I mean rational, intelligent, and true
+liberty&mdash;not the savagery and mob tyranny of red republicanism. The
+three discoverers of this noble invention were Melchthal, Furst, and
+William Tell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can have no idea,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;of the stir that steam was
+creating in Europe the last time I was there. Of course there were
+plenty of incredulous people who said that it was no good; that it
+would never be of any use; and that if it were, it would not pay for
+the fuel consumed. On the other hand, the enthusiasts held that,
+eventually, it would be used for everything; that in the air we should
+have steam balloons; on the sea, steam ships, steam guns, and perhaps
+steam men to work them; that on land there would be steam coaches
+driven by steam horses. Journeys, say they, will be performed in no
+time, that is, as soon as you start for a place you arrive at it, just
+like an arrow, that no sooner leaves the bow than you see it stuck in
+the bull's eye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case,&quot; observed Jack, &quot;it will be necessary to do away with
+respiration, as well as horses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A Londoner will be able to say to his wife, My dear, I am going to
+Birmingham to-day, but I will be back to dinner; and if a Parisian
+lights his cigar at Paris, it will burn till he arrives at Bordeaux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa, Willis, you have fairly converted Fritz and me into marines
+at last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am only speaking of what will be, not of what is&mdash;that makes all
+the difference you know. It is expected that there will be steam
+coaches on every turnpike-road; so that, instead of hiring a
+post-chaise, you will have to order a locomotive, and instead of
+postboys, you will to engage an engineer and stoker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, instead of saying, Put the horses to,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;we
+shall have to say, Get the steam up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly; and when you go on a pleasure excursion, you will be whisked
+from one point to another without having time to see whether you pass
+through a desert or a flower-garden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, is to become of adventures by the way, road-side inns,
+and banditti?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All to be suppressed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it appears,&quot; said Jack; &quot;men are to be carried about from place to
+place like flocks of sheep; perhaps they will invent steam dogs as
+well to run after stragglers, and bring them into the fold by the calf
+of the leg. Your new mode of going a-pleasuring may be a very
+excellent thing in its way, Willis; but it would not suit my taste.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Probably not; nor mine either, for the matter of that, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At all events,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;you would run no danger of being upset
+on the road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; but, by way of compensation, you may be blown up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, I forgot that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This conversation has carried us along another knot,&quot; said Jack,
+opening the log, which he had been appointed to keep; &quot;and now, by
+your leave, I will read over some of my entries to refresh your
+memories as to our proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;March 9th.&mdash;Wind fair and fresh&mdash;steered to north-west&mdash;a flock of
+seals under our lee bow&mdash;feel rather squeamish.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;10th.&mdash;No wind&mdash;fall in with a largish island and four little ones,
+give them the name of Willis's Archipelago.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;11th.&mdash;A dead calm&mdash;sea smooth as a mirror&mdash;all of us dull and
+sleepy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;12th.&mdash;Heat 90 deg.&mdash;shot a boobie, roasted and ate him, rather
+fishy&mdash;passed the night amongst some reefs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;13th.&mdash;Same as the 12th, but no boobie.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;14th.&mdash;Same as the 13th.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dreadfully tiresome, is it not,&quot; said Jack; &quot;no wonder they call this
+ocean the Pacific.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas!&quot; sighed Willis, thinking of the <i>Nelson</i>, &quot;it does not always
+justify the name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;15th.&mdash;Hailed a low island, surrounded with breakers, named it
+Sophia's Island.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But all these islands have been named half a dozen times already,&quot;
+said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, never mind that, another name or two will not break their backs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;16th.&mdash;Current bearing us rapidly to westward&mdash;caught a sea cow, and
+had it converted into pemican.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;17th.&mdash;Shot another boobie, which we put in the pot to remind us that
+we were no worse off than the subjects of Henry IV. No wind&mdash;sea
+blazing like a furnace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will have to turn over a new leaf in your log by-and-by,&quot; said
+Willis, &quot;or I am very much mistaken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I hope you are not mistaken, Willis, for I am tired of this
+sort of thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A red haze now began to shroud the sun, the heat of the air became
+almost stifling, but the muffled roar of distant thunder and bright
+flashes of light warned the voyagers to prepare for a change. Willis
+reefed the canvas close to the mast, and suggested that everything
+likely to spoil should be put under hatches. This was scarcely done
+before the storm had reached them, and they were soon in the midst of
+a tropical deluge. At first, a light breeze sprung up, blowing towards
+the south-east, which continued till midnight, when it chopped round.
+Towards morning, it blew a heavy gale from east to east-south-east,
+with a heavy sea running. In the meantime, the pinnace labored
+heavily, and several seas broke over her. Willis now saw that their
+only chance of safety lay in altering their course. All the canvas was
+already braced up except the jib, which was necessary to give the
+craft headway, and with this sail alone they were soon after speeding
+at a rapid rate in the direction of the Polynesian Islands. The gale
+continued almost without intermission for three weeks, during which
+period Willis considered they must have been driven some hundreds, of
+miles to the north-west.</p>
+
+<p>The gale at length ceased, the sea resumed its tranquility, and the
+wind became favorable. The pinnace had, however, been a good deal
+battered by the storm, and their fresh water was getting low, and it
+was decided they should still keep a westerly course till they reached
+an island where they could refit before resuming their voyage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The gale has not done us much good,&quot; said Jack, sadly; &quot;if it had
+blown the other way, we might have been in the Indian Ocean by this
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cheer up,&quot; said Willis, taking the glass from his eye, &quot;I see land
+about three miles to leeward, and the landing appears easy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the savages?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The islands of this latitude are not all inhabited,&quot; replied Fritz;
+&quot;besides, under our present circumstances, we have no alternative but
+to take our chance with them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I do not know that,&quot; objected Jack; &quot;it would be better for us
+to do without fresh water than to run the risk of being eaten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a beautiful coast!&quot; cried Willis, who still kept the telescope
+at his eye. &quot;Near the shore the land is flat, and appears cultivated;
+but behind, it rises gradually, and is closed in with a range of
+hills, covered with trees. There is a beautiful bay in front of us,
+which appears to invite us ashore. But the place is inhabited; the
+shore is strewn with huts, and I can see clumps of the bread-fruit
+tree growing near them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What sort of vegetable is the bread-fruit?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a very excellent thing, and supplies the natives with bread
+without the intervention of grain, flour-mills, or bakers. It can be
+eaten either raw, or baked, or boiled; either way, it is palatable.
+The tree itself is like our apple trees; but the fruit is as large as
+a pine-apple&mdash;when it is ripe, it is yellow and soft. The natives,
+however, generally gather it before it is ripe; it is then cooked in
+an oven; the skin is burnt or peeled off&mdash;the inside is tender and
+white, like the crumb of bread or the flour of the potato.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me have the telescope an instant,&quot; said Fritz; &quot;I should like to
+see what the natives are like. Ah, I see a troop of them collecting on
+shore; some of them seem to be covered with a kind of wrought-steel
+armor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps the descendants of the Crusaders,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;returning
+from the Holy Land by way of the Pacific Ocean!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Others wear striped pantaloons,&quot; continued Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is to say,&quot; observed Willis, &quot;the whole lot of them are as naked
+as posts. What you suppose to be cuirasses and pantaloons, are their
+tabooed breasts and legs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you sure of that, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a doubt about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such garments are both durable and economical,&quot; remarked Jack; &quot;but I
+scarcely think they are suitable for stormy weather. But do you think
+it is safe to land amongst such a set of barebacked rascals, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should not like to take the responsibility of guaranteeing our
+safety; but I do not see what other course we can adopt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had now approached within musket-shot of the shore. They could
+see that a venerable-looking old man stood a few paces in front of the
+group of natives. He held a green branch in one hand, and pressed with
+the other a long flowing white beard to his breast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to universal grammar,&quot; said Jack, &quot;these signs should mean
+peace and amity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; replied the Pilot; &quot;the more so that the rear-guard are pouring
+water on their heads, which is the greatest mark of courtesy the
+natives of Polynesia can show to strangers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; cried Jack, taking off his cap and making a low bow, &quot;we
+are your most obedient servants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must be on our guard,&quot; said Willis; &quot;these savages are very
+deceitful, and sometimes let fly their arrows under a show of
+friendship. I will go on shore alone, whilst you keep at a little
+distance off, ready to fire to cover my retreat, if need be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The young men objected to Willis incurring danger that they did not
+share; but on this point Willis was inexorable, so they were obliged
+to suffer him to depart alone. By good chance, they had shipped a
+small cask of glass beads on board the pinnace. The Pilot took a few
+of these with him, and, placing a cask and a couple of calabashes in
+the canoe, he rowed ashore.</p>
+
+<p>The natives were evidently in great commotion; there was an immense
+amount of running backwards and forwards. Something important was,
+obviously enough, going forward; but, whether the excitement was
+caused by curiosity or admiration, it was hard to say. They might be
+preparing a friendly reception for the stranger, or they might be
+preparing to eat him&mdash;which of the two was an interesting question
+that Willis did not care about probing too deeply at that particular
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack anxiously watched the operations of the natives from
+the bay. They could not with safety abandon the pinnace; but to leave
+Willis to the mercy of the sinister-looking people on shore was not to
+be thought of either. The <i>Mary</i> was, therefore, run in as close as
+possible, and Jack leaped on the sands a few minutes after the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>Willis marched boldly on towards the natives, and when he arrived
+beside the old man, the crowd opened up and formed an avenue through
+which a chief advanced, followed by a number of men, seemingly
+priests, who carried a grotesque-looking figure that Jack presumed to
+be an idol. The figure was made up of wicker-work&mdash;was of colossal
+height&mdash;the features, which represented nothing on earth beneath nor
+heaven above, were inconceivably hideous&mdash;the eyes were discs of
+mother-of-pearl, with a nut in the centre&mdash;the teeth were apparently
+those of a shark, and the body was covered with a mantle of red
+feathers.</p>
+
+<p>At the command of the chief, some of the natives advanced and placed a
+quantity of bananas, bread-fruits, and other vegetables at the Pilot's
+feet; the priests then came forward and knelt down before him, and
+seemed to worship after the fashion of the ancients when they paid
+their devotions to the Eleusinian goddess, or the statue of Apollo.
+Meanwhile, Jack, on his side, was likewise surrounded by the natives,
+who was treated with much less ceremony than Willis. Instead of
+falling down on their knees, each of them, one after the other, rubbed
+their noses against his, and then danced round him with every
+demonstration of savage joy.</p>
+
+<p>Jack had now an opportunity of observing the personages about him more
+in detail. They were mostly tall and well-formed; their features bore
+some resemblance to those of a negro, their nose being flat and their
+lips thick; on the other hand, they had the high cheek-bones of the
+North American Indian and the forehead of the Malay. Nearly all of
+them were entirely naked, but wore a necklace and bracelets of shells.
+They were armed with a sort of spear and an axe of hard wood edged
+with stone. Their skins were tattooed all over with lines and circles,
+and painted; these decorations, in some instances, exhibiting careful
+execution and no inconsiderable degree of artistic skill. These
+observations made, Jack pushed his way to the spot where Willis was
+receiving the homage of the priests.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! you here?&quot; said the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Willis, I have come to see what detained you. By the way, is
+there anything the matter with my nose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing that I can see; but the natives of New Zealand rub their
+noses against each other, and probably the same usage is fashion
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, then, do they make you an exception?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have not the remotest idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The priests at length rose, and the chief advanced. This dignitary
+addressed a long discourse to Willis in a sing-song tone, which lasted
+nearly half an hour. After this, he stood aside, and looked at Willis,
+as if he expected a reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Illustrious chief, king, prince, or nabob,&quot; said Willis, &quot;I am highly
+flattered by all the fine things you have just said to me. It is true,
+I have not understood a single word, but the fruits you have placed
+before me speak a language that I can understand. Howsomever, most
+mighty potentate, we are not in want of provisions; but if you can
+show us a spring of good water, you will confer upon us an everlasting
+favor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You might just as well ask him to show you what o'clock it is by the
+dial of his cathedral,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They would only point to the sun if I did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But suppose the sun invisible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then they would be in the same position as we are when we forget to
+wind up our watches. Gentlemen savages,&quot; he said, turning to the
+natives and handing them the glass beads, &quot;accept these trifles as a
+token of our esteem.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The natives required no pressing, but accepted the proffered gifts
+with great good-will. The dancing and singing then recommenced with
+redoubled fury, and poor Jack's nose was almost obliterated by the
+constant rubbing it underwent.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the hubbub ceased, and a profound silence reigned throughout
+the assembly. The oldest of the priests brought a mantle of red
+feathers, similar to the one that covered the idol. This was thrown
+over the Pilot's shoulders; a tuft of feathers, something resembling a
+funeral plume, was placed upon his head, and a large semi-circular fan
+was thrust into his hand. Thus equipped, a procession was formed, one
+half before and the other half behind him. The <i>cortége</i> began to move
+slowly in the direction of the interior, but the operation was
+disconcerted by Willis, who remained stock-still.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you,&quot; he said, &quot;I would rather not go far away from the shore.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the natives saw clearly that Willis was not disposed to
+move, the chief issued a mandate, and four stout fellows immediately
+removed the idol from its position, and Willis was placed upon the
+vacant pedestal.</p>
+
+<p>The kind of adoration with which all these proceedings were
+accompanied greatly perplexed the voyagers. What could it all mean?
+Was this a common mode of welcoming strangers? It occurred to Jack
+that the Romans were accustomed to decorate with flowers the victims
+they designed as sacrifices to the altars of their gods before
+immolating them. This reminiscence made his flesh creep with horror,
+and filled him with the utmost dismay.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis!&quot; he cried to the Pilot, whom they were now leading off in
+triumph, &quot;let us try the effects of our rifles on this rabble; you
+jump over the heads of your worshippers, and we will charge through
+them to shore. I will shoot the first man that pursues us, and signal
+Fritz to discharge the four-pounder amongst them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Impossible,&quot; replied Willis; &quot;we should both be stuck all over with
+arrows and lances before we could reach the pinnace. Did I not tell
+you not to come ashore?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, Willis, but did you suppose I had no heart? How could I look on
+quietly whilst you were surrounded by a mob of ferocious-looking men?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well, Master Jack, say no more about it; I do not suppose they
+mean to do me any harm; but there would be danger in rousing the
+passions of such a multitude of people. They seem, luckily, to direct
+their attentions exclusively to me, so you had better go back and look
+after the canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I shall follow you wherever you go, Willis, even into the
+soup-kettles of the wretches.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case,&quot; said Willis, &quot;the wine is poured out, and, such as it
+is, we must drink it.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XX'></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<p>JUPITER TONANS&mdash;THE THUNDERS OF THE PILOT&mdash;WORSHIPPERS OF THE
+FAR WEST&mdash;A LATE BREAKFAST&mdash;RONO THE GREAT&mdash;A POLYNESIAN
+LEGEND&mdash;MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OCEANIA&mdash;MR. AND MRS. TAMAIDI&mdash;REGAL
+POMP&mdash;ELBOW ROOM&mdash;KATZENMUSIK&mdash;QUEEN TONICO AND THE SHAVING
+GLASS&mdash;CONSEQUENCES OF A PINCH OF SNUFF&mdash;DISGRACE OF THE GREAT
+RONO&mdash;MARIUS&mdash;CORIOLANUS&mdash;HANNIBAL&mdash;ALCIBIADES&mdash;CIMON&mdash;ARISTIDES&mdash;A
+SOP FOR THE THIRSTY&mdash;AIR SOMETHING ELSE BESIDES OXYGEN AND
+HYDROGEN&mdash;MARYLAND AND WHITECHAPEL&mdash;HALF-WAY UP THE CORDILLERAS&mdash;HUMAN
+MACHINES&mdash;STAR OF THE SEA, PRAY FOR US!</p>
+
+<p>Was he on his way to the Capitol or to the Gemoniae? The solution of
+this question became, for the moment, of greater importance to Willis
+than the &quot;to be or not to be&quot; of Hamlet to the State of Denmark. This
+incertitude was all the more painful, that it was accompanied by
+myriads of insects, created by the recent rains; these swarmed in the
+air to such an extent, that it was utterly impossible to inhale the
+one without swallowing the other. The sailor, notwithstanding his
+elevated and somewhat perilous position, true to his instincts and
+tormented by the flies, took out his pipe, filled it, and struck a
+light. As soon as the first column of smoke issued from his mouth, the
+cavalcade halted spontaneously, the natives fell on their faces, their
+noses touching the ground, and in an attitude of the profoundest fear
+and apprehension. Jupiter thundering never created such a sensation as
+Willis smoking. The savages seemed glued to the earth with terror. If
+the Pilot had thought it advisable to escape, he might have walked
+over the prostrate bodies of his captors, not one of whom would have
+been bold enough to follow what appeared to be a human volcano,
+vomiting fire and smoke,&mdash;the fire of course being understood.</p>
+
+<p>Willis, however, now saw that he possessed in his pipe a ready means
+of awing them. Besides, it was clear that, through some fortunate
+coincidence, the natives had mistaken him for a divinity. There was,
+consequently, no immediate danger to be apprehended; he therefore
+became himself again, and began to enjoy the novelty of his new
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly a curious contrast. Willis, seated on a sort of
+throne, crowned with a waving plume of feathers, shrouded in a fiery
+mantle, and surrounded by a crowd of prostrate figures, was quietly
+puffing ribbons of smoke from the tips of his lips. There he sat, for
+all the world like a crane in a duck-pond. From time to time the more
+daring of the worshippers slightly raised their heads to see whether
+Jupiter was still thundering; but when their eye caught a whiff of
+smoke, they speedily resumed their former posture. Some of them even
+thrust their heads into holes, or behind stones, as if more
+effectually to shelter themselves from the fury of the fiery furnace.
+At last the eruption ceased, Willis knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
+replaced it in his pocket, and the convoy resumed its route. After
+half an hour's march, the procession halted near a clump of plantains,
+in front of a structure more ambitious than any of those in the
+neighborhood. A female, laden with rude ornaments, was standing at the
+door. This lady, who rivalled the celebrated Daniel Lambert in
+dimensions, would have created quite a <i>furore</i> at Bartholomew Fair;
+according to Jack, she was so amazingly fat, that it would have taken
+full five minutes to walk round her. She took the Pilot respectfully
+by the hand, and led him into the interior of the building, which was
+crowded with images of various forms, and was evidently a temple.
+Willis, at a sign from his conductress, seated himself in a chair,
+raised on a dais, and surmounted by a terrific figure similar to the
+one already described, but draped in white feathers instead of red.</p>
+
+<p>The fat lady, or rather the high priestess&mdash;for she was the reigning
+potentate in this magazine of idols&mdash;took a sucking pig that was held
+by one of the priests. After muttering a prayer or homily of some
+sort, she strangled the poor animal, and returned it to the priest. By
+and by, the pig was brought in again cooked, and presented with great
+ceremony to Willis. There were likewise sundry dishes of fruit, nuts,
+and several small cups containing some kind of liquid. One of the
+priests cut up the pig, and lifted pieces of it to Willis's mouth;
+these, however, he refused to eat. The fat priestess, observing this,
+chewed one or two mouthfuls, which she afterwards handed to the Pilot.
+This was putting the sailor's gallantry to rather a rude test. He was
+equal to the emergency, and did not refuse the offering. But he must
+have felt at the time, that being a divinity was not entirely without
+its attendant inconveniences.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was this the only infliction of the kind he was doomed to
+withstand. One of the priests took up a piece of kava-root, put it
+into his mouth, chewed it, and then dropped a bit into each of the
+cups already noticed. One of these, containing this nectar, was
+presented to Willis by the fat Hebe who presided at the feast, and he
+had the fortitude to taste it. Another of the cups was handed to Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I thank you,&quot; said he, shaking his head; &quot;I breakfasted rather
+late this morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, another personage had entered upon the scene. After having
+performed an obeisance to Willis like the rest, this individual backed
+himself to where Jack was standing, by this means adroitly avoiding
+both the kava and the nose-rubbings. He was distinguished from the
+other natives by an ornament round his waist, which fell to his knees.
+His skin seemed a trifle less dark, his features less marked; but his
+body was tattooed and stained after the common fashion.</p>
+
+<p>The new comer turned out to be a Portuguese deserter, who had
+abandoned his ship twenty years before, and had married the daughter
+of a chief of the island on which he now was. At the present moment,
+he filled the part of prime minister to the king, an office be could
+not have held in his own ungrateful country, since he could neither
+read nor write. These accomplishments, it appeared, were not,
+however, absolutely indispensable in Polynesia. It has been found that
+when a savage is transferred to Europe, he readily acquires the habits
+of civilized life. By a similar adaptation of things to circumstances,
+this European had identified himself with the savages. He had adopted
+their manners, their customs, and their costume. When he thought of
+his own country, it was only to wonder why he ever submitted to the
+constraint of a coat, or put himself to the trouble of handling a fork
+and spoon. He had not, however, entirely forgotten his mother tongue,
+and, moreover, still retained in his memory a few English words. He
+was likewise very communicative, and told Jack that they were in the
+Island of Hawai; that the name of the king was Toubowrai Tamaidi, who,
+he added, intended visiting the pinnace with the queen next day, to
+pay his respects in person to the great Rono. &quot;His Majesty,&quot; said the
+Portuguese, &quot;would have been amongst the first to throw himself at his
+feet, but unfortunately the royal residence is a good way off; and
+though both the king and the queen are on the way, running as fast as
+they can, it may take them some time yet to reach the shore.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But who is the great Rono?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; replied the prime minister, &quot;you ought to know best, since you
+arrived with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jack felt that he was touching on delicate ground, and saw that it was
+necessary to diplomatise a little.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True,&quot; said he; &quot;but I am not acquainted with the position that
+illustrious person holds in relation to Hawai.&quot; The Portuguese then
+made a very long, rambling, and not very lucid statement, from which
+Jack gleaned the following details. About a hundred years before,
+during the reign of one of the first kings, there lived a great
+warrior, whose name was Rono. This chief was very popular, but he was
+very jealous. In a moment of anger he killed his wife, of whom he was
+passionately fond. The regret and grief that resulted from this act
+drove him out of his senses; he wandered disconsolately about the
+island, fought and quarrelled with every one that came near him. At
+last, in a fit of despair, he embarked in a large canoe, and, after
+promising to return at the expiration of twelve hundred moons, with a
+white face and on a floating island, he put out to sea, and was never
+heard of more.</p>
+
+<p>This tradition, it appears, had been piously handed down from family
+to family. The natives of Hawai&mdash;who are not more extravagant in the
+matter of idols than some nations who boast a larger amount of
+civilization, but who do not destroy them so often&mdash;enrolled Rono
+amongst the list of their divinities. An image of him was set up,
+sacrifices were instituted in his honor. Every year the day of his
+departure was kept sacred, and devoted to religious ceremonies. The
+twelfth hundred moon had just set, when a large boat appeared in the
+bay, and a man came ashore. The high priest of the temple, Raou, and
+his daughter, On La, priestess of Rono, solemnly declared that the man
+in question was Rono himself, who had returned at the precise time
+named, and in the manner he promised.</p>
+
+<p>It was, therefore, clear from this statement that Willis was to be
+henceforward Rono the Great.</p>
+
+<p>Jack was rather pleased than otherwise to learn that he was the
+companion of a real live divinity. It assured him, in the first place,
+that the danger of his being converted into a stew or a fricassee was
+not imminent. He did not forget, however, that the consequences might
+be perilous if, by any chance, the illusion ceased; for he knew that
+the greater the height from which a man falls, the less the mercy
+shown to him when he is down. As soon, therefore, as the ceremonies
+had a little relaxed, and Willis was left some freedom of action, Jack
+went forward, and knelt before him in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O sublime Rono,&quot; said he, &quot;I know now why your nose has escaped all
+the rubbings that mine has had to undergo.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you?&quot; said Willis; &quot;glad to hear it, for I am as much in the dark
+as ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jack then related to him the fabulous legend he had just heard.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, Willis shook off his <i>entourage</i> as gently as possible,
+and succeeded in getting out of the temple. Accompanied by Jack, he
+proceeded towards the shore, receiving, as he went, the adoration of
+the people. The route was strewn with fruit, cocoa-nuts, and pigs, and
+the natives were highly delighted when any of their offerings were
+accepted by the deified Rono.</p>
+
+<p>The islanders appeared mild, docile, and intelligent, notwithstanding
+the singular delusion that possessed them. Living from day to day,
+they were, doubtless, ignorant of those continual cares and
+calculations for the future that in the old world pursue us even into
+the hours of sleep. Were they happier in consequence? Yes, if the
+child is happier than the man, and if we admit that we often loose in
+tranquillity and happiness what we gain in knowledge and perfection:
+yes, if happiness is not exclusively attached to certain peoples and
+certain climates; yes, if it is true that, with contentment, happiness
+is everywhere to be found.</p>
+
+<p>The houses of the Hawaians are singular structures, and scarcely can
+be called dwellings. They consist of three rows of posts, two on each
+side and one in the middle, the whole covered with a slanting roof,
+but without any kind of wall whatever.</p>
+
+<p>They do not bury their dead, but swing them up in a sort of hammock,
+abundantly supplied with provisions. It is supposed that this is done
+with a view to enable the souls of the departed to take their flight
+more readily to heaven. The practice, consequently, seems to indicate
+that the natives possess a confused idea of a future state. When a
+child dies, flowers are placed in the hammock along with the
+provisions&mdash;a touch of the nature common to us all. They express deep
+grief by inflicting wounds upon their faces with a shark's tooth; and,
+when they feel themselves in danger of dying, they cut off a joint of
+the little finger to appease the anger of the Divinity. There was
+scarcely one of the adult islanders who was not mutilated in this way.</p>
+
+<p>Though the worshippers of the great Rono appeared gentle and peaceable
+enough, there were to be seen here and there a human jaw-bone,
+seemingly fresh, with the teeth entire, suspended over the entrances
+to the huts. These ghastly objects sent a shudder quivering through
+Jack's frame, and made Willis aware that it would not be advisable
+rashly to throw off his sacred character.</p>
+
+<p>As it was now late, and as they knew that Fritz would be uneasy about
+them, they put off laying in their stock of water till next day. Jack
+told the prime minister that the great Rono would be prepared to
+receive their majesties whenever they chose to visit him. This done,
+Willis and his companion seated themselves in the canoe, and rowed out
+to the pinnace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God be thanked, you have returned in safety!&quot; cried Fritz; &quot;I never
+was so uneasy in the whole course of my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, brother, we have not been without our anxieties as well, and
+had we not happened to have had a divinity amongst us, we might not
+have come off scathless.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jack then related their adventures, which gradually brought a smile to
+the pale lips of Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the water?&quot; inquired Fritz, after he had heard the story.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, water; they offered us something to drink on shore that will
+prevent us being thirsty for a month to come, but we shall see to that
+to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Towards dark, some fireworks were discharged on board the pinnace, by
+way of demonstrating that Willis's pipe was not the only fiery terror
+the great Rono had at his command.</p>
+
+<p>Early next morning a flotilla of canoes were observed rounding one of
+the points that formed the bay. The one in advance was larger than the
+others, and was evidently the trunk of a large tree hollowed out.
+Jack's new friend, the Portuguese, hailed the pinnace, and announced
+the King and Queen of Hawai, who thereupon scrambled into the pinnace.
+His majesty King Toubowrai had probably felt it incumbent upon himself
+to do honor to the illustrious Rono, for he wore an old uniform coat,
+very likely the produce of a wreck, through the sleeves of which the
+angular knobs of his copper-colored elbows projected. He did not seem
+very much at his ease in this garment, which contrasted oddly with the
+tight-fitting tattooed skin that served him for pantaloons.</p>
+
+<p>His wife, Queen Tonico, princess-like was half stifled in a thick
+blanket or mat of cocoa-nut fibre. Her ears were heavily laden with
+teeth and ornaments of various kinds, made out of bone, mother of
+pearl, and tortoise-shell. Her nails were two or three inches long;
+and, to judge by the number of finger-joints that were wanting, she
+was either troubled with delicate nerves, or was slightly
+hypochondriac.</p>
+
+<p>The royal pair were accompanied by a band of music: fortunately, this
+remained in the regal barge. It consisted of a flute with four holes,
+a nondescript instrument, seemingly made of stones; a drum made out of
+the hollow trunk of a tree, covered at each end with skin, of what
+kind it is needless to inquire. The sounds emitted by this orchestra
+were of an ear-rending nature, and of a kind graphically termed by the
+Germans Katzenmusik.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Illustrious Rono,&quot; cried Jack, &quot;for goodness sake, tell these
+gentlemen you are not a lover of sweet sounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Belay there!&quot; roared Willis.</p>
+
+<p>This command, however, had no effect; the artists continued thumping
+and blowing away as before. Willis, thinking to make himself better
+heard, placed his hands on his mouth, and roared the same order
+through them. This action seemed to be received as a mark of
+approbation, for the noise became absolutely terrific.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No use,&quot; said Willis: &quot;I can make nothing of them. You try what you
+can do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good,&quot; said Jack, lighting what is technically termed an
+<i>artichoke</i>, but better known as a zig-zag cracker; &quot;if they do not
+understand English, perhaps they may comprehend pyrotechnics.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The artichoke was thrown into the royal barge. At first there was only
+a slight whiz, finally it gave an angry bound and leaped into the
+midst of the musicians. Startled, they tried to get out of its way;
+but they were no sooner at what they thought to be a safe distance,
+than the thing was amongst them again. Their majesties, who were just
+then engaged in kissing the Rono's feet, started up in alarm; but when
+they saw the danger did not menace themselves, they burst into a
+hearty laugh at the antics of their suite.</p>
+
+<p>This episode over, and the orchestra silenced, the Sovereign of Hawai
+proceeded to inspect the pinnace. He expressed his delight every now
+and then by uttering the syllables &quot;<i>ta-ta</i>.&quot; Fritz handed one of
+those shaving glasses to the Queen that lengthen the objects they
+reflect. This astonished her Majesty vastly, and caused her to <i>ta-ta</i>
+at a great rate. She looked behind the mirror, turned it upside down,
+and at last, when she felt assured that it was the royal person it
+caricatured, she commenced measuring her cheeks to account for the
+extraordinary disproportion.</p>
+
+<p>They next all sat down to a repast that was spread on deck. Their
+Majesties observing Rono use a fork, did so likewise; but though they
+stuck a piece of meat on the end of it, and held it in one hand, they
+continued carrying the viands to their mouths with the other. At the
+conclusion of the feast, Willis took a pinch of snuff out of a
+canister. Their Majesties insisted upon doing so likewise. Willis
+handed them the canister, and they filled their noses with the
+treacherous powder. Then followed a duet of sneezing, accompanied with
+facial contortions. The royal personages thinking, probably, that they
+were poisoned, leaped into the sea like a couple of frogs, and swam to
+the royal barge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa, sire,&quot; cried Jack, &quot;where are you off to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This was answered by the barge paddling away rapidly towards land.
+Hitherto, the whole affair had been a farce; but now the natives, who
+had collected in great numbers along the shore, seeing their king and
+queen leap into the water with a terrified air, supposed that an
+attempt had been made to cut short their royal lives, and, under this
+impression, discharged a cloud of arrows at the pinnace, and matters
+began to assume a serious aspect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; exclaimed Jack, &quot;shooting at the great Rono!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;only proves they are men like ourselves. He who
+is covered with incense one day, is very often immolated the next.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And that simply because Rono treated Mr. and Mrs. What's-their-names
+to a pinch of snuff. Serve them right to discharge the contents of the
+four-pounder amongst them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; cried Willis; &quot;the worthy people are, perhaps, fond of their
+king and queen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Worthy people or not,&quot; said Fritz, drawing out an arrow that had sunk
+into the capstan, &quot;it is very likely that if this dart had hit one of
+us, there would only have been two instead of three in the crew of the
+pinnace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Willis, &quot;Master Jack thought the voyage rather dull; now
+something has turned up to relieve the monotony of his log.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are still without fresh water though, Willis; I wish you could say
+that had turned up as well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be prudent to go in search of that somewhere else now,&quot; said
+Willis, unfurling the sails. &quot;Fortunately the wind is fresh, and we
+can make considerable headway before night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As they steered gently out of the bay a second cloud of arrows was
+sent after them, but this time they fell short.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The belief in Rono is about to be seriously compromised,&quot; remarked
+Fritz; &quot;I should advise the priestess to retire into private life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because she is too fat to live in an ordinary house, she could only
+breathe in a temple. But, O human vicissitudes!&quot; added Jack, rolling
+himself up in a sail after the manner of the Roman senators; &quot;behold
+Rono the Great banished from his country, and compelled to go and
+pillow his head on a foreign sail, like Marius at Minturnus&mdash;like
+Coriolanus amongst the Volcians&mdash;like Hannibal at the house of
+Antiochus&mdash;like Alcibiades at the castle of Grunium in Phrygia, given
+to him out of charity by the benevolent Pharnabazus, and in which he
+was burnt alive by his countrymen&mdash;like Cimon, voted into exile by
+ballot and universal suffrage&mdash;like Aristides, whom the people got
+tired of hearing called the Just, and many others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who are all these personages?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They were worthies of another age,&quot; replied Fritz; &quot;very excellent
+men in their way, and you are in no way dishonored by being numbered
+amongst them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yesterday,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;an entire people were upon their knees
+before you; they offered up sacrifices, and poured out incense on
+their altars for you; fruit and pigs were scattered in heaps, like
+flowers, upon your path; the crowd were prostrated by the fumes of
+your pipe. To-day&mdash;alas, the change!&mdash;a cloud of arrows, and not a
+single glass of cold water!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That gives you an opportunity of quenching your thirst with the
+nectar offered to you yesterday,&quot; said Fritz; &quot;as for myself, I have
+no such resource.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that was a posset to quench one's thirst withal; I only wish I
+had a cupful to give you. I do not regret having had an opportunity of
+becoming acquainted with the people though. They have enabled me to
+rectify some erroneous notions I formerly entertained. If, for
+example, I were to ask you what air consists of? you would, no doubt,
+reply that is a compound body made of oxygen and hydrogen or azote, in
+the proportion of twenty-one of the one to seventy-nine of the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, most undoubtedly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, such is not the case; there are other elements in the air
+besides these.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you mean that the air accidentally, or even permanently, holds in
+solution a certain quantity of water, or a portion of carbonic acid
+gas, and possibly some particles of dust arising from terrestrial
+bodies, then I grant your premises.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; what I mean is, that the air of Hawai is composed of three
+distinct elements.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Possibly; but if so, the air in question is not known to chemists.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These three elements are oxygen, hydrogen, and insects.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, insects! I might have fancied you were driving at some hypothesis
+of that sort.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I intend to communicate this discovery to the first learned society
+we fall in with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the Pacific Ocean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes: there or elsewhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I always understood,&quot; observed Willis, &quot;that air was a sort of cloud,
+one and indivisible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A cloud if you like, Willis; but do you know the weight of it you
+carry on your shoulders?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it cannot be very great, otherwise I should feel it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you say to a ton or so, old fellow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you wish me to believe that, you will have to explain how, where,
+when, why, and wherefore.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good. Willis; you have bathed sometimes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, certainly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the sea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know what water weighs?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but I know that it is heavy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, a square yard of air weighs two pounds and a half, but a square
+yard of water weighs two thousand pounds. Now, can you calculate the
+weight of the water that is on your back and pressing on your sides
+when you swim?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I cannot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not sufficiently up in arithmetic to do that, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor am I either, Willis; but let me ask you how it is that the waves
+do not carry you along with them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because one wave neutralises the effect of another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good; but how is it that these ponderous waves, coming down upon
+you, do not crush you to atoms by their mere weight?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I suppose that liquids do not operate in the same way as
+solids: perhaps there is something in our bodies that counterbalances
+the effect of the water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely; and if such be the case as regards water, may it not be
+so also as regards air?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I do not feel air; whereas, if I go into water, I not only feel
+it, but taste it sometimes, and I cannot force my way through it
+without considerable exertion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is because you are organized to live in air and not in water.
+You ask the smallest sprat or sticklebake if it does not, in the same
+way feel the air obstruct its progress.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But would the stickleback answer me, Master Fritz?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not, if it is polite and well bred?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, Willis,&quot; inquired Jack, &quot;do you ever recollect having
+lived without breathing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can't say I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, then; had you felt the weight of the air at any given
+moment, it must have produced an impression you never felt before, but
+you have not, because circumstances have never varied. A sensation
+supposes a contrast, whilst, ever since you existed, you have always
+been subject to atmospheric pressure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, now I begin to get at the gist of your argument. You mean, for
+example, that I would never have appreciated the delicate flavor of
+Maryland or Havanna, had I not been accustomed to smoke the
+cabbage-leaf manufactured in Whitechapel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Precisely so; and take for another example the farm of Antisana,
+which is situated about midway up the Cordilleras, mountains of South
+America. When travellers, arriving there from the summits which are
+covered with perpetual snow, meet others arriving from the plain where
+the heat is intense, those that descend are invariably bathed in
+perspiration, whilst those that have come up are shivering with cold
+and covered with furs. The reason of this is, that we cannot feel warm
+till we have been cold, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our bodies,&quot; resumed Fritz, &quot;however much the thermometer descends,
+never mark less than thirty-five degrees above zero. In winter the
+skin shrinks, and becomes a bad conductor of heat from without; but,
+at the same time, does not allow so much gas and vapor to escape from
+within. In summer, on the contrary, the skin dilates and allows
+perspiration to form, a process that consumes a considerable amount of
+latent heat. Starting from this principle, it has been calculated that
+a man, breathing twenty times in a minute, generates as much heat in
+twenty-four hours as would boil a bucket of water taken at zero.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If means could be found,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;to furnish him with a
+boiler, by fixing a piston here and a pipe there man might be
+converted into one of the machines we were talking about the other
+day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were I disposed to philosophize,&quot; added Fritz, &quot;I might prove to you
+that for a long time men have been little else than mere machines.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Before night they had run about thirty miles further to the
+north-east, without seeing any thing beyond a formidable bluff,
+guarded by a fringe of breakers, that would soon have swallowed up the
+<i>Mary</i> had she ventured to reach the land. It was necessary however to
+obtain fresh water at any price before they resumed their voyage.</p>
+
+<p>It was to be feared that all the islanders of the Pacific were not in
+expectation of a great Rono, consequently Willis suggested that it
+would be as well to search for an uninhabited spot. The only question
+was, how long they might have to search before they succeeded; for
+they knew that there were plenty of small islands in these latitudes
+unencumbered by savages, and furnished with pools and springs of
+water.</p>
+
+<p>Night at length closed in upon them, and with it came a dense mist,
+that enveloped the <i>Mary</i> as if in a triple veil of muslin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis,&quot; inquired Jack, &quot;what difference is there between a mist and
+a cloud?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None that I know of,&quot; replied the Pilot, &quot;except that a cloud which
+we are in is mist, and mist that we are not in is a cloud. And now, my
+lads,&quot; he added, &quot;you may turn in, for I intend to take the first
+watch.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Before turning in, however, all three joined in a short prayer. The
+young men had not yet forgotten the pious precepts of their father.
+Prayer is beautiful everywhere, but nowhere is it so beautiful as on
+the open sea, with infinity above and an abyss beneath. Then, when all
+is silent save the roar of the waves and the howling of the winds, it
+is sublime to hear the humble voice of the sailor murmuring, &quot;Star of
+the night, pray for us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That night the star of the night did pray for the three voyagers, for
+the rays of the moon burst through the darkness and the mist, and fell
+upon a long line of reefs under the lee of the pinnace. Had they held
+on their course a few minutes longer, our story would have been ended.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXI'></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<p>LYING TO&mdash;HEART AND INSTINCT&mdash;SPARROWS VIEWED AS
+CONSUMERS&mdash;MIGRATIONS&mdash;POSTING A LETTER IN THE
+PACIFIC&mdash;CANNIBALS&mdash;ADVENTURES OF A LOCKET.</p>
+
+<p>The glimpse of moonshine only lasted a second, but it was sufficient
+to light up the valley of the shadow of death. All around was again
+enveloped in obscurity. The moon, like a modest benefactor who hides
+himself from those to whose wants he has ministered, concealed itself
+behind its screen of blackness.</p>
+
+<p>The pinnace was thrown into stays, and they resolved to lie-to till
+daybreak. There might be rocks to windward as well as to leeward; at
+all events, they felt that their safest course lay in maintaining, as
+far as possible, their actual position; and, after having returned
+thanks for their almost miraculous escape, they made the usual
+arrangements for passing the night.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning they found themselves in the midst of a labyrinth of
+rocks, from which, with the help of Providence, they succeeded in
+extricating themselves. The rocks, or rather reefs, amongst which they
+were entangled, are very common in these seas. As they are scarcely
+visible at high water, they are extremely dangerous, and often baffle
+the skill of the most expert navigator.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Willis steered the pinnace amongst the islands and rocks of the
+Hawaian Archipelago, Fritz kept a look-out for savages, fresh water,
+and eligible landing-places. And Jack, after having posted up his log,
+set about inditing a letter for home.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The voyage,&quot; said he, &quot;has lately been so prolific in adventure, that
+I scarcely know where to begin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Begin by saluting them all round,&quot; suggested Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, brother of mine, that is usually done at the end of the
+letter,&quot; objected Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What then? you can repeat the salutations at the end, and you might
+also, for that matter, put them in the middle as well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have written lots of letters on board ship for my comrades,&quot;
+remarked Willis, &quot;and I invariably commenced by saying&mdash;<i>I take a pen
+in my hand to let you know I am well, hoping you are the same</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What else could you take in your hand for such a purpose, O Rono?&quot;
+inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes, after this preamble, I added, '<i>but I am afraid</i>.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought you old salts were never afraid of anything, short of the
+Flying Dutchman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but the letters I put that in were for young lubbers, who,
+instead of sending home half their pay, were writing for extra
+supplies, and were naturally in great fear that their requests would
+be refused.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I scarcely think I shall adopt that style, Willis, even though it
+were recognized by the navy regulations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think the pigeon will find its way with the letter from here
+to New Switzerland?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no doubt about that,&quot; replied Fritz, &quot;it naturally returns to
+its nest and its affections. If you had wings, would you not fly
+straight off in the direction of the Bass Rock or Ailsa Craig, to hunt
+up your old arm-chair?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't speak of it; I feel my heart go pit-pat when I think of home,
+sweet home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So do the birds. When they soften the grain before they throw it into
+the maw of their fledgelings&mdash;when they fly off and return laden with
+midges to their nests&mdash;when they tear the down from their breasts to
+protect their eggs and their young, do you think their hearts do not
+beat as well as yours?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But all that is said to be instinct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Heart or instinct, where is the difference? The Abbé Spallanzani saw
+two swallows that were carried to Milan return to Pavia in fifteen
+minutes, and the distance between the two cities is seven leagues.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I can easily believe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you see a little, insignificant bird flying backwards and
+forwards, perching on one branch and hopping off to another,
+whistling, carolling, perching here and there, you think that it has
+no cares, that it does not reflect, and that it does not love!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I have heard in my time a great many wonderful stories of
+robin-redbreasts and jenny-wrens, but I always understood that they
+were intended only to amuse little boys and girls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You consider, doubtless, that a field-sparrow is not a creature of
+much importance; but do you know that he consumes half a bushel of
+corn annually?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If that is his only merit, the farmers, I dare say, would be glad to
+get rid of him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it is not his only merit. What do you think of his killing three
+thousand insects a week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is more to the purpose. But, to return to the pigeon, supposing
+it is possible for it to find its way, how long do you suppose it will
+take to get there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is estimated that birds of passage fly over two hundred miles a
+day, if they keep on the wing for six hours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two hundred miles in six hours is fast sailing, anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Swallows have been seen in Senegal on the 9th of October, that is,
+eight or nine days after they leave Europe; and that journey they
+repeat every year.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They must surely make some preparations for such a lengthy
+excursion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the period of departure approaches, they collect together in
+troops on the chimneys or roofs of houses, and on the tops of trees.
+During this operation, they keep up an incessant cry, which brings
+families of them from all quarters. The young ones try the strength of
+their wings under the eyes of the parents. Finally, they make some
+strategic dispositions, and elect a chief.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You talk of the swallows as if they were an army preparing for
+battle, with flags flying, trumpets sounding, and ready to march at
+the word of command.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The resemblance between flocks of birds and serried masses of men in
+martial array is striking. Wild ducks, swans, and cranes fly in a kind
+of regimental order; their battalions assume the form of a triangle or
+wedge, so as to cut through the air with greater facility, and
+diminish the resistance it presents to their flight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how do you know it is for that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What else could it be for? The leader gives notice, by a peculiar
+cry, of the route it is about to take. This cry is repeated by the
+flock, as if to say that they will follow, and keep the direction
+indicated. When they meet with a bird of prey whose attacks they may
+have to repulse, the ranks fall in so as to present a solid phalanx to
+the enemy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they had a commissariat in the rear and a few sappers in front,
+the resemblance would be complete.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If a storm arises,&quot; continued Fritz, without noticing Willis's
+commentary, &quot;they lower their flight and approach the ground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Forgotten their umbrellas, perhaps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When they make a halt, outposts are established to keep a look out
+while the troop sleeps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, in cases of alarm, the outposts fire and fall in as a matter of
+course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Great Rono,&quot; said Jack, &quot;you are become a downright quiz. I have
+finished my letter whilst you have been discussing the poultry,&quot; he
+added, handing the pen to his brother, &quot;and it only waits your
+postscriptum.&quot; Fritz having added a few lines, the epistle was sealed,
+and was then attached to one of the pigeons, which, after hovering a
+short time round the pinnace, took a flight upwards and disappeared in
+the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>They were now in sight of a large island, which bore no traces of
+habitation. There was a heavy surf beating on the shore, but the case
+was urgent, so Willis and Jack embarked in the canoe, and, after a
+hard fight with the waves, landed on the beach.</p>
+
+<p>Each of them were armed with a double-barrelled rifle, and furnished
+with a boatswain's whistle. The whistle was to signal the discovery of
+water, and a rifle shot was to bring them together in case of danger.
+These arrangements being made, Jack proceeded in the direction of a
+thicket, which stood at the distance of some hundred yards from the
+shore. He had no sooner reached the cover in the vicinity of the trees
+than he was pounced upon by two ferocious-looking savages. They gave
+him no time to level his rifle or to draw a knife. One of his captors
+held his hands firmly behind his back, whilst the other dragged him
+towards the wood. At this moment the Pilot's whistle rang sharply
+through the air. This put an end to any hopes that Jack might have
+entertained of being rescued through that means. Had he sounded the
+whistle, it would only have led Willis to suppose that he had heard
+the signal, and was on his way to join him.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Jack judged, from the aspect of the men who held him, that they
+were cannibals, and consequently that his fate was sealed, for if his
+surmises were correct, there was little chance of the wretches
+relinquishing their prey. Jack had often amused himself at the expense
+of the anthropophagi, but here he was actually within their grasp.
+Though death terminates the sorrows and the sufferings of man, and
+though the result is the same in whatever shape it comes, yet there
+are circumstances which cause its approach to be regarded with terror
+and dismay. In one's bed, exhausted by old age or disease, the lips
+only open to give utterance to a sigh of pain; life, then, is a burden
+that is laid down without reluctance; we glide imperceptibly and
+almost voluntarily into eternity.</p>
+
+<p>At twenty years of age, however, when we are full of health and ardor,
+the case is very different. Then we are at the threshold of hope and
+happiness; our illusions have not had time to fade, the future is a
+brilliant meteor sparkling in sunshine. At that age our seas are
+always calm, and the rocks and shoals are all concealed. Our barks
+glide jauntily along, the sailors sing merrily, the perils are
+shrouded in romance, and the flag flutters gaily in the breeze. Then
+life is not abandoned without a tear of regret.</p>
+
+<p>To die in the midst of one's friends is not to quit them entirely.
+They come to see us through the marble or stone in which we are
+shrouded. It is another thing to have no other sepulchre than the
+&aelig;sophagus of a cannibal. How the recollections of the past darted into
+Jack's mind! He felt that he loved those whom he was on the point of
+leaving a thousand times more than he did before. What would he not
+have given for the power to bid them one last adieu? The idea of
+quitting life thus was horrible.</p>
+
+<p>It was in vain that he tried to shake off his assailants; his
+adolescent strength was as nothing in the arms of steel that bound
+him. He saw that he was powerless in their hands, and at length ceased
+making any further attempts to escape.</p>
+
+<p>The savages, finding that he had relaxed his struggles, commenced to
+rifle and strip him. They tore off his upper garments, and discovered
+a small locket, containing a medallion of his mother, which the
+unfortunate youth wore round his neck. This prize, which the savages
+no doubt regarded as a talisman of some sort, they both desired to
+possess. They quarrelled about it, and commenced fighting over it.
+Jack's hands were left at liberty. In an instant he had seized his
+rifle. He ran a few paces back, turned, took deliberate aim at the
+most powerful of his adversaries, who, with a shriek, fell to the
+ground. The other savage, scared by the report of the shot and its
+effects upon his companion, took to flight, but he carried off the
+locket with him.</p>
+
+<p>Jack had now regained his courage. He felt, like Telemachus in the
+midst of his battles, that God was with him, and he flew, perhaps
+imprudently, after the fugitive. Seeing, however, that he had no
+chance with him as regards speed, he discharged his second rifle. The
+shot did not take effect, but the report brought the savage to his
+knees. The frightened wretch pressed his hands together in an attitude
+of supplication. Jack stopped at a little distance, and, by an
+imperious gesture, gave him to understand that he wanted the locket.
+The sign was comprehended, for the savage laid the talisman on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; said Jack, &quot;in the name of my mother I give you your life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By another sign, he signified to the man that he was at liberty, which
+he no sooner understood than he vanished like an arrow.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the consternation of Fritz when he heard the reports; he
+feared that the whole island was in commotion, and that both his
+brother and the Pilot were surrounded by a legion of copper-colored
+devils. From the conformation of the coast he could see nothing, and,
+like Sisiphus on his rock, he was tied by imperious necessity to his
+post.</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot, on hearing the first shot, ran to the spot, and both he and
+Jack arrived at the same instant, where the savage lay bleeding on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are safe and sound, I hope?&quot; said Willis, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With the exception of some slight contusions, and the loss of my
+clothes, thank God, I am all right, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are born to bad luck, it seems.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say rather we are the spoilt children of Providence. I have just
+passed through the eye of a needle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is this the only savage you have seen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, there were two of them; and, to judge from their actions, I
+verily believe the rascals intended to eat me. As for this one, he is
+more frightened than hurt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so it was, he had escaped with some slugs in his shoulders; but he
+seemed, by the contortions of his face, to think that he was dying.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fortunately,&quot; said Jack, &quot;my rifle was not loaded with ball. I should
+be sorry to have the death of a human being on my conscience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Willis, &quot;I am not naturally cruel, but, beset as you have
+been, I should have shot both the fellows without the slightest
+compunction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still,&quot; said Jack, giving the wounded savage a mouthful of brandy,
+&quot;we ought to have mercy on the vanquished&mdash;they are men like
+ourselves, at all events.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, they have flesh and bone, arms, legs, hands, and teeth like us;
+but I doubt whether they are possessed of souls and hearts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The chances are that they possess both, Willis; only neither the one
+nor the other has been trained to regard the things of this world in a
+proper light. Their notions as to diet, for example, arise from
+ignorance as to what substances are fit and proper for human food.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you like,&quot; said Willis; &quot;but let us be off; there may be more of
+them lurking about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! again without water?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, this time I have taken care to fill the casks; the canoe is laden
+with fresh water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fritz must be very uneasy about us; but this man may die if we leave
+him so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely,&quot; said the Pilot; &quot;but that is no business of ours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good bye,&quot; said Jack, lifting up the wounded savage, and propping him
+against a tree; &quot;I may never have the pleasure of seeing you again,
+and am sorry to leave you in such a plight; but it will be a lesson
+for you, and a hint to be a little more hospitable for the future in
+your reception of strangers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The savage raised his eyes for an instant, as if to thank Jack for his
+good offices, and then relapsed into his former attitude of dejection.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes later the canoe was aboard the pinnace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fritz,&quot; said Jack, throwing his arms round his brother's neck, &quot;I am
+delighted to see you again; half an hour ago I had not the shadow of a
+chance of ever beholding you more.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXII'></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<p>THE UTILITY OF ADVERSITY&mdash;AN ENCOUNTER&mdash;THE HOROKEN&mdash;BILL ALIAS BOB.</p>
+
+<p>A light but favorable breeze carried them away from land, and they
+were once again on the open sea. Willis, after a prolonged
+investigation of the sun's position, taken in relation to some
+observations he had made the day before, concluded that the best
+course to pursue, under existing circumstances, was to steer for the
+Marian Islands.<a name='FNanchor_H_8'></a><a href='#Footnote_H_8'><sup>[H]</sup></a> In addition to the distance they had originally to
+traverse, all the way lost during the storm was now before them. As
+regards provisions, they had little to fear; they could rely upon
+falling in with a boobie or sea-cow occasionally, and fresh fish were
+to be had at any time. Their supply of water, however, gave them some
+uneasiness, for the quantity was limited, and they might be retarded
+by calms and contrary winds. The chances of meeting a European ship
+were too slender to enter for anything into their calculations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears to me,&quot; said Jack, one beautiful evening, when they were
+some hundreds of miles from any habitable spot, &quot;that, having escaped
+so many dangers, the watchful eye of Providence must be guarding us
+from evil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very possibly,&quot; replied Fritz; &quot;one of the early chroniclers of the
+Christian Church says that Lazarus, whom our Saviour resuscitated at
+the gates of Jerusalem, became afterwards one of the most popular
+preachers of Christianity, and in consequence the Jews regarded him
+with implacable hatred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what, in all the world, has that to do with the Pacific Ocean?&quot;
+inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very little with the Pacific in particular, but a great deal with
+the ocean in general. Lazarus, his sisters, and some of his friends,
+were thrown into prison, tried, and condemned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And stoned or crucified,&quot; added Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; the high priest of the temple had a great variety of punishments
+on hand besides these. He resolved to expose them to the mercy of the
+waves, without provisions, and without a mast, sail, or rudder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank goodness, we are not so badly off as that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>He</i>, for whom Lazarus suffered, and who is the same that nourishes
+the birds of the air and feeds the beasts of the field; watched over
+the forlorn craft; under his guidance, the little colony of martyrs
+were wafted in safety to the fertile coasts of Provence. They landed,
+according to the tradition, at Marseilles, of whom Lazarus was the
+first bishop, and has always been the patron saint. Who knows?&mdash;the
+same good fortune may perhaps await us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are not martyrs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but Providence does not always measure its favors by the merits
+of those upon whom they are bestowed&mdash;misfortune, alone, is often a
+sufficient claim; so it is well for us to be patient under a little
+suffering, for sweet often is the reward.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A little hardship, now and then,&quot; added Jack, &quot;is, no doubt,
+salutary. The Italians say: '<i>Le avversit&agrave; sono per l'animo cio ch' &egrave;
+un temporale per l'aria</i>.' Suffering teaches us to prize health and
+happiness; were there no such things as pain and grief, we should be
+apt to regard these blessings as valueless, and to estimate them as
+our legitimate rights. For my own part, I was never so happy in my
+whole life as when I embraced you the other day, after escaping out of
+the clutches of the savages.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are many charms in life that are almost without alloy: the
+perfume of flowers&mdash;music&mdash;the singing of birds&mdash;the riches of
+art&mdash;the intercourse of society&mdash;the delights of the family
+circle&mdash;the treasures of imagination and memory. Some of the most
+beneficent gifts of Nature we only know the existence of when we are
+deprived of them; occasional darkness alone enables us to appreciate
+the unspeakable blessing of light. Man has a multitude of enjoyments
+at his command; but so many sweets would be utterly insipid without a
+few bitters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The rheumatism, for example,&quot; said Willis, rubbing his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many enjoyments,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;spring from the heart alone; the
+affections, benevolence, love of order, a sense of the beautiful, of
+truth, of honesty, and of justice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the other hand,&quot; said Willis, &quot;there are dishonesty, injustice,
+disappointment, and blighted hopes; but you are too young to know much
+about these. When you have seen as much of the world on sea and on
+land as I have, perhaps you will be disposed to look at life from
+another point of view. In old stagers like myself, the tender emotions
+are all used up; it is only when we are amongst you youngsters that we
+forget the present in the past; when we see you struggling with
+difficulties, it recalls our own trials to our mind, rouses in us
+sentiments of commiseration, and softens the asperities of our years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to you, then,&quot; said Fritz, levelling his rifle at a petrel,
+&quot;the misfortunes of the one constitute the happiness of the other?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unquestionably,&quot; said Jack; &quot;for instance, if you miss that bird, so
+much the worse for you, and so much the better for the petrel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very rarely, brother, that you do not interrupt a serious
+conversation with some nonsense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Keep your temper, Fritz; I am about to propose a serious question
+myself. How is it that the petrel you are aiming at does not come and
+perch itself quietly on the barrel of your rifle?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jack, Jack, you are incorrigible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you ever see a hare or a pheasant come and stare you in the face
+when you were going to shoot it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stunsails and tops!&quot; cried Willis, &quot;if I do not see something
+stranger than that staring us in the face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The sea-serpent, perhaps,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought it was a sea-bird at first,&quot; said Willis, &quot;but they do not
+increase in size the longer you look at them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They naturally appear to increase as they approach,&quot; observed Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but the increase must have a limit, and I never saw a bird with
+such singular upper-works before. Just take a cast of the glass
+yourself, Master Fritz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Halls of &AElig;olus!&quot; cried Fritz, &quot;these wings are sails.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So I thought!&quot; exclaimed Willis, throwing his sou'-wester into the
+air, and uttering a loud hurrah.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If it is the <i>Nelson</i>&quot; said Jack, &quot;it would be a singular encounter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>The Nelson</i>!&quot; sighed Willis, &quot;in the latitude of Hawai; no, that is
+impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is bearing down upon us,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just let me see a moment whether I can make out her figure-head,&quot;
+said Willis. &quot;Aye, aye!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you make it out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; but, from the sheer of the hull, I think the ship is British
+built.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank God!&quot; exclaimed both the young men.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you may say 'Thank God;' but, if it turns out to be a
+man-of-war, I must report myself on board, and I doubt whether my
+story will go down with the captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But if it is the <i>Nelson</i>?&quot; insisted Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, aye; the <i>Nelson</i>,&quot; replied Willis, &quot;is not going to turn up
+here to oblige us, you may take my word for that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have better eyes than you, Willis; just let me see if I can make
+her out. No, impossible; nothing but the hull and sails.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is just possible,&quot; persisted Jack, &quot;that the <i>Nelson</i> may have
+been detained at the Cape, and afterwards blown out of her course like
+ourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All I can say is,&quot; replied Willis, &quot;that if Captain Littlestone be on
+board that ship, it will make me the happiest man that ever mixed a
+ration of grog. But these things only turn up in novels, so it is no
+use talking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She has hoisted a flag at the mizzen,&quot; cried Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you make it out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, let me see&mdash;yes, it must be so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, the Union Jack?&quot; cried Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, a red ground striped with blue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The United States, as I am a sinner!&quot; cried Willis. &quot;Well, it might
+have been worse. We can go to America; there are surgeons there as
+well as in Europe&mdash;at all events, we can get a ship there for England.
+But let me see, we must hoist a bit of bunting; unfortunately, we have
+only British colors aboard, and I am afraid they are not in
+particularly high favor with our Yankee cousins just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind a flag,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that will never do, they have hoisted a flag and are waiting a
+reply. But let me see,&quot; added Willis, rummaging amongst some stores,
+&quot;here is one of our Shark's Island signals&mdash;that, I think, will puzzle
+the Yankee considerably.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Pilot's signal was answered by a gun, the report of which rang
+through the air. The strange ship's sails were thrown back and she
+stood still. A boat then put off with a young man in uniform and six
+rowers on board.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pinnace ahoy!&quot; cried the officer through a speaking trumpet, &quot;who are
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shipwrecked mariners,&quot; cried Fritz, in reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the name of your craft?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Mary</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What country?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Switzerland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was not aware that Switzerland was a naval power,&quot; observed Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She has no sea-port,&quot; said Jack, &quot;but she has a fleet&mdash;of row boats.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where do you hail from?&quot; inquired the officer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;New Switzerland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That gentleman is very curious,&quot; observed Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Here a silence of some minutes ensued; the officer seemed at fault in
+his geography.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where away?&quot; at last resounded from the trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bound for Europe,&quot; replied Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>This reply elicited an expression of doubt, accompanied with such a
+tremendous exjurgation as made both Fritz and Jack almost shrink into
+the hold.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after the Yankee in command stepped on board, and
+explanations were entered into that perfectly satisfied the republican
+officer. He continued, however, to eye Willis curiously.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Hoboken</i>, for that was the name of the strange ship, was an
+American cruiser, carrying twelve ship guns and a long paixhan. She
+was attached to the Chinese station, but had recently obtained
+information that war had been declared between England and the States.
+She was now making her way to the west by a circuitous route to avoid
+the British squadron, and, at the same time, with a view to pick up an
+English merchantman or two.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack being citizens of a sister republic, and subjects of a
+neutral power, were received on board with a hearty welcome, and with
+the hospitality due to their interesting position. Willis also
+received some attention, and was treated with all the courtesy that
+could be shown to the native of an enemy's country.</p>
+
+<p>The pinnace was taken in tow till the young men made up their minds as
+to the course they would adopt. A free passage to the States was
+kindly offered to them, and even pressed upon their acceptance; but
+the captain left the matter entirely to their own option.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack were delighted with the warmth of their reception; and,
+after being so long cooped up in the narrow quarters of the pinnace,
+looked upon the Yankee cruiser, with its men and officers in uniform,
+as a sort of floating palace. The <i>Nelson</i> having been only a
+despatch-boat, it had given them but an indifferent idea of a
+man-of-war. On board the Yankee every thing was kept in apple-pie
+order. Discipline was maintained with martinet strictness. The
+fittings shone like a mirror. The brass cappings glistened in the sun.
+Complicated rolls of cable were profusely scattered about, but without
+confusion. The deck always seemed as fresh as if it had been planked
+the day before. The sails overhead seemed to obey the word of command
+of their own accord. The boatswain's whistle seemed to act upon the
+men like electricity. The seamen's cabins, six feet long by six feet
+broad, in which a hammock, locker, and lashing apparatus were
+conveniently stowed, were something very different from the
+accommodation on board the pinnace. These things were regarded by
+Fritz and Jack with great interest; and nowhere is the genius of man
+so brilliantly displayed as on board a well-appointed ship of war.</p>
+
+<p>The young men, however, when they sat down to dinner in the captain's
+cabin, and beheld a long table flanked with cushioned seats, commanded
+at each end by arm-chairs, the side-board plentifully garnished with
+plate and crystal of various kinds, fastened with copper nails to
+prevent damage from the ship's pitching, they did not reflect that
+they were in the crater of a volcano, and that two paces from where
+they sat there was powder enough to blow the ship and all its crew up
+into the air.</p>
+
+<p>They were likewise highly amused by the perpetual &quot;guessing,&quot;
+&quot;calculating,&quot; &quot;reckoning,&quot; and inexhaustible curiosity of the crew;
+but their admiration of the ship, her guns, her stores, and her
+tackle, were boundless; they felt that their pinnace was a mere toy in
+comparison. The urbanity of the officers also was a source of much
+gratification to them; Jack even declared that all the civilization of
+Europe had been shipped on board the <i>Hoboken</i>, and in so far as that
+was concerned, they had no occasion to go on much further.</p>
+
+<p>The object of this expedition, however, was a surgeon. There was one
+on board. Would he go to New Switzerland? Jack determined to try, and
+accordingly he walked straight off to the personage in question.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Doctor,&quot; said he, &quot;would you do myself and my brother a great favor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly; and, if it is in my power, you may consider it done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, will you embark with us for New Switzerland?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For what purpose, my friend?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My mother is laboring under a malady, which there is every reason to
+fear is cancer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And suppose a fever was to break out in this ship whilst I am
+absent, what do you imagine is to become of the officers and crew?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are no symptoms of disease on board; but my mother is dying.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You forget, young man, that disease may make its appearance at any
+moment. There are many sons on board whose lives are as dear to their
+mothers as your mother's is to you, and for every one of these lives I
+am officially accountable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jack hung down his head and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, my good friend, it is impossible for me to grant such a request;
+but, from what I know of your history, and the means at your command,
+you may be able to obtain the services of a competent medical man. I
+would, therefore, recommend you to abandon your boat, and proceed with
+us to our destination.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After a lengthy consultation, the two brothers and Willis determined
+to adopt this course. The cargo of the pinnace was accordingly
+transferred to the hold of the <i>Hoboken</i>. A short summary of their
+history was written, corked up in a bottle, and fastened to the mast
+of the <i>Mary</i>, which was then cut adrift. A tear gathered on the
+cheeks of the young men as they saw their old friend in adversity
+dropping slowly behind, and they did not withdraw their eyes from it
+till every vestige of its hull was lost in the shadows of the waters.</p>
+
+<p>As Fritz and Jack were thus engaged in gazing listlessly on the ocean,
+and reflecting upon their altered prospects, and perhaps trying to
+penetrate the veil of the future, Willis came towards them rubbing his
+breast, as if he had been seized with a violent internal spasm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hilloa,&quot; cried Jack, &quot;the Pilot is sea-sick! Shall I run for some
+brandy, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, stop a bit; we were in hopes of falling in with Captain
+Littlestone, were we not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; but what then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We were disappointed, were we not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. That has not made you ill, has it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; somebody else has turned up; there is one of the <i>Nelson's</i> crew
+on board this ship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the <i>Nelson's</i> crew?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, and if you only knew how my heart beat when I saw him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can easily conceive your feelings,&quot; said Jack, &quot;for my own heart
+has almost leaped into my mouth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I am thunderstruck,&quot; added Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I went towards my old friend,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;with tears in my
+eyes, threw my arms round him, and gave him a hearty but affectionate
+hug.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what did he say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing, at first; but, as soon as I left his arms at liberty, he
+gave me such a punch in the ribs as almost doubled me in two; it was
+enough to knock the in'ards out of a rhinoceros&mdash;ugh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A blow in earnest?&quot; exclaimed Fritz in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; there was no mistake about it; it was a real, good, earnest John
+Bull knock-down thump; it put me in mind of Portsmouth on a pay
+day&mdash;ugh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Extremely touching,&quot; said Jack, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, when I called him by his name Bill Stubbs, and asked what had
+become of the sloop, he said that he knew nothing at all about the
+sloop, and swore that he had never set his eyes on my figure-head
+before, the varmint&mdash;ugh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Odd,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you sure of your man?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you say his name is Bill, whilst he declares his name is Bob.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, he has evidently been up to some mischief, and changed his
+ticket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what conclusion do you draw from the affair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am completely bewildered, and scarcely know what to think; perhaps
+the crew has mutinied, and turned Captain Littlestone adrift on a
+desert island. That is sometimes done. Perhaps&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is no use perhapsing those sort of melancholy things,&quot; said Fritz;
+&quot;we may as well suppose, for the present, that Captain Littlestone is
+safe, and that your friend has been put on shore for some
+misdemeanour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May be, may be, Master Fritz; and I hope and trust it is so. But to
+have an old comrade amongst us, who could give us all the information
+we want, and yet not to be able to get a single thing out of him&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Except a punch in the ribs,&quot; suggested Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly; and a punch that will not let me forget the lubber in a
+hurry,&quot; added Willis, clenching his fist; &quot;but I intend, in the
+meantime, to keep my weather eye open.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks after this episode the <i>Hoboken</i> was slowly wending her
+way along the bights of the Bahamas. Fritz, Jack, and Willis were
+walking and chatting on the quarter-deck. The sky was of a deep azure.
+The sea was covered with herbs and flowers as far as the eye could
+reach&mdash;sometimes in compact masses of several miles in extent, and at
+other times in long straight ribbons, as regular as if they had been
+spread by some West Indian Le Notre. The ship seemed merely displaying
+her graces in the sunshine, so gentle was she moving in the water. The
+air was laden with perfumes, and a soft dreamy languor stole over the
+friends, which they were trying in vain to shake off. In one direction
+rose the misty heights of St. Domingo, and in another the cloud-capped
+summits of Cuba. Sometimes the highest peaks of the latter pierced the
+veil that enveloped them, and seemed like islands floating in the sky,
+or heads of a race of giants.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The air here is almost as balmy and fragrant as that of New
+Switzerland,&quot; remarked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, aye,&quot; said the Pilot; &quot;but it is not all gold that glitters: in
+these sweet smells a nasty fever is concealed, with which I have no
+wish to renew my acquaintance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, talking about acquaintances, Willis, have you obtained
+any further intelligence from your friend Bill, <i>alias</i> Bob?&quot; inquired
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not a syllable; the viper is as cunning as a fox, and keeps his
+mouth as close as a mouse-trap.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He seems as obstinate as a mule, and as obdurate as a Chinaman into
+the bargain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All that, and more than that; but,&quot; added Willis, &quot;I have found out
+from the mate that he was pressed on board this ship at New Orleans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pressed on board?&quot; said Fritz, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; that is a mode of recruiting for the navy peculiar to England
+and the United States. Would you like to hear something about how the
+system is carried out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Willis, very much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The transactions, however, that I shall have to relate are in no way
+creditable, either to myself or anybody else connected with them; and
+I am afraid, when you hear the particulars, you will be ready to turn
+round and say, your friend the Pilot is no good after all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you, then, been desperately wicked, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, that depends entirely upon the view you take of what I am to
+tell you. Listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_H_8'></a><a href='#FNanchor_H_8'>[H]</a> Sometimes called the <i>Ladrones</i> or <i>Archipelago of Saint
+Lazarus</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<p>IN WHICH WILLIS SHOWS, THAT THE TERM PRESS-GANG MEANS SOMETHING ELSE
+BESIDES THE GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was a youngster, about a year or two older than you are now,
+Master Fritz, I slipped on board the brig <i>Norfolk</i> as boatswain's
+mate. The ship at the time was short of hands, so there was no
+immediate probability of her weighing anchor; but on the same day I
+scratched my name on the books a despatch arrived, in consequence of
+which we left the harbor, and proceeded out to sea under sealed
+orders. One day, when off the Irish coast, I was called aft by the
+first lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You know something of Cork, my man, I believe?' said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Yes, your honor, I have been ashore there once or twice,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Very good,' said he; 'get ready to go ashore there again as quick as
+you like.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave to go on shore is always agreeable to a sailor. He prefers the
+sea, but likes to stretch himself on land now and then, just to enjoy
+a change of air, and look about him a bit; so it was with all possible
+expedition that I made the requisite preparations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I reappeared, I found a party of twenty men mustered on deck in
+pipe-clay order. A full ration of small arms was served out to them,
+and, under the command of the lieutenant, we embarked in the long-boat
+and rowed ashore. We landed at a point of the coast some miles distant
+from Cork, and it was dark before we reached the military barracks of
+that town, which, for the present, appeared to be our destination.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had not the slightest idea of what we were to do on shore. From our
+being so heavily armed, I knew it was no mere escort or parade duty
+that was in question, and began to think there was work of some kind
+on hand. This gave me no kind of uneasiness. I only wondered whatever
+it could be, for there was clearly a mystery of some kind or other.
+Were we going to besiege Paddy, in his own peaceable city of Cork? Had
+some of the peep-o'-day boys been burning down farmer Magrath's ricks
+again? or was there a private still to be routed out and demolished? I
+could not tell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Half an hour after our arrival, I was called into a private room by
+the lieutenant, who was seated at a table with a package of clothes
+beside him. The first lieutenant of the <i>Norfolk</i>, I must remark, was
+a bit of an original. He had won his way up to the rank he then held
+from before the mast. His build was rather squat, and his face was
+garnished with a pair of fiery red whiskers, so he was no beauty,
+added to which he was reckoned one of the most rigid martinets in the
+service; yet, for all that, his crew liked him, for they knew his
+heart was in the right place.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'See, my man,' said he, 'take this package, and rig yourself out in
+the toggery it contains.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I obeyed this order, and soon after stood before him, in a pair of
+jack-boots, with a slouching sort of tarpauling hat on my head, so
+that I might either have passed for a manner out of luck or a dustman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well,' said the lieutenant, laughing, 'now you have quite the air of
+the hulks about you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This remark not being very complimentary, I did not feel called upon
+to make any reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You know,' he continued, 'that the brig is short about a dozen
+hands, and I want you to pick up a few likely lads here. I understand
+there are a number of able-bodied seamen skulking about the
+public-houses, where they will likely remain as long as their money
+lasts. I should like to secure as many of them as possible, and then
+capture a few stout landsmen to make up the number; but, in the first
+place, I want you to go and find out the best place to make a razzia.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I stared when I found myself all at once promoted to the post of
+pioneer for a party of kidnappers, and muttered something or other
+about honor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Honor, sir!' roared the lieutenant, 'what has honor to do with it,
+sir? It is duty, sir. It is the laws of the service, sir, and you must
+obey them, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'But it is hard, your honor,' said I, 'that the laws of the service
+should force men to do what they think is wrong.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And what right, sir, have you to think it is wrong, or to judge the
+acts of your superiors? If the laws of the service order you fifty
+lashes at the yard-arm to-morrow, you will find that you will get
+them. Do you want to be handed over to the drummer, and to cultivate
+an acquaintance with the cat?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No, your honor,' said I, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The lieutenant's face by this time was as red as his whiskers, and,
+though he was in a towering rage, he quickly calmed down again, like
+boiling milk when it is taken off the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Then,' said he, quietly, 'am I to understand you refuse?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No, your honor,' said I. 'If it is my duty, I must obey; but you
+will pardon the liberty, when I say that it is hard to be forced to
+drag away a lot of poor fellows against their wills.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Look ye,' replied the lieutenant, 'I tolerate your freedom of speech
+for two reasons&mdash;the first, because we are here alone, and no harm is
+done; the second, because I entertain the same opinion myself; but,
+mind you, we are both bound by the regulations of the service, and it
+is mutiny for either of us to disobey.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to the moral law, the mission with which I was charged
+could scarcely be considered honorable; but, according to the laws of
+the land, or rather of the sea, it was perfectly unexceptionable.
+Amongst the seamen, a foray amongst the landlubbers was regarded more
+in the light of a spree than anything else. If, indeed, it were
+possible to pick up the lazy and idle amongst the population, this
+mode of enlistment might be useful; but often the industrious head of
+a family was seized, whilst the idle escaped. It was rare, however,
+that a ship's crew were employed in this sort of duty; men were more
+usually obtained through the crimps on shore, who often fearfully
+abused the authority with which they were invested for the purpose. As
+for myself, the lieutenant's arguments removed all my scruples, if I
+ever had any.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I then suggested a plan of operations, which was approved. The men
+were to be kept ready for action, and the lieutenant himself was to
+await my report at the 'Green Dragon,' one of the hotels in the town.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At that time there was in the outskirts of Cork a sort of tavern and
+lodging-house, called the 'Molly Bawn.' This establishment was
+frequented by the lowest class of seamen and 'tramps.' Thither I
+wended my way. It was late when I arrived in front of the place; and
+whilst hesitating whether I should venture into such a precious
+menagerie, I happened to look round, and, by the light of a dim lamp
+that burned at the corner of the street, I caught a glimpse of the
+lieutenant leaning against the wall, quietly smoking an Irish dudeen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like Rono the Great in the island of Hawai,&quot; suggested Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Something. This, however, cut short my deliberations. I walked in.
+There was a crowd of men and women drinking and smoking about the bar.
+These, however, were not the people I sought. The regular tenants of
+the house were not amongst that lot, and it was essential for me to
+find out in what part of the premises they were stowed. I commenced
+proceedings by ordering a noggin of whisky, and making love to the
+damsel that brought it in. After having formally made her an offer of
+marriage, I asked after the landlord. She told me he was engaged with
+some customers, but offered to take a message to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Then,' said I, 'just tell him that a friend of One-eyed Dick's would
+like to have a parley with him.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And who was One-eyed Dick?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the crew of a piratical craft captured by one of our cruisers
+a few months before, and who at that time was safely lodged in
+Portsmouth jail.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The girl soon returned. She told me to walk with her, and led me
+through some narrow passages into what appeared to be another house.
+She knocked at a door that was strongly barred and fastened inside. A
+slight glance at these precautions made me aware that there was no
+chance of making a capture here without creating a great disturbance.
+So, after reflecting an instant, I decided upon adopting some other
+course.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the door was opened I could see nothing distinctly; there was a
+turf-fire throwing a red glare out of the chimney, a dim oil-lamp hung
+from the roof, but everything was hidden in a dense cloud of tobacco
+smoke, through which the light was not sufficiently powerful to
+penetrate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The atmosphere must have been stifling,&quot; observed Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it puts me in mind of your remark about the air, which, you
+said, consists of&mdash;let me see&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oxygen and hydrogen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so; but the air a sailor breathes when he is at home consists
+almost entirely of tobacco smoke. At last, I could make out twenty or
+thirty rough-looking fellows seated on each side of a long deal table
+covered with bottles, glasses, and pipes. Dan Hooligan, the landlord,
+sat at the top&mdash;a fit president for such an assembly. He was partly a
+smuggler, partly a publican, and wholly a sinner. I should say that
+the liquor consumed at that table did not much good to the revenue.
+How Dan contrived to escape the laws, was a mystery perhaps best known
+to the police.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you are a pal of One-eyed Dick's, are you?' said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Rather,' said I, adopting the slang of the place.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well,' said he, 'Dick has been a good customer of mine, and all his
+pals are welcome at the 'Molly.' I have not seen him lately,
+however&mdash;how goes it with him now?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Right as a trivet,' said I, 'and making lots of rhino.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Glad to hear it; and what latitude does he hail in now?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'That,' said I, 'is private and confidential.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Oh,' said he, 'there are no outsiders here, we are all sworn friends
+of Dick's, every mother's son of us.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Then,' said I, 'Dick is off the Cove in the schooner <i>Nancy</i>, of
+Brest,'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa, Willis,&quot; cried Jack, &quot;there was a fib!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I told you to look out for something of that sort when I
+began.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What!' cried the landlord, 'Dick in a schooner off the Irish coast?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Yes,' said I; 'and aboard that schooner there is as tight a cargo of
+brandy and tobacco as ever you set eyes upon.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here the landlord pricked up his ears, and the rest of the company
+began to listen attentively. The fellow that sat next me coolly told
+me that both he and Dick had been lagged for horse-stealing, and had
+subsequently broken out of prison and escaped. He further told me that
+most of the gentlemen present had been all, one way or another, mixed
+up with Dick's doings; from which I concluded they were a rare parcel
+of scamps, and resolved, within myself, to try and bag the whole
+squad. They were all stout fellows enough, most of them seamen. I
+thought they might be able to 'do the State some service,' and
+determined to convert them into honest men, if I could.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Dick cannot come ashore,' said I; 'some one of his old pals here has
+peached, and there is a warrant out against him.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This information threw the assembly into a state of violent
+commotion. They rose up, and swore terrible vengeance against the head
+of the unfortunate culprit when they caught him. The oaths rather
+alarmed me at first, for they were of a most ferocious stamp.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Yes,' continued I, 'Dick is aboard the schooner, but, as there are
+two or three warrants out against him, he does not care about coming
+ashore; so said he to me, 'We want a lugger and a few hands to run the
+cargo ashore; and if you look in at the 'Molly,' and see my old pal,
+Dan, perhaps you will find some lads there willing to give us a turn.
+The captain said, if the thing was done clean off, he would stand
+something handsome.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Just the thing for us!' shouted half a dozen voices.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'But the lugger?' said I.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Oh, Phil Doolan, at the Cove, has a craft that has landed as many
+cargoes as there are planks in her hull. Besides, he has stowage for a
+fleet of East Indiamen.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, gentlemen,&quot; said I, 'the chaplain, One-eyed Dick, and myself,
+will be at Phil Doolan's to-morrow at midnight; do you agree to meet
+us there?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This question was answered by a universal 'Yes;' and by way of
+clenching the affair, I ordered a couple of gallons of the stiffest
+potheen in the house. This was received with three cheers, and before
+I left the 'Molly' every man-jack of them had disappeared under the
+table. Dan himself, however, kept tolerably sober, and promised, on
+account of his friendship for One-eyed Dick, to have the whole kit
+safe at Phil Doolan's by twelve o'clock next night, and with this
+assurance I made my exit from the premises, and steered for the
+'George and Dragon.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The lieutenant agreed with me in thinking that it would cause too
+much uproar to attack the 'Molly Bawn.' He congratulated me on my
+success in laying a trap for the people, and promising to meet me at
+the Cove, he ordered a car, and drove off in the direction of the
+<i>Norfolk's</i> boat. Early next morning I started to reconnoitre the
+ground and organize my plan of operations. I found Phil Doolan's
+mansion to be a mud-built tenement, larger, and standing apart from,
+the houses that then constituted the village. It was ostensibly a
+sailor's lodging-house and tavern for wayfarers, but, like the 'Molly
+Bawn,' was in reality a rendezvous of smugglers, occasionally
+patronized by fugitive poachers and patriots. It was known to its
+familiars as 'The Crib,' but was registered by the authorities as the
+'Father Mahony,' who was represented on the sign-post by a full-length
+portrait of James the Second. What gave me most satisfaction was to
+observe that the building was conveniently situated for a sack.</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='006'></a><img src="images/006.jpg" alt="Group of men arguing" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&quot;When night set in I marched the <i>Norfolk's</i> men in close order,
+and as secretly as possible, to the Cove. Approaching Phil Doolan's in
+one direction, I could just catch a glimpse of the red coats of a file
+of marines advancing in another, with the lieutenant at their head,
+and, exactly as twelve o'clock struck on the parish clock, the 'Father
+Mahony' was surrounded on all sides by armed men. Two or three
+lanterns were now lit, and dispositions made to close up every avenue
+of escape.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'There he is!' cried Willis, interrupting himself, and staring into
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who?&quot; inquired Jack&mdash;&quot;Phil Doolan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;Bill Stubbs, late of the <i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That squat, broad-shouldered man there, bracing the maintops.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, now that you point him out, I think I have seen him before,&quot;
+said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa, Bill,&quot; cried Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; said Willis, &quot;he turned his head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How d'ye do, Bill?&quot; added Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you speak'ng to me, sir?&quot; inquired the sailor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Bill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then was your honor present when I was christened? I appear to have
+forgotten my name for the last six-and thirty years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No use, you see,&quot; said Willis; &quot;he is too old a bird to be caught by
+any of these dodges. But I have lost the thread of my discourse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You had surrounded the cabin, and were lighting lamps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Half a dozen men were stationed at the door, pistol in hand, ready to
+rush in as soon as it opened. The lieutenant and I went forward and
+knocked, but no one answered. We knocked again, louder than before,
+but still no answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Open the door, in the King's name!' thundered the lieutenant.
+Silence, as before.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Calling to the marines, he ordered them to root up Phil Doolan's
+sign-post, and use it as a battering ram against the door. The first
+blow of this machine nearly brought the house down, and a cracked
+voice was heard calling on the saints inside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Blessed St. Patrick!' croaked the voice, 'whativer are ye kicking up
+such a shindy out there for? Whativer d'ye want wid an old woman, and
+niver a livin' sowl in the house 'cept meself and Kathleen in her
+coffin?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Kathleen is dead, then?' said the lieutenant with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Save yer honor's presence, she's off to glory, an' as dead as a
+herrin,' replied the voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Really!' said the lieutenant, 'and where is Phil Doolan?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Och, yer honor? he's gone to get some potheen for the wake.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well,' said the lieutenant, 'I should like to take a share in waking
+the defunct&mdash;what's her name?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Kathleen, yer honor.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, just let us in to take a last look at the worthy creature.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The door then creaked on its rusty hinges, and we entered. Not a
+soul, however, was to be seen anywhere, save and except the old woman
+herself. The coffin containing the remains of Kathleen, resting on two
+stools, stood in the middle of the floor, with a plate of salt as
+usual on the lid. I fairly thought I had been done, and looked upon
+myself as the laughing stock of the entire fleet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So far,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;your story has been all right, but the last
+episode was rather negligently handled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, you did not make enough of the coffin scene; your description is
+too meagre. You should have said, that the wind blew without in fierce
+gusts, the weathercocks screeched on the roofs, and caused you to
+dread that the ghost of the defunct was coming down the chimney; large
+flakes of snow were rushing through the half-open door; a solitary
+rushlight dimly lit up the chamber, and cast frightful shadows upon
+the wall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well; but the night was fine, and there was not a breath of wind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What about that? A little wind, more or less, a weathercock or so,
+some drops of rain, or a few flakes of snow, do not materially detract
+from the truth, whilst they heighten the color of the picture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if some lightning tearing through the clouds were added?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that would most undoubtedly increase the effect; but go on with
+your story.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew Phil to be an artful dodger, and was determined not to be
+foiled by a mere trick, so I laid hold of a lantern and closely
+examined the walls and flooring. My investigation was successful, for
+just under the coffin I detected traces of a trap-door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, my good woman, what have you got down there?&quot; inquired the
+lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Is it underground, ye mane, yer honor? divil a hail's there, if it
+isn't the rats.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, just remove the coffin a little aside; we shall see if we
+cannot pepper some of the rats for you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here the old woman appealed to a vast number of saints, and protested
+against Kathleen's remains being disturbed. The lieutenant, however,
+grew tired of this farce, and ordered the coffin to be shifted. A
+sailor accordingly laid hold of each end.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Blazes!' said one, 'here is a body that weighs.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Perhaps,' said the other, 'the coffin is lined with lead.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The trap-door was drawn up, and the lieutenant, pistol in hand,
+descended alone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Now, my lads,' said he, addressing some invisible personages, 'we
+know you are here, and I call upon you to yield in the King's
+name&mdash;resistance is useless, the house is surrounded, and we are in
+force, so you had better give in without more ado.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No answer was returned to this exordium; but we heard the murmuring
+of muffled voices, as if the rapscallions were deliberating. I now
+descended with my lamp, followed by some of the seamen, and beheld my
+friends of the night before either stretched on the ground or propped
+up against the walls, like a lot of mummies in an Egyptian tomb.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They were handcuffed one by one, pushed or hauled up the stairs, and
+then tied to one another in a line. When we had secured the whole lot
+of them in this way&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Lieutenant,' said I, winking, 'will you permit me to send a ball
+into that coffin?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Please yourself about that, young man,' said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here the old woman recommenced howling again and called upon all the
+saints in the calendar to punish us for my sacrilegious design.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Shoot a dead body,' said I, 'where's the harm?' Besides, what is
+that salt there for?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'To keep away evil spirits,' was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Very well,' said I, 'my pistol will scare them away as well.' Then,
+cocking it with a loud clink, I presented it slowly at the coffin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The lid all at once flew off&mdash;the salt-was thrown on the ground with
+a crash&mdash;the defunct suddenly returned from the other world in perfect
+health, and sat half upright in his bier. I did not recognize the
+individual at first, but, on closer inspection, found him to be my
+communicative companion of the preceding night&mdash;the horse-stealer of
+the 'Molly Bawn;' and, being a stout young fellow, he was harnessed to
+the others, and we commenced our march to the boats.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You do not appear to have had much trouble in effecting the capture,&quot;
+remarked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; the men were unarmed, and were nearly all intoxicated. You never
+saw such a troop; scarcely one of them could walk straight; they
+assumed all sorts of figures; the file of prisoners was just like a
+bar of music, it was a string of quavers, crotchets, and zig-zags.
+Luckily, it was late at night, else we might have had the village
+about our ears, and, instead of flakes of snow and screeching
+weathercocks, we might have had a shower of dead cats and rotten eggs.
+Probably a rescue might have been attempted; at all events, we might
+have calculated on a volley of brickbats on our way to the boats.
+There would have been no end of commotion, uproar, confusion, and
+hubbub, possibly smashed noses, blackened eyes, broken beads&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holloa, Willis!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You said just now that a little colouring was necessary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly; but the privilege ought not to be abused. Besides, broken
+heads and smashed faces are the realities, and not the accessories of
+the picture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I see. If it is night, the moon should be introduced; and if it
+is day, the sun&mdash;and so on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course; and, if the circumstances are of a pleasing nature, you
+must leave horrors and terrors on your pallette; change gusts into
+zephyrs, snow into roses and violets, and the weathercocks into golden
+vanes glittering in the sunshine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You want to color a popular outbreak, do you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you should introduce a tempest howling, the waves roaring, the
+lightning flashing, and discord raging in the air as well as on the
+earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, to continue my story. Although it was midnight, the disturbance
+began to wake up the villagers, and a crowd was collecting, so we
+hurried off our prisoners to the boats as speedily as we could. Some
+five and twenty able bodied men were thus added to his Majesty's
+fleet. The object of our visit to the Irish coast was accomplished,
+and the <i>Norfolk</i> continued her voyage to the West Indies. Now you
+know what is meant by the word <i>pressed</i>, and likewise the nautical
+signification of the word <i>press-gang</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you say that Bill Stubbs has been trapped on board this ship by
+such means?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, at New Orleans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;According to your story, then, that does not say very much in his
+favor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not a great deal; still, that proves nothing&mdash;the fact of his
+calling himself Bob is a worse feature. A man does not generally
+change his name without having good, or rather bad, reasons for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What appears to me,&quot; remarked Fritz, &quot;as the most singular feature of
+your press-gang adventure is, that you are alive to tell it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I think it ought to end thus: 'The victims of the press-gang
+strangled Willis a few days after,'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, aye, but you do not know what a sailor is; our recruits had not
+been a fortnight at sea before they entirely forgot the trick I had
+played them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Just as Willis concluded his narrative, the man at the mast-head
+called out, &quot;Sail ho!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where away?&quot; bawled the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right a-head,&quot; replied the voice.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Hoboken</i> had hitherto pursued her voyage uninterruptedly, and the
+Yankee captain now prepared to signalize himself by a capture.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXIV'></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<p>A SEA FIGHT&mdash;ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S&mdash;THE BOUDEUSE.</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the <i>Hoboken</i> was rather pleased than otherwise when
+the look-out reported the strange sail to show English colors. He
+looked rather glum, however, half an hour afterwards, when the same
+voice bawled that she was a bull-dog looking craft, schooner-rigged,
+and pierced for sixteen guns. The Yankee had hoped to fall in with a
+fat West Indiaman, instead of which he had now to deal with a
+man-of-war, carrying, perhaps, a larger weight of metal than himself.</p>
+
+<p>The heads of the two ships were standing in towards each other, there
+was no wind to speak of, but every hour lessened the distance that
+separated the antagonists.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pilot,&quot; said the captain, addressing Willis, &quot;be kind enough to let
+me know what you think of that craft.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think,&quot; said Willis, taking the telescope, &quot;I have had my eyes on
+her before. Aye, aye, just as I thought. An old tub of a Spaniard
+converted into an English cruiser, and commanded by Commodore
+Truncheon, I shouldn't wonder. She has caught a Tartar this time,
+however. Nothing of a sailer. If a breeze springs up, you may easily
+give her the slip, if you like, captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give her the slip! No, not if I can help it. My cruise hitherto has
+not been very successful, and I must send her into New York as a
+prize. Mr. Brill,&quot; added he, addressing the officer next in command,
+&quot;prepare for action.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In an instant all was commotion and bustle on deck. Half an hour
+after, the captain, now in full uniform, took a hasty glance at the
+position of his crew. A portion of the men were stationed at the guns,
+with lighted matches. Others were engaged in heating shot, and
+preparing other instruments of destruction. Jack and Fritz, armed with
+muskets, were ready to act as sharp-shooters as soon as the enemy came
+within range, and Willis was standing beside them, with his hands in
+his pockets, quietly smoking his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, Pilot!&quot; exclaimed the captain in passing, &quot;don't you intend to
+take part in the skirmish?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am much your debtor, captain, but I cannot do that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And these young men?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are not Englishmen, and your kindness to them entitles you to
+claim their assistance. I am sorry that honor and duty prevent me
+giving you mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No matter, captain,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;my brother and myself will do duty
+for three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, Pilot, you had better go below.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With your permission, captain, I would rather stay and look on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what is the use of exposing yourself here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is an idea of mine, captain. But I shall remain perfectly neutral
+during the engagement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you like then, Pilot, as you like,&quot; said the captain, as he
+resumed his place on the quarter-deck.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a cannon ball whistled through the air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good,&quot; said Willis; &quot;the commodore gives the signal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That shot,&quot; observed Jack, &quot;passed at no great distance from your
+head, Willis. You had better take a musket in self-defence. Besides,
+that ship is English, and you are a Scotchman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The ship is a Spaniard by birth,&quot; replied Willis, &quot;and it is pretty
+well time it was converted into firewood, for the matter of that. But
+it is the flag, my boy&mdash;<i>that</i> is neither Spanish nor English.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, then?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is the union-jack, Master Fritz. It is the ensign of Scotland,
+England, and Ireland united under one bonnet; and as such, it is as
+sacred in my eyes as if it bore the cross of St. Andrew.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Musket balls were now rattling pretty freely amongst the shrouds. The
+young men levelled their muskets and fired.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, the two ships were abreast of each other, and almost at
+the same instant both discharged a deadly broadside. The conflict
+became general. The crashing of the woodwork and the roaring of the
+guns was deafening. A thick smoke enveloped the two vessels, so that
+nothing could be seen of the one from the other; still the firing and
+crashing went on. The sails were torn to shreds, the deck was
+encumbered with fragments of timber; men were now and then falling,
+either killed or wounded, and a fatigue party was constantly engaged
+in removing the bodies. There are people who consider such a spectacle
+magnificent; but that is only because they have never witnessed its
+horrors.</p>
+
+<p>Already many immortal souls had returned to their Maker; many sons had
+become orphans, and many wives had been deprived of their husbands;
+but as yet there was nothing to indicate on which side victory was to
+be declared. Soon, however, a cry of fire was raised, which caused
+great confusion; and another cry, announcing that the captain had
+fallen, increased the disorder.</p>
+
+<p>A ball crashed through the taffrail, near where Jack and Fritz were
+standing; it passed between them, but they were both severely wounded
+by the splinters, and were conveyed by Willis to the cockpit. The
+doctor, seeing his old friend Jack handed down the ladder, hastened
+towards him and tore out a piece of wood from the fleshy part of his
+arm. He next turned to Fritz, who had received a severe flesh-wound on
+the shoulder. When both wounds were bandaged, he left the care of the
+young men to Willis, who had escaped with a few scratches, which,
+however, were bleeding pretty freely&mdash;to these he did not pay the
+slightest attention.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How stands the contest?&quot; inquired Fritz in a weak voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Hoboken</i> is done for,&quot; replied Willis; &quot;the commodore was
+preparing to board when we left the deck; but it does not make much
+difference; we shall go to England instead of America, that is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God's will be done,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>Just then Bill Stubbs was swung down in a hammock; both his legs had
+been shot off by a cannon ball. The surgeon could only now attend to a
+tithe of his patients, so numerous had the wounded become. A glance at
+the new comer satisfied him that he was beyond all human skill, and he
+directed his attention to the cases that promised some hopes of
+recovery. Willis, seeing that his old comrade was abandoned to die
+almost uncared for, staunched his wounds as well as he could, fetched
+him a panniken of water, and performed a number of other little acts
+of kindness and good will. This he did, less with a view of obtaining
+an explanation from him at a moment when no man lies, than to mitigate
+the pangs of his last convulsions. For an instant the old mariner's
+body appeared re-animated with life. His eyes were fixed upon Willis
+with an ineffable expression of recognition and regret. He
+convulsively grasped the Pilot's hand and pressed it to his breast,
+and his lips parted as if to speak. Willis bent his ear to the mouth
+of the dying man, but all that followed was an expiring sigh. His
+earthly career was ended.</p>
+
+<p>The hardy sailor who is supposed never to shed a tear, then wiped the
+corner of his eyes. Next he turned to the children of his adoption,
+whose pale faces indicated the amount of blood they had shed, and
+whose wounds, if he could have transferred them to himself, would have
+less pained his powerful muscles than they now grieved his excellent
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>A party of boarders from the enemy had taken possession of the ship.
+Willis reported himself to the officer in command, and at his request,
+Fritz and Jack, together with the cargo of the pinnace, were conveyed
+on board the victorious schooner. Shortly after the <i>Hoboken</i> was
+despatched to Bermuda as a prize, with the prisoners, the wounded, and
+the dying.</p>
+
+<p>The old tub that had gained this victory was named the <i>Arzobispo</i>,
+having, as Willis supposed, been captured in the Spanish Main. It was
+under the command of Commodore Truncheon, better known in the fleet by
+the <i>soubriquet</i> of Old Flyblow.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Arzobispo</i>, though old and clumsy, was a stout-built craft; and
+so thick was its hide, that the broadsides of the Yankee had done the
+hull no damage to speak of. The superstructure, however, was
+completely shattered; the masts and rigging hung like sweeps over the
+sides; and, to the unpractised eye, the ship was a complete wreck. A
+few days, however, sufficed to put everything to rights again so far
+as regards external appearance; but how this impromptu carpentry would
+stand a storm was another question.</p>
+
+<p>The commodore was on his way to Europe when he fell in with the
+Yankee, and, notwithstanding the disabled condition of the ship, he
+resolved to continue his voyage. Some of the officers expostulated
+with him on the hazard of crossing the Atlantic in so shaky a trim. He
+only got red in the face, and said that he had crossed the
+herring-pond hundreds of times in crafts not half so seaworthy. He was
+like the</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Froggy who would a wooing go,<br />
+Whether his mother would let him or no.</p>
+
+<p>The consequences of this defiance of advice were fatal to Old Flyblow;
+for, a week or two after his victory, he was pounced upon by the
+French corvette, <i>Boudeuse</i>, which was fresh, heavily armed, and well
+manned. The commodore's jury masts were knocked to pieces by the first
+broadside, his flag went by the board, and he was completely at the
+enemy's mercy. Willis lent a hand this time with a good will; but it
+was of no use, the wreck would not obey the helm, and the corvette
+hovered about, firing broadsides, and sending in discharges of
+musketry, when and where she liked. It was only when the commodore saw
+clearly that there was neither mast nor sail enough to yaw the ship,
+that he waved his cocked hat in token of surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz and Jack were still confined below with their wounds, when
+Willis brought them word that they would have to shift themselves and
+their cargo once more. The captain received them on board the
+<i>Boudeuse</i> with marked courtesy, and informed them that he was bound
+direct for Havre de Grace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems, then,&quot; said the Pilot, &quot;that neither America nor England
+is to be our destination after all. But never mind, there are no lack
+of surgeons amongst the <i>mounseers</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If we go on this way much longer,&quot; said Jack, sighing, &quot;we shall be
+carried round the world without arriving anywhere. Alas, my poor
+mother!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXV'></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<p>DELHI&mdash;WILLIAM OF NORMANDY AND KING JOHN&mdash;ISABELLA OF BAVARIA AND JOAN
+OF ARC&mdash;POITIERS AND BOVINES&mdash;HISTORY OF A GHOST, A GRIDIRON, AND A
+CHEST OF GUINEAS.</p>
+
+<p>At first the three adventurers were regarded as prisoners of war;
+when, however, their entire history came to be known, and their
+extraordinary migrations from ship to ship authenticated, they were
+looked upon as guests, and treated as friends.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought I had only obtained possession of an English cruiser,&quot; said
+the captain; &quot;but I find I have also acquired the right of being
+useful to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The commander of the <i>Boudeuse</i> was a very different sort of a person
+from Commodore Truncheon; the former treated his men as if every one
+of them had a title and great influence at the Admiralty, whilst the
+latter swore at his crew as if the word of command could not be
+understood without a supplementary oath. The English commodore might
+be the better sailor of the two, but certainly the French captain
+carried off the palm as regards politeness, urbanity, and gentlemanly
+bearing.</p>
+
+<p>The wounds of Fritz and Jack were healing rapidly under the skilful
+treatment of the French surgeon, and, with a lift from Willis, they
+were able to walk a portion of the day on deck. With reviving health,
+their cheerful hopes of the future returned, their dormant spirits
+were re-awakened, and their minds regained their wonted animation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The corvette spins along admirably,&quot; said the Pilot, &quot;and is steering
+straight for the Bay of Biscay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; said Jack sighing, &quot;it is very easy to steer for a place, but it
+is not quite so easy to get there. I am sick of your friend the sea,
+Willis; and would give my largest pearl for a glimpse of a town, a
+village, or even a street.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you want to see a street in all its glory, Master Jack, you must
+try and get the captain to alter his course for Delhi.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I should think, Willis, that there is nothing in the
+street-scenery of Delhi to compare with the Boulevards of Paris,
+Regent-street in London, or the Broadway of New York.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Beg your pardon there, Master Jack; I know every shop window in
+Regent-street; I have often been nearly run over in the Broadway, and
+can easily imagine the turn out on the Boulevards; but they are
+solitudes in comparison with an Indian street.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How so, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it is not that there are more inhabitants, nor on account of
+the traffic, for no streets in the world will beat those of London in
+that respect&mdash;it is because the people live, move, and have their
+being in the streets; they eat, drink, and sleep in the streets; they
+sing, dance, and pray in the streets; conventions, treaties, and
+alliances are concluded in the streets; in short, the street is the
+Indians' home, his club, and his temple. In Europe, transactions are
+negotiated quietly; in India, nothing can be done without roaring,
+screaming, and bawling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There must be plenty of deaf people there,&quot; observed Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Possibly; but there are no dumb people. Added to the endless
+vociferations of the human voice, there is an eternal barking of dogs,
+elephants snorting, cows lowing, and myriads of pigs grunting. Then
+there is the thump, thump of the tam-tam, the whistling of fifes, and
+the screeching of a horrible instrument resembling a fiddle, which can
+only be compared with the Belzebub music of Hawai. If, amongst these
+discordant sounds, you throw in a cloud of mosquitoes and a hurricane
+of dust, you will have a tolerable idea of an Indian street.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There may be animation and life enough, Willis, but I should prefer
+the monotony of Regent-street for all that. Would you like to air
+yourself in Paris a bit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but not just now; the less my countrymen see of France, under
+present circumstances, the better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is England and France always fighting about, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I believe the cause this time to be a shindy the <i>mounseers</i>
+got up amongst themselves in 1788. They first cut off the head of
+their king, and then commenced to cut one another's throats, and
+England interfered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; observed Fritz, &quot;may be the immediate origin of the present
+war [1812]. But for the cause of the animosity existing between the
+two nations, you must, I suspect, go back as far as the eleventh
+century, to the time of William, Duke of Normandy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What had he to do with it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A great deal. He claimed a right, real or pretended, to the English
+throne. He crossed the Channel, and, in 1066, defeated Harold, King of
+England, at the battle of Hastings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Both William and Harold were originally Danes, were they not?&quot;
+inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; I think Rollo, William's grandfather, was a Norman adventurer,
+or sea-king, as these marauders were sometimes called. William, after
+the victory of Hastings, proclaimed himself King of England and Duke
+of Normandy, and assumed the designation of William the Conqueror.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then how did France get mixed up in the affair?&quot; inquired Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;William's grandfather, when he seized the dukedom cf Normandy, became
+virtually a vassal of the King of France, though it is doubtful
+whether he ever took the trouble to recognize the suzerainty of the
+throne. As sovereign, however, the King of France claimed the right of
+homage, which consisted, according to feudal usage, in the vassal
+advancing, bare-headed, without sword or spurs, and kneeling at the
+foot of the throne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Was this right ever enforced?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, in one case at least. John Lackland&mdash;or, as the French called
+him, John Sans Terre&mdash;having assassinated his nephew Arthur, Duke of
+Brittany, in order to obtain possession of his lands, was summoned by
+Philip Augustus, King of France, to justify his crime. John did not
+obey the summons, was declared guilty of felony, and Philip took
+possession of Normandy. Thus the first step to hostilities was laid
+down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The English having lost Normandy, the vassalage ceased.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, so far as regards Normandy; but, in the meantime, Louis le
+Jeune, King of France, unfortunately divorced his wife, Elenor of
+Aquitaine, who afterwards married an English prince, and added
+Guienne, another French dukedom to the English crown.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So another vassalage sprung up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly. All the French King insisted upon was the homage; but Edward
+III. of England, instead of bending his knee to Philip of Valois,
+argued with himself in this way: 'If I were King of England and France
+as well, the claim of homage for the dukedom of Guienne would be
+extinguished.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rather cool that,&quot; said Jack, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'We shall then,' Edward said to himself, 'be our own sovereign, and
+do homage to ourself, which would save a deal of bother.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he was right there, at least,&quot; remarked the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The King of France, however, entertained a different view of the
+subject. Hence arose an endless succession of sieges, battles,
+conquests, defeats, exterminations, and hatreds, which, no doubt, gave
+rise to the ill-feeling that exists at present between England and
+France. It is curious, at the same time, to observe what mischief
+individual acts may occasion. If William of Normandy had remained
+contented with his dukedom, and Louis le Jeune had not divorced his
+wife, France would not have lost the disastrous battles of Agincourt
+and Poitiers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor gained the brilliant victory of Bovines,&quot; suggested Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly not; but she would have been spared the indignity of having
+one of her kings marched through the streets of London as a prisoner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but, on the other hand, the captured monarch would not have
+had an opportunity of illustrating the laws of honor in his own
+person. He returned loyally to England and resumed his chains, when he
+found that the enormous sum demanded by England for his ransom would
+impoverish his people: otherwise he could not have given birth to the
+maxim, 'That though good faith be banished from all the world beside,
+it ought still to be found in the hearts of kings.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the kings of Scotland,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;was placed in a
+similar position. The Scottish army had been cut to pieces at the
+battle of Flodden, the king was captured in his harness, conveyed to
+London, and the people had to pay a great deal more to obtain his
+freedom than he was worth. But, before that, the Scotch nearly caught
+one of the Edwards. This time the English army had been cut to pieces;
+but the king did not wait to be captured, he took to his heels, or
+rather to his horse's hoofs. He was beautifully mounted, and followed
+by half a dozen Scottish troopers; away he went, over hill and dale,
+ditch and river. Dick Turpin's ride from London to York was nothing to
+it. The king proved himself to be a first-rate horseman, for, after
+being chased this way over half the country, he succeeded in baffling
+his pursuers. All these escapades between England and Scotland are,
+however, forgotten now, or at least ought to be; there are, doubtless,
+a few thick-headed persons in both sections of the empire who delight
+in keeping alive old prejudices, but they will die out in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems, however, they have not died away yet,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;in so
+far as regards France and England, since the two countries are at war
+again. But, as I observed before, had it not been for the ambition of
+William and the anti-connubial propensities of John, the English would
+never have been masters of Paris, and a great part of France under
+Charles VI.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still, in that case,&quot; persisted Jack, &quot;Charles VII. would not have
+had the opportunity of liberating his country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;history would not have had to record the
+shameless deeds of Isabella of Bavaria.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor chronicle the brilliant achievements of Joan of Arc,&quot; added Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Any how,&quot; observed Willis, &quot;the mounseers are a curious people. I
+have heard it remarked that they are occupied all day long in getting
+themselves into scrapes, and that Providence busies herself all night
+in getting them out again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By chatting in this way, Fritz, his brother, and the Pilot contrived
+to relieve the monotony of the voyage, and to pass away the time
+pleasantly enough. Each contributed his quota to the common fund;
+Fritz his judgment, Jack his humor, and Willis his practical
+experience, strong good sense, and vigorous, though untutored
+understanding. A portion of Jack's time was passed with the surgeon,
+between whom a great intimacy had sprung up. Time did not, therefore,
+hang heavily on the hands of the young men; for even during the night
+their thoughts were busy forming projects, or in embroidering the
+canvas of the future with those fairy designs which youth alone can
+create.</p>
+
+<p>One morning Willis arrived on deck, pale, and with an air of fatigue
+and lassitude altogether unusual. He gazed anxiously into every nook
+and cranny of the ship.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever is the matter, Willis?&quot; inquired Jack. &quot;Have you seen the
+Flying Dutchman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Master Jack,&quot; said he in a forlorn tone; &quot;but I have either seen
+the captain or his ghost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! the captain of the <i>Hoboken</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; the captain of the <i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a dream?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, my eyes were as wide open as they are now; he looked into my
+cabin, and spoke to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Impossible, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I assure you it is the case though, impossible or not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where is he then?&quot; exclaimed both the young men, starting.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I know not; I have looked for him everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did he say to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At first he said, How d'ye do, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Naturally; and what then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He asked me what I thought of the cloud that was gathering in the
+south-west.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Imagination, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But look there, you can see a storm is gathering in that quarter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The nightmare, Willis. But what did you say to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not answer at the moment; my tongue clove to the roof of my
+mouth, and I rose to take hold of his hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he disappeared, did he not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I heard the door of my cabin shut behind him, as distinctly as I
+now hear the waves breaking on the sides of the corvette at this
+moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You ought to have run after him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, did you catch him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I was stopped by the watch, for I had nothing on me but my shirt;
+the officers stared, the sailors laughed, and the doctor felt my
+pulse. But, for all that, I am satisfied there is a mystery
+somewhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Willis, the thing is altogether improbable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, look here; Captain Littlestone is either dead or alive, is he
+not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;there can be no medium between these
+hypotheses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then all I can say is this, that as sure as I am a living sinner, I
+have seen him if he is alive, and, if he is dead, I have seen his
+ghost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You believe in visitations from the other world then, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot discredit the evidences of my own senses, can I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, certainly not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides, this brings to my recollection a similar circumstance that
+happened to an old comrade of mine. Sam Walker is as fine a fellow as
+ever lived, he sailed with me on board the <i>Norfolk</i>, and I know him
+to be incapable of telling a falsehood. Though his name is Sam
+Walker, we used to call him 'Hot Codlins.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because he had an old woman with a child tatooed on his arm, instead
+of an anchor, as is usual in the navy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A portrait of <i>Notre Dame de Bon Lecours</i>, I shouldn't wonder,&quot; said
+Jack; &quot;but what had that to do with hot codlins: a codlin is a fish,
+is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will explain that another time,&quot; said Willis, the shadow of a smile
+passing over his pale features. &quot;The short and the long of the story
+is, that Sam once saw a ghost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, tell us all about it, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I am afraid you will not believe the story if I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the contrary, I promise to believe it in advance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, Master Jack. Did you ever see a windmill?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but I know what sort of things they are from description.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are none in Scotland,&quot; continued Willis; &quot;at least I never saw
+one there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do they manage to grind their corn then? There should be oats in
+the land o' cakes, at all events,&quot; said Jack, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, in countries that have plenty of water, they can dispense with
+mills on land. Though there are no wind-mills in Scotland, there are
+some in the county of Durham, on the borders of England, for it
+appears my mate Sam was born in one of them. His father and mother
+died when he was very young, and he, conjointly with the rats, was
+left sole owner and occupant of the mill. Some of the neighboring
+villagers, seeing the poor boy left in this forlorn condition, got him
+into a charity school, whence he was bound apprentice to a shipmaster
+engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young
+Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the
+hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him
+about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought so,&quot; said Jack; &quot;the mark in question represents the patron
+saint of French sailors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After a variety of ups and downs, Sam found himself rated as a
+first-class seaman on board a British man-of-war. He served with
+myself on board the <i>Norfolk</i>, and was wounded at the battle of
+Trafalgar [1806], which, I dare say, you have heard of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Willis, it was there that your Admiral Nelson covered himself
+with immortal renown.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There and elsewhere, Master Fritz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It cost him his life, however, Willis, and likewise shortened those
+of the French Admiral Villeneuve and the Spanish Admiral Gravina;
+that, you must admit, is too many eggs for one omelet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you once said yourself, great victories are not won without loss,
+and the battle of Trafalgar was no exception to the rule. Sam, having
+been wounded, was sent to the hospital, and when his wound was healed,
+he was allowed leave of absence to recruit his strength, so he thought
+he would take a run to Durham and see how it fared with the paternal
+windmill. Time had, of course, wrought many changes both outside and
+in, but it still remained perched grimly on its pedestal, but now
+entirely abandoned to the bats and owls. The sails were gone, and the
+woodwork was slowly crumbling away; but the basement being of hewn
+granite, it was still in a tolerable state of preservation. The place,
+however, was said to be haunted; exactly at twelve o'clock at night
+dismal howls were heard by the villagers to issue from the mill.
+According to the blacksmith, who was a great authority in such
+matters, Sam's father was a very avaricious old fellow, and had hid
+his money somewhere about the building; and you know, Master Jack,
+that when a man dies and leaves his money concealed, there is no rest
+for him in his grave till it is discovered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I really was not aware of it before,&quot; replied Jack; &quot;but I am
+delighted to hear it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When Sam arrived, nobody disputed his title to the property, except
+the ghost; but Sam had seen a good deal of hard service, and declared
+that he would not be choused out of his patrimony for all the ghosts
+in the parish; and, in spite of the persuasions of the villagers,
+resolved to take up his abode there forthwith. Sam accordingly laid in
+a supply of stores, including a month's supply of tobacco and rum. He
+first made the place water-tight, then made a fire sufficient to roast
+an ox, and when night arrived made a jorum of grog, a little stiff, to
+keep away the damp. This done, he lit his pipe, and began to cook a
+steak for his supper. The old mill, for the first time since the
+decease of the former proprietor, was filled with the savory odor of
+roast beef.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And there are worse odors than that,&quot; remarked Jack. &quot;Whilst the
+steak was frizzling, he took a swig at the grog; and, thinking one
+side was done, he gave the gridiron a twist, which sent the steak a
+little way up the chimney, and, strange to say, it never came down
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ten thousand What's-a-names,' cried Sam, 'where's my steak?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No answer was vouchsafed to this query; he looked up the chimney, and
+could see no one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The steak had really disappeared then?&quot; said Jack, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, not a fragment remained; but he had more beef, so he cut off
+another; and, as his head had got a little middled with the grog, he
+thought it just possible that he might have capsized the gridiron into
+the fire, so he quietly recommenced the operation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the second steak disappeared like the first?&quot; &quot;Yes, Master Fritz,
+with this difference&mdash;there was a dead man's thigh-bone in its place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An awkward transformation for a hungry man,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Here's a go!' cried Sam, like to burst his sides with laughing,
+'they expect to frighten me with bones, do they? they've got the wrong
+man&mdash;been played too many tricks of that kind at sea to be scared by
+that sort of thing. Ha, ha, ha! capital joke though.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your friend Sam must have been a merry fellow, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but he was hungry, and wanted his supper; so he continued
+supplying the gridiron with steaks as long as the beef lasted, but
+only obtained human shin-bones, clavicles and tibias.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Never mind,' said Sam to himself, 'they will tire of this game in
+course of time.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the beef was done, he kept up a supply of rashers of bacon, and
+threw the bones as they appeared in a corner, consoling himself in the
+meantime with his pipe and his grog.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He must have been both patient and persevering,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This went on till a skull appeared on the gridiron.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A singular object to sup upon,&quot; observed Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I wonder what the deuce will come next,' said Sam to himself,
+throwing the skull amongst the rest of the bones.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next time, however, he took the gridiron off the fire, there was
+his last rasher done to a turn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Now,' said Sam, 'I am going to have peace and quietness at last.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He sat down then very comfortably, and kept eating and drinking, and
+drinking and smoking, till the village clock struck twelve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good!&quot; cried Jack. &quot;You may come in now, ladies and gentlemen; the
+performance is just a-going to begin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sam heard a succession of crack cracks amongst the bones, and turning
+round he beheld a frightful-looking spectre, pointing with its finger
+to the door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Was it wrapped up in a white sheet?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I rather think it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, then, I believe the story; for spectres are invariably
+wrapped up in white sheets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The bones, instead of remaining quietly piled up in the corner, had
+joined themselves together&mdash;the leg bones to the feet, the ribs to the
+back-bone&mdash;and the skull had stuck itself on the top. Where the flesh
+came from, Sam could not tell; but he strongly suspected that his own
+steaks and bacon had something to do with it. But, be that as it may,
+there was not half enough of fat to cover the bones, and the figure
+was dreadfully thin. Sam stared at first in astonishment, and began to
+doubt whether he saw aright. When, however, he beheld the figure move,
+there could be no mistake, and he knew at once that it was a ghost.
+Anybody else would have been frightened out of their senses, but Sam
+took the matter philososophically and went on with his supper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'How d'ye do, old fellow?' he said to the spectre. 'Will you have a
+mouthful of grog to warm your inside? Sit down, and be sociable.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The spectre did not make any reply, but continued making a sign for
+Sam to follow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'If you prefer to stand and keep beckoning there till to-morrow you
+may, but, if I were in your place, I would come nearer the fire,' said
+Sam; 'you may catch cold standing there without your shirt, you know.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same silence and the same gesture continued on the part of the
+ghost, and Sam, seeing that his words produced no effect, recommenced
+eating.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is one thing,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;more astonishing about your
+friend Sam than his coolness, and that is his appetite.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The spectre did not appear satisfied with the state of affairs, for
+it assumed a threatening attitude and strode towards the fire-place.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Avast heaving, old fellow,' cried Sam, 'there is one thing I have
+got to say, which is this here: you may stand and hoist signals there
+as long as ever you like; but if you touch me, then look out for
+squalls, that's all.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The 'old fellow,' however, paid no attention to this caution. He
+strode right up to the fire-place, and, whilst pointing to the door
+with one hand, grasped Sam's arm with the other. Sam started up, shook
+off the hand that held him, and pitched into the spectre right and
+left. But, strange to say, his hands went right through its bones and
+all, just as if it had been made of the hydrogen gas you spoke of the
+other day. Sam saw that it was no use laying about him in this
+fashion, for the spectre stood grinning at him all the time, so he
+gave it up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I wish,' said he, 'you would be off, and go to bed, and not keep
+bothering there.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still the spectre maintained the same posture, and kept
+pertinaciously pointing to the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well,' said Sam, 'since you insist upon it, let us see what there is
+outside. Go a-head, I will follow.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The spectre led him into what used to be the garden of the mill, but
+the enclosure was now overgrown with rank and poisonous weeds. There
+was a path running through it paved with flagstones; the spectre
+pointed with its finder to one of them. Sam stooped down, and, much to
+his astonishment, raised it with ease. Beneath there was an iron
+chest, the lid of which he also opened, and saw that it was filled
+with old spade guineas and Spanish dollars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You behold that treasure!' said the spectre, in a hollow voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ha, ha, old fellow! you can speak, can you? Now we shall understand
+each other. Yes, I see a box, filled with what looks very like gold
+and silver coins.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I placed that treasure there before my death,' added the spectre.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah, so! than you are dead?' said Sam.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'One half of that money I wish you to give to the poor, and the other
+half you may keep to yourself, if you choose.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Golley!' said Sam, 'you are not much of a swab after all, though you
+look as thin as a purser's clerk. Give us a shake of your paw, my
+hearty.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here Sam, somehow or other, stumbled over the lamp, and when he got
+up again the spectre had vanished. He laid hold of the chest, however,
+and groped his way back to the mill. When safe inside, he made a stiff
+jorum of grog, and then fell comfortably asleep. That night he dreamt
+that he was eating gold and silver, that he was his own captain, that
+the cat-o'-nine tails was entirely abolished in the navy, and that his
+ship, instead of sailing in salt water was floating in rum. When he
+awoke, the sun was steaming through all the nooks and crannies of the
+old mill. All the marks of the preceding night's adventures were
+there&mdash;the gridiron, the empty rum jar, the the table o'erturned in
+the <i>mélée</i> with the ghost&mdash;but the chest of money was gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what did Sam conclude from that incident?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he supposed that he had slept rather long, and that somebody
+had come in before he as up and had walked off with the box.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I had been in his place,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;I should have said to
+myself that the mind often gives birth to strange fancies,
+particularly after a heavy supper, and that I had muddled my brain
+with rum; consequently, that all the things I imagined I had seen were
+only the chimeras of a dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that could not be, Master Fritz, for two reasons; the first, that
+the mark of the ghost's hand remained on his arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely burnt it when he grilled the bacon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The second, that the ghost was no more seen or heard of in the mill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That proof is a poser for you, brother, I think,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you heave that sigh just now, Master Fritz?&quot; inquired Willis, in
+a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was not I,&quot; said Fritz, looking at his brother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor I,&quot; said Jack, looking at Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor I,&quot; said Willis, looking behind him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXVI'></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<p>WILLIS FALLS IN WITH THE SLOOP ON TERRA FIRMA, INSTEAD OF AT THE
+BOTTOM OF THE SEA, AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED&mdash;ADMIRAL CICERO&mdash;THE
+DEFUNCT NOT YET DEAD.</p>
+
+<p>The corvette, notwithstanding the multitude of British cruisers
+scattered about the ocean, and the other dangers that beset her, held
+on the even tenor of her way. A gale sprung up now and then, but they
+only tended to give a filip to the common-place incidents recorded in
+the log. This quietude was not, however, enjoyed by all the persons on
+board. Willis was a prey to violent emotions; and so it often happens,
+in the midst of the profoundest calm, storms often rage in the heart
+of man.</p>
+
+<p>Whether in reality or in a dream, Willis declared that Captain
+Littlestone paid him a visit every night, and invariably asked him
+precisely the same questions. On these occasions, Willis asserted that
+he distinctly heard the door open and shut whilst a shadow glided
+through. That he might once, or even twice, have been the dupe of his
+own imagination, is probable enough; but a healthy mind does not
+permit a delusion to be indefinitely prolonged&mdash;it struggles with the
+hallucination, and eventually shakes it off; providing always the mind
+has a shadow, and not a reality, to deal with, and that the patient is
+not a monomaniac. The dilemma was consequently reduced to this
+position&mdash;either Willis was mad, or Captain Littlestone was on board
+the <i>Boudeuse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In all other respects, Willis was perfectly sane. He himself searched
+every corner of the ship, but without other result than a confirmation
+of his own impression that there were no officers on board other than
+those of the corvette; and yet, notwithstanding his own conviction in
+daylight, he still continued to assert the reality of his interviews
+with Captain Littlestone during the night. The Italians say, <i>La
+speranza &egrave; il sogno d'an uomo svegliato</i>. Was Willis also dreaming
+with his eyes open? Might not the wish be father to the thought, and
+the thought produce the fancy? There is only one other supposition to
+be hazarded&mdash;could it be possible, in spite of all his researches,
+that Willis did see what he maintained with so much pertinacity he had
+seen?</p>
+
+<p>These questions are too astute to admit of answers without due
+consideration and reflection; therefore, with the reader's permission,
+we shall leave the replies over for the present.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th June a voice from the mast-head called &quot;Land ahoy!&quot; much
+to the delight of the voyagers. The land in question was the island of
+St. Helena. This sea-girt rock had not at that time become classic
+ground. It had not yet become the prison and mausoleum of Napoleon the
+Great. The petulant squabbles between Sir Hudson Lowe and his
+illustrious prisoner had not been heard of. Little wotted then the
+proud ruler of France the fate that awaited him, for, when the
+<i>Boudeuse</i> touched at the island, all Europe, with the single
+exception of England, was kneeling at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>On the 30th the Island of Ascension was reached. Here, in accordance
+with a usage peculiar to French sailors, a bottle, containing a short
+abstract of the ship's log, was committed to the deep. Willis thought
+this ceremony, under existing circumstances, would have been better
+observed in the breach than the observance, for, said he, if a British
+cruiser picked up that bottle within twenty-four hours, she stood a
+chance of picking up the <i>Boudeuse</i> as well.</p>
+
+<p>On the 15th July the peak of Teneriffe hove in sight This remarkable
+basaltic rock rises to the extraordinary height of three thousand
+eight hundred yards above the level of the sea; it is consequently
+seen at a considerable distance, and constitutes a valuable landmark
+for navigators in these seas. Six weeks later the <i>Boudeuse</i> dropped
+anchor in the Havre roads.</p>
+
+<p>Here the three adventurers had to encounter by far the greatest
+misfortune that had as yet befallen them. The continental system of
+Napoleon was then in force. The importation of everything English or
+Indian was strictly prohibited. The cargo the young men had brought
+with them from New Switzerland, which already had escaped so many
+perils, was, therefore, declared contraband, and seized by the French
+<i>fisc</i>&mdash;an institution that rarely permitted such a prize to quit its
+rapacious grasp.</p>
+
+<p>Behold now our poor friends, Fritz and Jack, in a strange land,
+deprived at once of their fortune and their chance of returning
+home&mdash;the two beacons that had cheered them on their way! All their
+bright hopes of the future were thus annihilated at one fell swoop.
+Their fortitude almost gave way under the severity of this blow; the
+excess of their distress alone saved them. Grief requires leisure to
+give itself free vent; but when we are compelled, by absolute
+necessity, to earn our daily bread, we cannot find time for tears; and
+such was the case with Willis and his two friends; they were here
+without a friend and without resources of any kind whatever.</p>
+
+<p>If they had only known Greek and Latin; if they had only been half
+doctors or three-quarter barristers, or if even they had been doctors
+and lawyers complete, it would have sorely puzzled their skill to have
+raised a single sous in hard cash. Fortunately, however, whilst
+cultivating their minds, they had acquired the art of handling a saw
+and wielding a hammer. The blouse of the workman, consequently, fitted
+them as well as the gown of the student, and they set themselves
+manfully to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. They were
+carpenters and blacksmiths by turns, regulating their occupations by
+the grand doctrines of supply and demand.</p>
+
+<p>Jack alone of the three was defective in steadiness; he only joined
+Willis and his brother at mid-day. What he did with himself during the
+forenoon was a profound mystery. He rose before daybreak, and
+disappeared no one knew where, or for what purpose. His companions in
+adversity endeavored in vain to discover his secret; he was determined
+to conceal his movements, and succeeded in baffling their curiosity.
+To judge, however, by the ardor with which he worked, he was engaged
+in some one of those schemes that are termed follies before success,
+but which, after success, are universally acknowledged to be brilliant
+and praiseworthy instances of industrial enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>If, after a hard day's work, when assembled together in the little
+room that served them for parlor, kitchen, and hall, the power of
+regret vanquished fatigue, and sadness drove away sleep, then Jack,
+who compared himself to Peter the Great, when a voluntary exile in the
+shipyards of Saardam, would endeavor to infuse a little mirth into the
+lugubrious party. If all his efforts to make them merry failed, all
+three would join together in a humble prayer to their Heavenly Father,
+who bestowed resignation upon them instead.</p>
+
+<p>If Willis and his two friends were not accumulating wealth, at all
+events they were earning the bread they ate honestly and worthily.
+They had all three laid their shoulders vigorously to the wheel and
+kept it jogging along marvellously for a month. By that time, a
+detailed report of the seizure of their property had been placed
+before the director of the Domaine Extraordinaire, who was the
+sovereign authority in all matters pertaining to the exchequer of the
+empire. He saw at once that this capture was extremely harsh, and
+probably thought that, if it became known, it would raise a storm of
+indignation about the ears of his department. Here were two young
+men&mdash;Moseses, as it were, saved from the bulrushes. Lost in the desert
+from the period of their birth, and ignorant of the dissensions then
+raging in Europe, they were unquestionably beyond the ordinary
+operation of the law. This will never do, he probably said to himself;
+the civilization which these two young men have come through so many
+perils to seek ought not to appear to them, the moment they arrived in
+Europe, in the form of spoliation and barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>The name of this <i>extraordinary</i> director of Domaine Extraordinaire
+was M. de la Boullerie, and, when we fall in with the name of a really
+good-hearted man, we delight to record it. He felt that the two young
+men had been hardly dealt with, but he had not the power to order a
+restitution of the property, now that the seizure had been made, and
+sundry perquisities, of course, deducted by the excise officials.
+Accordingly, he referred the matter to the Emperor, who commanded the
+goods to be immediately restored intact. Napoleon, at the same time,
+praised the functionary we have named for calling his attention to the
+merits of the case, and thanked him for such an opportunity of
+repairing an injustice.<a name='FNanchor_I_9'></a><a href='#Footnote_I_9'><sup>[I]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>There are many such instances of generosity as the foregoing in the
+career of the great Emperor&mdash;mild rays of the sun in the midst of
+thunderstorms; sweet flowers blowing here and there, in the bosom of
+the gigantic projects of his life&mdash;which many will esteem more highly
+than his miracles of strategy and the renown of his battles. As
+nothing that tends to elevate the soul is out of place in this volume,
+we may be permitted to insert one or two of these anecdotes.</p>
+
+<p>In 1806, Napoleon was at Potsdam. The Prussians were humbled to the
+dust, and the outrage of Rossbach had been fearfully avenged. A letter
+was intercepted, in which Prince Laatsfeld, civil governor of Berlin,
+secretly informed the enemy of all the dispositions of the French
+army. The crime was palpable, capital, and unpardonable. There was
+nothing between the life and death of the prince, except the time to
+load half a dozen muskets, point them to his breast, and cry&mdash;Fire.
+The princess flew to the palace, threw herself at the feet of the
+Emperor, beseeched, implored, and seemed almost heart-broken. &quot;Madam,&quot;
+said Napoleon, &quot;this letter is the only proof that exists of your
+husband's guilt. Throw it into the fire.&quot; The fatal paper blazed,
+crisped, passed from blue to yellow, and the treachery of Prince
+Laatsfeld was reduced to ashes.</p>
+
+<p>Another time, a young man, named Von der Sulhn, journeyed from Dresden
+to Paris; unless you are told, you could scarcely imagine for what
+purpose. There are people who travel for amusement, for business, for
+a change of air, or merely to be able to say they have been at such
+and such a place. Some go abroad for instruction, others, perhaps,
+with no other object in view than to eat frogs in Paris, bouillabaisse
+at Marseilles, a polenta at Milan, macaroni at Naples, an olla podrida
+in Spain, or conscoussou in Africa. Von der Sulhn travelled to
+assassinate the Emperor. Like Sc&aelig;vola and Brutus, he, no doubt,
+imagined the crime would hand down his name to posterity. In youth,
+all of us have erred in judgment more or less. Sulhn thought the
+Emperor ought to be slain. Unfortunately for him, the Duke of Rovigo,
+the then minister of police, entertained a different opinion. He
+thought, in point of fact, that the Emperor ought not to be killed:
+hence it was that the young Saxon found himself in chains, and that
+the Duke went to ask the Emperor what he should do with him. We ought,
+however, to mention that the young man, in his character of an
+enlightened German, testified his regret that he had not succeeded in
+carrying out his project, and protested that, in the event of
+regaining his liberty, he would renew the attempt. &quot;Never mind,&quot; said
+the Emperor to the duke, &quot;the young man's age is his excuse. Do not
+make the affair public, for, if it is bruited about, I must punish the
+headstrong youth, which I have no wish to do. I should be sorry to
+plunge a worthy family into grief by immolating such a scapegrace.
+Send him to Vincennes, give him some books to read, and write to his
+mother.&quot; In 1814, the young man obtained his liberty, his family, and
+his Germany, and it is to be hoped that he afterwards became a
+respectable pater-familias, a sort of Aulic councillor, and that,
+during the troublesome times in the land of Sauerkraut, he was before,
+and not behind, the barricades of his darling patria. If he be dead,
+it is to be supposed that, instead of lying a headless trunk
+ignominiously in a ditch, or in the unconsecrated cemetery of Clamort,
+he is reposing entire in the paternal tomb.</p>
+
+<p>On the 15th of March, 1815, the Emperor landed at Cannes&mdash;he had
+returned from the island of Elba. On the beach he was joined by one
+man, at Antibes by a company, at Digne by a battalion, at Gap by a
+regiment (that of Labedoyer), at Grenoble by an army. The hearts of
+the soldiers of France went to him like steel to the loadstone&mdash;first
+a drop, and then a torrent; the Empire, like a snowball, increased as
+it progressed. At Lyons, the Count of Artois, the setting sun, is
+obliged to go out of one gate the moment that Napoleon, the rising
+sun, comes in at another. Smiles, orations, triumphal arches, and even
+the discourses that had been prepared to welcome the Bourbons, were
+used to congratulate their successor on his return. Cockades and flags
+were altered to suit the occasion, by inserting a stripe of red here
+and another of blue there. One national guard, but only one, remained
+faithful to the Bourbons; he would neither alter his cockade nor his
+colors, and remained true to his patrons in the hour of disaster.
+Everybody asked, what would the Emperor do with him? Would he be
+imprisoned or banished? Neither; the Emperor sent him a cross of the
+order of merit! It is, no doubt, grand to have overthrown the
+brilliant army of Murad Bey in Egypt; to have vanquished Melas,
+Wurmser, and Davidowich in Italy; Bragation, Kutusoff, and Barclay de
+Tolly in Russia; Mack in Germany; and thus to have reduced the entire
+continent of Europe to subjection. But it appears to us that a still
+greater feat was the victory he gained over himself, when, in the
+midst of the fever excited by his return, and the animosity of
+parties, he gave this cross to the solitary adherent of misfortune.
+Having made these slight digressions into the future, it is proper
+that we should return to our story.</p>
+
+<p>The mysterious roads of Providence do not always lead to the places
+they seem to go; it often happens that, when we expect to be swallowed
+up by the breakers that surround us, we are wafted into a harbor, and
+that we encounter success where we only anticipated disappointment.
+The rigorous enactments of the continental system, that the other day
+had ruined the two brothers, became all at once the source of
+unlooked-for wealth; for, on account of the scarcity of colonial
+produce, a scarcity dating from the prohibitory laws promulgated in
+1807, the merchandise of the young men had more than quadrupled in
+value.</p>
+
+<p>From the grade of hard-working mechanics they were suddenly promoted
+to the rank of wealthy merchants. They consequently abandoned the
+laborious employments that for a month had enabled them to live, and
+to keep despair and misery at bay. Willis, greatly to his
+inconvenience, found himself transformed into a gentleman at large,
+which caused him to make some material alterations in the manipulation
+and quality of his pipes.</p>
+
+<p>Fritz busied himself in collecting in, the by no means inconsiderable
+sums, which their property realised. He did not value the gold for its
+glitter or its sound, he valued it only as a means of enabling himself
+and his brother to return promptly to their ocean home. Jack undertook
+the task of finding a scalpel to save his mother&mdash;doubtless a
+difficult task; for how was he to induce a surgeon of standing to
+abandon his connexion, his family, and his fame, and to undertake a
+perilous voyage to the antipodes, for the purpose of performing an
+operation in a desert, where there were neither newspapers to proclaim
+it, academicians to discuss it, nor ribbons to reward it? As for the
+gentlemen of the dentist and barber school, like Drs. Sangrado and
+Fontanarose of Figaro, the remedy was even worse by a great deal than
+the disease. But, as we have said, Jack promised to find a surgeon,
+and the research was so arduous, that he was scarcely ever seen during
+the day by either Willis or his brother.</p>
+
+<p>To Willis was confided the office of chartering a ship for the
+homeward voyage, and there were not a few obstacles to overcome in
+order to accomplish this. French ship-masters at that time engaged in
+very little legitimate business; they embarked their capital in
+privateering, prefering to capture the merchantmen of England to
+risking their own. One morning, Willis started as usual in search of a
+ship, but soon returned to the inn where they had established their
+head-quarters in a state of bewilderment; he threw himself into a
+chair, and, before he could utter a word, had to fill his pipe and
+light it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said he, &quot;I am completely and totally flabbergasted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What about?&quot; inquired the two brothers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You could not guess, for the life of you, what has happened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps not, Willis, and would therefore prefer you to tell us at
+once what it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After this,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;no one need tell me that there are no
+miracles now-a-days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you have stumbled upon a miracle, have you, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should think so. That they do not happen every day, I can admit;
+but I have a proof that they do come about sometimes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very probably, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is my opinion that Providence often leads us about by the hands,
+just as little children are taken to school, lest they should be
+tempted to play truant by the way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not unlikely, Willis; but the miracle!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was going along quietly, not thinking I was being led anywhere in
+particular, when, all at once, I was hove up by&mdash;If a bullet had hit
+me right in the breast, I could not have been more staggered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever hove you up then, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was hove up by the sloop.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What sloop?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Was it taking a walk, Willis?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you been to sea since we saw you last?&quot; asked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I had fallen in with the craft at sea, Master Fritz, I should not
+have been half so much astonished. The sea is the natural element of
+ships; we do not find gudgeons in corn fields, nor shoot hares on the
+ocean. But it was on land that I hailed the <i>Nelson</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Was it going round the corner of a street that you stumbled upon it,
+Willis?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not exactly; but to make a long story short&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you talk of cutting anything short, we are in for a yarn,&quot; said
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you are sure to interrupt him in the middle of it,&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, in two words,&quot; said Willis, knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
+&quot;I was cruising about the shipyards, looking if there was a condemned
+craft likely to suit us&mdash;some of them had gun-shot wounds in their
+timbers, others had been slewed up by a shoal&mdash;and, to cut the matter
+short&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another yarn,&quot; suggested Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I luffed up beside the hull of a cutter-looking craft that had been
+completely gutted. But, changed and dilapidated as that hull is, I
+recognized it at once to be that of the <i>Nelson</i>. Now do you believe
+in miracles?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But are you sure, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suppose you met Ernest or Frank in the street to-morrow, pale,
+meagre, and in rags, would you recognize them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most assuredly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, by the same token, sailors can always recognize a ship they
+have sailed in. They know the form of every plank and the line of
+every bend. There are hundreds of marks that get spliced in the
+memory, and are never forgotten. But in the present case there is no
+room for any doubt, a portion of the figure head is still extant, and
+the word <i>Nelson</i> can be made out without spectacles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how did it get there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know, Master Fritz, it could not have told me, even if I had
+taken the trouble to inquire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very true, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was determined, however, to find it out some other way, so I
+steered for a café near the harbor, where the pilots and long-shore
+captains go to play at dominoes. I was in hopes of picking up some
+stray waif of information, and, sooth to say, I was not altogether
+disappointed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another meeting, I'll be bound,&quot; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My falling in with the <i>Nelson</i> astonished you, did it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rather.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I'll bet my best pipe that this one will surprise you still
+more. You recollect my comrade, Bill, <i>alias</i> Bob, of the <i>Hoboken</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, perfectly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I met him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! the man who had both his legs shot off, and died in consequence
+of his wounds?&quot; inquired Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And that was afterwards thrown overboard with a twenty-four pound
+shot tied to his feet!&quot; exclaimed Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an
+air of apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever can we think, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but
+still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by. I could scarcely
+believe my eyes when I saw him. 'Is that you, Bill Stubbs,' says I,
+'at last?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Lor love ye!' says he, 'is that you, Pilot?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost
+wrenched it off.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Where in all the earth did you hail from?' he said. 'I thought you
+were dead and gone?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And I thought you were the same,' said I, 'and no mistake.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea
+amongst the <i>mounseers</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'But what about the <i>Hoboken</i>?' says I.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What <i>Hoboken</i>?' says he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,' says Bill.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And no more he was, for he never left the <i>Nelson</i> till she was high
+and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I
+must have been wrong in that instance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So I should think,&quot; remarked Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet the resemblance was very remarkable; the only difference was a
+carbuncle on the nose, which the real Bill has and the other has not,
+but which I had forgotten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like Cicero,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another Admiral?&quot; inquired Willis, drily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, he was only an orator.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bill soon satisfied me that he was the very identical William Stubbs,
+and that the other was only a very good imitation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He did not receive you with a punch in the ribs, at all events, like
+the apocryphal Bill,&quot; remarked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; but what is more to the purpose, he told me that, after having
+struggled with the terrible tempest off New Switzerland&mdash;which you
+recollect&mdash;the <i>Nelson</i> found herself at such a distance, that Captain
+Littlestone resolved to proceed on his voyage, and to return again as
+speedily as possible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'We arrived at the Cape all right,' added Bill, 'landed the New
+Switzerland cargo, and sailed again with the Rev. Mr. Wolston on
+board. A few days after leaving the Cape, we were pounced upon by a
+French frigate; the <i>Nelson</i>, with its crew, was sent off as a prize
+to Havre, and here I have been ever since,' said Bill, 'a prisoner at
+large, allowed to pick up a living as I can amongst the shipping.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the remainder of the crew?&quot; inquired Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are all here prisoners of war.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the Rev. Mr. Wolston and the captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are prisoners on parole.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! in Havre?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, close at hand, in the Hotel d'Espagne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And we sitting here,&quot; cried Jack, snatching up his hat and rushing
+down stairs four steps at a time.</p>
+
+<p>Willis and Fritz followed as fast as they could.</p>
+
+<p>When they all three reached the bottom of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If Captain Littlestone is here, Willis,&quot; said Jack, &quot;he could not
+have been on board the <i>Boudeuse</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is true, Master Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, Great Rono, you must have been dreaming in the
+corvette as well as in the Yankee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; insisted Willis, &quot;it was no dream, I am certain of that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Explain the riddle, then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot do that just at present, but it may be cleared up by-and-by,
+like all the mysteries and miracles that surround us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_I_9'></a><a href='#FNanchor_I_9'>[I]</a> This circumstance is historical, and will be found at
+length in the Memoirs of Napoleon, by Amédée Goubard.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXVII'></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<p>CAPTAIN LITTLESTONE IS FOUND, AND THE REV. MR. WOLSTON IS SEEN FOR THE
+FIRST TIME.</p>
+
+<p>Jack, on arriving at the hotel, ascertained the number of the room in
+which Captain Littlestone was located. In his hurry to see his old
+friend, the young man did not stop to knock at the door, but entered
+without ceremony, with Fritz and Willis at his heels. They found
+themselves in the presence of two gentlemen, one of whom sat with his
+face buried in his hands, the other was reading what appeared to be a
+small bible.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was a young man seemingly of about twenty-four or
+twenty-five years of age. He had a mild but noble bearing, and his
+aspect denoted habitual meditation. His eyes were remarkably piercing
+and expressive; in short, he was one of those men at whom we are led
+involuntarily to cast a glance of respect, without very well knowing
+why; perhaps it might be owing to the gravity of his demeanour,
+perhaps to the peculiar decorum of his deportment, or perhaps to the
+scrupulous propriety of his dress. He raised his eyes from the book he
+held in his hand, and gazed tranquilly at the three figures who had so
+abruptly interrupted his reveries.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I inquire,&quot; said he, &quot;to what we owe this intrusion on our
+privacy, gentlemen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have to apologise for our rudeness,&quot; said Fritz; &quot;but are you not
+the Rev. Mr. Wolston?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My name is Charles Wolston, and I am a minister of the gospel, and
+missionary of the church.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, sir,&quot; continued Fritz, &quot;I am the bearer of a message from your
+father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From my father!&quot; exclaimed the missionary, starting up; &quot;you come
+then from the Pacific Ocean?&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='007'></a><img src="images/007.jpg" alt="Man posing with a boat" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Here the second gentleman raised his head, and looked as if he had
+just awakened from a dream. He gazed at the speakers with a puzzled
+air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know me, captain?&quot; said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>Littlestone, for it was he, continued to gaze in mute astonishment, as
+if the events of the past had been defiling through his memory; and he
+probably thought that the figures before him were mere phantom
+creations of his brain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis! can it be possible?&quot; he exclaimed, taking at the same time
+the Pilot's proffered hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, captain, as you see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the two young Beckers, as I live!&quot; cried Littlestone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Jack, &quot;and delighted to find you at last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Littlestone then shook them all heartily by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is but a poor welcome that I, a prisoner in the enemy's country,
+can give you to Europe; still I am truly overjoyed to see you. But
+where have you all come from?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From New Switzerland,&quot; replied Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, of course; and I presume another ship anchored in Safety Bay?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, captain. Seeing you did not return to us, we embarked in the
+pinnace and came in search of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your pinnace was but indifferently calculated to weather a gale,
+keeping out of view the other dangers incidental to such a voyage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, captain; but my brother and I, with Willis for a pilot and
+Providence for a guardian, ventured to brave these perils; and here we
+are, as you see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And your mother consented to such a dangerous proceeding, did she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was for her, and yet against her will, that we embarked on the
+voyage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For her, because, when we left, she was dying.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dying, say you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and our object in coming to Europe was chiefly to obtain
+surgical aid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And have you found a surgeon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not yet, but we are in hopes of finding one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If money is wanted, besides the value of the cargo I landed for you
+at the Cape, you may command my purse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A thousand thanks, captain, but the merchandise we have here is
+likely to be sufficient for our purpose. Unfortunately, gold is not
+the only thing that is requisite.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the first place, a disinterested love of humanity is needful;
+there are few men of science and skill who would not risk more than
+they would gain by accepting any offer we can make. It is not easy to
+find the heart of a son in the body of a physician.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, then, will you do, my poor friend?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is my secret, captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During this conversation, the missionary had put a thousand questions
+to Willis and Fritz relative to his father, mother, and sisters, and a
+smile now and then lit up his features as Fritz related some of the
+family mishaps.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must have undergone some hardships in your voyage from the
+antipodes to Havre de Grace,&quot; said Littlestone to Jack,
+&quot;notwithstanding the skill of my friend the Pilot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, captain, a few,&quot; replied Jack. &quot;I myself made a narrow escape
+from being killed and eaten by a couple of savages.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And how did you escape?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Providence interfered at the critical moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, so I should imagine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our friend the Pilot was more fortunate; he was abducted by the
+natives of Hawaii; but, instead of converting him into mincemeat, they
+transformed him into a divinity, bore him along in triumph to a
+temple, where he was perfumed with incense, and had sacrifices offered
+up to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis must have felt himself highly honored,&quot; said the captain,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These fine things did not, however, last long, for next day they were
+wound up with a cloud of arrows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And another interposition of Providence?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, none of the arrows were winged with death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After that,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;we fell in with a Yankee cruiser, were
+taken on board, and carried into the latitude of the Bahamas, where we
+fell in with Old Flyblow, who, after a tough set-to, sent the Yankee a
+prize to Bermuda, and took us on board as passengers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And,&quot; added Jack, &quot;whilst we were under protection of the American
+flag, Willis fell in with a certain Bill Stubbs, who was shot in the
+fight and died of his wounds. This trifling accident did not, however,
+prevent Willis falling in with him alive in Havre.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You still seem to delight in paradoxes, Master Jack,&quot; said the
+captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The English cruiser,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;was afterwards captured by a
+French corvette, on which it appears you were on board <i>incognito</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! I on board?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; ask Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you were not, captain, how could you come to my cabin every night
+and ask me questions?&quot; inquired the latter.</p>
+
+<p>At this point, a shade of anxiety crossed Littlestone's features; he
+turned and looked at the missionary&mdash;the missionary looked at
+Fritz&mdash;Fritz stared at his brother&mdash;Jack gazed at Willis&mdash;and Willis,
+with a puzzled air, regarded everybody in turn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At last,&quot; continued Jack, &quot;after experiencing a variety of both good
+and bad fortune, sometimes vanquished and sometimes the victors, first
+wounded, then cured, we arrived here in Havre, where, for a time, we
+were plunged into the deepest poverty; we were blacksmiths and
+carpenters by turns, and thought ourselves fortunate when we had a
+chair to mend or a horse to shoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The workings of Providence,&quot; said the missionary, &quot;are very
+mysterious, and, perhaps, you will allow me to illustrate this fact by
+drawing a comparison. A ship is at the mercy of the waves; it sways,
+like a drunken man, sometimes one way and sometimes another. All on
+board are in commotion, some are hurrying down the hatchways, and
+others are hurrying up. The sailors are twisting the sails about in
+every possible direction. Some of the men are closing up the
+port-holes, others are working at the pumps. The officers are issuing
+a multiplicity of orders at once, the boatswain is constantly sounding
+his whistle. There is no appearance of order, confusion seems to reign
+triumphant, and there is every reason to believe that the commands are
+issued at random.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have often wondered,&quot; said Jack, &quot;how so many directions issued on
+ship board in a gale at one and the same moment could possibly be
+obeyed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us descend, however, to the captain's cabin,&quot; continued the
+missionary. &quot;He is alone, collected, thoughtful, and tranquil, his eye
+fixed upon a chart. Now he observes the position of the sun, and marks
+the meridian; then he examines the compass, and notes the polary
+deviation. On all sides are sextants, quadrants, and chronometers. He
+quietly issues an order, which is echoed and repeated above, and thus
+augments the babel on deck.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A single order,&quot; remarked Willis, &quot;often gives rise to changes in
+twenty different directions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On deck,&quot; continued the missionary, &quot;the crew appear completely
+disorganized. In the captain's cabin, you find that all this apparent
+confusion is the result of calculation, and is essential to the safety
+of the ship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Still,&quot; said Jack, &quot;it is difficult to see how this result is
+effected by disorder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; and, therefore, we must rely upon the skill of the captain; we
+behold nothing but uproar, but we know that all is governed by the
+most perfect discipline. So it is with the world; society is a ship,
+men and their passions are the mast, sails, rigging, the anchors,
+quadrants, and sextants of Providence. We understand nothing of the
+combined action of these instruments; we tremble at every shock, and
+fear that every whirlwind is destined to sweep us away. But let us
+penetrate into the chamber of the Great Ruler. He issues his commands
+tranquilly; we see that He is watching over our safety; and whatever
+happens, our hearts beat with confidence, and our minds are at rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore,&quot; added Littlestone, &quot;we are resigned to our fate as
+prisoners of war; but still we hope.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And not without good reason,&quot; said Willis; &quot;for it will go hard with
+me if I do not realize your hopes, and that very shortly too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not see very well how our hopes of liberty can be realized till
+peace is proclaimed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Peace!&quot; exclaimed Willis. &quot;Yes, in another twenty years or so,
+perhaps; to wail for such an unlikely event will never do; my young
+friend, Master Jack Becker, is in a hurry, and we must all leave this
+place within a month at latest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mean us, then, to make our escape, Willis; but that is
+impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have an idea that it is not impossible, captain; the cargo Masters
+Fritz and Jack have here will realize a large sum; the pearls,
+saffron, and cochineal, are bringing their weight in gold. I shall be
+able to charter or buy a ship with the proceeds, and some dark night
+we shall all embark; and if a surgeon is not willing to come of his
+own accord, I shall press the best one in the place: it won't be the
+first time I have done such a thing, with much less excuse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One will be willing,&quot; said Jack; &quot;so you need not introduce One-eyed
+Dick's schooner here, Willis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So far so good, then; it only remains for us to smuggle the captain,
+the missionary, and the crew of the <i>Nelson</i> on board.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But we are prisoners,&quot; said Littlestone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know that well enough; if you were not prisoners, of course there
+would be no difficulty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Recollect, Willis, we are not only prisoners, but we are on parole.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True,&quot; said Willis, scratching his ear, &quot;I did not think of that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The situation,&quot; remarked Jack, &quot;is something like that of Louis XIV.
+at the famous passage of the Rhine, of whom Boileau said: 'His
+grandeur tied him to the banks.' Had you been only a common sailor,
+captain, a parole would not have stood in the way of your escape.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; said Willis, &quot;the parole can be given up, can it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not without a reasonable excuse,&quot; replied the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;you can go with the minister to the
+Maritime Prefect, and say: 'Sir, you know that everyone's country is
+dear to one's heart, and you will not be astonished to hear that
+myself and friend have an ardent desire to return to ours. This desire
+on our part is so great, that some day we may be tempted to fly, and,
+consequently, forfeit our honor; for, after all, there are only a few
+miles of sea between us and our homes. We ought not to trust to our
+strength when we know we are weak. Do us, therefore, the favor to
+withdraw our parole; we prefer to take up our abode in a prison, so
+that, if we can escape, we may do so with our honor intact.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And suppose this favor granted, we shall be securely shut up in a
+dungeon. I scarcely think that would alter our position for the
+better, or render our escape practicable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will, at all events, be free to try, will you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is a self-evident proposition, Willis, and, so far as that goes,
+I have no objection to adopt the alternative of prison fare. What say
+you, minister?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As for myself,&quot; replied the missionary, &quot;a little additional hardship
+may do me good, for the Scriptures say: Suffering purifieth the soul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall, therefore, resign our paroles, Willis; but bear in mind
+that it is much easier to get into prison than to get out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave the getting out to me, captain; where there's a will there's
+always a way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think,&quot; whispered the captain to Fritz, &quot;that Willis is all
+right in his upper story?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fritz shook his head, which, in the ordinary acceptation of the sign,
+means, I really do not know.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<p>WILLIS PROVES THAT THE ONLY WAY TO BE FREE IS TO GET SENT TO
+PRISON&mdash;AN ESCAPE&mdash;A DISCOVERY&mdash;PROMOTIONS&mdash;SOMNAMBULISM.</p>
+
+<p>Three weeks after the events narrated in the foregoing chapter, the
+thrice-rescued produce of Oceania had been converted into the current
+coin of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>The greater portion of the proceeds was placed at the disposal of
+Willis, to facilitate him in procuring the means of returning to New
+Switzerland. He&mdash;like connoisseurs who buy up seemingly worthless
+pictures, because they have detected, or fancy they have detected,
+some masterly touches rarely found on modern canvas&mdash;had bought, not a
+ship, but the remains of what had once been one. This he obtained for
+almost nothing, but he knew the value of his purchase. The carcass was
+refitted under his own eye, and, when it left the ship-yard, looked as
+if it had been launched for the first time. The timbers were old; but
+the cabins and all the internal fittings were new; a few sheets of
+copper and the paint-brush accomplished the rest. When the mast was
+fitted in, and the new sails bent, the little sloop looked as jaunty
+as a nautilus, and, according to Willis himself, was the smartest
+little craft that ever hoisted a union-jack.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the captain and the missionary still entertained the belief
+that the Pilot's wits had gone a wool-gathering or not, certain it is
+that they had followed his instructions, in so far as to relinquish
+their parole, and thus to lose their personal liberty. They were both
+securely locked up in one of the rooms or cells of the old palace or
+castle of Francois I., which was then, and perhaps is still, used as
+the state prison of Havre de Grace. This fortalice chiefly consists of
+a battlemented round tower, supported by strong bastions, and
+pierced, here and there, by small windows, strongly barred. The foot
+of the tower is bathed by the sea, which, as Willis afterwards
+remarked, was not only a favor granted to the tower, but likewise an
+obligation conferred upon themselves.</p>
+
+<p>When the Pilot's purchase had been completely refitted, stores
+shipped, papers obtained, and every requisite made for the outward
+voyage, the departure of the three adventurers was announced, and a
+crowd assembled on shore to see their ship leave the harbor. She was
+towed out to the roads, where she lay tranquilly mirrored in the sea,
+ready to start the moment her commander stepped on board. Neither
+Fritz nor Jack, however, had yet completed their preparations. For the
+moment, therefore, the vessel was left in charge of some French
+seamen, whom Willis, however, had taken care to engage only for a
+short period.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere about a week after this, Fritz and Jack, in a small boat,
+painted perfectly black and manned by four stout rowers, with muffled
+oars, were lurking about the fortalice already mentioned. The night
+was pitch dark, and there was no moon. The waves beat sullenly on the
+foot of the tower and surged back upon themselves, like an enraged
+enemy making an abortive attempt to storm the walls of a town. Not a
+word was uttered, and the young men were intently listening, as if
+expecting to hear some preconcerted signal.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in one of the rooms or cells of the round tower, about
+sixty feet above the level of the sea, Captain Littlestone, the
+missionary, and the Pilot were engaged in a whispered conversation,
+through which might be detected the dull sound of an oiled file
+working against iron. The cell was ample in size, but the stone walls
+were without covering of any kind. It was lighted during the day by
+one of the apertures we have already described; the thickness of the
+walls did not permit the rays of the sun to penetrate to the interior,
+and at the time of which we speak the apartment was perfectly dark.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like to see the warder,&quot; whispered Willis, &quot;when he comes,
+with his bundle of keys and his night-cap in his hand, to wish your
+honors good morning, but, in point of fact, to see whether your
+honors are in safe custody. How astonished the old rascal will be! Ho,
+ho, ho!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My good fellow,&quot; said the missionary, &quot;it is scarcely time to laugh
+yet. It is just possible we may escape; but vain boasting is in no
+case deserving of approbation. It is, indeed, scarcely consistent with
+the dignity of my cloth to be engaged in breaking out of a prison;
+still, I am a man of peace, and not a man of war.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said Willis, &quot;you are not; but I wish to goodness you were a
+seventy-four&mdash;under the right colors, of course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was going to remark,&quot; continued the missionary, &quot;that I am a man of
+peace, and, consequently, do not think that I am justly entitled to be
+treated as a prisoner of war. Under these circumstances, I am, no
+doubt, justified in shaking off my bonds in any way that is open to
+me; the more particularly as the apostle Paul was once rescued from
+bondage in a similar way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was let down from a window in a basket, was he not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; whilst journeying in the city of Damascus, the governor, whose
+name was Avetas resolved to arrest him and accordingly placed sentries
+at all the gates. Paul, however was permitted to pass through a house,
+the windows of which overhung the walls of the town, whence, as you
+say, he was let down in a basket, and escaped.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_J_10'></a><a href='#Footnote_J_10'><sup>[J]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;I trust your reverence will be in much the same position as the
+apostle, by-and-by&mdash;only you will have to dispense with the basket,&quot;
+said Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no wish to remain in bondage longer than is absolutely
+necessary,&quot; said the minister; &quot;but there still seem difficulties in
+the way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Willis, plying the file with redoubled energy, &quot;this iron
+gives me more bother than I anticipated; but it is the nature of iron
+to be hard; however, it will not be long before we are all out of
+bondage, as your reverence calls it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May not the warder discover our escape, and raise an alarm in time
+to retake us?&quot; inquired the missionary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I think not,&quot; replied the captain; &quot;thanks to our habit of
+sleeping with our faces to the wall, he will be deceived by the
+dummies we have placed in the beds, for he always approaches on
+tip-toe not to awake us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That may be for the first round; but the second will assuredly
+disclose our absence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very likely,&quot; remarked Willis; &quot;he will then go right up to the beds,
+and shake the dummies by the shoulders, and say, Does your honor not
+know that it is ten o'clock, and that your breakfast is cooling? The
+dummies will, of course, not condescend to reply, and then&mdash;but what
+matters? By that time we shall have shaken out our top-sail, and
+pursuit will be out of the question. I should like to see the craft
+that will overtake us when once we are a couple of miles ahead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Poor man!&quot; said the missionary, sighing; &quot;our escape may, perhaps,
+cost him his place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fear of that,&quot; said Willis; &quot;perhaps, at first, he will make an
+attempt to tear his hair, but, as he wears a wig, that will not do
+much mischief.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall, however, leave my purse on the table,&quot; said the missionary;
+&quot;as it is tolerably well filled, that may afford the poor fellow some
+consolation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I shall do the same,&quot; said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If that does not console him for being deprived of the pleasure of
+our society, I do not know what will,&quot; observed Willis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is now two o'clock,&quot; said the captain, feeling his watch, &quot;and the
+warder goes his first rounds at three; we have therefore just one hour
+for our preparations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have severed one bar,&quot; said Willis, &quot;and the other is nearly
+through at one end, so keep your minds perfectly at ease.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your patience and equanimity, Willis, does you infinite credit,&quot; said
+the missionary. &quot;Minister of the Gospel though I be, I fear that I do
+not possess these qualities to the same extent, for, to confess the
+truth, I feel an inward yearning to be free, and yet am restless and
+anxious.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no great use in being in a hurry,&quot; said the Pilot; &quot;the
+more haste the less speed, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True; but might not these bars have been sawn through before? If this
+had been done, our flight would have been, at least, less
+precipitate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You forget, Mr. Wolston,&quot; said the captain, &quot;that we did not know
+till nine o'clock the affair was to come off to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I could not come any sooner to tell you,&quot; remarked the Pilot; &quot;I
+had the greatest difficulty in the world to get in here; the maritime
+commissary would not take me into custody.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I forgot to ask you how you contrived to get incarcerated,&quot; observed
+the captain; &quot;you were not a prisoner, and could not plead your
+parole.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; and consequently I had to plead something else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Willis,&quot; said the missionary, &quot;the work you are engaged in must be
+very fatiguing, let me exercise my strength upon the bars for a short
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you like, minister, but keep the file well oiled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, motive, then, did you urge, Willis?&quot; inquired Captain
+Littlestone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'one of your frigates captured the English
+cutter <i>Nelson</i> some time ago, but the capture was not complete.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'How so?' inquired the commissary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Because, Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'you did not capture the
+boatswain, and a British ship without a boatswain is no good; it is
+like a body without a soul.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Is that all you have to tell me?' said the commissary, looking glum.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No,' said I, 'to make the capture complete, you have still to arrest
+the boatswain, and here he is standing before you&mdash;I am the man; but
+having been detained by family affairs in the Pacific Ocean, I could
+not surrender myself any sooner.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And what do you want me to do with you?' said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Why, what you would have done with me had I been on board the
+<i>Nelson</i>, to be sure.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What! take you prisoner?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Yes, commissary.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You wish me to do so?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Yes, certainly,'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Is it possible?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Then you refuse to take me into custody, Mr. Commissary?' said I.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Yes, positively,' said he; 'we take prisoners, but we do not accept
+them when offered.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Then you will not allow me to join my captain in his adversity?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Your captain is as great a fool as yourself,' said he; 'he need not
+have gone to prison unless he liked.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'That was a matter of taste on his part, Mr. Commissary, but is a
+matter of duty on mine,'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This bar is nearly through,&quot; whispered the missionary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no time to be lost,&quot; said the captain; &quot;the warder will be
+round in a quarter of an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; continued Willis, &quot;the commissary began to get angry, he rose
+up, and was about to leave the room, when I placed myself resolutely
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Sir,' said I, 'one word more&mdash;you know the French laws; be good
+enough to tell me what crime will most surely and most promptly send
+me to prison.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Oh, there are plenty of them,' said he, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, commissary,' says I, 'suppose I knock you down here on the
+spot, will that do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Was that not going a little too far, Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What could I do? The ship was all ready, everybody on board but
+yourselves, circumstances were pressing, and you know I would have
+floored him as gently as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the bar yielded. To the end of a piece of twine, which
+Willis had rolled round his body, a piece of stone was attached; this
+he let down till it touched the water, and then the caw of a crow rang
+through the air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was a very good imitation, Willis,&quot; said the captain. &quot;You did
+not break any of the commissary's bones, did you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; the threat was quite sufficient; he would not yield to my
+prayers, but he yielded to my impudence, and ordered me into custody.
+At first, however, I was thrust into an underground cell; but I
+obtained, or rather my louis obtained for me, permission to chum with
+you; and, by the way, what a frightful staircase I had to mount! that
+more than any thing else, obliges us to get down by the window.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">
+<a name='008'></a><img src="images/008.jpg" alt="Men escaping down a rope ladder into a small boat" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Willis, who continued to hold one end of the cord, at the sound of a
+whistle drew it up, and found attached to the other end a stout rope
+ladder. This he made fast to the bars of the window that still
+remained intact. At the request of the minister, all three then fell
+upon their knees and uttered a short prayer. Immediately after,
+Wolston went out of the window and began to descend, the captain
+followed, and Willis brought up the rear. All three were cautiously
+progressing downwards, when the missionary called out he had forgotten
+to <i>forget</i> his purse.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have made the same omission,&quot; said the captain; &quot;hand yours up,
+Wolston.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The missionary accordingly held up his with one hand whilst he held on
+the ladder with the other. The captain bent down to take it, but found
+he could not reach it without endangering his equilibrium. They both
+made some desperate efforts to accomplish the feat, but the thing was
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see no help for it,&quot; said the missionary, &quot;but to ascend all three
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is awkward,&quot; said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; said Willis, &quot;three o'clock is striking on the prison
+clock; the warder will be round in two minutes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God sometimes permits good actions to go <i>unrewarded</i>,&quot; said the
+missionary; &quot;but he never <i>punishes</i> them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us re-ascend, then,&quot; said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So be it,&quot; said Willis, going upwards.</p>
+
+<p>They had scarcely time to re-enter the cell before they heard the
+sound of steps and the clank of keys in the corridor. The steps
+discontinued at their door, and a key was thrust into the lock.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the matter?&quot; cried the captain from his bed, as the gaoler
+thrust his head inside the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why,&quot; said the warder, &quot;I heard a noise, and thought that your honor
+might be ill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you for your attention, Ambroise,&quot; replied the captain, in a
+half sleepy tone; &quot;but you have been deceived, we are all quite well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Entirely so,&quot; added the missionary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right old fellow!&quot; cried Willis, with a yawn.</p>
+
+<p>This triple affirmation, which assured him, not only of the health,
+but also of the custody of his prisoners, seemed satisfactory to the
+gaoler.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am sorry to have awoke your honors,&quot; said he, as he withdrew his
+head and relocked the door; &quot;it must have been in the room overhead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good?&quot; said Willis, &quot;the old rascal expects nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Two well-lined purses were laid on the table, and in a few minutes
+more the three men resumed their position on the ladder in the same
+order as before. They arrived safely in the boat, where they were
+cordially welcomed by Fritz and Jack. The men were then ordered to
+pull for their lives to the ship, which they did with a hearty will.
+The instant they stepped on board the anchor was weighed, and when
+morning broke not a vestige of the old tower of Havre de Grace was
+anywhere to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why,&quot; exclaimed the captain, looking about him with an air of
+astonishment, &quot;this is my own vessel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, captain,&quot; said Willis, touching his cap, &quot;and I am its boatswain
+or pilot, whichever your honor chooses to call me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how did you obtain possession of her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By right of purchase she belongs to our friends, Masters Fritz and
+Jack, but they have agreed to waive their claim, providing you proceed
+with them to New Switzerland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I agree most willingly to these conditions,&quot; said Captain
+Littlestone, addressing the two brothers, &quot;the more so that my
+destination was Sydney when the <i>Nelson</i> was captured.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the meantime, captain,&quot; said Fritz, &quot;my brother and I have to
+request that you will resume the command, and treat us as passengers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, my friends, thank you. Willis, are all the old crew on
+board?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All that were in Havre, your honor; I commissioned Bill Stubbs to
+pick them up, and he managed to smuggle them all on board.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then pipe all hands on deck.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, aye, captain,&quot; said Willis, sounding his whistle.</p>
+
+<p>When the men were mustered, Littlestone made a short speech to them,
+told them that they would receive pay for the time they had been in
+the enemy's power, and inquired whether they were all willing to
+continue the voyage under his command. This question was responded to
+by a general assent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then,&quot; he continued, turning to Willis, &quot;the share you have had in
+the rescue of the <i>Nelson</i> and its crew, conjointly with my interest
+at the Admiralty, will, I have not the slightest doubt, obtain for you
+the well-merited rank of lieutenant of his Majesty's navy. I have,
+therefore, to request that you will assume that position on board
+during the voyage, until confirmed by the arrival of your commission.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank your honor,&quot; said Willis, bowing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now, lieutenant, you will be kind enough to rate William Stubbs
+on the books as boatswain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, aye, captain,&quot; said Willis, handing his whistle to Bill.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pipe to breakfast,&quot; said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, aye, sir,&quot; replied the new boatswain, sounding the whistle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way,&quot; said Littlestone, turning to Jack, &quot;I do not see the
+surgeon you spoke of on board. How is this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is on board for all that,&quot; said Jack, drawing an official looking
+document out of his pocket; &quot;be kind enough to read that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The captain accordingly read as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+&quot;<i>Havre, 15th October, 1812.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&quot;This is to certify that Mr. Jack Becker has, for some time, been
+a student in the hospitals of this town, and that he has
+successfully passed through a stringent examination as to his
+acquaintance with the diagnosis and cure of various diseases; as
+also as to his knowledge of the practice of physic and surgery
+generally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&quot;He has specially directed his attention to the treatment of
+cancer, and has performed several operations for the eradication
+of that malady to the satisfaction of the surgeon in chief and my
+own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(Signed) &quot;GARAY DE NEVRES, M.D., Inspector of the Hospitals&quot;.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This document was countersigned, sealed, and stamped by the mayor, the
+prefect, and other authorities of the department.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How have you contrived to obtain so satisfactory a certificate in so
+short a period?&quot; inquired the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was introduced to the chief surgeon by the medical man on board the
+<i>Boudeuse</i>. I stated my position to him, and, probably, he threw
+facilities in my way of obtaining the object I had in view that were,
+perhaps, rarely accorded to others. All the cases of cancer, for
+example, were placed under my care; I had, therefore, an opportunity
+of observing a great many phases and varieties of that disease.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you determined to follow up the profession of surgery, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, captain; I have shipped a medicine chest on board, a complete
+assortment of instruments, and a collection of English, French, and
+German medical works. It is my intention to make myself thoroughly
+familiar with the theory of the science, and trust to chance for
+practice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then allow me, Mr. Becker, to rate you as surgeon of the <i>Nelson</i> for
+the outward voyage. Will you accept the office?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With pleasure, Captain; but, at the same time, I trust there will be
+no occasion to exercise my skill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one can say what may happen; disease turns up where it is least
+expected. Lieutenant,&quot; he added, turning to Willis, &quot;be kind enough to
+rate Mr. Becker on the ship's books as surgeon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aye, Aye, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the <i>Nelson</i> was making her way rapidly along the French
+coast, and had already crossed the Bay of Biscay. The <i>Nelson</i> behaved
+herself admirably, and took to her new gear with excellent grace. All
+was going merrily as a marriage bell. They did not now run very much
+risk of cruisers, as Fritz had French papers perfectly <i>en regle</i>, and
+Captain Littlestone would have had little difficulty to prove his
+identity; besides, the speed of the <i>Nelson</i> was sufficient to secure
+their safety in cases where danger was to be apprehended.</p>
+
+<p>One night, about four bells (ten o'clock), when Willis was lazily
+lolling in his hammock, doubtless ruminating on his newly-acquired
+dignity, his cabin-door gradually opened, and the captain entered.
+Willis stared at first, thinking he might have something important to
+communicate, but he only muttered something about a cloud gathering in
+the west. This was too much for Willis; it resembled his former
+meditations so vividly, that he leaped out of his hammock, seized
+Littlestone by the collar, and called loudly for Fritz and Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not very respectfull, captain, to handle you in this way; but
+the case is urgent, and I should like to have the mystery cleared up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The two brothers, when they entered the cabin, beheld Willis holding
+the captain tightly in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have caught him at last, you see,&quot; said the Pilot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it would appear,&quot; observed Jack; &quot;but are you not aware the
+captain is asleep?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so it was Littlestone had walked from his own cabin to that of
+Willis in a state of somnambulism.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the matter?&quot; inquired the latter, when he became conscious of
+his position.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing is the matter, captain,&quot; replied Jack, &quot;only you have been
+walking in your sleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah&mdash;yes&mdash;it must be so!&quot; exclaimed Littlestone; gazing about him with
+a troubled air. &quot;Have I not paid you a visit of this kind before,
+Willis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On board the <i>Boudeuse</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That must have been the craft I was transferred to, then, after the
+capture of the <i>Nelson</i>. Just call Mr. Wolston, and let us have the
+matter explained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On comparing notes, it appeared that the captain and the missionary
+had been on board the <i>Boudeuse</i>. Both had been ill, and both had been
+closely confined to their cabin during the entire voyage, partly on
+account of their being prisoners of war, and partly on account of
+their illness. On one occasion, but on one only, the captain had
+escaped from his cabin during the night. Willis might, therefore, have
+seen him once, but that he had seen him oftener was only a dream.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears, then,&quot; said Littlestone, &quot;that my illness has left this
+unfortunate tendency to sleep-walking. I shall, therefore, place
+myself in your hands, Master Jack; perhaps you may be able to chase it
+away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will do my best, captain; and I think I may venture to promise a
+cure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Willis was sorry for the captain's sleeplessness, but he was glad that
+the mystery hanging over them both had been so far cleared up. His
+visions and dreams had been a source of constant annoyance to him; but
+now that their origin had been discovered, he felt that henceforward
+he might sleep in peace.</p>
+
+<p>After a rapid run, the sloop cast anchor off the Cape. Here Captain
+Littlestone reported himself to the commander on the station, and
+received fresh papers. He also sent off a despatch to the Lords of the
+Admiralty, in which he reported the capture and rescue of his ship. He
+informed them that his own escape and that of the crew was entirely
+owing to the tact and daring of Willis, the boatswain, whom, in
+consequence, he had nominated his second in command, <i>vice</i> Lieutenant
+Dunsford, deceased; the appointment subject, of course, to their
+lordship's approval.</p>
+
+<p>Willis wrote a long letter to his wife, informing her of his expected
+promotion, adding that, in a year or so after the receipt of his
+commission, he should retire on half-pay, and then emigrate to a
+delightful country, where he had been promised a vast estate. He said
+that, probably, he should have an entire island to himself, and
+possibly have the command of the fleet; but he thought it as well to
+say nothing about tigers, sharks, and chimpanzees.</p>
+
+<p>The missionary also wrote to England, relinquishing his charge in
+South Africa, and requesting a mission amongst the benighted
+inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, where he stated he was desirous of
+settling for family reasons, and where besides, he said, he would have
+a wider and equally interesting field for his labors.</p>
+
+<p>The two brothers found at the Cape a large sum of money at their
+disposal; this, however, they had now no immediate use for; they,
+consequently, left it to await the arrival of Frank and Ernest, who,
+in all probability, would return with the <i>Nelson</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The arrangements made, the <i>Nelson</i> was fully armed and manned, an
+ample supply of stores and ammunition was shipped, the mails in Sydney
+were taken on board, and the sloop resumed her voyage.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name='Footnote_J_10'></a><a href='#FNanchor_J_10'>[J]</a> 2nd Cor., xi., 32.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h2><a name='CONCLUSION'></a>CONCLUSION.</h2>
+
+<p>Three months after leaving the Cape, the coast of New Switzerland was
+telegraphed from the mast head by Bill Stubbs. A gun was immediately
+fired, and towards evening the <i>Nelson</i> entered Safety Bay. Fritz,
+Jack, Captain Littlestone, the missionary, and Willis, were all
+standing on deck, eagerly scanning the shore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is father!&quot; cried Jack, &quot;armed with a telescope; and now I see
+Frank and Mrs. Wolston.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There comes Mr. Wolston and Master Ernest,&quot; cried Willis, &quot;as usual,
+a little behind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I see nothing of my mother and the young ladies!&quot; said Fritz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very odd,&quot; said Captain Littlestone, sweeping the horizon with his
+glass &quot;I can see nothing of them either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A horrible apprehension here glided into the hearts of the young men.
+They knew well that, had their mother been able, she would have been
+the first to welcome them home. Perhaps, under the inspiration of
+despair, their lips were opening to deny the mercy of that Providence
+which had hitherto so remarkably befriended them, when at a great
+distance, and scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, they descried
+three figures advancing slowly towards the shore.</p>
+
+<p>One of these forms was Mrs. Becker, who was leaning upon the arms of
+Mary and Sophia Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God be thanked, we are still in time,&quot; cried Fritz and Jack.</p>
+
+<p>A loud cheer, led by Willis, then rent the air. Half an hour after,
+the two young men leaped on shore; they did not stay to shake hands
+with their father and brothers, but ran on to where their mother
+stood. It was a long time before they could utter a syllable; the
+greeting of the mother and her children was too affectionate to be
+expressed in words.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, at daybreak, preparations for a serious operation were
+made in Mrs. Becker's room. The entire colony was in a state of
+intense excitement, and an air of anxiety was imprinted on every
+countenance. In the room itself the wing of a fly could have been
+heard, so breathless was the silence that prevailed. The patient's
+eyes had been bandaged, under pretext of concealing from her sight the
+surgical instruments and preparations for the operation. The real
+design, however, was to hide the operator, whom Mrs. Becker supposed
+to be an expert practitioner from Europe; for it was not thought
+advisable that a mother's anxieties should be superadded to the
+patient's sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment of trial the few persons present had sunk on their
+knees; Jack alone remained standing at the bedside of his mother. The
+Jack of the past had entirely disappeared; he was somewhat pale, very
+grave, but collected, firm, and resolute. It was, perhaps, the first
+instance on record of a son being called upon to lacerate the body of
+his mother. But the moment that God imposed such a task upon one of
+His creatures, it is God himself that becomes the operator.</p>
+
+<p>When, some days after, Mrs. Becker&mdash;calm, radiant, and
+saved&mdash;requested to see and thank her deliverer, it was Jack who
+presented himself. If she had known this sooner, it would, most
+undoubtedly, have augmented her terror, and increased the fever. As it
+was, it redoubled her thankfulness, and hastened her recovery.</p>
+
+<p>Frank and Ernest embarked on board the <i>Nelson</i> when she returned to
+New Switzerland on her way to Europe. Two years afterwards, the former
+returned in the capacity of a minister of the Church of England,
+bringing with him a sufficient number of men, women, and children to
+furnish a respectable congregation; and it was rumored, though with
+what degree of truth I will not venture to say, that one of the young
+lady passengers in the ship was his destined bride. Ernest remained
+some years in Europe, partly to consolidate relations between the
+colony and the mother country, and partly with a view to realize his
+pet project of establishing an observatory in New Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>Willis, instead of being suspended at the yard-arm as he had insisted
+on prognosticating, received his lieutenancy in due course,
+accompanied by a highly flattering letter from the Lords of the
+Admiralty, thanking him, in the name of the captain and crew of the
+<i>Nelson</i>, for his exertions in their behalf. As soon, however, as
+peace was proclaimed, he retired on half-pay, and, with his wife and
+daughter, emigrated to Oceania. He assumed his old post of admiral on
+Shark's Island, where a commodious house had been erected. We must
+premise, at the same time, that to his honorary duties as admiral,
+conjoined the humbler, but not less useful, offices of lighthouse
+keeper, manager of the fisheries, and harbor-master.</p>
+
+<p>As a country grows rich, and advances in prosperity, it rarely, if
+ever, happens that the sum of human life becomes happier or better. It
+is, therefore, not without regret we learn that gold has been
+discovered in a land so highly favored by nature in other respects;
+for, if such be the case, then adieu to the peace and tranquillity its
+inhabitants have hitherto enjoyed. The colony will soon be overrun
+with Chinamen, American adventurers, and ticket-of-leave convicts.
+Farewell to the kindliness and hospitality of the community, for they
+will inevitably be deluged with the refuse of the old, and also, alas!
+of the new world.</p>
+
+<div class="subhead">THE END.</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIS THE PILOT ***</div>
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@@ -0,0 +1,15123 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Willis the Pilot, by Johanna Spyri
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Willis the Pilot
+
+Author: Johanna Spyri
+
+Translator: Henry Frith
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2004 [EBook #14172]
+[Most recently updated February 8, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIS THE PILOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Karen Dalrymple and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WILLIS THE PILOT,
+
+A Sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson:
+
+OR,
+
+ADVENTURES OF AN EMIGRANT FAMILY
+WRECKED ON AN UNKNOWN COAST OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
+
+INTERSPERSED WITH
+
+TALES, INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL, AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF
+NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+BOSTON:
+LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
+NEW YORK:
+LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM.
+1875.
+
+
+LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY
+At the Office of the American Stereotype Company,
+PHOENIX BUILDING, BOSTON.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY KILBURN & MALLORY
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The love of adventure that characterises the youth of the present day,
+and the growing tendency of the surplus European population to seek
+abroad the comforts that are often denied at home, gives absorbing
+interest to the narratives of old colonists and settlers in the
+wonderful regions of the New World. Accordingly, the work known as the
+_Swiss Family Robinson_ has long enjoyed a well-merited popularity,
+and has been perused by a multitude of readers, young and old, with
+profit as well as pleasure.
+
+A Swiss clergyman resolved to better his fortune by emigration. In
+furtherance of this resolution, he embarked with his wife and four
+sons--the latter ranging from eight to fifteen years of age--for one
+of the newly-discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean. As far as the
+coast of New Guinea the voyage had been favorable, but here a violent
+storm arose, which drove the ill-fated vessel out of its course, and
+finally cast it a wreck upon an unknown coast. The family succeeded in
+extricating themselves from the stranded ship, and landed safely on
+shore; but the remaining passengers and crew all perished. For many
+years these six individuals struggled alone against a variety of
+trials and privations, till at length another storm brought the
+English despatch-boat _Nelson_ within reach of their signals. Such is
+a brief outline of the events recorded in the _Swiss Family Robinson_.
+
+The present volume is virtually a continuation of this narrative. The
+careers of the four sons--Frank, Ernest, Fritz, and Jack--are taken up
+where the preceding chronicler left them off. The subsequent
+adventures of these four young men, by flood and field, are faithfully
+detailed. With these particulars are mingled the experiences of
+another interesting family that afterwards became dwellers in the same
+territory; as are also the sayings and doings of a weather-beaten
+sailor--Willis the Pilot.
+
+The scene is laid chiefly in the South Seas, and the narrative
+illustrates the geography and ethnology of that section of the
+Far-West. The difficulties, dangers, and hardships to be encountered
+in founding a new colony are truthfully set forth, whilst it is shown
+how readily these are overcome by perseverance and intelligent labor.
+It will be seen that a liberal education has its uses, even under
+circumstances the least likely to foster the social amenities, and
+that, too, not only as regards the mental well-being of its
+possessors, but also as regards augmenting their material comforts.
+
+In the _Swiss Family Robinson_ the resources of Natural History have
+been largely, and perhaps somewhat freely, drawn upon. This branch of
+knowledge has, therefore, been left throughout the present volume
+comparatively untouched. Nevertheless, as it is the aim of the
+narrator to combine instruction with amusement, the more elementary
+phenomena of the Physical Sciences have been blended with the current
+of the story--thus garnishing, as it were, the dry, hard facts of
+Owen, Liebig, and Arago, with the more attractive, groupings of life
+and action.
+
+The reader has, consequently, in hand a _m�lange_ of the useful and
+agreeable--a little for the grave and a little for the gay--so that,
+should our endeavors to impart instruction prove unavailing, _en
+revanche_ we may, perhaps, be more successful in our efforts to amuse.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Colony--Reflections on the Past--Ideas of Willis the Pilot--Sophia
+Wolston
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+To what extent Willis the Pilot had Ideas on certain Subjects--The
+Knights of the Ocean
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Wherein Willis the Pilot proves "Irrefragably" that Ephemerides die of
+Consumption and Home-Sickness--The Canoe and its Young ones--The
+Search after the Sloop--Found--The Sword-Fish--Floating Atoms--Admiral
+Socrates
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A Landscape--Sad Houses and Smiling Houses--Politeness in China--Eight
+Soups at Dessert--Wind Merchants--Another Idea of the Pilot's--Susan,
+vice Sophia
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Allotment of Quarters--A Horse Marine--Travelling Plants--Change of
+Dynasty in England--A Woman's Kingdom--Sheep converted into
+Chops--Resurrection of the Fried Fish--A Secret
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The Queen's Doll--Rockhouse to Falcon's Nest--The
+Wind--Grasses--Admiral Homer--The Three Frogs--Oat Jelly--Esquimaux
+Astronomy--An Unknown
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The Search for the Unknown--Three Fleets on Dry Land--The
+Indiscretions of a Sugar Cane--Larboard and Starboard--The supposed
+Sensibility of Plants--The Fly-trap--Vendetta--Root and Germ--Mine and
+Countermine--The Polypi--Oviparous and Viviparous--A Quid pro Quo
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Inhabitant of the Moon, Anthropophagian or Hobgoblin?--The Lacedemonian
+Stew of Madame Dacier--Utile Dulci--T�te-�-t�te between Willis and
+his Pipe--Tobacco versus Birch--Is it for Eating?--Mosquitoes--The
+Alarm--Toby--The Nocturnal Expedition--We've got him
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Chimpanzee--Imperfect Negro, or Perfect Ape--The Harmonies of
+Nature--A Handful of Paws--A Stone Skin--Seventeen Spectacles on one
+Nose--Animalcul�--Pelion on Ossa--Ptolemy--Copernicus to
+Galileo--Metaphysics and Cosmogonies--A live Tiger
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The Pioneers--Excursion to Coromandel--Hindoo Fancies--A Caged
+Hunter--Louis XI and Cardinal Balue--A Furlong of News--Carnage--The
+Baronet and his seventeen Tigers--Fifty-four feet of Celebrity--Sterne's
+Window--Promenade of the Consciences--Emulation and Vanity
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+On the Watch--Fecundity of Plants and Animals--Latest News from the
+Moon--A Death-Knell every Second--The Inconveniences of being too near
+the Sun--Narcotics--Willis contralto--Hunting turned upside
+down--Electric Clouds--Partialities of Lightning--Bells and
+Bellringers--Conducting Rods--The Return--The Two Sisters--Toby
+becomes a Dragoman
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Man proposes, but God disposes--The Choice of a
+Profession--Conqueror--Orator--Astronomer--Composer--Painter--Poet--Village
+Curate--The Kafirs--Occupations of Women--The Alpha and Omega of the
+Sea
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Herbert and Cecilia--The little Angels--A Catastrophe--The
+Departure--Marriage of the Doge with the Adriatic--Sovereigns of the
+Sea--Dante and Beatrix--Eleonora and Tasso--Laura and Petrarch--The
+Return--Surprises--What one finds in Turbots--A Horror--The
+Price of Crime--Ballooning--Philipson and the Cholera--A
+Metamorphosis--Adventure of the Chimpanzee--Are you Rich?
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The Tears of Childhood and Rain of the Tropics--Charles'
+Wain--Voluntary Enlistment--A Likeness Guaranteed--The World at
+Peace--Alas, poor Mary!--The same Breath for two Beings--The first
+Pillow--The Logic of the Heart--How Fritz supported Grief--A Grain of
+Sand and the Himalaya
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+God's Government--King Stanislaus--The Dauphin son of Louis XV.--The
+shortest Road--New Year's Day--A Miracle--Clever Animals--The
+Calendar--Mr. Julius C�sar and Pope Gregory XIII.--How the day after
+the 4th of October was the 15th--Olympiads--Lustres--The Hegira--A
+Horse made Consul--Jack's Dream
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Separation--Guelphs and Ghibelines--Montagues and
+Capulets--Sadness--The Reunion--Jocko and his Education--The
+Entertainments of a King--The Mules of Nero and the Asses of
+Popp�a--Hercules and Achilles--Liberty and Equality--Semiramis and
+Elizabeth--Christianity and the Religion of Zoroaster--The Willisonian
+Method--Moral Discipline versus Birch
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Where there's a Will there's a Way--Mucius Sc�vola--What's to be
+done?--Brutus Torquatus and Peter the Great--Australia, Botany Bay,
+and the Flying Dutchman--New Guinea and the Buccaneer--Vancouver's
+Island--White Skins--Danger of Landing on a Wave--Hanged or
+Drowned--Route to Happiness--Omens
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Bacon and Biscuit--Let Sleeping Dogs Lie--The Paternal Benediction--An
+Apparition--A Mother not easily deceived--The Adieu--The Emperor
+Constantine--hoc signo vinces--The Sailor's Postscript--C�sar and his
+Fortunes--Recollections--Mrs. Becker plucks Stockings and Knits
+Ortolans--How delightful it is to be Scolded--The Bodies vanish, but
+the Souls remain
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Eighteen Hundred and Twelve--The _Mary_--Count Ugolino--The Sources of
+Rivers--The Alps demolished--No more Pyrenees--The First Ship--Admiral
+Noah--Fleets of the Israelites--The Compass--Printing--Gunpowder--Actium
+and Salamis--Dido and �olus--Steam--Don Garay and Roger Bacon--Melchthal,
+Furst, and William Tell--Going a-pleasuring--Upset versus blown up--A
+Dead Calm--The Log--Willis's Archipelago--The Island of Sophia--The Bread
+Fruit-tree--Natives of Polynesia--Striped Trowsers--Abduction of
+Willis--Is he to be Roasted or Boiled?--When the Wine is poured out,
+we must Drink it
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Jupiter Tonans--The Thunders of the Pilot--Worshippers of the
+Far West--A late Breakfast--Rono the Great--A Polynesian
+Legend--Manners and Customs of Oceanica Mr. and Mrs. Tamaidi--Regal
+Pomp--Elbow Room--Katzenmusik--Queen Tonico and the Shaving
+Glass--Consequences of a Pinch of Snuff--Disgrace of the Great
+Rono--Marins--Coriolanus--Hannibal--Alcibiades--Cimon--Aristides--A
+Sop for the Thirsty--Air something else besides Oxygen and
+Hydrogen--Maryland and Whitechapel--Half-way up the Cordilleras--Human
+Machines--Star of the Sea, pray for us!
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+Lying-to--Heart and Instinct--Sparrows viewed as
+Consumers--Migrations--Posting a Letter in the
+Pacific--Cannibals--Adventures of a Locket
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+The Utility of Adversity--An Encounter--The _Hoboken_--Bill alias Bob
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+In which Willis shows, that the term Press-gang means something else
+besides the Gentlemen of the Press
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+Another Idea of the Pilot's--The _Boudeuse_
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+Delhi--William of Normandy and King John--Isabella of Bavaria and Joan
+of Arc--Poitier and Bovines--History of a Ghost, a Gridiron, and a
+Chest of Guineas
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Willis falls in with the Sloop on terra firma, instead of at the
+bottom of the Sea, as might have been expected--Admiral Cicero--The
+Defunct not yet Dead
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Captain Littlestone is found, and the Rev. Mr. Wolston is seen for the
+first time
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+Willis proves that the only way to be free is to get sent to
+Prison--An Escape--A Discovery--Promotions--Somnambulism
+
+
+Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE COLONY--REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST--IDEAS OF WILLIS THE PILOT--SOPHIA
+WOLSTON.
+
+
+The early adventures of the Swiss family, who were wrecked on an
+unknown coast in the Pacific Ocean, have already been given to the
+world. There are, however, many interesting details in their
+subsequent career which have not been made public. These, and the
+conversations with which they enlivened the long, dreary days of the
+rainy season, we are now about to lay before our readers.
+
+Becker, his wife, and their four sons had been fifteen years on this
+uninhabited coast, when a storm drove the English despatch sloop
+_Nelson_ to the same spot. Before this event occurred, the family had
+cleared and enclosed a large extent of country; but, whether the
+territory was part of an island or part of a continent, they had not
+yet ascertained. The land was naturally fertile; and, amongst other
+things that had been obtained from the wreck of their ship, were
+sundry packages of European seeds: the produce of these, together with
+that of two or three heads of cattle they had likewise rescued from
+the wreck, supplied them abundantly with the necessaries of life. They
+had erected dwellings here and there, but chiefly lived in a cave near
+the shore, over the entrance to which they had built a sort of
+gallery. This structure, conjointly with the cave, formed a commodious
+habitation, to which they had given the name of _Rockhouse_. In the
+vicinity, a stream flowed tranquilly into the sea; this stream they
+were accustomed to call _Jackal River_, because, a few days after
+their landing, they had encountered some of these animals on its
+banks. Fronting Rockhouse the coast curved inwards, the headlands on
+either side enclosing a portion of the ocean; to this inlet they had
+given the name of _Safety Bay_, because it was here they first felt
+themselves secure after having escaped the dangers of the storm. In
+the centre of the bay there was a small island which they called
+_Shark's Island_, to commemorate the capture of one of those monsters
+of the deep. Safely Bay, had, a second time, acquired a legitimate
+title to its name, for in it Providence had brought the _Nelson_
+safely to anchor.
+
+By unwearying perseverance, indefatigable industry, and an untiring
+reliance on the goodness of God, Becker and his family had surrounded
+themselves with abundance. There was only one thing left for them to
+desire, and that was the means of communicating with their kindred;
+and now this one wish of their hearts was gratified by the unexpected
+appearance of the _Nelson_ on their shore. The fifteen years of exile
+they had so patiently endured was at once forgotten. Every bosom was
+filled with boundless joy; so true it is, that man only requires a ray
+of sunshine to change his most poignant griefs into smiles and
+gladness.
+
+The first impressions of their deliverance awakened in the minds of
+the young people a flood of projects. The mute whisperings that
+murmured within them had divulged to their understandings that they
+were created for a wider sphere than that in which they had hitherto
+been confined. Europe and its wonders--society, with its endearing
+interchanges of affection--that vast panorama of the arts and of
+civilization, of the trivial and the sublime, of the beautiful and
+terrible, that is called the world--came vividly into their thoughts.
+They felt as a man would feel when dazzled all at once by a spectacle,
+the splendor of which the eyes and the mind can only withstand by
+degrees. They had spelt life in the horn-book of true and simple
+nature--they were now about to read it fluently in the gilded volume
+of a nature false and vitiated, perhaps to regret their former
+tranquil ignorance.
+
+Becker himself had, for an instant, given way to the general
+enthusiasm, but reflection soon regained her sway; he asked himself
+whether he had solid reasons for wishing to return to Europe, whether
+it would be advisable to relinquish a certain livelihood, and abandon
+a spot that God appeared to bless beyond all others, to run after the
+doubtful advantages of civilized society.
+
+His wife desired nothing better than to end her days there, under the
+beautiful sky, where, from the bosom of the tempest, they had been
+guided by the merciful will of Him who is the source of all things.
+Still the solitude frightened her for her children. "Might it not,"
+she asked herself, "be egotism to imprison their young lives in the
+narrow limits of maternal affection?" It occurred to her that the
+dangers to which they were constantly exposed might remove them from
+her; to-day this one, to-morrow another; what, then, would be her own
+desolation, when there remained to her no bosom on which to rest her
+head--no heart to beat in unison with her own--no kindly hand to
+grasp--and no friendly voice to pray at her pillow, when she was
+called away in her turn!
+
+At length, after mature deliberation, it was resolved that Becker
+himself, his wife, Fritz and Jack, two of their sons, should remain
+where they were, whilst the two other young men should return to
+Europe with a cargo of cochineal, pearls, coral, nutmegs, and other
+articles that the country produced of value in a commercial point of
+view. It was, however, understood that one of the two should return
+again as soon as possible, and bring back with him any of his
+countrymen who might be induced to become settlers in this land of
+promise, Becker hoping, by this means, to found a new colony which
+might afterwards flourish under the name of _New Switzerland_. The
+mission to Europe was formally confided to Frank and Ernest, the two
+most sedate of the family.
+
+Besides the captain and crew, there was on board the ship now riding
+at anchor in the bay a passenger, named Wolston, with his wife and two
+daughters. This gentleman was on his way to join his son at the Cape
+of Good Hope, but had been taken seriously ill previous to the
+_Nelsons_ arrival on the coast. He and his family were invited on
+shore by Becker, and had taken up their quarters at Rockhouse.
+Wolston was an engineer by profession, but his wife belonged to a
+highly aristocratic family of the West of England; she had been
+brought up in a state of ease and refinement, was possessed of all the
+accomplishments required in fashionable society, but she was at the
+same time gifted with strong good sense, and could readily accommodate
+herself to the circumstances in which she was now placed. Her two
+daughters, Sophia the youngest, a lively child of thirteen, and Mary
+the eldest, a demure girl of sixteen, had been likewise carefully, but
+somewhat elaborately, educated. Attracted no less by the hearty and
+warm reception of the Swiss family, than determined by the state of
+his health and the pure air of the country, Wolston resolved to await
+there the return of the sloop, the official destination of which was
+the Cape of Good Hope, where it had to land despatches from Sidney.
+
+Captain Littlestone, of H.B.M.'s sloop _Nelson_, had kindly consented
+to all these arrangements; he agreed to convey Ernest and Frank Becker
+and their cargo to the Cape, to aid them there with his experience,
+and, finally, to recommend them to some trustworthy correspondents he
+had at Liverpool. He likewise promised to bring back young Wolston
+with him on his return voyage.
+
+Everything being prepared, the departure was fixed for the next day:
+the sloop, with the blue Peter at the fore, was ready, as soon as the
+anchor was weighed, to continue her voyage. The cargo had been stowed
+under hatches. Becker had just given the farewell dinner to Captain
+Littlestone and Lieutenant Dunsley, his second in command. These two
+gentlemen had discreetly taken their leave, not to interrupt by their
+presence the final embraces of the family, the ties of which, after so
+many long years of labor and hardship, were for the first time to be
+broken asunder.
+
+During the voyage, Wolston had formed an intimacy with the boatswain
+of the _Nelson_, named Willis, and he, on his side, held Wolston and
+his family in high esteem. Willis was likewise a great favorite with
+his captain--they had served in the same ship together when boys;
+Willis was known to be a first-rate seaman; so great, indeed, was his
+skill in steering amongst reefs and shoals, that he was familiarly
+styled the "Pilot," by which cognomen he was better known on board
+than any other. At the particular request of Wolston, who had some
+communications to make to him respecting his son, Willis remained on
+shore, the captain promising to send his gig for him and his two
+passengers the following morning.
+
+Whilst Wolston was busy charging the pilot with a multitude of
+messages for his son, Mrs. Becker was invoking the blessings of Heaven
+upon the heads of her two boys; praying that the hour might be
+deferred that was to separate her from these idols of her soul. Becker
+himself, upon whom his position, as head of the family, imposed the
+obligation of exhibiting, at least outwardly, more courage, instilled
+into their minds such principles of truth and rules of conduct as the
+solemnity of the moment was calculated to engrave on their hearts.
+
+The dial now marked three o'clock, tropical time. Willis, wiping, with
+the cuff of his jacket, a drop that trickled from the corner of his
+eye, laid hold of his seal-skin sou'-wester as a signal of immediate
+departure. Ernest and Frank were bending their heads to receive the
+parting benediction of their parents, when suddenly a fierce torrent
+of wind shook the gallery of Rockhouse to its foundation, and uprooted
+some of the bamboo columns by which it was supported.
+
+"Only a squall," said Willis quietly.
+
+"A squall!" exclaimed Becker, "what do you call a hurricane then?"
+
+"Oh, a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
+close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this
+begins to look very like the real article."
+
+Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful than
+its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
+dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
+against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
+lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain,
+but veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what
+the cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are
+to the gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river
+had converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and
+buildings appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse
+nearly impossible.
+
+However much of a colorist Willis might be, he could not have painted
+a storm with the eloquence of the elements that had cut short his
+observation.
+
+"You will not attempt to embark in weather like this?" inquired Mrs.
+Becker anxiously.
+
+"My duty it is to be on board," replied the Pilot.
+
+"The craft that ventures to take you there will get swamped twenty
+times on the way," observed Becker.
+
+"The worst of it is, the wind is from the east, and evidently carries
+waterspouts with it. These waterspouts strike a ship without the
+slightest warning, play amongst the rigging, whirl the sails about
+like feathers--sometimes carry them off bodily, or, if they do not do
+that, tear them to shreds and shiver the masts. In either case, the
+consequences are disagreeable."
+
+"A reason for you to be thankful you are safe on shore with us!"
+remarked Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"It is all very well for you, Mrs. Wolston, and you, Mrs. Becker, to
+talk in that way; your business in life is that of wives and mothers.
+But what will the Lords of the Admiralty say, when they hear that the
+sloop _Nelson_ was wrecked whilst Master Willis, the boatswain, was
+skulking on shore like a land-rat?"
+
+"Oh, they would only say there was one useful man more, and a victim
+the less," replied Fritz.
+
+"Why, not exactly, Master Fritz; they would say that Willis was a
+poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely
+condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation
+when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I
+want is the use of your canoe."
+
+"What! brave this storm in a wretched seal-skin cockle-shell like
+that?"
+
+"Would it not be offending Providence," hazarded Mary Wolston, "for
+one of God's creatures to abandon himself to certain death?"
+
+"It would, indeed," added Mrs. Wolston; "true courage consists in
+facing danger when it is inevitable, but not in uselessly imperiling
+one's life; there stops courage, and temerity begins."
+
+"If it is not pride or folly. I do not mean that with reference to
+you, Willis," hastily added Wolston; "I know that you are open as day,
+and that all your impulses arise from the heart."
+
+"That is all very fine--but I must act; let me have the canoe. I want
+the canoe: that is my idea."
+
+"Having lived fifteen years cut off from society," gravely observed
+Becker, "it may be that I have forgotten some of the laws it imposes;
+nevertheless, I declare upon my honor and conscience--"
+
+"Let me have the canoe, otherwise I must swim to the ship."
+
+"I declare," continued Becker, "that Willis exaggerates the
+requirements of his duty. There are stronger forces to which the human
+will must yield. It is one thing to desert one's post in the hour of
+danger, and another to have come on shore at the express desire of a
+superior officer, when the weather was fine, and nothing presaged a
+storm."
+
+"If there is danger," continued the obstinate sailor, whom the united
+strength of the four men could scarcely restrain, "I ought to share
+it; that is my duty and I must."
+
+"But," said Wolston, "all the boatswains and pilots in the world can
+do nothing against hurricanes and waterspouts; their duty consists in
+steering the ship clear of reefs and quicksands, and not in fighting
+with the elements."
+
+"There is one thing you forget, Mr. Wolston."
+
+"And what is that, Willis?"
+
+"It is to be side by side with your comrades in the hour of calamity,
+to aid them if you can, and to perish with them if such be the will of
+Fate. At this moment, poor Littlestone may be on the point of taking
+up his winter quarters in the body of a shark. But there, if the
+sloop is lost while I am here on shore, I will not survive her; all
+that you can say or do will not prevent me doing myself justice."
+
+At this moment Jack, who had disappeared during this discussion,
+unobserved, came in saturated to the skin with water, and in a state
+difficult to describe. Like the boots of Panurge, his feet were
+floating in the water that flowed from the rim of his cap.
+
+"What is this?" exclaimed his mother. "You wilful boy, may I ask
+where, in all the world, you have been?"
+
+"I have just come from the bay. O father and mother! O Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston! O Master Willis! if you had only seen! The sea is furious;
+sometimes the waves rise to the skies and mingle with the clouds, so
+that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends.
+It is frightful, but it is magnificent!"
+
+"And the sloop?" demanded Willis.
+
+"She is not to be seen; she is no longer at anchor in the bay."
+
+"Gone to the open sea, to avoid being driven ashore," said Wolston.
+"Captain Littlestone is not the man to remain in a perilous position
+whilst there remained a means of escape; besides, nothing that
+science, united with courage and presence of mind, could do, would
+have been neglected by him to save his ship."
+
+"In addition to which," observed Becker, "if he had found himself in
+positive danger, he would have fired a gun; and in that case, though
+we are not pilots, every one of us would have hastened to his
+assistance."
+
+"You see, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "God comes to ease your mind;
+were we to allow you to go to the sloop now, the thing is simply
+impossible."
+
+"I have my own idea about that," insisted Willis, whilst he kept
+beating a tatoo on the isinglass window panes.
+
+Whilst thus chafing like a caged lion, Wolston's youngest daughter
+went towards him, and gently putting her hand in his, said,
+"Sweetheart" (for so she had been accustomed to address him), "do you
+remember when, during the voyage, you used to look at me very closely,
+and that one evening I went boldly up to you and asked you why you
+did so?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Sophia, I recollect."
+
+"Do you remember the answer you gave me?"
+
+"Yes, I told you that I had left in England, on her mother's bosom, a
+little girl who would now be about your own age, and that I could not
+observe the wind play amongst the curls of your fair hair without
+thinking of her, and that it sometimes made my breast swell like the
+mizen-top-sail before the breeze."
+
+"Yes, and when I promised to keep out of your sight, not to reawaken
+your grief, you told me it was a kind of grief that did you more good
+than harm, and that the more it made you grieve, the happier you would
+be."
+
+"All true:" replied the sailor, whose excitement was melting away
+before the soft tones of the child like hoar frost in the sunshine.
+
+"Then I promised to come and talk to you about your Susan every day;
+and did I not keep my word?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Sophia; and it is only bare justice to say that you
+gracefully yielded to all my fatherly whims, and even went so far as
+to wear a brown dress oftener than another, because I said that my
+little Susan wore that color the last time I kissed her."
+
+"Oh, but that is a secret, Willis."
+
+"Yes, but I am going to tell all our secrets--that is an idea of mine.
+You then went and learned Susan's mother's favorite song, with which
+you would sometimes sing me to sleep, like a great baby that I am, and
+make me fancy that I was surrounded by my wife and daughter, and was
+comfortably smoking my pipe in my own cottage, with a glass of grog at
+my elbow."
+
+Willis said this so earnestly, that the smile called forth by the
+oddness of the remark scarcely dared to show itself on the lips of the
+listeners.
+
+"Very well," resumed the little damsel, "if you are not more
+reasonable, and if you keep talking of throwing your life away, I will
+never again place my hand in yours as now; I shall not love you any
+more, and shall find means of letting Susan's mother know that you
+went away and killed yourself, and made her a widow."
+
+Men can only speak coldly and appeal to reason--logic is their panacea
+in argument. Women alone possess those inspirations, those simple
+words without emphasis, that find their way directly to the heart, and
+for which purpose God has doubtless endowed them with those soft, mild
+tones, whose melodies cause our most cherished resolutions to vanish
+in the air; like those massive stone gates we have seen in some of the
+old castles in Germany, that resist the most powerful effort to push
+them open, but which a spring of the simplest construction causes to
+move gently on their formidable hinges.
+
+Willis was silent; but no openly-expressed submission could have been
+more eloquent than this mute acquiescence.
+
+In the meantime the tempest raged with increased fury, the winds
+howled, and the water splashed; it appeared at each shock as if the
+elements had reached the utmost limit of the terrific; that the sea,
+as the poet says, had lashed itself into exhaustion! But, anon, there
+came another outburst more terrible still, to declare that, in his
+anger as in his blessings, the All-Powerful has no other limit than
+the infinite.
+
+"If it is not in the power of human beings to aid the crew of the
+_Nelson_," said Mrs. Becker kneeling, "there are other means more
+efficacious which we are guilty in not having sought before."
+
+Every one followed this example, and it was a touching scene to behold
+the rough sailor yield submissively to the gentle violence of the
+child's hand, and bend his bronzed and swarthy visage humbly beside
+her cherub head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+TO WHAT EXTENT WILLIS THE PILOT HAD IDEAS ON CERTAIN SUBJECTS--THE
+KNIGHTS OF THE OCEAN.
+
+
+The storm continued to rage without intermission for three entire
+days. During this interval, not only was it impossible to send the
+canoe or pinnace to sea, but even to venture a step beyond the
+threshold, so completely had the tempest broken up the burning soil,
+the thirst of which the great Disposer of all things had proportioned
+to the deluges that were destined to assuage it.
+
+All had at length yielded to bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, for
+the seeming eternity of these three days and three nights had been
+passed in prayer, and in the most fearful apprehensions as to the fate
+of the _Nelson_ and her crew.
+
+Nothing in the horizon as yet indicated that the thunders were tired
+of roaring, the clouds of rending themselves asunder, the winds of
+howling, or the waves of frantically beating on the cliffs.
+
+Towards evening the ladies had retired to the sick-room with a view of
+seeking some repose. Becker, Willis, and the young men bivouacked in
+the hall, where some mattresses and bear-skins had been laid down.
+Here it was arranged that, for the common safety, each during the
+night should watch in turn. But about two in the morning, Ernest had
+no sooner relieved Fritz than, fatigue overcoming his sense of duty,
+the poor fellow fell comfortably asleep, and he was soon perfectly
+unconscious of all that was passing around him.
+
+Becker awoke first--it was broad daylight. "Where is Willis?" he
+cried, on getting up.
+
+"Holloa!" exclaimed Fritz, running towards the magazine, "the canoe
+has disappeared!"
+
+In an instant all were on their feet.
+
+"Some one of you has fallen asleep then," said Becker to his children;
+"for when the pilot watched I watched with him, and never lost sight
+of him for a moment."
+
+"I am the culprit," said Ernest; "and if any mischief arises out of
+this imprudence, I shall never forgive myself. But who could have
+dreamt of any one being foolhardy enough to attempt the rescue of a
+ship in a nutshell that scarcely holds two persons?"
+
+"I pray Heaven that your sleepy-headedness may not result in the loss
+of human life! You see, my son, that there is no amount of duty, be it
+ever so trifling in importance, that can be neglected with impunity.
+It is the concurrent devotion of each, and the sacrifices of one for
+another, that constitutes and secures the mutual security. Society on
+a small, as on a large scale, is a chain of which each individual is a
+link, and when one fails the whole is broken."
+
+"I will go after him," said Ernest.
+
+"Fritz and I will go with you," added Frank.
+
+"No," said Ernest; "I alone am guilty, and I wish alone to remedy my
+fault--that is, as far as possible."
+
+"I could not hide the canoe," observed Fritz, "but I hid the oars, and
+I find them in their place."
+
+"That, perhaps, will have prevented him embarking," remarked one of
+the boys.
+
+"A man like Willis," replied Becker, "is not prevented carrying out
+his intentions by such obstacles; he will have taken the first thing
+that came to hand; but let us go."
+
+"What, father, am I not then to go alone, and so bear the penalty of
+my own fault?"
+
+"No, Ernest, that would be to inflict two evils upon us instead of
+one; it is sufficient that you have shown your willingness to do so.
+Besides, three will not be over many _to convince_ Willis, even if yet
+in time."
+
+"And mother? and the ladies?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"I shall leave Frank and Jack to see to them; a mere obstinate freak,
+or a catastrophe, it will be time enough, when over, to inform them of
+this new idea of the Pilot's."
+
+"It is something more than an idea this time," remarked Jack.
+
+Just as Becker and his two sons were issuing from the grotto, the
+report of a cannon-shot resounded through the air.
+
+Awoke and startled by the explosion, Becker's wife and Mrs. Wolston
+came running towards them. As for the girls, their guardian angel had
+too closely enveloped them in its wings to admit of their sleep being
+disturbed.
+
+"The sloop on the coast!" said Frank; "for the sound is too distinct
+to come from a distance."
+
+"Unless Willis has got upon Shark's Island," objected Fritz, running
+towards the terrace, armed with a telescope. "Just so; he is there, I
+see him distinctly; he is recharging our four-pounder."
+
+"God be praised! you relieve my conscience of a great burden," said
+Ernest, placing his hand on his breast.
+
+"He is going to discharge it," cried Fritz--boom. Then a second shot
+reverberated in the air.
+
+"If Captain Littlestone be within hearing of that signal, he will be
+sure to reply to it." said Becker. "Listen!"
+
+They hushed themselves in silence, each retaining his respiration, as
+if their object had been to hear the sound of a fly's wing rather than
+the report of a cannon.
+
+"Nothing!" said Becker sadly, at the expiration of a few minutes.
+
+"Nothing!" reiterated successively all the voices.
+
+"How in all the world did Willis contrive to get transported to
+Shark's Island?" inquired Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Simply, wife, by watching when asleep, whilst one of our gentlemen
+slept when he watched."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Ernest, "and if you would not have me blush before
+Mrs. Wolston, you will not insist upon an explanation of the mystery."
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," she replied, "is not so exacting as you seem to think,
+Master Ernest--the only difference that her presence here should make
+amongst you is that you have two mothers instead of one."
+
+"That is," said Mrs. Wolston smiling, "if Mrs. Becker has no
+objections to dividing the office with me."
+
+"Shall I not have compensation in your daughters?" said Mrs. Becker,
+taking her by the hand.
+
+"Still," interrupted Fritz, "I cannot yet conceive how Willis managed
+to reach Shark's Island in a wretched canoe, without oars, through
+waves that ought to have swallowed him up over and over again."
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Jack; "what use has a pilot for oars?"
+
+"There is a question! You, who modestly call yourself the best
+horseman on the island, how would you do, if you had nothing to ride
+upon?"
+
+"I could at least fall back upon broomsticks," retorted the
+imperturbable Jack. "Besides, in Willis's case, the canoe was the
+steed, the oars the saddle--nothing more."
+
+"We shall not stay here to solve the riddle," said Becker; "the storm
+seems disposed to abate; and the more that it was unreasonable to face
+certain destruction in a vain endeavor to assist a problematical
+shipwreck, the more it is incumbent upon us now to go in quest of the
+_Nelson_."
+
+"But the sea will still be very terrible!" quickly added Mrs. Becker.
+
+"If all danger were over, wife, the enterprise would do us little
+credit. It is our duty to do the best we can, according to the
+strength and means at our command. Fritz, Ernest, and Jack, go and put
+on your life-preservers--we shall take up Willis in passing."
+
+"I must not insist," said Mrs. Becker; "the sacrifice would, indeed,
+be no sacrifice, if it could be easily borne; and yet--"
+
+"Remember the time, wife, when I was obliged, in order to secure the
+precious remains of our ship, to venture with our eldest sons on a
+float of tubs, leaving you exposed, alone with a child of seven, to
+the chance of eternal isolation!"
+
+"That is very true, husband: I am unjust towards Providence, which has
+never ceased blessing us; but I am only a weak woman, and my heart
+often gets the better of my head."
+
+"To-day I leave Frank with you; but, instead of your being his
+protector, as was the case fifteen years ago, he will be yours. Then
+there is Mrs. Wolston, her daughters, and husband, quite a new world
+of sympathies and consolations, by which our island has been so
+miraculously peopled."
+
+"Go then, husband, and may God bring back in safety both the pinnace
+and the _Nelson_!"
+
+"By the way, Mrs. Wolston, how does our worthy invalid get on? We live
+in such a turmoil of events and consternations, that I must beg a
+thousand pardons for not having asked after him before."
+
+"His sleep appears untroubled; and, notwithstanding all the terrors of
+the last few days, I entertain sanguine hopes of his immediate
+recovery."
+
+"You will at least return before night?" said Mrs. Becker to her
+husband.
+
+"Rely upon my not prolonging my stay beyond what the exigencies of the
+expedition imperiously require."
+
+"Good gracious! what are these?" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston as the three
+brothers entered, equipped in seal-gut trowsers, floating stays of the
+same material, and Greenland caps.
+
+"The Knights of the Ocean," replied Jack gravely, "who, like the
+heroes of Cervantes, go forth to redress the wrongs done by the
+tempest, and to break lances--oars, I mean--in favor of persecuted
+sloops."
+
+Mrs. Becker herself could scarcely refrain from smiling.
+
+Such is the power of the smile that, in season or out of season, it
+often finds its way to the most pallid lips, in the midst of the
+greatest disasters and the deepest grief. It appears as if always
+listening at the door ready to take its place on the slightest notice.
+This diversion had the good effect of mixing a little honey with--if
+the expression may be used--the bitterness of the parting adieus.
+Becker took the lead in hiding his sorrow; the three young
+Greenlanders tore themselves from the maternal embrace, and
+affectionately kissed the hand held out to them by Mrs. Wolston.
+
+Then, between those that departed and those that remained behind,
+there was nothing more than the ties of recollection, the common
+sadness, and the endless links of mutual affection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES "IRREFRAGABLY" THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OF
+CONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS--THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES--THE
+SEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP--FOUND--THE SWORD-FISH--FLOATING ATOMS--ADMIRAL
+SOCRATES.
+
+
+When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought he
+saw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.
+
+"A sea monster!" he cried, levelling his musket; "I discovered it, and
+have the right to the first shot."
+
+"No, sir," said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotive
+telescope, "I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or wound
+my canoe."
+
+"Nonsense, it moves."
+
+"Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you not
+observe this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?"
+
+"Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has been
+hatching," and Jack again levelled his rifle.
+
+"Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he could
+dispense with the canoe?"
+
+"Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord,
+which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."
+
+"The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite
+of surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."
+
+"Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "what
+does a pilot care about surf and breakers?"
+
+Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a
+bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no
+way suffered from the storm.
+
+The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making
+the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet
+by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately,
+"starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had
+not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.
+
+At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a
+quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and
+cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a
+steam engine.
+
+Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of
+the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was
+soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she
+pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. He
+headed along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had first
+observed the _Nelson_ was fairly doubled; some days before this point
+was called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire the
+term of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designation
+was in embryo.
+
+Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat
+rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last
+leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other
+circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the
+direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and
+covered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profound
+desolation.
+
+"Willis! Willis!" cried Jack, "I shall tell Sophia."
+
+But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, nor
+the sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Willis
+continued immovable.
+
+Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm the
+more they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted to
+wear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to his
+own reflections.
+
+The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but the
+sun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, and
+the air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.
+
+"I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is the
+direction the storm must have driven the sloop."
+
+"The sea is very capricious," suggested Fritz.
+
+"True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind."
+
+"Unfortunately," said Jack, "it is not on sea as on land, where the
+slightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; a
+word dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, but
+here it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the _Nelson_ pass this
+way?'"
+
+"Fire a shot," said Ernest; "it may perhaps be heard, now that the air
+is less humid."
+
+The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fire
+to a strip of mimosa bark, with which he touched the piece, and the
+report boomed across the waters.
+
+Willis raised his head and listened anxiously, but soon dropped it
+again, and resumed his former attitude of hopeless despair.
+
+"It may be," said Ernest, "that the _Nelson_ hears our signal, though
+we do not hear hers."
+
+"How can that be?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Why, very easily. Sound increases or diminishes in intensity
+according as the wind carries it on or retards it."
+
+"What, then, is sound, that the wind can blow it about, most learned
+brother?"
+
+"It is a result of the compression of the air, that from its
+elasticity extends and expands, and which causes a sort of trembling
+or undulation, similar to that which is observed in water when a stone
+is thrown into it."
+
+"And you may add," said Becker, "that bodies striking the air excite
+sonorous vibrations in this fluid; thus it rings under the lash that
+strikes it with violence, and whistles under the rapid impulsion of a
+switch: it likewise becomes sonorous when it strikes itself with force
+against any solid body, as the wind when it blows against the cordage
+of ships, houses, trees, and generally every object with which it
+comes in contact."
+
+"I can understand," replied Jack, "how this sonorous effect is
+produced on the particles of air in immediate contact with the object
+struck; but how this sound is propagated, I do not see."
+
+"Very likely; but still it travels from particle to particle, in a
+circle, at the rate of three hundred and forty yards in a second."
+
+"Three hundred and forty yards in a second!" said Willis, who was
+beginning by degrees to recover his self-possession. "Well, that is
+what I should call going a-head."
+
+"And by what sort of compasses has this speed been measured, Master
+Ernest?"
+
+"The first accurate measurement, Master Jack, was made at Paris in
+1738. There are there two tolerably elevated points, namely,
+Montmartre and Montlh�ry--the distance between these, in a direct
+line, is 14,636 _toises_. Cannons were fired during the night, and the
+engineers on one of the elevations observed that an interval of
+eighty-six seconds and a half elapsed between the flash and the report
+of a cannon fired on the other."
+
+"That half-second is very amusing," said Jack laughing; "if there had
+been only eighty or eighty-six net, one might still be permitted to
+entertain some doubts; but eighty-six and a half admits nothing of the
+kind. But why not three-quarters or six-eighths, they would do as
+well?"
+
+"What is more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirous
+of obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of no
+value? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of no
+signification to you?"
+
+"Your brother is perfectly right, Jack; you are not always successful
+in your jokes."
+
+"Other experiments have been made since then," continued Ernest, "and
+the results have always been the same, making allowances for the wind,
+and a slight variation that is ascribed to temperature."
+
+"To confirm the accuracy of this statement, the speed of light would
+have to be taken into consideration."
+
+"True; but the velocity of light is so great, that the instant a
+cannon is fired the flash is seen."
+
+"Whatever the distance?"
+
+"Yes, whatever the distance. Bear in mind that the rays of the sun
+only require eight minutes to traverse the thirty-four millions of
+leagues that extend between us and that body. Hence it follows that
+the time light takes to travel from one point to another on the earth
+may be regarded as _nil_."
+
+"That is something like distance and speed," remarked Willis, "and may
+be all right as regards the sun, but I should not be disposed to admit
+that there are any other instances of the same kind."
+
+"Very good, Master Willis; and yet the sun is only a step from us in
+comparison to the distance of some stars that we see very distinctly,
+but which are, nevertheless, so remote, that their rays, travelling at
+the same rate as those of the sun, are several years in reaching us."
+
+Willis rose abruptly, whistling "the Mariner's March," and went to
+join Fritz, who was steering the pinnace.
+
+At this _na�ve_ mark of disapprobation on the part of the Pilot,
+Becker, Ernest, and Jack burst involuntarily into a violent peal of
+laughter.
+
+"Laugh away, laugh away." said Willis; "I will not admit your
+calculations for all that."
+
+The sky had now assumed an opal or azure tint, the wind had gradually
+died away into a gentle breeze, the waves were now swelling gently and
+regularly, like the movements of the infant's cradle that is being
+rocked asleep. Never had a day, opening in the convulsions of a
+tempest, more suddenly lapsed into sunshine and smiles: it was like
+the fairies of Perrault's Tales, who, at first wrapped in sorry rags,
+begging and borne down with age, throw off their chrysalis and appear
+sparkling with youth, gaiety, and beauty, their wallet converted into
+a basket of flowers, and their crutch to a magic wand.
+
+"Father" inquired Fritz, "shall we go any farther?"
+
+Since the weather had calmed down, and there was no longer any
+necessity for exertion, the expedition had lost its charm for the
+young man.
+
+"I think it is useless; what say you, Willis?"
+
+"Ah," said the latter, taking Becker by the hand, "in consideration of
+the eight days' friendship that connects you even more intimately with
+Captain Littlestone than my affection for him of twenty years'
+standing, keep still a few miles to the east."
+
+"If the sloop has been driven to a distance by the storm, and is
+returning towards us, which is very likely, I do not see that we can
+be of much use."
+
+"But if dismasted and leaky?"
+
+"That would alter the case, only I am afraid the ladies will be uneasy
+about us."
+
+"But they were half prepared, father."
+
+"Jack is right," added Fritz, whose energies were again called into
+play by the thought of the _Nelson_ in distress; "let us go on."
+
+"Besides, on the word of a pilot, the sea will be very calm and gentle
+for some time to come: there is not the slightest danger."
+
+"And what if there were?" replied Fritz.
+
+"Well, Willis, I shall give up the pinnace to you till dark," said
+Becker, "and may God guide us; we shall return to-night, so as to
+arrive at Rockhouse early in the morning."
+
+"Hurrah for the captain!" cried Willis, throwing a cap into the air.
+
+The evolutions of a cap, thrown up towards the sky or down upon the
+ground, were very usual modes with Willis of expressing his joy or
+sorrow.
+
+This homage rendered to Becker, he hastened to let a reef out of the
+sheet, and the pinnace, for a moment at rest, redoubled its speed,
+like post-horses starting from the inn-door under the combined
+influence of a cheer from the postillion and a flourish of the whip.
+
+"There is a cockle-shell that skips along pretty fairly," said Willis;
+"but it wants two very important things."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"A caboose and a nigger."
+
+"A caboose and a nigger?"
+
+"Yes, I mean a pantry and a cook; a gale for breakfast is all very
+well, one gets used to it, it is light and easily digested; but the
+same for dinner is rather too much of a good thing in one day."
+
+"I observed your thoughtful mother hang a sack on one of your
+shoulders, which appeared tolerably well filled--where is it?"
+
+"Here it is," said Jack, issuing from the hatchway; "here are our
+stores: a ham, two Dutch cheeses, two callabashes full of Rockhouse
+malaga, and there is plenty of fresh water in the gourds; with these,
+we have wherewithal to defy hunger till to-morrow."
+
+"Capital!" said Willis.
+
+This time, however, a cap did not appear in the air, as the last one
+had not been seen since the former ovation.
+
+"Let us lay the table," said Jack, arranging the coils of rope that
+crowded the deck. "Well, you see, Willis, we want for nothing on board
+the pinnace, not even a what-do-you-call-it?"
+
+"A caboose, Master Jack."
+
+"Well, not even a caboose."
+
+"Quite true; and if the _Nelson_ were in the offing, I would not
+exchange my pilot's badge for the epaulettes of a commodore; but,
+alas! she is not there."
+
+"Cheer up, Willis, cheer up; one is either a man or one is not. What
+is the good of useless regrets?"
+
+"Very little, but it is hard to be yard-armed while absent at my time
+of life--and afterwards--your health, Mr. Becker."
+
+"That would be hard at any age, Willis; but I rather think it has not
+come to that yet."
+
+"When it has come to it, there will be very little time left to talk
+it over."
+
+"Did you not say, brother, that the _Nelson_ might hear our signals
+without our hearing hers? If so, there is a chance for Willis yet."
+
+"Certainly, Jack, because she has the wind in her favor to act as a
+speaking-trumpet, whilst we had it against us acting as a deafener."
+
+"Is there any other influence that affects sound besides the wind?"
+
+"Yes, I have already mentioned that temperature has something to do
+with it. Sound varies in intensity according to the state of the
+atmosphere. If, for example, we ring a small bell in a closed vessel
+filled with air, it has been observed that, as the air is withdrawn by
+the pump, the sound gradually grows less and less distinct."
+
+"And if a vacuum be formed?"
+
+"Then the sound is totally extinguished."
+
+"So, then," objected Willis, "if two persons were to talk in what you
+call a vacuum, they would not hear each other?"
+
+"Two persons could not talk in a vacuum," replied Ernest.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because they would die as soon as they opened their mouths."
+
+"Ah, that alters the case."
+
+"If, on the contrary, a quantity of air or gas were compressed into a
+space beyond what it habitually held, then the sound," continued
+Ernest, "would be more intense than if the air were free."
+
+"In that case a whisper would be equal to a howl!"
+
+"You think I am joking, Willis; but on the tops of high mountains,
+such as the Himalaya and Mont Blanc, where the air is much rarified,
+voices are not heard at the distance of two paces."
+
+"Awkward for deaf people!"
+
+"Whilst, on the icy plains of the frozen regions, where the air is
+condensed by the severe cold, a conversation, held in the ordinary
+tone, may be easily carried on at the distance of half a league."
+
+"Awkward for secrets!"
+
+"And how does sound operate with regard to solid bodies?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"According to the degree of elasticity possessed by their veins or
+fibres."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"That is, solid bodies, whose structure is such that the vibration
+communicated to some of their atoms circulates through the mass, are
+susceptible of conveying sound."
+
+"Give us an instance."
+
+"Apply your ear to one end of a long beam, and you will hear
+distinctly the stroke of a pin's head on the other; whilst the same
+stroke will scarcely be heard through the breadth of the wood."
+
+"So that, in the first case, the sound runs along the longitudinal
+fibres where the contiguity of parts is closer, than when the body is
+taken transversely?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"And across water?"
+
+"It is heard, but more feebly."
+
+For some time Fritz had been closely observing with the telescope a
+particular part of the horizon, when all at once he cried, "This time
+I see him distinctly; he is bearing down upon us."
+
+"Who? the sloop?" cried Willis, starting up and letting fall the glass
+he had in his hand.
+
+"What an extraordinary pace! he bounds into the air, then plumps into
+the water, then leaps up again, just like an India-rubber ball, that
+touches the ground only to take a fresh spring!"
+
+"Impossible, Master Fritz; the _Nelson_ tops the waves honestly and
+gallantly; but as to leaping into the air, she is a little too bulky
+for that."
+
+"Ah, poor Willis, it is not the _Nelson_ that is under my glass at
+present, but an enormous fish, ten or twelve feet in length."
+
+"Oh, how you startled me!"
+
+"Father! Ernest! prepare to fire! Jack, the harpoon! he is coming this
+way."
+
+Fritz stood at the stern of the pinnace, his rifle levelled, following
+with his eyes the movements of the monster; when within reach, he
+fired with so much success and address that he hit the creature on the
+head. It then changed its course, leaving behind a train of blood.
+
+"Let us after him, Willis; quick!"
+
+The Pilot turned the head of the pinnace, and Jack immediately threw
+his harpoon.
+
+"Struck!" cried he joyfully.
+
+By the hissing of the line, and then the rapid impulsion of the
+pinnace, it was felt that the monster had more strength than the craft
+and its crew together.
+
+Ernest and his father fired at the same time; the ball of the former
+was lost in the animal's flesh, that of the latter rebounded off a
+horny protuberance that armed the monster's upper lip.
+
+Fritz had time to recharge his rifle; he levelled it a second time,
+and the ball went to join the former; but, for all that, the pinnace
+continued to cleave the water at a furious rate.
+
+Becker seized an axe and cut the rope.
+
+"Oh, father, what a pity! such a splendid capture for our museum of
+natural history!"
+
+"It is a sword-fish, children; a monster of a dangerous species, and
+of extreme voracity. If, by way of reciprocity, the fish have a museum
+at the bottom of the sea, they will have some fine specimens of the
+human race that have become the prey of this creature; and it may be
+that we were on the way to join the collection."
+
+"Did you observe the formidable dentilated horn?"
+
+"It is by means of this horn or sword, from which it takes its name,
+that it wages a continual war with the whale, whose only mode of
+escape is by flourishing its enormous tail; but the sword-fish, being
+very agile, easily avoids this, bounds into the air as Fritz saw it
+doing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierces
+him with its sword."
+
+"By the way, talking about the whale," said Jack, "all naturalists
+seem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation,
+that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs,
+or very small fishes--what, in that case, becomes of the history of
+Jonah?"
+
+"It is rather unfortunate," replied Becker, "that the whale has been
+associated with this miracle. There is now no possibility of
+separating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in the
+Greek translation of the Chaldean text, there is _Ketos_--in the
+Latin, there is _Cete_--and both these words were understood by the
+ancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale in
+particular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even a
+horse, without mangling it."
+
+"I have heard," said Jack, "of navigators who have landed on the back
+of a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island."
+
+"There is nothing impossible about that," observed Willis.
+
+"One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monster
+who has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming to
+be in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed to
+move all the quicker for the dose."
+
+"Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. The
+carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a
+whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the
+way to shorten the period."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train of
+waggons, "these fellows have no cares."
+
+"And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do you
+suppose that it dies of grief?"
+
+"Who knows, Master Jack?"
+
+"The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think," said Becker;
+"it commences by living three years under water in the form of a
+maggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a horny
+covering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, four
+or five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the month
+of August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw off
+a jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns,
+and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect;
+then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe,
+it dies--hence it is called the day-fly, its existence being
+terminated by the shades of night."
+
+"I was certain of it," said Willis.
+
+"Certain of what?"
+
+"That it died of grief at being on land. When one has been accustomed
+to the water, you see, under such circumstances life is not worth the
+having."
+
+"The day-fly," continued Becker, "is an epitome of those men who
+spend a life-time hunting after wealth and glory, and who perish
+themselves at the moment they reach the pinnacle of their ambitious
+desires. Whence I conclude, my dear children, that there are nothing
+but beginnings and endings of unhappiness in this world, and that true
+felicity is only to be hoped for in another sphere."
+
+"What a curious series of transformations! First an aquatic insect,
+next amphibious, then throwing away the organs for which it has no
+further use, and becoming provided with those suited to its new
+state!"
+
+"Yes, my dear Fritz; and yet those complicated and beautiful
+operations of Nature have not prevented philosophers from asserting
+that the world resulted from _floating atoms_, which, by force of
+combination, and after an infinity of blind movements, conglomerate
+into plants, animals, men, heaven, and earth."
+
+"I am only a plain sailor," said Willis "yet the eye of a worm teaches
+me more than these philosophers seem to have imagined in their
+philosophy."
+
+"Such a system could only have originated in Bedlam or Charenton."
+
+"No, Ernest, it is the system of Epicurus and Lucretius. Without going
+so far back, there are a thousand others quite as ridiculous, with
+which it is unnecessary to charge your young heads."
+
+"All madmen are not in confinement, and it may be that Epicurus and
+Lucretius had arrived at those limits of human reason, where genius
+begins in some and folly in others."
+
+"It is not that, Fritz; but if men, says Malebranche somewhere,[A] are
+interested in having the sides of an equilateral triangle unequal, and
+that false geometry was as agreeable to them as false philosophy, they
+would make the problems equally false in geometry as in morality, for
+this simple reason, that their errors afford them gratification,
+whilst truth would only hurt and annoy them."
+
+"Very good," observed Willis; "this Malebranche, as you call him, must
+have been an admiral?"
+
+"No, Willis, nothing more than a simple philosopher, but one of good
+faith, like Socrates, who admitted that what he knew best was, that he
+knew nothing."
+
+The sun had gradually disappeared in the midst of purple tinged
+clouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then a
+simple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays,
+sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,[B] like the adieu we
+receive at the turning of a road from a friend who is leaving us.
+
+There was a festival in the sky that night; the firmament brought out,
+one by one, her circlet of diamonds, till the whole were sparkling
+like a blaze of light; the pinnace also left a fiery train in her
+wake, caused partly by electricity and partly by the phosphorescent
+animalculae that people the ocean.
+
+"Willis," said Becker, "I leave it entirely to you to decide the
+instant of our return."
+
+The Pilot changed at once the course of the boat, without attempting
+to utter a word, so heavy was his heart at this unsuccessful
+termination of the expedition.
+
+"It will be curious," observed Fritz, "if we find the _Nelson_, on our
+return, snugly at anchor in Safety Bay."
+
+"I have a presentiment," said Jack; "and you will see that we have
+been playing at hide-and-seek with the _Nelson_."
+
+Willis shook his head.
+
+"Are there not a thousand accidents to cause a ship to deviate from
+her route?"
+
+"Yes, Master Ernest, there are typhoons, and the waterspouts of which
+I spoke to you before. In such cases, ships often deviate from their
+route, but generally by going to the bottom."
+
+Willis concluded this sentence with a gesture that defies description,
+implying annihilation.
+
+"Remember Admiral Socrates, Willis," said Jack; "_what I know best is,
+that I know nothing_, and avow that God has other means of
+accomplishing his decrees besides typhoons and waterspouts."
+
+"My excellent young friends, I know you want to inspire me with hope,
+as they give a toy to a child to keep it from crying, and I thank you
+for your good intentions. Now, for three days you have, so to speak,
+had no rest, and I insist on your profiting by this night to take some
+repose; and you also, Mr. Becker; I am quite able to manage the
+pinnace alone."
+
+"Yes providing you do not play us some trick, like that of this
+morning, for instance."
+
+"All stratagems are justifiable in war. Master Ernest had fair warning
+that I had an idea to work out. Besides, a prisoner, when under
+hatches, has the right to escape if he can: under parole, the case is
+quite different."
+
+"Well, Willis, if you give me your simple promise to steer straight
+for New Switzerland, and awake me in two hours to take the bearings--"
+
+"I give it, Mr. Becker."
+
+The three Greenlanders then descended into the hold, for tropical
+nights are as chilly as the days are hot, and Becker, rolling himself
+up in a sail, lay on deck.
+
+In less than five minutes they were all fast asleep, and Willis paced
+the deck, his arms crossed, and mechanically gazing upon a star that
+was mirrored in the water.
+
+"Several years to come to us, and that at the rate of seventy thousand
+leagues a second--that is _a little_ too much."
+
+Then he went to the rudder, his head leaning upon his breast, and
+glancing now and then with distracted eye at the course of the boat,
+buried in a world of thought, sad and confused, doubtless beholding in
+succession visions of the _Nelson_, of Susan, and of Scotland.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] "Search after Truth," book ix.
+
+[B] The twilight is entirely owing to this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A LANDSCAPE--SAD HOUSES AND SMILING HOUSES--POLITENESS IN CHINA--EIGHT
+SOUPS AT DESSERT--WIND MERCHANTS--ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S--SUSAN,
+VICE SOPHIA.
+
+
+Towards five o'clock next morning everything about Rockhouse was
+beginning to assume life and motion--within, all its inhabitants were
+already astir--without, little remained of the recent storm and
+inundation except that refreshing coolness, which, conjointly with the
+purified air, infuses fresh vigor, not only into men, but also into
+every living thing. The citrous, the aloes, and the Spanish jasmines
+perfumed the landscape. The flexible palms, the tall bananas, with
+their unbrageous canopy, the broad, pendant-leaved mangoes, and all
+the rank but luxuriant vegetation that clothed the land to the water's
+edge, waved majestically under the gentle breeze that blew from the
+sea. The Jackal River unfolded its silvery band through the roses,
+bamboos, and cactii that lined its banks. The sun--for that luminary
+plays an important part in all Nature's festivals--darted its rays on
+the soil still charged with vapor. Diamond drops sparkled in the cups
+of the flowers and on the points of the leaves. In the distance,
+pines, cedars, and richly-laden cocoa-nut trees filled up the
+background with their dark foliage. The swans displayed their
+brilliant plumage on the lake, the boughs of the trees were alive with
+parroquets and other winged creatures of the tropics. Add to the
+charms of this scene, Mrs. Becker returning from the prairie with a
+jar of warm, frothy milk--Mrs. Wolston and Mary busied in a
+multiplicity of household occupations, to which their white hands and
+ringing voices gave elegance and grace--Sophia tying a rose to the
+neck of a blue antelope which she had adopted as a companion--Frank
+distributing food to the ostriches and large animals, and admit, if
+there is a paradise on earth, it was this spot.
+
+Compare this scene with that presented by any of our large cities at
+the same hour in the morning. In London or Paris, our dominion rarely
+extends over two or three dreary-looking rooms--a geranium, perhaps,
+at one of the windows to represent the fields and green lanes of the
+country; above, a forest of smoking chimneys vary the monotony of the
+zig-zag roofs; below, a thousand confused noises of waggons, cabs, and
+the hoarse voices of the street criers; probably the lamps are just
+being extinguished, and the dust heaps carted away, filling our rooms,
+and perhaps our eyes, with ashes; the chalk-milk, the air, and the
+odors are scarcely required to fill up the picture.
+
+Breakfast was spread a few paces from Mr. Wolston's bed, whom the two
+young girls were tending with anxious solicitude, and whose sickness
+was almost enviable, so many were the cares lavished upon him.
+
+"You are wrong, Mrs. Becker," said Mrs. Wolston, "to make yourself
+uneasy, the sea has become as smooth as a mirror since their
+departure."
+
+"Ah, yes, I know that, my dear Mrs. Wolston, but when one has already
+undergone the perils of shipwreck, the impression always remains, and
+makes us see storms in a glass of water."
+
+"I am certain," remarked Mr. Wolston, "the cause of their delay is a
+concession made to Willis."
+
+"Very likely he would not consent to return, unless they went as far
+as possible."
+
+"By the way, madam," said Mary, "now that you have got two great girls
+added to your establishment, I hope you are going to make them useful
+in some way--we can sew, knit, and spin."
+
+"And know how to make preserves," added Sophia.
+
+"Yes, and to eat them too," said her mother.
+
+"If you can spin, my dears, we shall find plenty of work for you; we
+have here the Nankin cotton plant, and I intend to dress the whole
+colony with it."
+
+"Delightful!" exclaimed Sophia, clapping her hands; "Nankin dresses
+just as at the boarding-school, with a straw hat and a green veil."
+
+"To be sure, it must be woven first," reflected Mrs. Becker; "but I
+dare say we shall be able to manage that."
+
+"By the way, girls," said Mrs. Wolston, "have you forgotten your
+lessons in tapestry?"
+
+"Not at all, mamma; and now that we think of it, we shall handsomely
+furnish a drawing-room for you."
+
+"But where are the tables and chairs to come from?" inquired Mrs.
+Becker.
+
+"Oh, the gentlemen will see to them."
+
+"And the room, where is that to be?"
+
+"There is the gallery, is there not?"
+
+"And the wool for the carpet?"
+
+"Have you not sheep?"
+
+"That is true, children; you speak as if we had only to go and sit
+down in it."
+
+"The piano, however, I fear will be wanting, unless we can pick up an
+Erard in the neighboring forest."
+
+"True, mamma, all the overtures that we have had so much trouble in
+learning will have to go for nothing."
+
+"But," said Mrs. Becker, "by way of compensation, there is the
+vegetable and fruit garden, the pantry, the kitchen, the dairy, and
+the poultry yard; these are all my charges, and you may have some of
+them if you like."
+
+"Excellent, each shall have her own kingdom and subjects."
+
+"It being understood," suggested Mrs. Wolston, "that you are not to
+eat everything up, should the fruit garden or pantry come under your
+charge."
+
+"That is not fair, mamma; you are making us out to be a couple of
+cannibals."
+
+"You see," continued Mrs. Wolston, "these young people have not the
+slightest objection to my parading their accomplishments, but the
+moment I touch their faults they feel aggrieved."
+
+"I am persuaded," rejoined Mrs. Becker laughing, "that there are no
+calumniators in the world like mothers."
+
+"Therefore, mamma, to punish you we shall come and kiss you."
+
+And accordingly Mrs. Wolston was half stifled under the embraces of
+her two daughters.
+
+"I am certainly not the offender," said Mrs. Becker, "but I should not
+object to receive a portion of the punishment; these great
+boys--pointing to Frank--are too heavy to hang on my neck now; you
+will replace them, my dears, will you not?"
+
+"Most willingly, madam; but not to deprive them of their places in
+your affection."
+
+"In case you should lose that, Master Frank," said Mrs. Wolston, "you
+must have recourse to mine."
+
+"But now, my friends, what do you say to going down to the shore to
+meet the pinnace, and perhaps the _Nelson_?" said Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Sophia; "and I will stay at home to wait upon father."
+
+"No," said Mary; "I am the eldest--that is my right."
+
+"Well, my children, do not quarrel about that," said Wolston; "I feel
+rather better; and I dare say a walk will do me good. Perhaps, when I
+get tired, Frank will lend me his arm."
+
+"Better than that," hastily added Frank; "I shall saddle Blinky; and
+lead him gently, and you will be as comfortable as in an arm-chair."
+
+"What is that you call Blinky?"
+
+"Oh, one of our donkeys."
+
+"Ah, very good; I was afraid you meant one of your ostriches, and I
+candidly admit that my experiences in equitation do not extend to
+riding a winged horse."
+
+"In that case," said Mrs. Becker, "to keep Blinky's brother from being
+jealous, I, shall charge him with a basket of provisions; and we shall
+lay a cloth under the mangoes, so that our ocean knights, as Jack will
+have it, may have something to refresh themselves withal as soon as
+they dismount."
+
+The little caravan was soon on the march; the two dogs cleared the
+way, leaping, bounding, and scampering on before, sniffing the bushes
+with their intelligent noses; then, returning to their master, they
+read in his face what was next to be done. Mary walked by the side of
+Blinky, amusing her father with her prattle. Sophia, with her
+antelope, was gambolling around them, the one rivalling the other in
+the grace of their movements, not only without knowing it, but rather
+because they did not know it. The two mothers were keeping an eye on
+the donkey; whilst Frank, with his rifle charged, was ready to bring
+down a quail or encounter a hyena.
+
+Some hours after the pinnace hove in sight, the voyagers landed, and
+received the warm congratulations of those on shore. When Willis had
+secured the boat, he took a final survey of the coast, penetrating
+with his eyes every creek and crevice.
+
+"Is there no trace of the _Nelson_?" inquired Wolston.
+
+"None!"
+
+"Well, I had all along thought you would find it so; the wind for four
+days has been blowing that it would drive the _Nelson_ to her
+destination. Captain Littlestone, being charged with important
+despatches, having already lost a fortnight here, has, no doubt, taken
+advantage of the gale, and made sail for the Cape, trusting to find us
+all alive here on his return voyage."
+
+"Yes," said the Pilot, "I know very well that you have all good
+hearts, and that you are desirous of giving me all the consolation you
+can."
+
+"Would you not have acted, under similar circumstances, precisely as
+we suppose Captain Littlestone to have done?"
+
+"I admit that the thing, is not only possible, but also that, if
+alive, it is just what he would have done. I trust, if it be so, that
+when he gets into port he will report me keel-hauled?"
+
+"Keel-hauled?"
+
+"Yes, I mean dead. It is a thousand times better to pass for a dead
+man than a deserter."
+
+"The wisest course he could pursue, it appears to me, would be to hold
+his tongue--probably you will not be missed."
+
+"Ah! you think that her Majesty's blue jackets can disappear in that
+way, like musk-rats? But no such thing. When the captain in command at
+the station hails on board, every man and boy of the crew, from the
+powder-monkey to the first-lieutenant, are mustered in pipe-clay on
+the quarter-deck, and there, with the ship's commission in his hand,
+every one must report himself as he calls over the names.
+
+"Then the captain will tell the simple truth."
+
+"Well, you see, truth has nothing at all to do with the rules of the
+service, the questions printed in the orderly-book only will be asked,
+and he may not have an opportunity of stating the facts of the case;
+besides, discipline on board a ship in commission could not be
+maintained if irregularities could be patched up by a few words from
+the captain. When it is found that I had been left on shore, the
+questions will be, 'Was the _Nelson_ in want of repairs?' 'No.' 'Did
+she require water?' 'No.' 'Provisions?' 'No.' 'Then Willis has
+deserted?' 'Yes.' And his condemnation will follow as a matter of
+course."
+
+"In that case, the Captain would be more to blame than you are."
+
+"So he would, and it is for that reason I hope he will be able to show
+by the log that I was seized with cholera, tied up in a sack, and duly
+thrown overboard with a four-pound shot for ballast."
+
+"I cannot conceive," said Becker, "that the discipline of any service
+can be so cruelly unreasonable as you would have us believe."
+
+"No, perhaps you think that just before the anchor is heaved, and the
+ship about to start on a long voyage, the cabin boys are asked whether
+they have the colic--that lubbers, who wish to back out have only to
+say the word, and they are free--that the pilot may go a-hunting if he
+likes, and that the officers may stay on shore and amuse themselves in
+defiance of the rules of the service? In that case the navy would be
+rather jolly, but not much worth."
+
+When Willis was once fairly started there was no stopping him.
+
+"Dead," he continued; "that is to say, without a berth, pay, or even a
+name, nothing! My wife will have the right to marry again, my little
+Susan will have another father, and I shall only be able to breathe by
+stealth, and to consider that as more than I deserve. You must admit
+that all this is rather a poor look-out a-head."
+
+"Really, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "you seem to take a pride in
+making things worse than they are, conjuring up phantoms that have no
+existence."
+
+"It is true, madam. I may be going upon a wrong tack. Judging from all
+appearances, the sloop, instead of being on her way to the Cape, is
+tranquilly reposing at the bottom of the sea. But it is only death for
+death; hanged by a court-martial or drowned with the sloop, it comes,
+in the end, to the same thing."
+
+"I dare say, Willis, had there really been an accident, and you had
+been on board, you would not have felt yourself entitled to escape?"
+
+"Certainly not, madam; unless the crew could be saved, it would look
+anything but well for the pilot to escape alone."
+
+Willis, however, to do him justice, seemed trying to smother his
+grief; and, in the meanwhile, the two girls had been spreading a pure
+white cloth on a neighboring rock, cutting fruit plates out of the
+thick mangoe leaves, cooling the Rockhouse malaga in the brook, and
+giving to the repast an air of elegance and refinement which had the
+effect of augmenting the appetite of the company. The viands were not
+better than they had been on many similar occasions, but they were now
+more artistically displayed, and consequently more inviting.
+
+Who has not remarked, in passing through a street of dingy-looking
+houses, one of them distinguished from the others by its fresh and
+cheerful aspect, the windows garnished with a luxuriant screen of
+flowers, with curtains on either side of snowy whiteness and elaborate
+workmanship? Very likely the passer-by has asked himself, Why is this
+house not as neglected, tattered, and dirty as its wretched neighbors?
+The answer is simple; there dwells in this house a young girl, blithe,
+frolicsome, and joyous, singing with the lark, and, like a butterfly,
+floating from her book to her work-box--from her mother's cheek to her
+father's, leaving an impress of her youthfulness and purity on
+whatever she touches.
+
+For a like reason the _al fresco_ dinner of this day had a charm that
+no such feast had been observed to possess before.
+
+"We are not presentable," said Fritz, referring to his seal-gut
+uniform.
+
+"Ah," replied Mrs. Wolston, "it is your costume of war, brave knights;
+and, for my part, I admire you more in it than in the livery of Hyde
+Park or Bond Street."
+
+"In that case," said Ernest, "we shall do as they do in China."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Well, the most profound remark of respect a host can pay to his
+guests, is to go and dress after dinner."
+
+"Just when they are about to leave?"
+
+"Exactly so, madam."
+
+"That is very decidedly a Chinese observance. Are they not somewhat
+behind in cookery?"
+
+"By no means, madam; on the contrary, they have attained a very high
+degree of perfection in that branch of the arts. It is customary, at
+every ceremonious dinner, to serve up fifty-two distinct dishes. And
+when that course is cleared off, what do you think is produced next?"
+
+"The dessert, I suppose."
+
+"Eight kinds of soup, never either one more or one less. If the number
+were deficient, the guests would consider themselves grossly insulted,
+the number of dishes denoting the degree of respect entertained by the
+host for his guests."
+
+"I beg, Mrs. Wolston," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "that you will not
+estimate our esteem for you by the dinner we offer you."
+
+"Well," replied Mrs. Wolston in the same tone, "let me see; to be
+treated as we ought to be, there are fifty-seven dishes wanting,
+therefore we must go and dine at home. John, call my carriage."
+
+At this sally they all laughed heartily, and even Willis chimed in
+with the general hilarity.
+
+"Then, after the soups," continued Ernest, "comes the tea, and with
+that the dessert, as also sixty square pieces of silver paper to wipe
+the mouth. It is then that the host vanishes, to reappear in a
+brilliant robe of gold brocade and a vest of satin."
+
+"These people ought all to perish of indigestion."
+
+"No; they are moderate eaters, their dishes consist of small saucers,
+each containing only a few mouthfuls of meat, and, as for Europeans,
+the want of forks and spoons--"
+
+"What! have they no forks?"
+
+"Not at table--nor knives either; but, on the other hand, they are
+exceedingly expert in the use of two slender sticks of ivory, which
+they hold in the first three fingers of the right hand, and with which
+they manage to convey solids, and even liquids, to their mouths."
+
+"Ah! I see," said Jack; "the Europeans would be obliged, like Mrs.
+Wolston, to call their carriage, in spite of the fifty-two saucers of
+meat: it puts me in mind of the stork inviting the fox to dine with
+her out of a long-necked jar."
+
+"We are apt to judge the Chinese by the pictures seen of them on their
+own porcelain, and copied upon our pottery," said Becker; "but this
+conveys only a ludicrous idea of them. They are the most industrious,
+but at the same time the vainest, most stupid, and most credulous
+people in the world; they worship the moon, fire, fortune, and a
+thousand other things; people go about amongst them selling wind,
+which they dispose of in vials of various sizes."
+
+"That is a trade that will not require an extraordinary amount of
+capital."
+
+"True; and besides, as they carry on their trade in the open air, they
+have no rent to pay."
+
+"Their bonzes or priests," continued Becker, "to excite charity,
+perambulate the streets in chains, sometimes with some inflammable
+matter burning on their heads, whilst, instead of attempting to purify
+the souls of dying sinners, they put rice and gold in their mouths
+when the vital spark has fled. They have a very cruel mode of
+punishing renegade Lamas: these are pierced through the neck with a
+red-hot iron."
+
+"What is a Lama, father?"
+
+"It is a designation of the Tartar priests."
+
+For some time Willis had been closely examining a particular point in
+the bay with increasing anxiety; at last he ran towards the shore and
+leapt into the sea. Becker and his four sons were on the point of
+starting off in pursuit of him.
+
+"Stop," said Wolston, "I have been watching Willis's movements for the
+last ten minutes, and I guess his purpose--let him alone."
+
+Willis swam to some object that was floating on the water, and
+returned in about a quarter of an hour, bringing with him a plank.
+
+"Well," he inquired, on landing, "was I wrong?"
+
+"Wrong about what?" inquired Wolston.
+
+"The _Nelson_ is gone."
+
+"The proof, Willis."
+
+"That plank."
+
+"Well, what about the plank?"
+
+"I recognise it."
+
+"How, Willis?"
+
+"How! Well," replied the obstinate pilot, "fish don't breed planks,
+and--and--I scarcely think this one could escape from a dockyard, and
+float here of its own accord."
+
+"Then, Willis, according to you, there are no ships but the _Nelson_,
+no ships wrecked but the _Nelson_, and no planks but the _Nelson's_.
+Willis, you are a fool."
+
+"Every one has his own ideas, Mr. Wolston."
+
+Towards evening, when they were on their way back to Rockhouse, Sophia
+confidentially called Willis aside, and he cheerfully obeyed the
+summons.
+
+"Pilot," said she, "I have made up my mind about one thing."
+
+"And what is that, Miss Sophia?"
+
+"Why, this--in future, when we are alone, as just now, you must call
+me Susan, as you used to call your own little girl when at home, not
+Miss Susan."
+
+"Oh, I cannot do that, Miss Sophia."
+
+"But I insist upon it."
+
+"Well, Miss Sophia, I will try."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Miss Sus--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Susan, I mean."
+
+"There now, that will do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ALLOTMENT OF QUARTERS--A HORSE MARINE--TRAVELLING PLANTS--CHANGE OF
+DYNASTY IN ENGLAND--A WOMAN'S KINGDOM--SHEEP CONVERTED INTO
+CHOPS--RESURRECTION OF THE FRIED FISH--A SECRET.
+
+
+After some days more of anxious but fruitless expectation, it was
+finally concluded that either the _Nelson_ had sailed for the Cape,
+or, as Willis would have it, she had gone to that unexplored and dread
+land where there were neither poles nor equator, and whence no mariner
+was ever known to return. It was necessary, therefore, to make
+arrangements for the surplus population of the colony--whether for a
+time or for ever, it was then impossible to say. At first sight, it
+might appear easy enough to provide accommodation for the eleven
+individuals that constituted the colony of New Switzerland. It is true
+that land might have been marked off, and each person made sovereign
+over a territory as large as some European kingdoms; but these
+sovereignties would have resembled the republic of St. Martin--there
+would have been no subjects. What, then, would they have governed? it
+may be asked. Themselves, might be answered; and it is said to be a
+far more difficult task to govern ourselves than to rule others.
+
+Though space was ample enough as regards the colony in general, it was
+somewhat limited as regards detail. To live _p�le-m�le_ in Rockhouse
+was entirely out of the question. Independently of accommodation, a
+thousand reasons of propriety opposed such an arrangement. Whether or
+not there might be another cave in the neighborhood, hollowed out by
+Nature, was not known; if there were, it had still to be discovered.
+Chance would not be chance, if it were undeviating and certain in its
+operations. To consign the Wolstons to Falcon's Nest or Prospect
+Hill, and leave them there alone, even though under the protection of
+Willis, could not be thought of; they knew nothing of the dangers that
+would surround them, and as yet they were ignorant of the topography
+of the island. It was, therefore, requisite that both families should
+continue in proximity, so as to aid each other in moments of peril,
+but without, at the same time, outraging propriety, or shackling
+individual freedom of action. Under ordinary circumstances, these
+difficulties might have been solved by taking apartments on the
+opposite side of the street, or renting a house next door. But, alas!
+the blessings of landlords and poor-rates had not yet been bestowed on
+the island.
+
+One day after dinner, when these points were under consideration,
+Willis, who was accustomed to disappear after each meal, no one knew
+why or whereto, came and took his place amongst them under the
+gallery.
+
+"As for myself," said the Pilot, "I do not wish to live anywhere.
+Since I am in your house, Mr. Becker, and cannot get away honestly for
+a quarter of an hour, I must of course remain; but as for becoming a
+mere dependant on your bounty, that I will not suffer."
+
+"What you say there is not very complimentary to me," said Mr.
+Wolston.
+
+"Your position, Mr. Wolston, is a very different thing: besides, you
+are an invalid and require attention, whilst I am strong and healthy,
+for which I ought to be thankful."
+
+"You are not in my house," replied Becker "any more than I am in
+yours; the place we are in is a shelter provided by Providence for us
+all, and I venture to suppose that such a host is rich enough to
+supply all our wants. I am only the humble instrument distributing the
+gifts that have been so lavishly bestowed on this island."
+
+"What you say is very kind and very generous," added Willis, "but I
+mean to provide for myself--that is my idea."
+
+"And not a bad one either," continued Becker; "but how? You are
+welcome here to do the work for four--if you like; and then, supposing
+you eat for two, I will be your debtor, not you mine."
+
+"Work! and at what? walking about with a rifle on my shoulder; airing
+myself, as I am doing now under your gallery, in the midst of flowers,
+on the banks of a river: or opening my mouth for quails to jump down
+my throat ready roasted--would you call that work?"
+
+"Look there, Willis--what do you see?"
+
+"A bear-skin."
+
+"Well, suppose, by way of a beginning, I were to introduce you to a
+fine live bear, with claws and tusks to match, ready to spring on you,
+having as much right to your skin as you have to his--now, were I to
+say to you, I want that animal's skin, to make a soft couch similar to
+the one you see yonder, would you call that work?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Very good, then; it is in the midst of such labors that we pass our
+lives. Before we fell comfortably asleep on feather beds, those
+formidable bones which you see in our museum were flying in the air;
+the cup which I now hold in my hand was a portion of the clay on which
+you sit; the canoe with which you ran away the other day was a live
+seal; the hats that we wear, were running about the fields in the form
+of angola rabbits. So with everything you see about you; for fifteen
+years, excepting the Sabbath, which is our day of rest and recreation
+as well as prayer, we have never relapsed from labor, and you are at
+liberty to adopt a similar course, if you feel so disposed."
+
+"No want of variety," said Jack; "if you do not like the saw-pit, you
+can have the tannery."
+
+"Neither are very much in my line," replied Willis.
+
+"What then do you say to pottery?"
+
+"I have broken a good deal in my day."
+
+"Yes, but there is a difference between breaking it and making it."
+
+"What appears most needful," remarked Fritz, "is, three or four acres
+of fresh land, to double our agricultural produce."
+
+"Is land dear in these parts?" inquired Mrs. Wolston, smiling.
+
+"It is not to be had for nothing, madam; there is the trouble of
+selecting it."
+
+"And the labor of rendering it productive," added Ernest.
+
+"But how do you manage for a lawyer to convey it?"
+
+"I was advising Ernest to adopt that profession," said Mrs. Becker;
+"wills and contracts would be in harmony with his studious
+temperament."
+
+"At present, the question before us," said Becker, "is the allotment
+of quarters; in the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, with the young
+ladies, will continue to occupy our room."
+
+"No, no," said Wolston "that would be downright expropriation."
+
+"In that case the matter comes within the sphere of our lawyer, and I
+therefore request his advice."
+
+To this Ernest replied, by slowly examining his pockets; after this
+operation was deliberately performed, he said, in a _nisi prius_ tone,
+"That he had forgotten his spectacles, and consequently that it was
+impossible for him to look into the case in the way its importance
+demanded, otherwise he was quite of the same opinion as his learned
+brother--his father, he meant."
+
+"And what if we refuse?" said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"If you refuse, Mrs. Wolston, there is only one other course to
+adopt."
+
+"And what is that, Master Frank?"
+
+"Why, simply this," and rising, he cried out lustily, "John, call Mrs.
+Wolston's carriage."
+
+"Ah, to such an argument as that, there can be no reply; so I see you
+must be permitted to do what you like with us."
+
+"Very good," continued Becker; "then there is one point decided: my
+wife and I will occupy the children's apartment."
+
+"And the children," said Jack, "will occupy the open air. For my own
+part, I have no objection: that is a bedroom exactly to my taste."
+
+"Spacious," remarked Ernest.
+
+"Well-aired," suggested Fritz.
+
+"Hangings of blue, inlaid with stars of gold," observed Frank.
+
+"Any thing else?" inquired Becker.
+
+"No, father, I believe the extent of accommodation does not go beyond
+that."
+
+"Therefore I have decided upon something less vast, but more
+comfortable for you; you will go every night to our _villa_ of
+Falcon's Nest."
+
+"On foot?"
+
+"On horseback, if you like and under the direction of Willis, whom I
+name commander-in-chief of the cavalry."
+
+"Of the cavalry!" cried the sailor; "what! a pilot on horseback?"
+
+"Do not be uneasy, Willis," replied Jack, "we have no horses."
+
+"Ah, well, that alters the case."
+
+"But then we have zebras and ostriches."
+
+"Ostriches! worse and worse."
+
+"Say not so, good Willis; when once you have tried Lightfoot or
+Flyaway, you would never wish to travel otherwise: they run so fast
+that the wind is fairly distanced, and scarcely give us time to
+breathe--it is delightful."
+
+"Thank you, but I would rather try and get the canoe to travel on
+land."
+
+"Ah, Willis," said Fritz, "that would be an achievement that would do
+you infinite credit--if you only succeed."
+
+"Will you allow me to make a request, Mrs. Becker?"
+
+"Listen to Willis," said Jack, "he has an idea."
+
+"The request I have to urge is, that you will permit me to encamp on
+Shark's Island, and there establish a lighthouse for the guidance of
+the _Nelson_, in case she should return."
+
+"What! the commander-in-chief of cavalry on an island?"
+
+"No, not of the cavalry, but of the fleet; it is only necessary for
+Mr. Becker to change my position into that of an admiral, which will
+not give him much extra trouble."
+
+"I shall do so with pleasure, Willis."
+
+"In that case, since I am an admiral, the first thing I shall do, is
+to pardon myself for the faults I committed whilst I was a pilot."
+
+"Capital!" said Ernest, "that puts me in mind of Louis XII., who, on
+ascending the throne, said that it was not for the King of France to
+revenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans."
+
+"What, then, is to become of the boys? I intended to make you their
+compass--on land, of course."
+
+"The boys," cried the latter, "are willing to enlist as seamen, and
+accompany the admiral on his cruise."
+
+"You will spin yarns for us, Willis, will you not?"
+
+"Well, my lads, if you want a sleeping dose, I will undertake to do
+that."
+
+"But there are objections to this arrangement," Mrs. Becker hastily
+added.
+
+"What are they, mother?"
+
+"In the first place, a storm might arise some fine night--one of those
+dreadful hurricanes that continue several days, like the one that
+terrified us so much lately--and then all communication would be cut
+off between us."
+
+"You could always see one another."
+
+"How so, Willis?"
+
+"From a distance--with the telescope."
+
+"Then," continued Mrs. Becker, "you would be a prey to famine, for
+though the telescope, good Master Willis, might enable you to see our
+dinner--from a distance--I doubt whether that would prevent you dying
+of starvation."
+
+"We might easily guard against that, by taking over a sufficient
+quantity of provisions with us every night, and bringing them back
+next morning."
+
+"But could you carry over my kisses, Willis, and distribute them
+amongst my children every morning and evening, like rations of rice?"
+
+"If the arrangement will really make you uneasy, Mrs. Becker, I give
+it up," said Willis, polishing with his arm the surface of his
+oil-skin sou'-wester.
+
+"Not at all, Willis. It is for me to give up my objections. Besides, I
+observe Miss Sophia staring at me with her great eyes; she will never
+forgive me for tormenting her sweetheart."
+
+"Ah! since I have been staring at you, I have only now to eat you up
+like the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood," and in a moment her slender
+arms were clasped round Mrs. Becker's neck.
+
+"Good," said Becker, "there is another point settled--temporarily."
+
+"In Europe," observed Wolston, "there is nothing so durable as the
+temporary."
+
+"In Europe, yes, but not here. To-morrow morning we shall select a
+tree near Falcon's Nest, and in eight days you shall be permanently
+housed in an aerial tenement close to ours, so that we may chat to
+each other from our respective balconies."
+
+"That will be a castle in the air a little more real than those I have
+built in Spain."
+
+"Then you have been in Spain, papa?"
+
+"Every one has been less or more in the Spain I refer to. Sophy--it is
+the land of dreams."
+
+"And of castanets," remarked Jack.
+
+"Then my sweetheart will be alone on his island, like an exile?"
+
+"No, Miss Sophia, we are incapable of such ingratitude. After enjoying
+the hospitality of Willis in Shark's Island, he will surely deign to
+accept ours at Falcon's Nest; so, whether here or there, he shall
+always have four devoted followers to keep him company."
+
+The Pilot shook Fritz by the hand, at the same time nearly dislocating
+his arm.
+
+"I wonder why God, who is so good, has not made houses grow of
+themselves, like pumpkins and melons?" said Ernest.
+
+"Rather a lazy idea that," said his father; "our great Parent has
+clearly designed that we should do something for ourselves; he has
+given us the acorn whence we may obtain the oak."
+
+"Nevertheless, there are uninhabited countries which are gorged with
+vegetation--the territory we are in, for example."
+
+"True; but still no plant has ever sprung up anywhere without a seed
+has been planted, either by the will of God or by the hands of man.
+With regard, however, to the distribution of vegetation in a natural
+state, that depends more upon the soil and climate than anything else;
+wherever there is a fertile soil and moist air, there seeds will find
+their way."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"The seeds of a great many plants are furnished with downy filaments,
+which act as wings; these are taken up by the wind and carried immense
+distances; others are inclosed in an elastic shell, from which, when
+ripe, they are ejected with considerable force."
+
+"The propagation of plants that have wings or elastic shells may, in
+that way, be accounted for; but there are some seeds that fall, by
+their own weight, exactly at the foot of the vegetable kingdom that
+produces them."
+
+"It is often these that make the longest voyages."
+
+"By what conveyance, then?"
+
+"Well, my son, for a philosopher, I cannot say that your knowledge is
+very profound; seeds that have no wings borrow them."
+
+"Not from the ant, I presume?"
+
+"No, not exactly; but from the quail, the woodcock, the swallow, and a
+thousand others, that are apparently more generous than the poor ant,
+to which �sop has given a reputation for avarice that it will have
+some trouble to shake off. The birds swallow the seeds, many of which
+are covered with a hard, horny skin, that often resists digestion;
+these are carried by the inhabitants of the air across rivers, seas,
+and lakes, and are deposited by them in the neighborhood of their
+nests--it may be on the top of a mountain, or in the crevice of a
+rock."
+
+"True, I never thought of that."
+
+"There are a great many philosophers who know more about the motions
+of stars than these humbler operations of Nature."
+
+"You are caught there," said Jack.
+
+"There are philosophers, too, who can do nothing but ridicule the
+knowledge of others."
+
+"Caught you there," retaliated Ernest.
+
+"It was in this way that a bird of the Moluccas has restored the clove
+tree to the islands of this archipelago, in spite of the Dutch, who
+destroyed them everywhere, in order that they might enjoy the monopoly
+of the trade."
+
+"Still, I must fall back upon my original idea; by sowing a brick, we
+ought to reap a wall."
+
+"And if a wall, a house," suggested another of the young men.
+
+"Or if a turret, a castle," proposed a third.
+
+"Or a hall to produce a palace," remarked the fourth.
+
+"There are four wishes worthy of the four heads that produced them!
+What do you think of those four great boys, Mrs. Wolston?"
+
+"Well, madam, as they are wishing, at any rate they may as well wish
+that chinchillas and marmots wore their fur in the form of boas and
+muffs, that turkeys produced perigord pies, and that the fish were
+drawn out of the sea ready roasted or boiled."
+
+"Or that the sheep walked about in the form of nicely grilled chops,"
+suggested Becker.
+
+"And you, young ladies, what would you wish?"
+
+Mary, who was now beyond the age of dolls, and was fast approaching
+the period of young womanhood, felt that it was a duty incumbent upon
+her to be more reserved than her sister, and rarely took part in the
+conversation, unless she was directly addressed, ceased plying her
+needle, and replied, smiling,
+
+"I wish I could make some potent elixir in the same way as gooseberry
+wine, that would restore sick people to health, then I would give a
+few drops to my father, and make him strong and well, as he used to
+be."
+
+"Thank you for the intention, my dear child."
+
+"And you, Miss Sophia? It is your turn."
+
+"I wish that all the little children were collected together, and that
+every papa and mamma could pick out their own from amongst them."
+
+Here Willis took out his pocket-handkerchief and appeared to be
+blowing his nose, it being an idea of his that a sailor ought not to
+be caught with a tear in his eye.
+
+"Now then, Willis, we must have a wish from you."
+
+"I wish three things: that there had not been a hurricane lately, that
+canoes could be converted into three masters, and that Miss Sophia may
+be Queen of England."
+
+"Granted," cried Jack.
+
+And laying hold of a wreath of violets that the young girl had been
+braiding, he solemnly placed it on her head.
+
+"You will make her too vain," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Ah mamma, do not scold," and gracefully taking the crown from her own
+fair curls, she placed it on the silvery locks of her mother; "I
+abdicate in your favor, and, sweetheart, I thank you for placing our
+dynasty on the throne. Mary, you are a princess."
+
+"Yes," she replied, "and here is my sceptre," holding up her spindle.
+
+"Well answered, my daughter, that is a woman's best sceptre, and her
+kingdom is her house."
+
+"Our conversation," said Becker, "is like those small threads of water
+which, flowing humbly from the hollow of a rock, swell into brooks,
+then become rivers, and, finally, lose themselves in the ocean."
+
+"It was Ernest that led us on."
+
+"Well, it is time now to get back to your starting-point again. God
+has said that we shall earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, and
+consequently that our enjoyments should be the result of our own
+industry; that is the reason that venison is given to us in the form
+of the swift stag, and palaces in the form of clay; man is endowed
+with reason, and may, by labor, convert all these blessings to his
+use."
+
+"Your notion," said Mr. Wolston, "of drawing the fish out of the sea
+ready cooked, puts me in mind of an incident of college life which,
+with your permission, I will relate."
+
+"Oh yes, papa, a story!"
+
+"There was at Cambridge, when I was there, a young man, who, instead
+of study and sleep, spent his days and nights in pistol practice and
+playing on the French horn, much to the annoyance of an elderly maiden
+lady, who occupied the apartments that were immediately under his
+own."
+
+"These are inconveniences that need not be dreaded here."
+
+"Our police are too strict."
+
+"And our young men too well-bred," added Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Not only that," continued Mr. Wolston, "this young student, who never
+thought of study, had a huge, shaggy Newfoundland dog, and the old
+lady possessed a chubby little pug, which she was intensely fond of;
+now, when these two brutes happened to meet on the stairs, the large
+one, by some accident or other, invariably sent the little one rolling
+head over heels to the bottom; and, much to the horror of the old
+lady, her favorite, that commenced its journey down stairs with four
+legs, had sometimes to make its way up again with three."
+
+"I always understood that dogs were generous animals, and would not
+take advantage of an animal weaker than themselves; our dogs would not
+have acted so."
+
+"Well, perhaps the dog was not quite so much to blame in these affairs
+as its master; besides, in making advances to its little friend, it
+might not have calculated its own force."
+
+"Yes, and perhaps might have been sorry afterwards for the mischief it
+had done."
+
+"Very likely; still the point was never clearly explained, and,
+whether or no, the elderly lady could not put up with this sort of
+thing any longer; she complained so often and so vigorously, that her
+troublesome neighbor was served in due form with a notice to quit. The
+young scapegrace was determined to be revenged in some way on the
+party who was the cause of his being so summarily ejected from his
+quarters. Now, right under his window there was a globe belonging to
+the old lady, well filled with good-sized gold fish. His eye by chance
+having fallen upon this, and spying at the same time his fishing-rod
+in a corner, the coincidence of vision was fatal to the gold-fish;
+they were very soon hooked up, rolled in flour, fried, and gently let
+down again one by one into the globe."
+
+"I should like to have seen the old lady when she first became aware
+of this transformation!"
+
+"Well, one of the fish had escaped, and was floating about, evidently
+lamenting the fate of its finny companions."
+
+"It was very cruel," observed Mary.
+
+"Elderly ladies who have no family and live alone are very apt to
+bestow upon animals the love and affection that is inherent in us
+all."
+
+"Which is very much to be deprecated."
+
+"Why so, Master Frank?"
+
+"Are there not always plenty of poor and helpless human beings upon
+whom to bestow their love? are there not orphans and homeless
+creatures whom they might adopt?"
+
+"There are; but it requires wealth for such benevolences, and the
+goddess Fortune is very capricious; whilst one must be very poor
+indeed that cannot spare a few crumbs of bread once a day. Besides,
+admitting that this mania is blamable when carried to excess, still it
+must be respected, for it behoves us to reverence age even in its
+foibles."
+
+Frank, whose nature was so very susceptible, that a single grain of
+good seed soon ripened into a complete virtue, bent his head in token
+of acquiescence.
+
+"Now the old lady loved these gold-fish as the apples of her eyes, and
+her astonishment and grief, in beholding the state they were in, was
+indescribable."
+
+"And yet it was a loss that might have been easily repaired."
+
+"Ah, you think so, Jack, do you? If you were to lose Knips, would the
+first monkey that came in your way replace him in your affections?"
+
+"That is a very different thing--I brought Knips up."
+
+"No; it is precisely the same thing. She had the fish when they were
+very small, had seen them grow, spoke to them, gave each of them a
+name, and believed them to be endowed with a supernatural
+intelligence."
+
+"Therefore, I contend the student was a savage."
+
+"Not he, my friend, he was one of the best-hearted fellows in the
+world: hasty, ardent, inconsiderate, he resisted commands and threats,
+but yielded readily to a tear or a prayer. As soon as he saw the
+sorrowful look of the old woman, he regretted what he had done, and
+undertook to restore the inhabitants of the globe to life."
+
+"With what sort of magic wand did he propose to do that?"
+
+"All the inhabitants of the house had collected round the old lady and
+her globe, endeavoring to console her, and at the same time trying to
+account for the phenomenon; some ascribed the transformation to
+lightning, others went so far as to suggest witchcraft. Our scapegrace
+now joined the throng, took the globe in his hands, gravely examined
+his victims, and declared, with the utmost coolness that they were not
+dead. 'Not dead, sir! are you sure?' 'Confident, madam; it is only a
+lethargy, a kind of coma or temporary transformation, that will be
+gradually shaken off; I have seen many cases of the same kind, and, if
+proper care be taken as to air, repose, and diet, particularly as
+regards the latter, your fish will be quite well again to-morrow.'"
+
+"Did she believe that?"
+
+"One readily believes what one wishes to be true; besides, in
+twenty-four hours, all doubt on the subject would be at an end; added
+to which, the young man was ostensibly a student of medicine, and had
+the credit in the house of having cured the washerwoman's canary of a
+sore throat."
+
+"Well, how did he manage about the fish?"
+
+"Very simply; he went and bought some exactly the same size that were
+not in a lethargy; he then, at the risk of breaking his neck or being
+taken for a burglar, scaled the balcony, and substituted them for the
+defunct. Next morning, when he called to inquire after his patients,
+he found the old lady quite joyful."
+
+"Had she no doubts as to their identity?"
+
+"Well, one was a little paler and another was a trifle thinner, but
+she was easily persuaded that this difference might arise from their
+convalescence. The young man immediately became a great favorite; and
+the old lady would rather have shared her own apartments with him,
+than allow him to quit the house; he consequently remained."
+
+"What, then, became of the pistols and the French horn?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"From that time on there sprung up a close friendship between the two;
+he was induced by her to convert his weapons of war into
+pharmacopoeas. Always, when she made some nice compound of jelly and
+cream, he had a share of it; he, on his side, scarcely ever passed her
+door without softening his tread; and both himself and his dog
+managed, eventually, to acquire the favor of the old lady's pug."
+
+"He appears to have been one of those medical gentlemen WHO profess to
+cure every conceivable disease by one kind of medicine."
+
+"And who generally contrive to remove both the disease and the patient
+at the same time."
+
+"You mistake the individual altogether; he is now one of the most
+esteemed physicians in London, remarkable alike for his skill and
+benevolence. It is even strongly suspected by his friends that he is
+not a little indebted for his present eminent position to his first
+patients--the canary and the gold-fish."
+
+It was now the usual hour for retiring to rest. After the evening
+prayer, which Mary and Sophia said alternately aloud, Willis and the
+four brothers prepared to start for Shark's Island, to pass their
+first night in the store-room and cattle-shed that had been erected
+there. Of course they could not expect to be so comfortable in such
+quarters as at Rockhouse or Falcon's Nest; but then novelty is to
+young people what ease is to the aged. Black bread appears delicious
+to those who habitually eat white; and we ourselves have seen
+high-bred ladies delighted when they found themselves compelled to
+dine in a wretched hovel of the Tyrol--true, they were certain of a
+luxurious supper at Inspruck. So grief breaks the monotony of joy,
+just as a rock gives repose to level plain.
+
+Whilst the pinnace was gradually leaving the shore, loaded with
+mattresses and other movables adapted for a temporary encampment,
+Jack signalled a parting adieu to Sophia, and, putting his fingers to
+his lips, seemed to enjoin silence.
+
+"All right, Master Jack," cried she.
+
+"What is all this signalling about?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"A secret," said the young girl, leaping with joy; "I have a secret!"
+
+"And with a young man? that is very naughty, miss."
+
+"Oh, mamma, you will know it to-morrow."
+
+"What if I wanted to know it to-night?"
+
+"Then, mamma, if you insisted--that is--absolutely--"
+
+"No, no, child, I shall wait till to-morrow; keep it till then--if you
+can."
+
+"Sophia dear," said Mary to her sister, when their two heads,
+enveloped in snowy caps with an embroidered fringe, were reclining
+together on the same pillow, "you know I have always shared my
+_bon-bons_ with you."
+
+"Yes, sister."
+
+"In that case, make me a partner in your secret."
+
+"Will you promise not to speak of it?"
+
+"Yes, I promise."
+
+"To no one?"
+
+"To no one."
+
+"Not even to the paroquette Fritz gave you?"
+
+"No, not even to my paroquette."
+
+"Well, it is very likely I shall speak about it in my dreams--you
+listen and find it out."
+
+"Slyboots!"
+
+"Curiosity!"
+
+Like those delicate flowers that shrink when they are touched, each
+then turned to her own side; but it would have cost both too much not
+to have fallen asleep as usual, with their arms round each other's
+necks;--consequently this tiff soon blew over, and, after a prolonged
+chat, their lips finally joined in the concluding "Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE QUEEN'S DOLL--ROCKHOUSE TO FALCON'S NEST--THE
+WIND--GLASSES--ADMIRAL HOMER--THE THREE FROGS--OAT JELLY--ESQUIMAUX
+ASTRONOMY--AN UNKNOWN.
+
+
+Next morning, Sophia came running in with a sealed letter in her hand,
+which she opened and read as follows:--
+
+    "HEAD QUARTERS, SAFETY BAY, DAYBREAK.
+
+    "The Admiral commanding the Fleet stationed in Safety Bay to her
+    Most gracious Majesty Sophia, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
+
+    "May it please your Majesty,
+
+    "The crews of your Majesty's yachts, the _Elizabeth_ and the
+    _Morse_, are quite entire and in perfect health. The enemy having
+    kept at a respectful distance, we have not had as yet an
+    opportunity of proving our courage and devotion. Mr. Midshipman
+    Jack fell asleep on the carriage of a four-pounder, like Marshal
+    Turenne before his first battle; but, in all other respects, the
+    conduct of the officers has been most exemplary, and merits the
+    utmost commendation.
+
+    "It is the admiral's intention to push out a reconnaissance
+    towards the east, in the direction of Pearl Bay, which he has not
+    yet explored. If, however, your Majesty should regard this
+    expedition as likely to interfere with the good understanding that
+    subsists between that government and your own, it will be only
+    necessary to fire a gun, in which case we shall return to port.
+    Under other circumstances, the squadron will proceed with the
+    enterprise, and endeavor to obtain a collar for your Majesty's
+    doll."
+
+"For my doll!" exclaimed Sophia angrily; "when did Jack find out that
+I had a doll?"
+
+"Is that, then, your secret?" inquired her mother.
+
+"Yes, mamma, Master Jack took a pigeon with him for the express
+purpose of playing me this trick."
+
+"And what is worse, included yourself in the conspiracy. Dreadful!"
+
+"Is it not--to speak of a young person of thirteen's doll?"
+
+"Say nearer fourteen, my dear."
+
+"Therefore, to punish your confederates, I shall fire a gun, and put a
+stop to their excursion," said Becker, turning to one of the
+six-pounders that flanked Rockhouse in the direction of the river.
+
+"Clemency being one of the dearest rights of the royal prerogative,"
+replied Sophia, "I shall pardon them, and I pray you not; to throw any
+obstacle in the way of their expedition."
+
+"Very good, your Majesty; but there are state reasons which should be
+allowed to overrule the impulses of your heart; those gentlemen have
+forgotten that we were to go and lay the first stone, or rather to
+cut, to-day, the first branch of your aerial residence at Falcon's
+Nest."
+
+Admiral Willis and his officers having obeyed the preconcerted signal,
+the whole party started on their land enterprise. One of the young men
+was harnessed to a sledge, containing saws, hatchets, a bamboo ladder
+that had formerly done duty as a staircase to the Nest, and everything
+else requisite for the contemplated project.
+
+Jack had already started when Sophia called him back, and he hastily
+obeyed the summons.
+
+"What are your Majesty's commands?"
+
+"Oh, nothing particular, only should you meet my doll in company with
+your go-cart, be pleased to pay my respects to them." Saying this, she
+made a low curtsy, and turned her back upon him.
+
+"Your Majesty's behests shall be obeyed," said Jack, and he ran off to
+rejoin the caravan.
+
+The sad ravages of the tempest presented themselves as they proceeded;
+tall chestnuts lay stretched on the ground, and seemed, by their
+appearance, to have struggled hard with the storm.
+
+"After all," inquired Frank, "what is the wind?"
+
+"Wind is nothing more than air rushing in masses from one point to
+another."
+
+"And what causes this commotion in the elements?"
+
+"The equilibrium of the atmosphere is disturbed by a variety of
+actions;--the diurnal motion of the sun, whose rays penetrate the air
+at various points; absorption and radiation, which varies according to
+the nature of the soil and the hour of the day; the inequality of the
+solar heat, according to seasons and latitude; the formation and
+condensation of vapor, that absorbs caloric in its formation, and
+disengages it when being resolved into liquid."
+
+"I never thought," remarked Willis, "that there were so many mysteries
+in a sou'-easter. Does it blow? is it on the starboard or larboard?
+was all, in fact, that I cared about knowing."
+
+"In a word, the various circumstances that change the actual density
+of the air, making it more rarefied at one point than another, produce
+currents, the force and direction of which depend upon the relative
+position of hot and cold atmospheric beds. Again, the winds acquire
+the temperature and characteristics of the regions they traverse."
+
+"That," observed Frank, "is like human beings; you may generally
+judge, by the language and manners of a man, the places that he is
+accustomed to frequent."
+
+"There are hot and cold winds, wet and dry; then there are the trade
+winds."
+
+"Ah, yes," cried Willis, "these are the winds to talk of, especially
+when sailing with them--that is, from east to west; but when your
+course is different, they are rather awkward affairs to get ahead of.
+The way to catch them is to sail from Peru to the Philippines."
+
+"Or from Mexico to China."
+
+"Yes, either will do; then there is no necessity for tacking, you have
+only to rig your sails and smoke your pipe, or go to sleep; you may,
+in that way, run four thousand leagues in three months."
+
+"Stiff sailing that, Willis."
+
+"Yes, Master Ernest, but it does not come up to your yarn about the
+stars, you recollect, ever so many millions of miles in a second!"
+
+"The trade winds, I was going to observe," continued Becker, "that
+blow from the west coast of Africa, carry with them a stifling heat."
+
+"That might be expected," remarked Frank, "since they pass over the
+hot sands of the desert."
+
+"Well, can you tell me why the same wind is cooler on the east coast
+of America?"
+
+"Because it has been refreshed on crossing the ocean that separates
+the two continents?"
+
+"By taking a glass of grog on the way," suggested Willis.
+
+"Yes; and so in Europe the north wind is cold because it carries, or
+rather consists of, air from the polar regions; and the same effect is
+produced by the south wind in the other hemisphere."
+
+"It is for a like reason," suggested Ernest, "that the south wind in
+Europe, and particularly the south-west wind, is humid, and generally
+brings rain, because it is charged with vapor from the Atlantic
+Ocean."
+
+"How is it, father, that the almanac makers can predict changes in the
+weather?"
+
+"The almanac makers can only foresee one thing with absolute
+certainty, and that is, that there are always fools to believe what
+they say. A few meteorological phenomena may be predicted with
+tolerable accuracy; but these are few in number, and range within very
+narrow limits."
+
+"Their predictions, nevertheless, sometimes turn out correct."
+
+"Yes, when they predict by chance a hard frost on a particular day in
+January, it is just possible the prediction may be verified; out of a
+multitude of such prognostications a few may be successful, but the
+greater part of them fail. Their few successes, however, have the
+effect with weak minds of inspiring confidence, in defiance of the
+failures which they do not take the trouble to observe."
+
+"At what rate does the wind travel?"
+
+"The speed of the wind is very variable; when it is scarcely felt, the
+velocity does not exceed a foot a second; but it is far otherwise in
+the cases of hurricanes and tornados, that sweep away trees and
+houses.
+
+"And sink his Majesty's ships," observed Willis.
+
+"In those cases the wind sometimes reaches the velocity of forty-five
+yards in a second, or about forty leagues in an hour."
+
+"Therefore," remarked Jack, "the wind is a blessing that could very
+well be dispensed with."
+
+"Your conclusions, Jack, do not always do credit to your
+understanding. The wind re-establishes the equilibrium of the
+temperature, and purifies the air by dispersing in the mass
+exhalations that would be pernicious if they remained in one spot; it
+clears away miasma, it dissipates the smoke of towns, it waters some
+countries by driving clouds to them, it condenses vapor on the frozen
+summits of mountains, and converts it into rivers that cover the land
+with fruitfulness."
+
+"It likewise fills the sails of ships and creates pilots," observed
+Willis.
+
+"And brings about shipwrecks," remarked Jack.
+
+"It conveys the pollen of flowers, and, as I had occasion to state the
+other day, sows the seeds of Nature's fields and forests. It is
+likewise made available by man in some classes of manufactures--mills,
+for example."
+
+"And it causes the simoon," persisted Jack, "that lifts the sand of
+the desert and overwhelms entire caravans; how can you justify such
+ravages?"
+
+"I do not intend to plead the cause of either hurricanes or simoons;
+but I contend that, if the wind sometimes terrifies us by disasters,
+we have, on the other hand, to be grateful for the infinite good it
+does. In it, as in all other phenomena of the elements, the evils are
+rare and special, whilst the good is universal and constant."
+
+Fritz, as usual, with the dogs and his rifle charged, acted as pioneer
+for the caravan, now and then bringing down a bird, sometimes adding a
+plant to their collection, and occasionally giving them some
+information as to the state of the surrounding country.
+
+"Father," said he, "I chased this quail into our corn-field; the grain
+is lying on the ground as if it had been passed over by a roller, but
+I am happy to say that it is neither broken nor uprooted."
+
+"Now, Jack, do you see how gallantly the wind behaves, prostrating the
+strong and sparing the weak? If you had been charged with the safety
+of the grain, no doubt you would have placed it in the tops of the
+highest trees."
+
+"Very likely; and, until taught by experience, everybody else would
+have done precisely the same thing."
+
+"True; therefore in this, as in all other things, we should admire the
+wisdom of Providence, and mistrust our own."
+
+"Whoever would have thought of trusting the staff of human life to
+such slender support as stalks of straw?"
+
+"If grain had been produced by forests, these, when destroyed by war,
+burned down by imprudence, uprooted by hurricanes, or washed away by
+inundations, we should have required ages to replace."
+
+"Very true."
+
+"The fruits of trees are, besides, more liable to rot than those of
+grain; the latter have their flowers in the form of spikes, often
+bearded with prickly fibres, which not only protect them from
+marauders, but likewise serve as little roofs to shelter them from the
+rain; and besides, as Fritz has just told us, owing to the pliancy of
+their stalks, strengthened at intervals by hard knots and the
+spear-shaped form of their leaves, these plants escape the fury of the
+winds."
+
+"That," said Willis, "is like a wretched cock-boat, which often
+contrives to get out of a scrape when all the others are swamped."
+
+"Therefore," continued Becker, "their weakness is of more service to
+them than the strength of the noblest trees, and they are spread and
+multiplied by the same tempests that devastate the forests. Added to
+this, the species to which this class of plants belong--the
+grasses--are remarkably varied in their characteristics, and better
+suited than any other for universal propagation."
+
+"Which was remarked by Homer," observed Ernest "who usually
+distinguishes a country by its peculiar fruit, but speaks of the
+earth generally as _zeidoros_, or grain-bearing."
+
+"There, Willis," exclaimed Jack, "is another great admiral for you."
+
+"An admiral, Jack?"
+
+"It was he who led the combined fleets of Agamemnon, Diomedes, and
+others, to the city of Troy."
+
+"Not in our time, I suppose?"
+
+"How old are you, Willis?"
+
+"Forty-seven."
+
+"In that case it was before you entered the navy."
+
+"I know that there is a Troy in the United States, but I did not know
+it was a sea-port."
+
+"There is another in France, Willis; but the Troy I mean is, or rather
+was, in Asia Minor, capital of Lesser Phrygia, sometimes called Ilion,
+its citadel bearing the name of Pergamos."
+
+"Never heard of it," said Willis.
+
+"To return to grain," continued Becker, laughing. "Nature has rendered
+it capable of growing in all climates, from the line to the pole.
+There is a variety for the humid soils of hot countries, as the rice
+of Asia; immense quantities of which are produced in the basin of the
+Ganges. There is another variety for marshy and cold climates--as a
+kind of oat that grows wild on the banks of the North American lakes,
+and of which the natives gather abundant harvests."
+
+"God has amply provided for us all," said Frank.
+
+"Other varieties grow best in hot, dry soils, as the millet in Africa,
+and maize or Indian corn in Brazil. In Europe, wheat is cultivated
+universally, but prefers rich lands, whilst rye takes more readily to
+a sandy soil; buckwheat is most luxuriant where most exposed to rain;
+oats prefer humid soils, and barley comes to perfection on rocky,
+exposed lands, growing well on the cold, bleak plains of the north.
+And, observe, that the grasses suffice for all the wants of man."
+
+"Yes," observed Ernest, "with the straw are fed his sheep, his cows,
+his oxen, and his horses; with the seeds, he prepares his food and
+his drinks. In the north, grain is converted into excellent beer and
+ale, and spirits are extracted from it as strong as brandy."
+
+"The Chinese obtain from rice a liquor that they prefer to the finest
+wines of Spain."
+
+"That is because they have not yet tasted our Rockhouse malaga."
+
+"Then of roasted oats, perfumed with vanilla, an excellent jelly may
+be made."
+
+"Ah! we must get mamma to try that--it will delight the young ladies."
+
+"And, no doubt, you will profit by the occasion to partake thereof
+yourself, Master Jack."
+
+"Certainly; but I would not, for all that, seek to gratify my own
+appetite under pretence of paying a compliment to our friends."
+
+"I know an animal," said Willis, "that, for general usefulness, beats
+grain all to pieces."
+
+"Good! let us hear what it is, Willis."
+
+"It is the seal of the Esquimaux; they live upon its flesh, and they
+drink its blood."
+
+"I scarcely think," said Jack, "that I should often feel thirsty under
+such circumstances."
+
+"The skin furnishes them with clothes, tents, and boats."
+
+"Of which our canoe and life-preservers are a fair sample," said
+Fritz.
+
+"The fat furnishes them with fire and candle, the muscles with thread
+and rope, the gut with windows and curtains, the bones with arrow
+heads and harness; in short, with everything they require."
+
+"True, Willis, in so far as regards their degree of civilization,
+which is not very great, when we consider that they bury their sick
+whilst alive, because they are afraid of corpses; that they believe
+the sun, moon, and stars to be dead Esquimaux, who have been
+translated from earth to heaven."
+
+Whilst chatting in this way, the party had imperceptibly arrived at
+Falcon's Nest, wherein they had not set foot for a fortnight
+previously.
+
+Fritz went up first, and before the others had ascended, came running
+down again as fast as his legs would carry him.
+
+"Father," he cried, in an accent of alarm, "there is a fresh litter of
+leaves up stairs, which has been recently slept upon, and I miss a
+knife that I left the last time we were here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SEARCH FOR THE UNKNOWN--THREE FLEETS ON DRY LAND--THE
+INDISCRETIONS OF A SUGAR CANE--LARBOARD AND STARBOARD--THE SUPPOSED
+SENSIBILITY OF PLANTS--THE FLY-TRAP--VENDETTA--ROOT AND GERM--MINE AND
+COUNTERMINE--THE POLYPI--OVIPAROUS AND VIVIPAROUS--A QUID PRO QUO.
+
+
+"Have any of you been at Falcon's Nest lately?" inquired Becker, when
+he had verified the truth of Fritz's intelligence.
+
+"None of us," unanimously replied all the boys.
+
+"You will understand that the question I put to you is, under the
+circumstances in which we are placed, one of the greatest moment. If,
+therefore, there is any unseemly joking, any trick, or secret project
+in contemplation, with which this affair is connected, do not conceal
+it any longer."
+
+All the boys again reiterated their innocence of the matter in
+question.
+
+Becker then called to mind the mysterious disappearance of Willis,
+and, although they were too short in duration to admit of his having
+been at Falcon's Nest, still he deemed it advisable to put the
+question to him individually.
+
+Willis declared that the present was the first time he had been in the
+vicinity of the Nest, and his word was known to be sacred.
+
+"There can be no mistake then," said Becker; "the traces are
+self-evident. This is altogether a circumstance calculated to give us
+serious uneasiness. Nevertheless, we must view the matter calmly, and
+consider what steps we should take to unravel the mystery."
+
+"Let us instantly beat up the island," suggested Fritz.
+
+"It appears to me," remarked Willis, "that the _Nelson_ has been
+wrecked after all, and that one of the men has escaped."
+
+"That," replied Ernest, "is very unlikely. All the crew knew that the
+island was inhabited, and consequently, had any one of them been
+thrown on shore, he would have come at once to Rockhouse, and not
+stopped here."
+
+"As regards the Captain or Lieutenant Dunsley," said Willis, "who were
+on shore, and could easily find their way, what you say is quite true;
+but the men were kept on board; and if we suppose that a sailor had
+been thrown on the opposite coast, he would not be able to determine
+his position in fifteen days."
+
+"Much less could he expect to find a villa in a fig-tree."
+
+"To say nothing of the light that has been kept burning recently on
+Shark's Island, nor of the buildings with which the land is strewn,
+nor the fields and plantations that are to be met with in all
+directions. For, although a swallow alone is sufficient to convey the
+seeds of a forest from one continent to another, still it requires the
+hand of man to arrange the trees in rows and furnish them with props."
+
+"Perhaps we may have crossed each other on the way; and the stranger,
+after passing the night here, has steered, by some circuitous route,
+in the direction of Safety Bay."
+
+"May it not have been a large monkey," suggested Jack, "who has
+resolved to play us a trick for having massacred its companions at
+Waldeck?"
+
+"Monkeys," replied Ernest, "do not generally open doors, and, seeing
+no bed prepared for them, go down stairs and collect material for a
+mattress. You may just as well fancy that the monkey, in this case,
+came to pass the night at Falcon's Nest with a cigar in its mouth."
+
+"Then he must have been dreadfully annoyed to find neither slippers
+nor a night-cap."
+
+"There is, unquestionably, a wide field of supposition open for us,"
+said Becker; "but that need not prevent us taking active measures to
+arrive at the truth. Our first duty is to care for the safety of the
+ladies; Mr. Wolston is still ailing and feeble, so that, if a stranger
+were suddenly to appear amongst them, they might be terribly
+alarmed."
+
+"There are six of us here," remarked Willis, "the cream of our sea and
+land forces; we could divide ourselves into three squadrons, one of
+which might sail for Rockhouse."
+
+"Just so; let Fritz and Frank start for Rockhouse."
+
+"And what shall we say to the ladies, father?" inquired the latter;
+"it does not seem to me necessary to alarm our mother, Mrs. Wolston,
+and the young ladies, until something more certain is ascertained."
+
+"Your idea is good, my son, and I thank you for bringing it forward;
+it is one of those that arise from the heart rather than the head."
+
+"We have, only to find a pretext for their sudden return," observed
+Ernest.
+
+"Very well," said Jack, "they have only to say it is too hot to work."
+
+"Just as if it were not quite as hot for us as for them. Your excuse,
+Jack, is not particularly artistic."
+
+"Might they not as well say they had forgotten a tool or a pocket
+handkerchief?"
+
+"Or, better still, that they had forgotten to shut the door when they
+left, and came back to repair the omission."
+
+"We shall say," replied Fritz, "that, finding there were twelve strong
+arms here to do what my father accomplished fifteen years ago by
+himself--for the assistance of us boys could not then be reckoned--we
+were ashamed of ourselves, and had returned to Rockhouse to make
+ourselves useful in repairing the damage to the gallery caused by the
+tempest."
+
+"Well, that excuse has, at least, the merit of being reasonable; and
+let it be so. Fritz and Frank will return to Rockhouse; Ernest and
+myself will continue the work in hand, and receive the friend or enemy
+which God has sent us, should he return to resume his quarters; Willis
+and Jack will investigate the neighborhood."
+
+"By land or water, Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"By land, Master Jack, for this cruise. I shall abandon the helm to
+you, for I know nothing of the shoals here-abouts."
+
+"If," continued Becker, "though highly improbable, any thing important
+should have happened, or should happen at Rockhouse, you will fire a
+cannon, and we will be with you immediately. Willis and Jack will
+discharge a rifle if threatened with danger; and we shall do the same
+on our side, if we require assistance."
+
+"It is a pity," remarked Jack, "that we had not two or three
+four-pounders amongst the provisions."
+
+"I scarcely regard this matter as altogether a subject for joking,"
+continued Becker, "and sincerely hope that all our precautions may
+prove useless. Take each of you a rifle and proceed with caution;
+above all, do not go far apart from each other; do not fire without
+taking good aim, and only in case of self-defence or absolute
+necessity; for this time it does not appear to be a question of bears
+and hyenas, but, as far as we are able to judge, one of our own
+species."
+
+Two of the squadrons then hauled off in different directions,
+carefully examining the ground as they went, beating up the thickets,
+and endeavoring to obtain some further trace of the stranger, in order
+to confirm those at Falcon's Nest.
+
+The squadron of observation, in the meanwhile set diligently to work.
+A tree having been selected at about fifteen paces from that already
+existing, it was necessary, as on the former occasion, to discharge an
+arrow carrying the end of a line, and in such a way that the cord
+might fall across some of the strongest branches; this done, the
+bamboo ladder was drawn up from the opposite side and held fast until
+Ernest had ascended and fastened it with nails to the top of the tree.
+
+Ernest then commenced lopping off the branches to the right and left,
+so as to form a space in the centre for their contemplated dwelling;
+whilst Becker himself below was making an entrance into the trunk,
+taking care to avoid an accident that formerly happened, by assuring
+himself that a colony of bees had not already taken possession of the
+ground. The gigantic fig-trees at Falcon's Nest being for the most
+part hollow, and supported in a great measure by the bark--like the
+willows in Europe when they reach a certain stage of their growth--it
+was easy to erect a staircase in the interior; still this was a work
+of time, and Becker had resolved in the meantime to give up the
+habitation already constructed to Wolston and his family, at least
+until such time as an entrance was attached to the new one that did
+not require any extraordinary amount of gymnastics.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A portion of the day had been occupied in these operations, when
+Willis and Jack returned to the camp.
+
+"We have seen no one," said the Pilot.
+
+"But," said Jack, "we are on the track of Fritz's knife."
+
+"Be good enough to explain yourself."
+
+"Well, father, at the entrance to the cocoa-nut tree wood we stumbled
+upon two sugar canes completely divested of their juice."
+
+"Which proves--" said Ernest; but his remark was cut short by Jack,
+who continued--
+
+"Not a bit of it; a philosopher would have passed these two worthless
+sugar canes just as a place-hunter passes an overthrown minister, that
+is, as unworthy of notice."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"Well, I, the headless, the thoughtless, the stupid--for these are the
+epithets I am usually favored with--I took them up, scrutinized them
+carefully, and discovered--"
+
+"That they were sugar canes."
+
+"In the first instance, yes."
+
+"Very clever, that!"
+
+"And then that they had not been torn up--_they had been cut_."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, most wise and learned brother, that is all; and I leave you to
+draw the inferences."
+
+"I may add," observed the sailor, "that, as we were steering for the
+plantation, myself on the starboard and Jack on the larboard--"
+
+"On the what?"
+
+"Master Jack on the left and myself on the right."
+
+"That I pitched right over these canes without ever noticing them."
+
+"Which is not much to be wondered at; Willis has been so long at sea
+that he has no confidence in the solidity of the land; during our
+cruise, he kept a look-out after the wind, expecting, I suppose, that
+it would perform some of the wonderful things you spoke of this
+morning."
+
+"After all," observed Becker, "this is another link in the chain of
+evidence, and I congratulate Jack on his sagacity in tracing it."
+
+"But the affair is as much a mystery as ever."
+
+"True; and the solution may probably be awaiting us at Rockhouse."
+
+The united squadrons then started on their homeward voyage, Jack
+thrusting his nose into every bush, and carefully scanning all the
+stray objects that seemed to be out of their normal position.
+
+"If these plants and bushes had tongues," said Jack, "they could
+probably give us the information we require."
+
+"Do you think," inquired Ernest, "that plants and bushes are utterly
+without sensation?"
+
+"Faith, I can't say," replied Jack; "perhaps they can speak if they
+liked--probably they have an idiom of their own. You, that know all
+languages, and a great many more besides, possibly can converse with
+them."
+
+"I should like to know," said Becker, "why you two gentlemen are
+always snarling at each other; it is neither amusing nor amiable."
+
+"Ernest is continually showing me up, father, and it is but fair that
+I should be allowed to retort now and then. But to return to plants,
+Ernest; you say they have nerves?"
+
+"If they have," said Willis, "they do not seem to possess the bottle
+of salts that most nervous ladies usually have."
+
+"No," replied Ernest, "they have no nerves, properly so called; but
+there are plants, and I may add many plants, which, by their
+qualities--I may almost say by their intelligence--seem to be placed
+much higher in the scale of creation than they really are. The
+sensitive plant, for example, shrinks when it is touched; tulips open
+their petals when the weather is fine, and shut them again at sunset
+or when it rains; wild barley, when placed on a table, often moves by
+itself, especially when it has been first warmed by the hand; the
+heliotrope always turns the face of its flowers to the sun."
+
+"A still more singular instance of this kind was recently discovered
+in Carolina," remarked Becker; "it is called the _fly-trap_. Its round
+leaves secrete a sugary fluid, and are covered with a number of ridges
+which are extremely irritable: whenever a fly touches the surface the
+leaf immediately folds inwards, contracts, and continues this process
+till its victim is either pierced with its spines or stifled by the
+pressure."
+
+"It is probably a Corsican plant," observed Jack, "whose ancestors
+have had a misunderstanding with the brotherhood of flies, and have
+left the _Vendetta_ as a legacy to their descendants."
+
+"There is nothing in Nature," continued Ernest, "so obstinate as a
+plant. Let us take one, for example, at its birth, that is, to-day, at
+the age when animals modify or acquire their instincts, and you will
+find that your own will must yield to that of the plant."
+
+"If you mean to say that the plant will refuse to play on the flute or
+learn to dance, were I to wish it to do so, I am entirely of your
+opinion."
+
+"No, but suppose you were to plant it upside down, with the plantule
+above and the radicle below; do you think it would grow that way?"
+
+"Plantule and radicle are ambitious words, my dear brother; recollect
+that you are speaking to simple mortals."
+
+"Well, I mean root uppermost."
+
+"Right; I prefer that, don't you, Willis?"
+
+"Yes, Master Jack."
+
+"At first the radicle or root would begin by growing upwards, and the
+plantule or germ would descend."
+
+"That is quite in accordance with my revolutionary idiosyncracies."
+
+"You accused me just now of using ambitious words."
+
+"Well, I understand a revolution to mean, placing those above who
+should be below."
+
+"Nature then," continued Ernest, "very soon begins to assert her
+rights; the bud gradually twists itself round and ascends, whilst the
+root obeys a similar impulse and descends--is not this a proof of
+discernment?"
+
+"I see nothing more in it than a proof of the wonderful mechanism God
+has allotted to the plant, and is analogous to the movements of a
+watch, the hands of which point out the hours, minutes, and seconds of
+time, and are yet not endowed with intelligence."
+
+"Very good, Jack," said Becker.
+
+"Suppose," continued Ernest, "that the ground in the neighborhood of
+your plant was of two very opposite qualities, that on the right, for
+example, damp, rich, and spongy; that on the left, dry, poor, and
+rocky; you would find that the roots, after growing for a time up or
+down, as the case might be, will very soon change their route, and
+take their course towards the rich and humid soil."
+
+"And quite right too," said Willis; "they prefer to go where they will
+be best fed."
+
+"If, then, these roots stretched out to points where they would
+withdraw the nourishment from other plants in the neighborhood--how
+could you prevent it?"
+
+"By digging a ditch between them and the plants they threaten to
+impoverish."
+
+"And do you suppose that would be sufficient?"
+
+"Yes, unless the plant you refer to was an engineer."
+
+"Therein lies the difficulty. Plants are engineers; they would send
+their roots along the bottom of the ditch, or they would creep under
+it--at all events, the roots would find their way to the coveted soil
+in spite of you; if you dug a mine, they would countermine it, and
+obtain supplies from the opposite territory, and revenge themselves
+there for the scurvy treatment to which they had been subjected. What
+could you do then?"
+
+"In that case, I should admit myself defeated."
+
+"If," continued Ernest, "we present a sponge saturated with water to
+the naked roots of a plant, they will slowly, but steadily, direct
+themselves towards it; and, turn the sponge whichever way you will,
+they will take the same direction."
+
+"It has been concluded," remarked Becker, "from these incontestable
+facts, that plants are not devoid of sensibility; and, in fact, when
+we behold them lying down at sunset as if dead, and come to life again
+next morning, we are forced to recognise a degree of irritability in
+the vegetable organs which very closely resemble those of the animal
+economy."
+
+"In future," said Jack, "I shall take care not to tread upon a weed,
+lost, being hurt, it should scream."
+
+"On the other hand, they have not been found to possess any other sign
+of this supposed sensibility. All their other functions seem perfectly
+mechanical."
+
+"Ah then, father," exclaimed Jack, "you are a believer in my system!"
+
+"We make them grow and destroy them, without observing anything
+analogous to the sensation we feel in rearing, wounding, or killing an
+animal."
+
+"But the fly-trap, father, what of that?"
+
+"It is no exception. The fly-trap seizes any small body that touches
+it, as well as an insect, and with the same tenacity; hence, we may
+readily conclude that these actions, so apparently spontaneous, are in
+reality nothing more than remarkable developments of the laws of
+irritability peculiar to plants."
+
+"It does not, then, spring from a family feud, as Jack supposed?"
+remarked Willis.
+
+"Besides," continued Becker, "if plants really existed, possessing
+what is understood by the term sensation, they would be animals."
+
+"For a like reason, animals without sensation would be plants."
+
+"Evidently. Moreover, the transition from vegetable to animal life is
+almost imperceptible, so much so, that polypi, such as corals and
+sponges, were for a long time supposed to be marine plants."
+
+"And what are they?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Insects that live in communities that form a multitude of contiguous
+cells; some of these are begun at the bottom of the sea and
+accumulated perpendicularly, one layer being continually deposited
+over another till the surface is reached."
+
+"Then the coral reefs, that render navigation so perilous in unknown
+seas, are the work of insects?"
+
+"Exactly so, Willis."
+
+"Might they not as well consist of multitudes of insects piled heaps
+upon heaps?"
+
+"It is in a great measure as you say, Willis."
+
+"Not I--I do not say it--quite the contrary."
+
+"Well, Willis, you are at liberty to believe it or not, as you think
+proper."
+
+"I hope so; we shall, therefore, put the polypi with Ernest's stars
+and Jack's admirals."
+
+"So be it, Willis; but to resume the subject. There is a remarkable
+analogy in many respects between the lower orders of animals and
+plants, the bulb is to the latter what the egg is to the former. The
+germ does not pierce the bulb till it attains a certain organization,
+and it remains attached by fibres to the parent substance, from which,
+for a time, it receives nourishment."
+
+"Not unlike the young of animals," remarked Willis.
+
+"When the germ has shot out roots and a leaf or two, it then, but not
+till then, relinquishes the parent bulb. The plant then grows by an
+extension and multiplication of its parts, and this extension is
+accompanied by an increasing induration of the fibres. The same
+phenomena are observed as regards animals."
+
+"Curious!" said Willis.
+
+"Animals, however, are sometimes oviparous."
+
+"Oviparous?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, that is, they lay eggs; others are viviparous, producing their
+young alive. A few are multiplied like plants by cuttings, as in the
+case of the polypi."
+
+"Bother the polypi," said Willis, laughing, "since we have to thank
+them for destroying some of his Majesty's ships."
+
+"Then again," continued Becker, "both plants and animals are subject
+to disease, decay, and death."
+
+"But, father, if the analogies are remarkable, the differences are not
+less marked."
+
+"Well, Ernest, I shall leave you to point them out."
+
+"Without reckoning the faculty of feeling, that cannot be denied to
+the one nor granted to the other, the most striking of these
+distinctions consists in the circumstance that animals can change
+place, whilst this faculty is absolutely refused to plants."
+
+"If we except those," remarked Jack, "that insist upon travelling to
+the succulent parts of the earth, and are as indefatigable in digging
+tunnels as the renowned Brunel."
+
+"Then plants are obliged to accept the nourishment that their fixed
+position furnishes to them; whilst animals, on the contrary, by means
+of their external organs, can range far and near in search of the
+aliments most congenial to their appetites."
+
+"Which is often very capricious," remarked Willis.
+
+"Then, considered with regard to magnitude, the two kingdoms present
+remarkable distinctions; the interval between a whale and a mite is
+greater than between the moss and the oak."
+
+"Ho!" cried Jack, "there is Miss Sophia coming to meet us, Willis."
+
+"Perhaps they have news at the grotto."
+
+"Well," inquired the child, "have you seen them?"
+
+"Good," thought Becker, "our chatterers have not been able to hold
+their tongues; I am surprised at that as regards Frank."
+
+"We expected to have found them at Rockhouse."
+
+"To have found whom?"
+
+"The sailors from the wreck."
+
+"What wreck?"
+
+"The _Nelson_."
+
+"I sincerely hope that the _Nelson_ has not been wrecked."
+
+"In that case, whom do you refer to yourself, Miss Sophia?"
+
+"To your go-cart and my doll, Master Jack."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HABITANT OF THE MOON, ANTHROPOPHAGIAN OR HOBGOBLIN?--THE LACEDEMONIAN
+STEW OF MADAME DACIER--UTILE DULCI--TETE-A-TETE BETWEEN WILLIS AND HIS
+PIPE--TOBACCO VERSUS BIRCH--IS IT FOR EATING?--MOSQUITOES--THE
+ALARM--TOBY--THE NOCTURNAL EXPEDITION--WE'VE GOT HIM.
+
+
+Some days passed without anything having occurred to ruffle the
+tranquil existence of the island families. Every morning the _�lite_
+of the sea and land forces continued to divide themselves into three
+squadrons of observation; one of which remained at Rockhouse on some
+pretext or other, whilst the other two were occupied in exploring the
+country, or in carrying on the works at Falcon's Nest.
+
+The mysterious stranger, whether shipwrecked seaman, savage, or
+hobgoblin, who kept all the bearded inhabitants of Rockhouse on the
+alert, had reappeared in his old quarters, where another litter of
+leaves had been miraculously strewn exactly in the same place the
+former had occupied.
+
+Beyond this, however, and sundry gashes here and there--of which
+Fritz's knife was clearly guilty, but which could not have been
+perpetrated without an accomplice--nothing had transpired to enable
+them to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to who or what this
+personage could be.
+
+Though the hypothesis was highly improbable, still Willis persisted in
+his theory of the shipwreck; he only doubted whether the individual on
+shore was a marine or the cabin-boy, an officer or a foremast man,
+and, if the latter, whether it was Bill, Tom, Bob, or Ned.
+
+Ernest rather inclined to think that the invisible stranger was an
+inhabitant of the moon, who, in consequence of a false step, had
+tumbled from his own to our planet.
+
+The warlike Fritz was impatient and irritated. He would over and over
+again have preferred an immediate solution of the affair, even were it
+bathed in blood, rather than be kept any longer in suspense.
+
+Frank, on the contrary, took a metaphysical view of the case; and,
+believing that Providence had not entirely dispensed with miracles in
+dealing with the things of this world, came to the conclusion that it
+was no earthly visitor they had to deal with; and he even went so far
+as to hint that prayer was a more efficacious means of solving the
+mystery than the methods his brothers were pursuing.
+
+Jack, coinciding in some degree with Ernest, shifted his view from an
+ape to an anthropophagian, and blamed the latter for not coming
+earlier; when he and his brothers were younger, and consequently more
+tender, they would have made a better meal, and been more easily
+digested.
+
+As to what opinion Becker himself entertained, with regard to the
+occurrence at Falcon's Nest that kept his sons in a feverish state of
+anxiety, and had awakened all the fears of the Pilot for the safety of
+his friends on board the _Nelson_, nothing could be clearly
+ascertained; in so far as this matter was concerned he kept his own
+counsel; and, to use an expression of Madame de Sevign�, "had thrown
+his tongue to the dogs."
+
+The close of the day had, as usual, collected all the members of the
+family round the domestic hearth; and it may be stated here that Mrs.
+Wolston, Mary, and Mrs. Becker alternately undertook the preparations
+of the viands for the diurnal consumption of the community. By this
+means, uniformity, that palls the appetite, was entirely banished from
+their dishes. One day they would have the cooked, or rather
+half-cooked, British joints of Mrs. Wolston and her daughter, varied
+occasionally, to the great delight of Willis, with a tureen of
+hotch-potch or cocky-leekie. The next there would be a display of the
+cosmopolite and somewhat picturesque cookery of Mrs. Becker; there was
+her famous peccary pie, with ravansara sauce, followed by her
+delicious preserved mango and seaweed jelly. Nor did she hesitate to
+draw upon the raw material of the colony now and then for a new hash
+or soup, taking care, however, to keep in view the maxim that
+prudence is the mother of safety--an adage that was rather roughly
+handled by the renowned French linguist, Madame Dacier, who, on one
+occasion nearly poisoned her husband with a Lacedemonian stew, the
+receipt for which she had found in Xenophon.
+
+Luckily Becker's wife did not know Greek, consequently he ran no risk
+of being entertained with a classic dinner; but he was often reminded
+by his thoughtful partner of Meg Dod's celebrated receipt: before you
+cook your hare, first--catch it.
+
+Sophia desired earnestly to have a share in the culinary government;
+but having shown on her first trial, too decided a leaning towards
+puddings and pancakes, her second essay was put off till she became
+more thoroughly penetrated with the value of the eternal precept
+_utile dulci_, which signifies that, before dessert it is requisite to
+have something substantial.
+
+As soon as they had finished their afternoon meal, Willis departed on
+one of his customary mysterious excursions; and Jack, who, like the
+birds that no sooner hop upon one branch than they leap upon another,
+had also disappeared. It was not long, however, before he made his
+appearance again; he came running in almost out of breath, and cried
+at the top of his voice,
+
+"I have discovered him!"
+
+"Whom?" exclaimed half a dozen voices.
+
+"The inhabitant of the moon?" inquired Ernest.
+
+"No."
+
+"I know," said Sophia playfully, "your go-cart and my doll."
+
+"No, I have discovered Willis' secret."
+
+"If you have been watching him, it is very wrong."
+
+"No, father; seeing some thin columns of smoke rising out of a
+thicket, I thought a bush was on fire; but on going nearer, I saw that
+it was only a tobacco-pipe."
+
+"Was the pipe alone, brother?"
+
+"No, not exactly, it was in Willis' mouth; and there he sat, so
+completely immersed in ideas and smoke, that he neither heard nor saw
+me."
+
+"That he does not smoke here," remarked Becker, "I can easily
+understand; but why conceal it?"
+
+"Ah," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you do not know Willis yet;--beneath that
+rough exterior there are feelings that would grace a coronet: he is,
+no doubt, afraid of leading your sons into the habit."
+
+"That is very thoughtful and considerate on his part."
+
+"He was always smoking on board ship, and it must have been a great
+sacrifice for him to leave it off to the extent he has done lately."
+
+"Then we shall not allow him to punish himself any longer; and as for
+the danger of contagion from his smoking here, that evil may perhaps
+be avoided."
+
+"Do not be afraid, father; it will not be necessary to establish
+either a quarantine or a lazaretto on our account."
+
+"Besides, any of the boys," said Mrs. Becker, "that acquire the habit,
+will, by so doing, voluntarily banish themselves from my levees."
+
+"It is an extraordinary habit that, smoking," observed Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Yes," said Becker; "and what makes the habit more singular is, that
+it holds out no allurements to seduce its votaries. Generally, the
+path to vice, or to a bad habit, is strewn with roses that hide their
+thorns, but such is not the case with smoking; in order to acquire
+this habit, a variety of disagreeable difficulties have to be
+overcome, and a considerable amount of disgust and sickness must be
+borne before the stomach is tutored to withstand the nauseous fumes."
+
+"In point of fact," observed Wolston, "if, instead of being made part
+and parcel of the appliances of a fashionable man, cigars and
+meershaums were classed in the pharmacopoeia with emetics and
+cataplasms, there is not a human being but would bemoan his fate if
+compelled to undergo a dose."
+
+"Just so," added Becker; "the great and sole attraction of tobacco to
+young people consists in its being to them a forbidden thing; the
+apple of Eve is of all time--it hangs from every tree, and takes
+myriads of shapes. If I had the honor of being principal of a college
+I should no more think of forbidding the pupils to use tobacco than I
+should think of commanding them not to use the birch for purposes of
+self-chastisement."
+
+"Perhaps you would be quite right."
+
+"Instead of lecturing them on the pernicious effects of tobacco, I
+should hang up a pipe of punishment in the class-room, and oblige
+offending pupils to inhale a fixed number of whiffs proportionate to
+the gravity of their delinquency."
+
+"An excellent idea," observed Wolston; "for it is often only necessary
+to show some things in a different light in order to give them a new
+aspect and value. This puts me in mind of an illustration in point;
+these two girls, when children, were the parties concerned, and I will
+relate the circumstance to you."
+
+"In that case," said Mary, "I shall go and feed the fowls."
+
+"And I," said Sophia, "must go and water the flowers."
+
+"Oh, then," cried Jack laughing, "it is another doll story, is it?"
+
+"No, Master Jack, it is not a doll story; and, besides, we girls were
+no bigger at the time than that."
+
+On saying this Sophia placed her two hands about a foot and a half
+from the floor and then the two girls vanished.
+
+"When Mary was about six years old," began Wolston, "a slight rash
+threatened to develope itself, and the doctor ordered a small blister
+to be applied to one of her arms. Now, there was likely to be some
+difficulty about getting her to submit quietly to this operation, so,
+after an instant's reflection, I called both her and her sister, and
+told them that the most diligent of the two should have a vesicatory
+put on her arm at night. 'Oh,' cried both the girls quite delighted,
+'it will be me, papa, I shall be so good. Mamma, mamma--such a
+treat--papa has promised us a vesicatory for to-night!'"
+
+"That was simplicity itself," said Mrs. Becker, laughing till the
+tears came into her eyes.
+
+"The day passed, the one endeavoring to excel the other in the
+quantity of leaves they turned over; and, from time to time, I heard
+the one asking the other in a low voice, 'Have you ever seen a
+vesicatory? What is it made of? Is it for eating? And each in turn
+regarded her arms, to judge in advance the effect of the marvellous
+ornament."
+
+"I should like much to have seen them."
+
+"Night came, and I declared gravely that the eldest was fairly
+entitled to the prize. The latter jumped about with joy, and Sophia
+began to cry. 'Don't cry,' said Mary, 'if you are good, papa will,
+perhaps, give you one to-morrow, too,' Then the joyful patient,
+turning to me, said, 'On which arm, papa?' and I told her that the
+ceremony of placing it on must take place when she was in bed. To bed
+accordingly she went, the ornament was applied, she looked at it, was
+pleased with it, thanked me for it, and fell asleep as happy as a
+queen. But, alas! like that of many queens, the felicity did not last
+long; before morning, I heard her saying to her sister, in a doleful
+tone, 'Soffy, will you have my vesicatory?' 'Oh, yes, just lend it to
+me for a tiny moment.' At this I hurried to the spot, and, as you may
+readily suppose, opposed the transfer."
+
+"Poor Sophia!"
+
+"Yes; she was quite heart-broken, and said, sobbing, 'It is always
+Mary that gets everything, nobody ever gives anything to me.'"
+
+Next day, Willis laid hold of his sou'-wester, and was starting off on
+his customary pilgrimage, when Becker stopped him.
+
+"Willis," said he, "have you any objections to state what the
+engagements are, that require you to leave us at pretty much the same
+hour every day?"
+
+"I merely go for a walk, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You see I require to take a turn just after dinner for the sake of my
+health."
+
+"A habit that you contracted on board ship; eh, Willis?"
+
+"On board ship; yes Mr. Becker, that is to say--"
+
+"Just so," observed Mrs. Wolston; "and by the way, Willis, I regret
+that you do not smoke now; they say there is plenty of tobacco on the
+island."
+
+"Smoke!" cried Willis, raising his ears like a war-horse at the sound
+of the trumpet, "why so, Mrs. Wolston?"
+
+"Because we are dreadfully tormented with those horrid mosquitoes, and
+you might help us to get rid of them. You smoked at sea, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, madam; but then my constitution--"
+
+"Bah!" said Wolston, "I thought you were as strong as a horse,
+Willis."
+
+"Well, I have no cause to complain neither; but then they say tobacco
+would kill even a horse."
+
+"Of course, Willis, your health is a most necessary consideration."
+
+"Still for all that, if the mosquitoes really do annoy Mrs. Wolston, I
+should have no objection to take a whiff now and then."
+
+"You must not put yourself about though, on our account, Willis."
+
+"About; no, it would not put me about."
+
+"Very good; then it only remains to be seen whether there is a pipe in
+the colony."
+
+"Ah," said Willis, feeling his pockets, "yes, exactly--here is one."
+
+"Curious how things do turn up, isn't it, Willis?" said Becker; "but
+the mosquitoes would not be frightened away by the smoke, if applied
+at long intervals, so you will have to repeat the dose at least two or
+three times every day, always supposing it does not affect your
+constitution."
+
+"Sailors, you see," replied Willis, "are like chimneys, they always
+smoke when you want them, and sometimes a great deal more than you
+want them," And on turning round, he beheld Sophia holding a light,
+and a good-sized case of Maryland, which had been preserved from the
+wreck.
+
+Ever after that time the mosquitoes had a most persevering enemy in
+Willis; and, notwithstanding his health, his daily walks entirely
+ceased.
+
+For some time the Pilot and the four young men passed the night in a
+tent erected about midway between Rockhouse and the Jackal River. The
+apparent reason for this modification of their plans was the greater
+facility it afforded for their all meeting at daybreak, breakfasting
+together, and setting out for Falcon's Nest before the temperature
+reached ninety degrees in the shade, which junction could not be so
+easily effected with one party encamped at Rockhouse and the other
+bivouacked on Shark's Island, with an arm of the sea between them.
+
+The real motive, however, was that all might be within hail of each
+other, and prepared for every emergency, in the event of the stranger
+appearing in a more palpable shape, and assuming a hostile attitude.
+We say the stranger, because, judging from the indications, there was
+only one--still that did not prove that there might not be several.
+
+One night, as Fritz was lying with one eye open, he observed Mary's
+little black terrier suddenly prick up the fragments of its ears, and
+begin sniffing at the edge of the tent. This shaggy little cur was
+called Toby; it had accompanied the Wolstons on their voyage, and was
+Mary's exclusive property; but Fritz had found the way to the animal's
+heart as usual through its stomach, and Mary was in no way jealous of
+his attentions to her favorite, but rather the reverse.
+
+Fritz, feeling convinced by the actions of the dog, which was of the
+true Scotch breed, that something extraordinary was passing outside
+the tent, seized his rifle, hastened out, and was just in time to
+distinguish a human figure on the opposite bank of the Jackal River,
+which, on seeing him, took to its heels and disappeared in the forest.
+
+He was soon joined by the Pilot and his brothers; the dogs leaped
+about them, and the alarm became general throughout the encampment.
+Fritz re-established order, enjoined silence, and said,
+
+"I am determined this time to follow the affair up; who will accompany
+me?"
+
+"I will!" said all the four voices at once.
+
+"Scouting parties ought not to be numerous," said Fritz; "I will,
+therefore, take Willis, in case this mystification has anything to do
+with the _Nelson_."
+
+"And me," said Jack, "to serve as a dessert, in case the individual
+should turn out to be an anthropophagian."
+
+"Be it so; but no more. Frank and Ernest will remain to tranquilize
+our parents, in case we should not return before they are up."
+
+"And if so, what shall we say?"
+
+"Tell them the truth. We shall proceed direct to Falcon's Nest; and if
+the stranger--confiding in our habit of sleeping during the night--be
+there as usual, we shall do ourselves the honor of helping him to get
+up."
+
+"Providing he does not nightly change his quarters like Oliver
+Cromwell--not so much to avoid enemies, as to calm his uneasy
+conscience."
+
+"Well, we shall be no worse than before; we shall have tried to
+restore our wonted quietude, and, if we fail, we can say, like Francis
+I. at Pavia, '_All is lost except our honor_.'"
+
+Some minutes after this conversation, three shadows might have been
+seen stealing through the glades in the direction of Falcon's Nest.
+Nothing was to be heard but the rustling of the leaves--the deafened
+beating of the sea upon the rocks--and, to use the words of Lamartine,
+"those unknown tongues that night and the wind whisper in the air."
+The trees were mirrored in the rays of the moon, and the ground, at
+intervals, seemed strewn with monstrous giants; their hearts beat, not
+with fear, but with that feverish impatience that anticipates decisive
+results.
+
+When they arrived at the foot of the tree on which the aerial dwelling
+was situated, Fritz opened the door, and resolutely, but stealthily,
+ascended.
+
+Willis and Jack followed him with military precision.
+
+They reached the top of the staircase, and held the latch of the door
+that opened into the apartment.
+
+A train of mice, in the strictest incognito, could not have performed
+these operations with a greater amount of secretiveness. On opening
+the door they stood and listened.
+
+Not a sound. Jack fired off a pistol, and the fraudulent occupier of
+the room instantly started up on his feet. Fritz rushed forward, and
+clasped him tightly round the body.
+
+"Ho, ho, comrade," said he, "this time you do not get off so easily!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CHIMPANZEE--IMPERFECT NEGRO, OR PERFECT APE--THE HARMONIES OF
+NATURE--A HANDFUL OF PAWS--A STONE SKIN--SEVENTEEN THOUSAND SPECTACLES
+ON ONE NOSE--ANIMALCUL�--PELION ON OSSA--PTOLEMY--COPERNICUS TO
+GALILEO--METAPHYSICS AND COSMOGONIES--ISAIAH--A LIVE TIGER.
+
+
+"The chimpanz� or chimpanzee," says Buffon, the French naturalist, "is
+much more sagacious than the _ourang outang_, with which it has been
+inaccurately confounded; it likewise bears a more marked resemblance
+to the human being; the height is the same, and it has the same
+aspect, members, and strength; it always walks on two feet, with the
+head erect, has no tail, has calves to its legs, hair on its head, a
+beard on its chin, a face that Grimaldi would have envied, hands and
+nails like those of men, whose manners and habits it is susceptible of
+acquiring."
+
+Buffon knew an individual of the species that sat demurely at table,
+taking his place with the other guests; like them he would spread out
+his napkin, and stick one corner of it into his button-hole just as
+they did, and he was exceedingly dexterous in the use of his knife,
+fork, and spoon. Spectators were not a little surprised to see him go
+to a bed made for him, tie up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, place
+it sideways on a pillow, tuck himself carefully in the bed-clothes,
+pretend to be sick, stretch out his pulse to be felt, and affect to
+undergo the process of being bled.
+
+The naturalist adds that he is very easily taught, and may be made a
+useful domestic servant, at least as regards the humbler operations of
+the kitchen; he promptly obeys signs and the voice, whilst other
+species of apes only obey the stick; he will rinse glasses, serve at
+table, turn the spit, grind coffee, or carry water. Add to his virtues
+as a domestic, that he is not much addicted to chattering about the
+family affairs, has no followers, and is very accommodating in the
+matter of wages.
+
+It was neither more nor less than a chimpanzee that Fritz had caught
+in the dark at Falcon's Nest.
+
+"Now then, old fellow," said he, "you will help us to clear up this
+mysterious affair."
+
+The caged stranger made no reply to this observation; Willis and Jack
+then questioned him, the one in English and the other in French.
+
+Still no reply.
+
+He did not submit, however, to be interrogated quietly; on the
+contrary, his struggles to get away were most vigorous, so much so
+that Fritz adopted the precaution of binding him.
+
+"If it had been one of our sailors," said Willis, "he would have
+recognized my voice long ago."
+
+"Who are you?" asked one.
+
+"Where do you come from?" inquired another.
+
+"Do not attempt to escape," said a third.
+
+"We mean you no harm; on the contrary, we are friends, disposed to do
+you good if we can."
+
+"If all his brothers and sisters are as talkative as himself,"
+remarked Jack, "they must be a very amusing sort of people."
+
+"He can walk at all events," said Fritz giving him a smart push.
+
+The chimpanzee fell flat on the floor.
+
+"It appears, sir, that you are determined to have your own way, we
+must therefore wait till daylight."
+
+An hour passed in polyglot expostulations with the stranger on the
+score of his obstinacy, but all to no purpose; to use a popular
+expression, he was as dumb as the Doges. He deigned, however, to empty
+at a single draught a calabash of Malaga that Willis gave him, but
+there his condescension stopped.
+
+The Pilot, who now encountered mosquitoes in all directions, made
+preparations for smoking; the light he struck, however, instead of
+clearing up the mystery, only perplexed them more and more; there lay
+their new companion, stretched on the ground, staring at them with a
+ludicrous grin.
+
+If, on the one hand, it occurred to them this man was an animal, on
+the other the animal was a man, and Buffon did not happen to be there
+at the time to assign him officially a place in the former kingdom.
+
+The next difficulty that presented itself was, how they were to get
+him along; when they broke in the onagra, they ran a prong through his
+ear; in reducing the buffalo to subjection, they did not feel the
+slightest compunction in thrusting a pin through the cartilage of his
+nose; then, in order to give elasticity to the legs of the ostrich,
+they yoked him to two or three other animals, and, willing or
+unwilling, he was compelled ultimately to yield obedience to the lords
+of creation. But whether the creature before them was a lower order of
+negro or a higher order of ape, there was too great a resemblance
+between the captured and the capturers to admit of any of these
+methods of impulsion being adopted. It was, therefore, stretched on a
+plank, like a nabob in his palanquin, that the chimpanzee made his
+first appearance at Rockhouse.
+
+When the cavalcade arrived there, all the family, with the exception
+of Ernest and Frank, were still asleep. The first thing they did was
+to clothe the creature they had captured in a sailor's pantaloons and
+jacket, with which he seemed rather pleased, and the result of this
+operation was, that he began to assume a less ferocious aspect, and
+behave more respectfully towards his captors. All the family had sat
+down to breakfast, when Fritz and Jack, taking him by the hands, led
+him gravely into the gallery. A cord was attached to his legs,
+allowing him to walk, but was so arranged that he could not run.
+
+On his appearance the young girls fled at once; and, more accustomed
+to drawing-rooms than the rude realities of savage life, Mrs.
+Wolston's first impulse was to do the same.
+
+"Goodness gracious!" she cried with an air of alarm, "what horror is
+that?"
+
+"That, madam, is precisely what we have been anxious for the last two
+or three hours to find out," replied Fritz.
+
+"Does the creature speak?"
+
+"Up till now, madam," replied Willis, "he has only opened his mouth to
+swallow my calabash of Malaga; beyond that, he has kept as close as a
+purser's locker."
+
+When the first shock had passed, and the company had regained their
+self-possession, Jack related, with his customary originality, the
+incidents of the nocturnal expedition, of which Fritz was the
+originator, leader, and hero. The ladies then, for the first time,
+were made acquainted with the doubts, fears, perplexities, and
+battues, which, out of gallantry, they had hitherto been kept in
+ignorance of. Becker then, having carefully investigated the creature,
+pronounced it to be (as we already know) a full-grown specimen of a
+kind of ape, called by the Africans "the wild man of the woods," and
+by naturalists the _jocko_ or chimpanzee.
+
+"It is naturally very savage," added Becker; "but this individual
+seems already to have received some degree of education."
+
+As a proof of this, the chimpanzee seated himself amongst them very
+much at his ease; he scanned the faces surrounding him with an air of
+curiosity, and seemed to search for a particular countenance that it
+annoyed him not to find. Some fruit and nuts that were given him put
+him in excellent humor.
+
+"He has, without doubt, been on board some ship, wrecked on the
+coast," said Wolston, "for I recollect having read that his kindred
+are only found in Western Africa and the adjacent islands; do you not
+recognize him, Willis, to belong to the _Nelson_, like the plank of
+the other day?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"So much the better."
+
+"We do not ship such cattle on board his Majesty's ships," added the
+Pilot.
+
+The girls, ashamed of their fear, now came peeping in at the door,
+and, seeing that nobody had been devoured, took refuge by the side of
+their mother.
+
+"Look here, father," said Ernest, feeling the creature's crania,
+after having facetiously begged pardon for the liberty, "its head is
+precisely like our own; that is very humiliating."
+
+"Yes, my son, but his tongue and other organs are also exactly like
+ours, yet he cannot utter a word. His head is of the same form and
+proportion, but he does not for all that possess human intelligence.
+Is this not a very striking proof that mere matter, though perfectly
+organized, neither produces words nor thought; and that it requires a
+special manifestation of the Divine will to call these attributes into
+existence?"
+
+"True; but, father, some writers say that apes have been observed to
+profit by fires lighted in the forest, and have gone and warmed
+themselves when the travellers left."
+
+"That, my son, is instinct, nothing more; the operation of keeping up
+a fire, by throwing a few branches upon it, is exceedingly simple, but
+their instinct has never been known to rise to that amount of
+intelligence."
+
+"You recollect, father, that heathcock we saw some years ago
+displaying his glossy plumage to the dazzled hens; is that not a
+well-marked proof of coquetry? and is not this coquetry an indication
+of something more than mere instinct?"
+
+"You will permit me to believe, my son, at least till the contrary has
+been proved, that these actions to which you refer have nothing at all
+to do with coquetry. Those brilliant colors are designed for a purpose
+other than that which you suppose; they serve as signals to keep the
+community together, or, in other words, they are a common centre round
+which the hens may revolve."
+
+"The transition from apes to heathcocks," remarked Jack, "appears to
+me somewhat abrupt."
+
+"Not so abrupt as you think, Master Jack," said Wolston; "those who
+take the trouble to study Nature, observe an admirable gradation and
+easy progression from a simple to a complex organization. There is no
+race or species that is not connected by a perceptible link with that
+which precedes and that which follows."
+
+"What relation is there, for example," inquired Jack, "between an
+oyster and a horse?"
+
+"No immediate relation certainly, but there are intermediate links by
+which the two are brought together: they may be regarded, however, as
+the opposite extremes of the brotherhood--the two poles in the chain
+of existence. A horse bears even less resemblance to a turnip than to
+an oyster; a relationship may, nevertheless, be traced, step by step,
+between them, dissimilar as they are. There is the polypus, that
+singular product of Nature, which, regarded in one light, performs all
+the functions of animal life, whilst, when regarded in another, it has
+the ordinary attributes of a plant; does this not clearly and
+distinctly mark the transition from the vegetable to the animal
+kingdom? Again, certain species of worms blend the animal with the
+insect tribe, those which are covered with a horny substance unite
+them with the crustaceae. These approach fish on the one hand, and
+reptiles on the other, whilst reptiles in some species become
+moluscs."
+
+"And what is a molusc?" inquired Willis.
+
+"The term _molusc_ is applied by naturalists to creatures which have
+no vertebrae, as for example, the cuttle fish and the oyster."
+
+"I believe _you_, Mr. Wolston; but if I had asked Ernest or Jack, they
+would have told me that it was a commodore or an admiral."
+
+"Reptiles, I was going to say, are connected at one end of the chain
+with moluscs by the slug, and at the other with fish by the eel. From
+flying-fish to birds the transition is by no means abrupt. The
+ostrich, whose legs are like goat's, and runs rather than flies,
+connects birds with quadrupeds; these again return to fish through the
+cetacea."
+
+"Yes, but the interval between such creatures and man is still great."
+
+"True; to connect the two would be a process replete with
+insurmountable difficulties, and only possible to creative power. The
+projecting snout would have to be flattened, and the features of
+humanity imprinted upon it--that head bent upon the ground would have
+to be directed upwards--that narrow breast would have to be flattened
+out--those legs would have to be converted into flexible arms, and
+those horny hoofs into nimble fingers."
+
+"To accomplish which," remarked Frank, "God had only to say, 'Let it
+be so.'"
+
+"Assuredly; and as there is nothing incongruous in Nature, as
+everything is admirably adapted for its purpose, as unity of design is
+perceptible in all things, as every effect proceeds from a cause, and
+becomes a cause in its turn of succeeding effects, so God has willed
+that there should be a chain of resemblance running through all his
+works, and the link that connects man with the animal kingdom--the
+highest type of the mammiferous race, and the nearest approach to
+humanity amongst the brutes--is the creature before you."
+
+As if to illustrate this position, and prove his title to the place
+awarded him, the chimpanzee quietly laid hold of Mr. Wolston's straw
+hat and stuck it on his crispy head.
+
+"He is, perhaps, afraid of catching cold," said Jack, thrusting a mat
+under his feet.
+
+"Compare birds with quadrupeds," continued Mr. Wolston, "and you will
+find analogies at every step. Does the powerful and kingly eagle not
+resemble the noble and generous lion?--the cruel vulture, the
+ferocious tiger?--the kite, buzzard, and crow preying upon carrion,
+hyenas, jackals, and wolves? Are not falcons, hawks, and other birds
+used in the chase, types of foxes and dogs? Is the owl, which prowls
+about only at night, not a type of the cat? The cormorants and herons,
+that live upon fish, are they not the otters and beavers of the air?
+Do not peacocks, turkeys, and the common barn-door fowl bear a
+striking affinity to oxen, cows, sheep, and other ruminating animals?"
+
+During these remarks, Jack's monkey, Knips, had found its way into the
+gallery, and, observing the newcomer, went forward to accost him as if
+an old friend; the latter, however, uttered a menacing cry, and was
+about to seize Knips with evidently no amiable design, but was
+prevented by the cords that bound his legs. Knips leaped upon the back
+of one of the boys, and there, as if on the tower of an impregnable
+fortress, commenced making a series of grimaces at the chimpanzee,
+these being the only missiles within reach that he could launch at his
+relation. The enemy retorted, and kept up a smart fire of like
+ammunition.
+
+"It appears," remarked Mrs Wolston, "that apes are something like men:
+the great and the little do not readily amalgamate."
+
+"We must make them amalgamate," said Jack, taking one of Knips's paws,
+whilst Ernest held that of the chimpanzee; thus they compelled them to
+shake hands, but with what degree of cordiality we are unable to
+state.
+
+"You ought to oblige them now to take an oath of fealty," said Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"Chimpanzee," said Jack, speaking for Knips, "I promise always to
+treat you in future with smiles, delicacies, and respect."
+
+"Knips," replied the wild man of the woods, through the organs of
+Ernest, "I promise to have for you only the most generous intentions;
+to share with you the nuts I may have occasion to crack, that is, by
+giving you the shells and keeping the kernel; I promise, moreover, not
+to immolate you at the altar of my just rage, unless it is impossible
+for me to avoid an outburst of temper."
+
+"Now the embrace of peace."
+
+"Ah, madam," said Jack, "you must excuse that ceremony, their
+friendship is too new for such intimacy, and Knips don't much like
+being bitten."
+
+"Need we other proofs," remarked Becker, when the scene between the
+monkeys was concluded, "that everything has been premeditated,
+weighed, and calculated? It was necessary for that most arid country,
+Arabia, that we should have a sober animal, susceptible of existing a
+long time without water, and capable of treading the hot sands of the
+desert. God has accordingly given us the camel."
+
+"And the dromedary," remarked Ernest.
+
+"So everywhere," continued Becker; "and add to these evidences of
+Divine wisdom the brilliant colors, the silken furs, the golden
+plumage, and the ever-varying forms, yet, in all this diversity,
+there is unison--a harmony. Like the various objects which a clever
+artist introduces into his sketch, they are placed without uniformity,
+but still with reference to their effect upon each other, and so to
+the unity of the general design."
+
+"Therefore," remarked Ernest, "we have an animal whose skin is of
+stone, which it throws off annually to assume a new one--whose flesh
+is its tail and in its feet--whose hair is found inside in its
+breast--whose stomach is in its head, which, like the skin, is renewed
+every year, the first function of the new being to digest the old
+one."
+
+Here the Pilot manifested some symptoms of incredulity.
+
+"That is not all, Willis," continued Ernest, "the animal of which I
+speak carries its eggs in the interior of its body till they are
+hatched, and then transfers them to its tail. It has pebbles in its
+stomach, can throw off its limbs when they incommode it, and replace
+them with others more to its fancy. To finish the portrait, its eyes
+are placed at the tip of long flexible horns."
+
+"Do you really mean me to believe that yarn?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, Willis, unless you intend to deny the existence of lobsters."
+
+"Lobsters! Ah! you are talking of them, are you!"
+
+"Have not," continued Ernest, "six thousand three hundred and
+sixty-two eyes been counted in one beetle? sixteen thousand in a fly?
+and as many as thirty-four thousand six hundred in a butterfly? Of
+course, facets understood."
+
+"Supposing these facets myope or presbyte," observed Jack, "that gives
+seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty-five pairs of spectacles
+on one nose!"
+
+"How wonderfully varied are the forms of Nature. If, from the mastodon
+and the fossil mammoth, to which Buffon attributes five or six times
+the bulk and size of the elephant, we descend to those animalculae, of
+which Leuwenhoek estimates that a thousand millions of them would not
+occupy the place of an ordinary grain of sand."
+
+Here Willis lost all patience and left the gallery, whistling as
+usual, under such circumstances, the "Mariner's March."
+
+"Malesieu has detected animals by the microscope twenty-seven times
+smaller than a mite. A single drop of water under this instrument
+assumes the aspect of a lake, peopled by an infinite multitude of
+living creatures."
+
+"Therefore," observed Wolston, "it is not the great works of Nature,
+or those of which the organization is most perfect, that alone
+presents to the mind of man the unfathomable mysteries of creation;
+atoms become to him problems, that utterly defy the utmost efforts of
+his intelligence."
+
+"Which," suggested Becker, "does not prevent us believing ourselves a
+well of science, nor hinder us from piling Pelion on Ossa to scale the
+skies."
+
+"What becomes, in the presence of these facts, of the metaphysics and
+cosmogonies that have succeeded each other for two thousand years?
+What of all the theories, from Ptolemy to Copernicus, from Copernicus
+to Galileo, Descartes and his zones, Leibnitz and his monads, Wolf and
+his fire forces, Maupertuis and his intelligent elements, Broussais,
+who, in his anatomical lectures, has oftener than once shown to his
+pupils, on the point of his scalpel, the source of thought; what, I
+say, becomes of all these?"
+
+"There is less wisdom in such vain speculation than in these simple
+words: '_I believe in God the Father, the Creator of all things_.'"
+
+"Worlds," says Isaiah, "are, before Him, like the dew-drops on a blade
+of grass."
+
+"We are now, however, getting into the clouds," remarked Wolston; "let
+us return to the earth by the shortest route. What do you mean to do
+with the chimpanzee?"
+
+"Why, we must cage him in some way," replied Becker; "to let him loose
+again would be to create fresh uneasiness for ourselves. To kill him
+would be almost a kind of homicide."
+
+"Can I come in now?" inquired Willis, thrusting his head into the
+gallery.
+
+"Yes, with perfect safety."
+
+"You see, when Master Ernest begins to spin, he gets into the chapter
+of miracles, and forgets that we have ears."
+
+"I cannot help seeing them sometimes though, Willis; when they are a
+little longer than usual, it is difficult to hide them altogether."
+
+"Well," replied Willis, "I confess I am a bit of a fool, and as you
+are at a loss what to do with our friend here, I shall take him over
+with me to Shark's Island: there will be a pair of us there then."
+
+"If you will undertake to be his guide and instructor, he is yours,
+Willis."
+
+"What shall I call him?"
+
+"Jocko."
+
+"It shall go hard with me if I do not make a gentleman of him in a
+month's time."
+
+"I should like," said Frank, "if you could convert him into a tiger."
+
+"A tiger?"
+
+"Yes, we want a footman in livery to fetch Mrs. Wolston's carriage
+next time she calls for it."
+
+"I feel highly flattered by the compliment," said Mrs. Wolston, "but
+fear you will not be able to turn him out entire."
+
+"Why so, madam?"
+
+"Where are the top boots to come from?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PIONEERS--EXCURSION TO COROMANDEL--HINDOO FANCIES--A CAGED
+HUNTER--LOUIS XI. AND CARDINAL BALUE--A FURLONG OF NEWS--CARNAGE--THE
+BARONET AND HIS SEVENTEEN TIGERS--FIFTY-FOUR FEET OF CELEBRITY--STERNE'S
+WINDOW--PROMENADE OF THE CONSCIENCES--EMULATION AND VANITY.
+
+
+When a country is released from the presence of an enemy that annoyed
+and harassed them, the people feel as if a weight had been taken off
+their shoulders; so the inhabitants of New Switzerland had breathed
+more freely since the capture of the chimpanzee.
+
+The works at Falcon's Nest were completed, and the two families had
+taken possession of their aerial dwellings, where they were perched
+like a pair of rookeries within call of each other.
+
+The confined air of towns has a tendency to plunge men into lethargy
+and indolence, and to precipitate the decadence of a constitution in
+which the seeds of disease have been sown; whilst, on the other hand,
+the pure air of the country braces the nerves, excites a healthy
+action in the system, and invigorates a shattered frame; so it was
+with Mr. Wolston--under the benign influences of the genial climate
+and the refreshing sea breeze, he gradually, but steadily, recovered
+health and strength.
+
+A larger breadth of land had been cleared and fitted for receiving
+grain, which it was susceptible of reproducing a hundred-fold. Such is
+the sublime contract God has made with man, that, in exchange for his
+labor and skill, a single grain of wheat will produce seven or eight
+stalks, each bearing an ear containing fifty grains; a single grain
+has been known to yield twenty-eight ears, and Pliny states that Nero
+received a grain bearing the enormous number of three hundred and
+sixty ears. Strange that such a singular instance of fecundity should
+present itself during the domination of a man, or rather monster, who
+dared to wish that the Roman people had only one head, so that he
+might cut it off at a single blow!
+
+Willis and the Wolstons were as yet ignorant of the extent and limits
+of the colony; there were two inclosed and cultivated sections, named
+respectively Waldeck and Prospect Hill, which they had not yet
+inspected. With a view to enable them to form a more accurate
+conception of the boundaries of the territory they inhabited, a grand
+excursion was decided upon that would enable them leisurely to
+investigate every nook and cranny of the settlement.
+
+The storehouse was accordingly overhauled, and the ladies called in to
+prepare viands for the journey; they were likewise invited to furnish
+a supply of certain enchanted travelling bags, in which the gentlemen
+were often astonished to find, during their distant expeditions, a
+thousand and one useful things that they would never have dreamt of
+bringing with them of their own accord.
+
+Becker, Wolston, Ernest, and Frank set about the construction of a
+vehicle on four wheels for the luggage and the ladies; they did not
+contemplate erecting a machine with elastic springs and gilded panels,
+like the Lord Mayor's state coach--their object was to produce a
+machine that would ease, without dislocating, the limbs of the
+travellers, and that would move at least more gently than a gardener's
+cart, loaded with hampers of greens for Covent Garden Market. It may
+readily be supposed that Ernest's Latin was not of much service in
+these operations, for even Wolston's mechanical skill was sorely tried
+in elaborating the design.
+
+Fritz, Willis, and Jack had already started as pioneers of the
+expedition to examine the buildings, and to see that no more apes or
+other piratical marauders had established themselves on their
+premises; and, in compliance with a request made by Willis, who
+strongly objected to becoming a bushranger, they had gone by water. It
+was further arranged that, on their return, all should start
+together--the entire community in one cavalcade, like an army on the
+march.
+
+The young ladies were as much pleased in anticipation with this
+journey as if the destination of the travellers had been Brighton or
+Ramsgate. To children of their age, change is always pleasing. Often,
+in consequence of a death, the collapse of a bank, the loss of a
+law-suit, or some dire disaster of that sort, parents have seen
+themselves compelled to abandon the home of their fathers, endeared to
+them by many gentle recollections, perhaps to embark for some far
+distant land; they stifle their sighs, and bid a mute farewell to each
+stone and each tree, familiar to them as household words; they depart
+with reluctance, and often turn to cast a lingering look behind at
+objects so dear to their memory. Not so the children; they issue from
+the door like a flock of caged pigeons just let loose; they sing and
+leap and laugh with glee; the old house has no charms for them, they
+are as glad to depart as their elders are wishful to stay; the trunk
+desires to multiply its roots on the soil, but the buds prefer to blow
+elsewhere--for the latter life resolves itself into the word FUTURE,
+and for the former into the word PAST.
+
+Leaving Wolston, Becker, and his two sons hard at work on the
+carriage, let us turn to the pinnace which was now making its way
+along the shore under the guidance of the Pilot.
+
+"I should like much," said Fritz, "to present Mr. and Mrs. Wolston
+with a couple of bear, leopard, or tiger skins."
+
+"So should I," said Jack.
+
+"I wish you could think of some other sort of gift," suggested Willis;
+"what do you say to a couple of seal or shark skins?"
+
+"Won't do," replied both Fritz and Jack in one voice. "What objections
+have you to the others?"
+
+"Well, you are in some sort consigned to my care; I should like you to
+return to your parents with your own skins entire."
+
+"Then you think it is a terrific affair to kill a tiger or two? You
+have been accustomed to the sea, and fancy landsmen are good for
+nothing but shooting crows and wild-cats; that is a mistake, however;
+we are familiar with larger game."
+
+"Shiver my timbers! do you call bears and tigers game?"
+
+"I am afraid, Willis, you are a bit of a milksop."
+
+"Avast heaving there, Master Fritz! as it is, I am a half-hanged man
+already, so death has now no terrors Dov me; it is the first pang that
+is most felt."
+
+"Yes; but in the case of tigers, they never give you time to feel a
+second pang; miss your aim, and it is all over with you."
+
+"True; and therefore I wish you would give up the project. As for
+myself, I would face anything with a four-pounder, but rifle practice
+on board ship is mostly confined to the marines; it is not that,
+however, I am troubled about; I am certain your worthy father would
+never forgive me if I countenance this project."
+
+"You need not tell him anything about it."
+
+"Where, then, are the skins to come from? Can you say you bought them
+at the furrier's? You must really hit upon some other fancy."
+
+"But it is not a fancy, Willis, it is a necessity; it is not our own
+amusement we are consulting. Just imagine yourself what will happen
+during the excursion now being arranged. Our parents will, of course,
+offer their bear skins to Mr. and Mrs. Wolston; there will be refusals
+on the one side and entreaties on the other."
+
+"And, as is usual in these sort of discussions," added Jack, "Mrs.
+Wolston will call her carriage."
+
+"Yes," continued Fritz, "and my mother will most certainly deprive
+herself of a covering that is absolutely indispensable during the cold
+nights of this climate."
+
+"There is reason in what you say," observed Willis, scratching his
+ear.
+
+"You see, Willis, the thing ought and must be done."
+
+"As you put it, yes; but it will take time to prepare the skins."
+
+"They will not be ready in time for this expedition certainly, and my
+mother must do without her skin this journey; but it is our duty to
+prevent anything of the sort happening in future."
+
+"Were I to consent to this project," said Willis, "there is still
+something more required."
+
+"What, Willis?"
+
+"Why, the tigers and what's-a-names; it is necessary to find the brute
+before you can get its skin."
+
+"Granted; there would be a difficulty in the case had we not here
+quite handy a magnificent covering of wild animals, all ready to kill
+or to be killed. Just steer a point to the east, Willis; there, that
+will do. Just beyond that bluff you see yonder, there is a low flat
+plain covered with brushwood and tufted with trees; on the left, this
+prairie is bounded by a chain of low hills, and on the right a broad
+river, which last we have named the St. John, because it bears some
+resemblance to a stream of that name in Florida; beyond this plain
+there is a swamp."
+
+"And," added Jack, "behind this swamp there is a magnificent forest of
+cedars, peopled with the finest furs imaginable, but garnished,
+however, with formidable claws and rows of teeth."
+
+"I was not aware," said Willis, "that we were within reach of such
+amiable neighbors."
+
+"Oh, they cannot reach us; thanks to the conformation of that chain of
+hills you see yonder, there is only one pass that opens into our
+settlement, and that we have taken care to shut up and fortify."
+
+"It appears then," said Willis, "that there will be no difficulty in
+finding the animals, but--"
+
+"Come, Willis, no more buts; you hunt in your own way from morning
+till night, let us for once hunt in ours."
+
+"I go a-hunting?"
+
+"Yes, there you are, charging your piece just now."
+
+"Oh, my pipe you mean; but look at the difference; mosquitoes bite
+human beings, they don't eat them!"
+
+"And, you may add, their skins don't make bed-clothes. Besides, if my
+mother takes rheumatism or the ague, it will be you that is to blame."
+
+"I would rather face all the tigers in Bengal and all the lions in
+Africa than incur such a responsibility. I will, therefore, take a
+part in your cruise, and if any accident happens to either of you, I
+shall stay in the forest till nothing is left of me but my cap and my
+bones. In this way I will escape all reproach in this world, and I may
+as well, after all, rejoin my old commander, Captain Littlestone, by
+this road as by any other."
+
+In the meantime, they had reached the coast of Waldeck, and having
+landed, they found the outhouses and sheds that had been erected there
+in satisfactory order; the apes had not forgotten a battue that had
+once been got up for their special behoof, as not an individual was to
+be seen in the neighborhood. A morass of the district that had been
+converted into a rice plantation, promised an abundant crop; and the
+cotton plants, that Frank had once mistaken for flakes of snow, reared
+their woolly blossoms, looking for all the world like the powdered
+heads of our ancestors. After a slight repast, the pinnace was once
+more in motion, and the party steering for Prospect Hill.
+
+"Ah," sighed Willis, "I wish we had only Sir Marmaduke Travers' cage
+here."
+
+"Cage!" cried Fritz, laughing, "what, to shut up the game first and
+shoot it afterwards?" "No, quite the reverse: to shut up the hunters."
+
+"Ah, you would serve us in the same way as Louis XI. served Cardinal
+Balue."
+
+"I know nothing of either Louis XI. or Cardinal Balue; but the cage I
+speak of was an excellent invention, for all that."
+
+"Which you would like to prove to us by caging ourselves, eh?"
+
+"Sir Marmaduke Travers," continued Willis, "was an English gentleman,
+and he was travelling in Coromandel, no one knew why or for what
+purpose."
+
+"For the fun of the thing, probably," suggested Jack; the English are
+said to be great oddities."
+
+"At that time there happened to be a Hindoo widow somewhere in those
+parts. This lady was very rich, very young, very beautiful, and very
+fond of tormenting her admirers. And, as fate would have it, the
+travelling Englishman was completely taken captive by this dark
+beauty; and taking advantage of the hold she had obtained upon his
+heart, she amused herself by making him do all sorts of out of the way
+things. Sometimes she would bid him let his moustache grow, then she
+would order him to cut it off; he had to worship Brahma, adopt the
+fashion of the Hindoos, and had even to undergo the indignity of
+having his head tied up in a dirty pocket-handkerchief."
+
+"That is to say," remarked Jack, "that the lady, not having a pug or a
+monkey, made Sir Marmaduke a substitute for both."
+
+"Very likely, but still Sir Marmaduke was no fool; he was, on the
+contrary, a gentleman and a philosopher."
+
+"I doubt that," said Jack.
+
+"You are wrong, then. You have been brought up in an out of the way
+part of the world, and are not familiar with the usages of civilized
+society. When once a man has allowed the tender passion to take root
+in his breast, it cannot afterwards be extinguished at will; it grows
+and grows like an oil spot, so that what might easily have been
+mastered at first, makes us in time its devoted slave."
+
+"I cannot admit," said Fritz, "that any sensible man would allow
+himself to be treated in the way you state."
+
+"The wisest and bravest have often, for all that, been obliged to bend
+their heads to such circumstances; in fact, those only escape whose
+hearts have been steeled by time or adversity. Well, nothing would
+please the lady in one of her caprices short of Sir Marmaduke's going
+alone to the jungle and killing a tiger or two for her. This caused
+him some little uneasiness."
+
+"I should think so," remarked Jack, "unless he had been accustomed to
+face the animals."
+
+"However, the widow's hand was to be the reward of the achievement,
+and the thing must consequently be done. Being, however, as I have
+said, a bit of a philosopher, he considered with himself that if, by
+chance, he should perish in the attempt he would lose the widow all
+the same, and that he could not think of with any thing like
+equanimity. To extricate himself from this dilemma he sent a despatch
+to an enterprising friend of his, then stationed with his regiment at
+Calcutta, requesting his advice."
+
+"And this friend, no doubt, sent him a couple of tigers all ready
+trussed?"
+
+"No, better than that; he sent him a strong iron cage fifteen feet
+square, very solid. This was shipped on board a cutter commanded by
+Captain Littlestone, and I was entrusted with the task of erecting it
+on shore, whilst an express was sent off to Sir Marmaduke."
+
+"Ah!" said Jack, "I begin to understand now."
+
+"Well, he rigged himself in tiger-hunting costume, went and bade the
+lady good-bye, who coolly wished him good sport, mounted a horse, and
+rode off to conquer a lady who, as a proof of her affection, had so
+cavalierly consigned him to the tender mercies of the wild beasts."
+
+"Why, it was dooming him to certain destruction," said Fritz.
+
+"In the meantime the cage had been conveyed to a valley surrounded
+with mountains, the caves of which were known to shelter entire
+colonies of tigers. Here also came Sir Marmaduke. The cage was firmly
+embedded in the soil, the exterior was thickly studded over with sharp
+spikes screwed into the bars; inside were placed a table and a sofa,
+with crimson velvet cushions."
+
+"A lady's boudoir in the wilderness," said Jack.
+
+"In one corner there was a case containing a dozen bottles of pale
+ale, and as many of champagne; in another was a second case containing
+curry pies and a variety of preserved meats; in a third case were five
+and twenty loaded rifles, together with a complete magazine in
+miniature of powder and shot. On the table were sundry cases of
+havannahs, a box of _allumettes_, the last number of the _Edinburgh
+Review_, and a copy of the _Times_."
+
+"What is the _Times_?" inquired Jack.
+
+"It is a furlong of paper, folded up and covered with news,
+advertisements, and letters from the oldest inhabitant of everywhere.
+Leaving, then, Sir Marmaduke seated in the centre of his cage, we
+towards night returned to the cutter, first scattering two or three
+quarters of fresh beef in the vicinity of the cage."
+
+"That should have assembled all the tigers in Coromandel," said
+Fritz.
+
+"Anyhow, it brought enough. Towards midnight Sir Marmaduke could count
+thirty noble brutes capering in the moonlight and feasting upon the
+beef that had been provided for them."
+
+"What did the Englishman do then?"
+
+"He took aim at the most magnificent specimen of the herd and fired.
+No sooner had he done this than the whole pack came scampering towards
+the cage, thinking, doubtless, they had nothing to do but scrunch the
+bones of the solitary hunter. This was the signal for a regular
+slaughter. Sir Marmaduke discharged his rifles point blank in the
+noses of the animals that environed him on all sides; those who were
+not wounded by the balls were severely injured by the spikes of the
+cage in their furious efforts to seize their enemy. The howling,
+yelling, and fury was quite a new sensation for Sir Marmaduke; he
+rather enjoyed the thing whilst the excitement lasted. However, all
+things must have an end; when the sun appeared on the horizon the
+wounded retired, leaving the dead masters of the situation."
+
+"I suppose, in the meantime," remarked Fritz, "that the amiable Hindoo
+was considering whether or not, under the circumstances, she should
+wear mourning for her defunct cavalier."
+
+"Be that as it may, the defunct made his appearance, safe and sound,
+that same day, whilst the cutter stood out to sea with every vestige
+of the cage except the dead tigers. Shortly after, the widow was
+astonished to see an army of coolies marching in procession towards
+her door, all, like the slaves of Aladdin, heavily laden; and she was
+not awakened from her surprise till the master of the ceremonies had
+placed the following letter in her hands:
+
+"Madam,--With this you will receive seventeen fall-grown tigers, which
+I have had the honour of shooting for you.
+
+"Marmaduke Travers."
+
+"That was a choice bijou for a lady," said Jack.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Yes," added Fritz; "and if the ladies of Coromandel have stands in
+their drawing-rooms, to display the tributes to their charms, Sir
+Marmaduke's present afforded abundant material for adorning those of
+the widow."
+
+"Well, the consequence was, that Sir Marmaduke's name rung from one
+end of India to the other. The feat of killing, single-handed,
+seventeen tigers, converted him into a hero of the first magnitude. No
+festival was complete without him, he was courted by the fashionables
+and worshipped by the mob; some enthusiasts even proposed to erect a
+tomb for him, that being the way they honor their great men in eastern
+nations."
+
+"Every country," remarked Fritz, "has its own peculiarities in this
+respect. The memory of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome was
+perpetuated in the intrinsic merit of the works of art erected in
+their names. In England quantity takes the place of quality; there is
+said to be in London a statue of a hero disguised as Achilles, six
+yards in height, and perched upon a pedestal twelve yards high."
+
+"Making in all," remarked Jack, "exactly eighteen yards of fame."
+
+"The handsome Hindoo," continued Willis, "was proud of the feat her
+charms had inspired. She gloried in showing off the redoubtable
+tiger-slayer at her _r�unions_, and ended in being completely
+fascinated herself with her former slave. The match that she had
+formerly sneezed at she now earnestly desired, and, as Sir Marmaduke
+did not declare himself so speedily as she desired, she determined to
+give him a little encouragement by sending one of the most inviting
+and most odoriferous of notes."
+
+"Sir Marmaduke must then have considered himself one of the happiest
+of men," said Fritz.
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "neither man nor woman can, in affairs of
+this kind, depend upon themselves for two consecutive hours. The
+aspirations of a whole life-time may be dispelled in five minutes, and
+the wishes of to-day may become the detestations of to-morrow. The new
+sensations awakened in Sir Marmaduke by the affair of the cage--his
+recollection of the ferocious brutes as they clung with expiring
+energy to the bars of the cage, their streaked skins streaming with
+blood, the fearful howling and terrific death yells, the formidable
+claws that were often within an inch of his face--had, somehow or
+other, chased the passion he had felt for the widow completely out of
+his breast."
+
+"Oh, the scamp of a Travers!" said Jack, energetically.
+
+"He began to ask himself coolly what a lady, who had made such
+extraordinary demands upon him before marriage, might not require him
+to do after; and the result of his cogitations is expressed in the
+following reply that he sent to the now smiling widow:--
+
+"'Sir Marmaduke Travers is highly flattered by the charming note of
+the adorable daughter of Brahma; he shall gladly continue to bask in
+the sunshine of her smiles, out his ambition desires and will accept
+nothing more.'"
+
+"Flowery and laconic," said Fritz.
+
+"Well," inquired Willis, "was I not right in wishing to have the cage
+of Sir Marmaduke here?"
+
+"Yes, but we cannot get it. We have no ingenious trend at Calcutta to
+send us such a machine, and furnish it with crimson-cushioned sofas
+and pale ale, so we shall have to rest satisfied with our own
+ingenuity, tact, and agility."
+
+Fritz and Jack were justified in relying upon their own resources.
+They had been often sorely tried, and never had been found wanting in
+cases of emergency. Since the arrival of the Wolstons their courage
+had become almost temerity; previous to that event, they had been
+content to meet danger bravely when it was inevitable, and never went
+deliberately in search of it. Now, however, if we apply the glass of
+which Sterne speaks to their breasts and spy what is passing therein,
+we shall fad that an imperious desire to become heroes had taken
+possession of their inward souls--a determination to make themselves
+conspicuous at all hazards was burning within them; that, in fact,
+they were courting the admiration of the new audience that Providence
+had sent to the colony, the praise of which found more favor in their
+hearts than the paternal admonitions.
+
+This was far from being commendable; but, although emulation and
+vanity have some features in common, still they must not be
+confounded: the former consists in generous efforts to equal or
+surpass some one in something praiseworthy; the second is a kind of
+self-love, that seeks to purchase respect or flattery at no matter
+what cost;--the one is a vice, the other a virtue.
+
+Fritz and Jack were not actuated by vanity; they were urged on by
+their impulses, without weighing the circumstances that gave them
+rise; and indeed they were not even conscious of being more desirous
+of renown now than they had been hitherto.
+
+The temperament of Ernest and Frank was of another kind. Their natures
+were much less excitable, and it did not appear that the recent
+arrivals had altered their outward demeanor in the slightest degree;
+they continued calm, staid, and reflective, as they had ever been.
+
+All four were a singular mixture of the child and the man--knowing
+many things that young people are ignorant of, they were yet almost
+totally unacquainted with the ordinary attributes of social
+life--unsophisticated and naive to an extreme degree, they would have
+appeared in a fashionable drawing-room downright fools. On the other
+hand, they possessed great clearness of perception, presence of mind
+in danger, promptitude in action, and the utmost coolness in the face
+of apparently insurmountable obstacles--qualities that would have
+utterly confounded the young men who shine in the saloons of Europe,
+whose chief merit often consists in their being familiar with the
+unmeaning conventionalisms of fashionable life.
+
+At Prospect Hill they found the outhouses and plantations in much the
+same position as at Waldeck. Here the crimson flowers of the caper
+plant, the white flowers of the tea plant, and the rich blossoms of
+the clove tree, perfumed the air and promised a fragrant harvest. This
+was a charming caravansary, all ready with its smiles to welcome the
+illustrious colonists as soon as they presented themselves.
+
+These points being settled to the satisfaction of the three pioneers,
+a sheep was taken on board the pinnace at the request of Willis--who
+seemed to have taken a violent fancy for mutton chops--and they set
+sail towards the east.
+
+In the first instance they made for a projecting head-land that seemed
+to bar their progress in that direction, and, much to the astonishment
+of the Pilot, they entered a cavern that formed the entrance to a
+natural tunnel. This, besides being an interesting feature in the
+coast scenery, was one of the treasures of the colony, for it
+contained vast quantities of edible birds' nests, so much prized by
+the Chinese. The voyagers did not, however, tarry here; these were not
+the objects they were now in search of. Nautilus Bay and the Bay of
+Pearls were likewise traversed unheeded, nor could the attractive
+banks of the St. John, fringed with verdant foliage, divert them from
+the project they had in contemplation.
+
+Wise men, when they indulge in folly, are often more foolish than real
+fools; so it was with Willis: now that he had joined in the scheme, he
+evinced more ardor in its execution than the young men themselves. He
+said that it would not be enough to capture skins for Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston, they must also capture one a-piece for Mary and Sophia
+likewise, and talked as if the adventure of Sir Marmaduke and his
+seventeen tigers had been a bagatelle.
+
+Some hours before dark they landed at a spot well known to both Fritz
+and Jack; it was a place where Becker and his sons had some time
+before been engaged in deadly conflict with a herd of lions, and where
+one of their dogs had fallen a victim to the enraged monarchs of the
+forest.
+
+"My plan," said Willis, "is to kill the sheep and place the quarters
+on the shore, just as bait is thrown into the water to bring the fish
+within the net."
+
+"A reminiscence of Sir Marmaduke," said Jack.
+
+"Then," continued Willis, "we shall light a fire to take the place of
+the sun, who is about to retire for the night. This done, I propose
+that we should return to the pinnace, keep the mutton within rifle
+range, and riddle the skins that come to feast upon it."
+
+After some opposition on the part of Fritz and Jack, who preferred to
+encounter their antagonists on more equal terms, the proposal of
+Willis was ultimately agreed to.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ON THE WATCH--FECUNDITY OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS--LATEST NEWS FROM THE
+MOON--A DEATH-KNELL EVERY SECOND--THE INCONVENIENCES OF BEING TOO NEAR
+THE SUN--NARCOTICS--WILLIS CONTRALTO--HUNTING TURNED UPSIDE
+DOWN--ELECTRIC CLOUDS--PARTIALITIES OF LIGHTNING--BELLS AND
+BELL-RINGERS--CONDUCTING RODS--THE RETURN--THE TWO SISTERS--TOBY
+BECOMES A DRAGOMAN.
+
+
+As is usual in tropical climates, a blazing hot day was succeeded by
+an intensely dark night. The fire that the hunters had made on shore
+cast a lurid glare on the prominent objects round about. The flames,
+as they fitfully lit up the landscape into that dim distinctness
+termed by artists the _chiar oscuro_, made the bushes and trunks of
+trees appear like monsters issuing stealthily from the forest that
+lined the background. There seemed to be some attraction, however,
+elsewhere for the real monsters, not a single wild beast having as yet
+appeared on the scene.
+
+The two young men were eagerly straining their eyes from the stern of
+the pinnace, whilst the dogs kept diligently wagging their tails in
+expectation of a signal for the onset. The position of Willis could be
+ascertained now and then by an eye of fire, which opened and shut as
+he inhaled or exhaled the fumes of his Maryland. The ripple beat
+gently on the sea-line of the boat, which oscillated with the
+regularity and softness of a cradle.
+
+"It is always so," said Jack, impatiently; "if we don't want wild
+beasts, there are shoals of them to be seen; but if we do want them,
+then they are all off to their dens."
+
+"Perhaps, there are none now," suggested Willis.
+
+"Say rather," observed Fritz, "that there ought to be thousands; for
+on the one hand they multiply rapidly, and on the other there is no
+one to destroy them. Spaniards once left a few cattle on St. Domingo,
+and they increased at such a rate, that the island very soon would not
+have been able to support them, had they not been kept down by
+constant slaughter."
+
+"Besides," remarked Jack, "the bovine race reproduce themselves more
+slowly than other animals; a single sow, according to a calculation
+made by Vauban, if allowed to live eleven years, would produce six
+millions of pigs."
+
+"What a cargo of legs of pork and sides of bacon!" exclaimed Willis,
+laughing.
+
+"Then fish; there are more than a hundred and sixty thousand eggs in a
+single carp. A sturgeon contains a million four hundred and
+sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty, whilst in some codfish
+the number exceeds nine millions."
+
+"Oh, you need not favor us with the 'Mariner's March,' Willis; what my
+brother says is perfectly correct."
+
+"What, then, do these shoals of creatures live upon?"
+
+"The big ones upon the little ones; fish devour each other."
+
+"A beautiful harmony of Nature," remarked Fritz drily.
+
+"Then plants," continued Jack, "are still more prolific than animals.
+Some trees can produce as many of their kind as they have branches, or
+even leaves. An elm tree, twelve years old, yields sometimes five
+hundred thousand pods; and, by the way, Willis, to encourage you in
+carrying on the war against the mosquitoes, a single stalk of tobacco
+produces four thousand seeds."
+
+"The leaves, however, are of more use to me than the seeds," replied
+Willis.
+
+"This admirable proportion between the productiveness of the two
+kingdoms demonstrates the far-seeing wisdom of Providence. If the
+power of multiplication in vegetables had been less considerable, the
+fields, gardens, and prairies would have been deserts, with only a
+plant here and there to hide the nakedness of the land. Had God
+permitted animals to multiply in excess of plants, the entire
+vegetation would soon have been devoured, and then the animals
+themselves would of necessity have ceased to exist."
+
+"How is it, then," inquired Willis, "with this continual
+multiplication always going on, the inhabitants of land and sea do not
+get over-crowded?"
+
+"Why, as regards man, for example, if thirteen or fourteen human
+beings are born within a given period, death removes ten or eleven
+others; but though this leaves a regular increase, still the
+population of the globe always continues about the same."
+
+"It may be so, Master Jack, but when I was a little boy at school, I
+generally came in for a whipping, if I made out two and two to be
+anything else than four."
+
+"And served you right too, Willis; but if the human family did not
+continually increase, if the number of deaths exceeded continually
+that of the births, at the end of a few centuries the world would be
+unpeopled."
+
+"Very good; but if, on the other hand, there is a continual increase,
+how can the population continue the same?"
+
+"Because the increase supposes a normal state; that is to say, the
+births are only estimated as compared with deaths from disease or old
+age. But then there are shipwrecks, inundations, plagues, and war,
+which sometimes exterminate entire communities at one fell swoop. Then
+whole nations die out and give place to the redundant populations of
+others; phenomena now observed in the cases of the aborigines of
+Australia and America."
+
+"Very true."
+
+"No signs of furs yet," cried Fritz, who was every now and then
+levelling his rifle at the phantoms on shore.
+
+"We need not dread," continued Jack, "ever being hustled or jostled on
+the earth; life will fail us before space. There are now eight hundred
+millions of human beings in existence, and, according to the most
+moderate computation, room enough for twice that number. As it is, the
+most fertile sections of the earth are not the most populous; there
+are four hundred millions in Asia, sixty millions in Africa, forty in
+America, two hundred and thirty in Europe, and only seventy millions
+in the islands and continent of Oceanica!"
+
+"To which," remarked Fritz, "you may add the eleven inhabitants of New
+Switzerland."
+
+"Assuming, then, this calculation to be nearly accurate, though
+authorities vary materially in their computations of the earth's
+inhabitants, and regarding it in connexion with the average duration
+of human life, a thousand millions of mortals must perish in
+thirty-three years; to descend to detail, thirty millions every year,
+three thousand four hundred every hour, sixty every minute, or ONE
+EVERY SECOND."
+
+"Aye," remarked Willis, "we are here to-day and gone to-morrow."
+
+"Suppose, then, that the population of the earth were twice as great,
+cultivation would be extended, territories that are now lying waste
+would be teeming with life and covered with fertile fields, but the
+same beautiful equilibrium would be maintained."
+
+"And the inhabitants of the planets," said Fritz, "what are they
+about?"
+
+"What planets do you mean?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Well, all in general; the moon, for example, in particular."
+
+"The moon," replied Jack, "has, in the first place, no atmosphere.
+This we know, because the rays of the stars passing behind her are
+not, in the slightest degree, refracted; and this proves that neither
+men, nor animals, nor vegetables of any kind, are to be found in that
+planet, for they could not exist without air."
+
+"That should settle the question," remarked Willis.
+
+"Yes," remarked Fritz; "but some theorists, nevertheless, insist that
+there may be living creatures in the moon, for all that--of course,
+differently constituted from the inhabitants of our earth, and
+susceptible of existing without air. There is, however, no evidence of
+any kind to support such a theory; it is a mere fancy, the dream of an
+imaginative brain. Upon the same grounds, it may be argued, that the
+interior of the earth is inhabited, and that elves and gnomes are
+possible beings. Besides, the telescope has been brought to so high a
+degree of perfection, that objects the size of a house can now be
+detected in the moon."
+
+"It seems, I am afraid," remarked Jack, who, like his brother, was
+getting annoyed by the phantasmagoria on shore, "that we were about
+as well supplied with wild beasts here as they are with men in the
+planets."
+
+"In speaking of the moon, however," continued Fritz, "I do not imply
+all the planets; for, certain as we are that the moon has no
+atmosphere, so we are equally certain that some of the planets possess
+that attribute. Still there are other circumstances that render the
+notion of their being inhabited by beings like ourselves exceedingly
+improbable. Mercury, for example, is so embarrassed by the solar rays,
+that lead must always be in a state of fusion, and water, if not
+reduced to a state of vapor, will be hot enough to boil the fish that
+are in it. Uranus, at the other extremity of the system, receives four
+hundred times less heat and light than we do, consequently neither
+water nor any thing else can exist there in a liquid state; what is
+fluid on our earth must be frozen up into a solid mass. Good, I
+declare my brother has fallen asleep!"
+
+"It is very--interesting--however," said Willis, making ineffectual
+efforts to smother a yawn.
+
+"The same difficulty with comets; there must have been some very
+urgent necessity for human beings in order to have peopled them. When
+they pass the perihelion--"
+
+"The what?" inquired Willis.
+
+"The point where they approach nearest the sun--when they pass the
+perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific;
+when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the
+cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five
+thousand _myriam�tres_ of the sun."
+
+"Friends coming within that distance of each other should at least
+shake hands," said Willis.
+
+"Still, even at that distance, the heat, according to Newton, must be
+like red-hot iron, and if constituted like our earth, when heated to
+that degree, must take fifty thousand years to cool."
+
+"Fifty thousand years!" said Willis, yawning from ear to ear.
+
+"The central position between these extremes, which would either
+congeal our earth into a mass of ice or burn it up into a heap of
+cinders, is therefore the most congenial to such beings as ourselves.
+Whence I conclude--"
+
+Here the crimson flashes of Willis's pipe, which had been gradually
+diminishing in brilliance suddenly ceased; _contralto_ notes issued
+from the profundities of his breast, and it became evident to the
+orator that all his audience were sound asleep.
+
+"Whence I conclude," said Fritz, addressing himself, "that my orations
+must be somewhat soporiferous."
+
+Being thus left alone to keep a look-out on shore, his thoughts
+gradually receded within his own breast, where all was rose-colored
+and smiling, for at his age rust has not had time to corrupt, nor
+moths to eat away. And it was not long before he himself, like his two
+companions, was fast locked in the arms of sleep.
+
+How long this state of things lasted the chronicle saith not; but the
+three sleepers were eventually awakened by a simultaneous howl of the
+dogs. They were instantly on their feet, with their rifles levelled.
+
+It was too late; day had broken, and there was light enough to
+convince them that nothing was to be seen. The sheep's quarters had,
+however, entirely disappeared, and they had the satisfaction of
+knowing that they had politely given the denizens of the forest a
+feast gratis.
+
+"Ah, they shall pay us for it yet," said Jack.
+
+"This is a case of the hunters being caught instead of the game,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"The poor sheep! If Ernest had been here, he would have erected a
+monument to its memory."
+
+"I doubt that; epitaphs are generally made rather to please the living
+than to compliment the defunct. But, Willis, we must deprive you of
+your office of huntsman in chief--I shall go into the forest and
+revenge this insult."
+
+"I have no objection to abdicate the office of huntsman, but must
+retain that of admiral, in which capacity I announce to you that there
+will be a storm presently, and that we shall just have time to make
+Rockhouse before it overtakes us."
+
+"That is rather a reason for our remaining where we are."
+
+"We have come for skins, and skins we must have."
+
+"Besides, we are two to one, and in all constitutional governments the
+majority rules."
+
+"Have you both made up your minds?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, we are quite decided."
+
+"In that case," said Willis, "let us hoist the anchor and be off
+home."
+
+"Home! but we are determined to have the skins first."
+
+"No, you are not," said Willis; "I know you better than you know
+yourselves. You are both brave fellows, but I know you would not, for
+all the skins in the world, have your good mother suppose that you
+were buffeted about by the waves in a storm."
+
+"True; up with the anchor, Willis," said Fritz.
+
+"Be it so," said Jack, shaking his fist menacingly at the silent
+forest, "but we shall lose nothing by waiting."
+
+The sailor had not erred in his calculations, for they had scarcely
+unfurled the sail before they heard the distant rumbling of the storm.
+As soon as the first flash of lightning shot across the sky, Jack put
+his forefinger of one hand on the wrist of the other, and began
+counting one--two--three.
+
+"Do you feel feverish?" inquired Willis.
+
+"No, not personally," replied Jack; "I am feeling the pulse of the
+storm--twenty-four--twenty-five--twenty-six--it is a mile off."
+
+"Aye! how do you make that out?"
+
+"Very easily; you recollect Ernest telling us that light travelled so
+rapidly, that the time it occupied in passing from one point to
+another of the earth's surface was scarcely perceptible to our
+senses?"
+
+"Yes, but I thought he was spinning a yarn at the time."
+
+"You were wrong, Willis; he likewise told us that sound travels at the
+rate of four hundred yards in a second."
+
+"Well, but--"
+
+"Have patience, Willis! When the lightning flashes, the electric spark
+is discharged, is it not?"
+
+"Well, I was never high enough aloft to see."
+
+"But others have been; Newton and Franklin have seen it. Now, if the
+sound reaches our ears a second after the flash, it has travelled four
+hundred yards. If we hear it twelve or thirteen seconds after, it has
+travelled twelve or thirteen times four hundred yards, or about half a
+mile, and so on."
+
+"But what has that to do with your pulse?"
+
+"In the first place, I am in perfect health, am I not?"
+
+"I hope so, Master Jack."
+
+"Then when our systems are in good order, the pulse, keeping fractions
+out of view, beats once in every second; and consequently, though we
+do not always carry a watch, we always have our arteries about us, and
+may therefore always reckon time."
+
+"Now I understand."
+
+"Ah! then we are to escape this time without the 'Mariner's March.'"
+
+"It appears, Master Jack, that you have turned philosopher as well as
+your brothers. Can you tell me what causes lightning?"
+
+"Yes, I can, Willis. You must know, in the first place, that all the
+layers of the atmosphere are, more or less, charged with electricity."
+
+"Ask him how," said Fritz drily.
+
+"Ah, you hope to puzzle me," replied Jack, "but thanks to Mr. Wolston,
+I am too well up in physics to be easily driven off my perch, and
+therefore may safely take my turn in philosophising."
+
+"Well, we are listening."
+
+"The air, by means of the vapor it contains, absorbs electricity from
+terrestrial bodies, and so becomes a sort of reservoir of this
+invisible fluid. All chemical combinations evolve electricity, the air
+collects it and stores it up in the clouds. There, worshipful brother,
+your question is answered."
+
+"Good, go on."
+
+"Well, Willis, you must know, in the second place, the clouds are very
+good fellows, and share with each other the good things they possess.
+When one cloud meets another, the one over-supplied with this fluid
+and the other in its normal state, there is an immediate interchange
+of courtesies, the negative electricity of the one is exchanged for
+the positive of the other."
+
+"There does not appear, however, to be much generosity in this
+transaction, since the surcharged cloud does not cede its superfluous
+abundance without a consideration."
+
+"It is very rarely that philanthropy amongst us goes much further,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"No, everybody is not like Willis," rejoined Jack, "who acts like a
+prince, and gives legs of mutton gratis to hyenas and tigers. The
+discharges of electricity from one cloud to another are the flashes of
+lightning, and it is to be observed that the thunder is nothing more
+than the noise made by the fluid rushing through the air."
+
+"What, then, is the thunderbolt?"
+
+"There is no such thing as what is popularly understood by the term
+thunderbolt. The lightning itself, however, often does mischief. This
+happens when the discharge, instead of being between two clouds in the
+air, takes place between a cloud and the ground--a cloud surcharged
+with electricity understood. Then all intervening objects are struck
+by the fluid."
+
+"There, however, you are wrong," said Fritz. "All objects are not
+struck; on the contrary, the fluid avoids some things and searches out
+others, even moving in a zig-zag direction to manifest these caprices;
+it often discharges itself on or into hard substances, and passes by
+those which are soft or feeble."
+
+"I might say this arose from a sentiment of generosity," added Jack,
+"but I have other reasons to assign."
+
+"So much the better," said Fritz, "as I should scarcely be satisfied
+with the first."
+
+"Well," continued Jack, "lightning has its likings and dislikings."
+
+"Like men and women," suggested Willis.
+
+"It has a partiality for metal."
+
+"An affection that is not returned, however," observed Fritz.
+
+"If the fluid enters a room, for example, it runs along the bell
+wires, inspects the works of the clock, and sometimes has the audacity
+to pounce upon the money in your purse, even though a policeman should
+happen to be in the kitchen at the time."
+
+"Perhaps," remarked Willis, "it is Socialist or Red Republican in its
+notions."
+
+"It does not, however, patronise war," replied Jack; "I once heard of
+it having melted a sword and left the scabbard intact."
+
+"That, to say the least of it, is improbable," remarked Fritz. "The
+hilt, or even the point, might have been fused; but even supposing the
+electric fluid to have been capable of such flagrant preference, the
+scabbard could not have held molten metal without being itself
+consumed."
+
+"Aye," remarked Willis, "there are plenty of non-sensical stories of
+that kind in circulation, because nobody takes the trouble to test
+their truth. Still, according to your own account, a man or woman runs
+no danger from the lightning."
+
+"I beg your pardon there, Willis; the electric fluid does not go out
+of its way to attack a human being, but if one should-happen to be in
+its way, it does not take time to request that individual to stand
+aside, it simply passes through him, and leaves him or her, as the
+case may be, a coagulated mass of inanimate tissues."
+
+"What a variety of ways there are of getting out of the world!" said
+Willis lugubriously.
+
+"Again," continued Jack, "anything that happens to be in the vicinity
+of the clouds when this interchange of courtesies is going on, is apt
+to draw the storm upon itself, hence the continual war that is carried
+on between the lightning and the steeples."
+
+"Something like an individual coming within range of a cloud of
+mosquitoes," suggested Willis.
+
+"A learned German--one of us," said the scapegrace, laughing,
+"calculated, in 1783, that in the space of thirty-three years there
+had been, to his own knowledge, three hundred and eighty-six spires
+struck, and a hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed by lightning,
+without reckoning a much larger number wounded."
+
+"And yet," remarked Willis, "I never heard of an insurance against
+accidents by lightning."
+
+"There are plenty of them, however, in Roman Catholic countries," said
+Fritz. "Every village has one, and the charge is almost nominal."
+
+"How, then, do these companies make it pay?"
+
+"They find it answer somehow, and they never collapse."
+
+"Then everybody ought to insure."
+
+"Yes, but there are some obstinate people who do not see the good of
+it."
+
+"If my life had not already been forfeited, I should insure it. But
+how is it done?"
+
+"Well, you have only to go into a church, fall down on your knees
+before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the
+cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind,
+you are perfectly safe."
+
+"Ah! that is the way you insure your lives, is it, trusting to the
+priests rather than to Providence? For my own part, I should prefer a
+policy of insurance--that is to say, if my life were of any value."
+
+"Next to steeples," continued Jack, "come tall trees, such as poplars
+and pines. Should you ever be caught by a storm in the open country,
+Willis, never take shelter under a tree; face the storm bravely, and
+submit to be deluged by the rain. Dread even bushes, if they are
+isolated. An entire forest is less dangerous than a single reed when
+it stands alone."
+
+"But you forget, brother, that when a man stands alone he is quite as
+prominent an object as the trunk of a tree four or five feet high,
+particularly in an open plain."
+
+"Quite so. It is therefore advisable, when severe storms are close
+upon us, to lie down flat on the ground."
+
+"Suppose," remarked Fritz, smiling, "a brigade of soldiers on the
+march suddenly to collapse in this way, as if before a discharge of
+grape."
+
+"And why not? If it is done in the case of grape-shot, why may it not
+be done when the artillery is a thousand times more effective?"
+
+"Well, I suspect it would rather astonish the commanding officer,
+that is all."
+
+"Then, Willis," continued Jack, "you must not run during a storm,
+because the air you put in motion by so doing may draw the electricity
+into the current."
+
+"Do the conductors not prevent the lightning from doing harm?"
+
+"Yes, but you cannot carry one of them on your hat. These rods are
+only useful in protecting buildings, and then to nothing more than
+double the area of their length; it is for this last reason that roofs
+of public buildings have them projecting in all directions."
+
+"They are a sort of trap set for the lightning, are they not?"
+
+"Yes, and into which it is pretty sure to fall. Franklin, of whom I
+spoke just now, was the first to suggest that bars of steel would draw
+lightning out of a cloud surcharged with electricity."
+
+"What becomes of it when it is caught?"
+
+"Keeping in view its partiality for bell-pulls, a wire is attached to
+the rod down which the unconscious fluid glides."
+
+"Like a powder-monkey from the main-top."
+
+"Exactly; till it enters a well, and there it is left at the bottom in
+company with Truth."
+
+A practical storm had begun to mix itself up with the theory as
+developed by Jack, but not before they had very nearly reached their
+destination, where they were waited for with the greatest anxiety.
+
+No sooner had they landed than Sophia ran to meet Willis, who was
+advancing with Jack.
+
+"Ah, sweetheart," she said, "Susan has been so uneasy about you."
+
+"You are a good girl, Miss Soph--Susan."
+
+"Oh, if you only knew how frightened we have been!"
+
+"What, do you admit fear to be one of your accomplishments, Miss
+Sophia?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Certainly, when others are concerned, Master Jack. But, by the way,
+do you recollect the chimpanzee?"
+
+"Yes, what about the rascal?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Oh, I must not tell you, mamma would call me a chatterbox; you will
+know by-and-by."
+
+In the meanwhile Mary, on her side, was congratulating Toby, who kept
+scampering between herself and Fritz, at one moment receiving the
+caresses of the one and at the next of the other, with every
+demonstration of joy. This had become an established mode of
+communication between the young people when Fritz arrived from a
+lengthened ramble; the intelligent, brute, in point of fact, had
+assumed the office of dragoman.
+
+"Ah, ah, Becker, glad to see you again," said Willis. "Your sons are
+fountains of knowledge, whilst I am--"
+
+"A very worthy fellow, Willis, and I know it," replied Becker, shaking
+him heartily by the hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES--THE CHOICE OF A
+PROFESSION--CONQUEROR--ORATOR--ASTRONOMER--COMPOSER--PAINTER--POET--VILLAGE
+CURATE--THE KAFIRS--OCCUPATIONS OF WOMEN--THE ALPHA AND OMEGA OF THE
+SEA.
+
+
+To the storm succeeded one of those diluvian showers that have already
+been described. Rain being merely a result of evaporation, it was
+evident that sea and land in those climates must perspire at an
+enormous rate to effect such cataclysms. In consequence of this
+deluge, the proposed excursion was indefinitely postponed. The
+provisions, the marvellous kits, the waggon, were all ready; but
+Nature, as often happens under such circumstances, had assumed a
+menacing attitude, and for the present forbade the execution of the
+project.
+
+A sort of vague sadness, that generally accompanies a gloomy
+atmosphere, weighed upon the spirits of the colonists. Recollections
+of the _Nelson_ and her sudden disappearance thrust themselves more
+vividly than ever upon their memory; and Willis was observed to throw
+his sou'-wester unconsciously on the ground--a proof that remembrances
+of the past occupied his thoughts.
+
+One of the ladies was occupied in the needful domestic operations of
+the household, whilst the other sat with a stocking on her left arm,
+busily occupied in repairing the ravages of tear and wear upon that
+useful though humble garment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do
+the great ladies of the court of King Alfred, and as Hercules himself
+is said to have done when he changed his club and lion's skin for a
+spindle and distaff with the Queen of Lybia; Jack was apparently
+sketching, Fritz had a collection of hunting apparatus before him, and
+the other two young men, each with a book, were deeply immersed in
+study.
+
+This state of things was by no means cheerful, and Wolston determined
+to break up the monotony by introducing a subject of conversation
+likely to interest them all, the old as well as the young.
+
+"By the way, gentlemen," said he, "it occurs to me that you have not
+yet thought of selecting a profession; your future career seems at
+present somewhat obscure."
+
+"What would you have?" inquired Jack; "there is no use for lawyers and
+judges in our colony, except to try plundering monkeys or protect
+jackal orphans."
+
+"True; but suppose you were to find yourselves, by some chance, again
+in the great world, there it is necessary to possess a qualification
+of some kind; a blacksmith or a carpenter, expert in his handicraft,
+has a better chance of acquiring wealth and position than a man
+without a profession, however great his talents may be; an idler is a
+mere clog in the social machine, and is often thrust aside to browse
+in a corner with monks and donkeys."
+
+"But to acquire a profession, is not instruction and practice
+necessary?"
+
+"Certainly; it is impossible to become a proficient in any art or
+science by mere study alone; but before sowing a field, what is done?"
+
+"It is ploughed and manured."
+
+"And should there be only a few seeds?"
+
+"We can sow what we have, and reserve the harvest till next season. By
+economising each crop in this way, we shall soon have seeds enough to
+cover any extent of land."
+
+"May I request you, Master Ernest, to draw a conclusion from that as
+regards sowing the seeds of a future career?"
+
+"I would infer, from your suggestion, that we might adapt ourselves
+for such and such a profession by preparing our minds to receive
+instruction in it, and we might also avail ourselves in the meantime
+of such sources of information regarding it as are at present open to
+us. The physician in prospective, for example, might make himself
+familiar with the medical properties of such plants as are within his
+reach; he might likewise examine the bones of an ape, and thus, by
+analogy, become acquainted with the framework of the human body. The
+would-be lawyer might, in the same way, avail himself of the library
+to obtain an insight into those social mysteries that bind men in
+communities and necessitate human laws for the preservation of peace
+and order. Thus, by directing our thoughts into one line of study, we
+may form a basis upon which the superstructure may be easily erected,
+and the necessary academical degrees or sanction of the university
+obtained."
+
+"And, when you see this, why not adopt so commendable a course?"
+
+"Because we may probably be destined to remain here, where, according
+to Jack, the learned professions, at least, are not likely to be much
+in demand."
+
+"The study of a particular science or art has charms in itself, which
+amply compensate the student for his labor. But, even admitting you do
+not return to the Old World, you forget that it is your intention to
+colonise this territory."
+
+"It seems, however, that God has willed it otherwise."
+
+"What God does not will in one way, he may bring about in another.
+What reason have you for supposing that the _Nelson_ may not return
+with colonists?"
+
+"It will be from the other world then," said Willis.
+
+"Yes, from the other world," replied Jack, "but not in the sense you
+imply."
+
+"Besides, should the _Nelson_ not reappear, that is no reason why
+another accident may not drive another ship upon the coast that will
+be more fortunate; what has happened to-day may surely happen again
+to-morrow. And in the event of colonists arriving, will there not be
+sick to cure, boundaries to determine, differences of opinion to
+decide, and opposing claims to adjudge."
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Wolston."
+
+"Well, admitting these necessities, what profession will each of you
+select? Let us begin with you, Master Fritz."
+
+"The career," replied Fritz, "that would be most congenial to my
+taste is that of a conqueror."
+
+"A conqueror!"
+
+"Yes; Alexander, Scipio, Timour the Tartar, and Gengis Khan are the
+sort of men I should like to resemble. They have made a tolerable
+figure in the world, and I should have no objection to follow in their
+footsteps."
+
+"But you forget that their footsteps are marked with tears, disasters,
+terror, and bloodshed."
+
+"These are indispensable."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Once, when a great commander was asked the same question, he replied,
+that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs."
+
+"Yes," remarked Becker, "but if you had read the anecdote entire, you
+would have seen that he was asked in return, 'What use there was for
+so many omelets.'"
+
+"Added to which," continued Wolston, "that is not a normal career;
+there is no diploma required for it; it is an accident arising out of
+adventitious circumstances, sometimes fostered by ambition, but no
+course of study can produce a conqueror."
+
+"What, then, is the use of military schools?"
+
+"They are, to the best of my knowledge, instituted for rearing
+defenders for one's country, and not with a view to the subjugation of
+another's."
+
+"My poor Fritz," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "I hope when you conquer
+half the world, you will find an occupation for your mother more in
+consonance with your dignity than mending your stockings."
+
+"Then, again," continued Wolston, "war cannot be waged by a single
+individual."
+
+"There must be an enemy somewhere," suggested Willis.
+
+"The difficulty does not, however, lie there," observed Jack; "for, if
+we have no enemies, it is easy enough to make them."
+
+"There must, at all events, be armies, magazines, and a treasury--or
+eggs, as the great commander in question hinted."
+
+"True," replied Fritz; "but there is the same difficulty as regards
+all professions; there can be no barristers without briefs, no
+physicians without patients."
+
+"You will admit, however, that clients and patients are not so rare as
+hundreds of thousands of armed men and millions of money."
+
+"Brother," said Jack, "your cavalry are routed and your infantry
+outflanked."
+
+"If you are determined to be a conqueror, let it be by the pen rather
+than by the sword--or, what do you say to oratory? It is not easier,
+perhaps, but, at all events, eloquence is not denied to ordinary
+mortals. You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Hannibals, the
+Tamerlanes, or the C�sars; but you may attain a place with
+Demosthenes, who was more dreaded by Philip of Macedon than an army of
+soldiers."
+
+"Or Cicero," remarked Becker, "who preserved his country from the
+rapacity of Cataline."
+
+"Or Peter the Hermit," remarked Frank, "who by his eloquence roused
+Europe against the Saracens."
+
+"Or Bossuet," added Wolston, "and then you may venture to assert in
+the face of kings that _God alone is Great_, should they, like Louis
+XIV., assume the sun as an emblem, and adopt such a silly scroll as
+'_Nec pluribus impar_.'"
+
+"Bossuet, Peter the Hermit, Cicero, and Demosthenes, are not so bad,
+after all, as a last resource," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and I would
+recommend you to enrol yourself in that list of conquerors, Master
+Fritz."
+
+"The more especially," observed Jack, "as you have no impediment in
+your voice, and would not have to undergo a course of pebbles like
+Demosthenes."
+
+"So far as that goes, Jack," replied Fritz, "you would possess a like
+advantage for the profession as myself; but I will take time to
+reflect." Then, turning towards his mother, he said, "Conqueror or
+Jack Pudding, mother, you shall always find me a dutiful son."
+
+His mother was more gratified by this expression of attachment than
+she would have been had he laid at her feet the four thousand golden
+spurs found, in 1302, on the field of Courtray.
+
+"And now, Ernest, what profession do you intend to adopt? what is
+your dream of the future?"
+
+"I, Mr. Wolston! Well, having no taste for artillery, brilliant
+charges, blood-stained ruins, and the other _agr�mens_ of war, I
+cannot be a hero. Do you know when I feel most happy?"
+
+"No, let us hear."
+
+"It is towards evening, when I am reposing tranquilly on the banks of
+the Jackal."
+
+"Ah, I thought so," cried Jack; "no position so congenial to the true
+philosopher as the horizontal."
+
+"When the sun," continued Ernest, gravely, "is retiring behind the
+forest of cedars that bounds the horizon; when the palms, the mangoes,
+and gum trees, mass their verdure in distinct and isolated groups;
+when nature is making herself heard in a thousand melodious voices;
+when the hum of the insect is ringing in my ears, and the breeze is
+gently murmuring through the foliage; when thousands of birds are
+fluttering from grove to grove, sometimes breaking with their wings
+the smooth surface of the river; when the fish, leaping out of their
+own element, reflect for an instant from their silvery scales the
+departing rays of the sun; when the sea, stretching away like a vast
+plain of boundless space, loses itself in the distance, then my eyes
+and thoughts are sometimes turned upwards towards the azure of the
+firmament, and sometimes towards the objects around me, and I feel as
+if my mind were in search of something which has hitherto eluded its
+grasp, but which it is sure of eventually finding. Under these
+circumstances, I assure you, I would not exchange the moss on which I
+sat for the greatest throne in Christendom."
+
+"But surely you do not call such a poetical exordium a profession?"
+remarked Becker.
+
+"It must be admitted," said Wolston, "that the sun and trees have
+their uses, especially when the one protects us from the other; the
+sun, for example, dries up the moisture that falls from the trees, and
+the trees shelter us from the burning rays of the sun. Still, I am at
+a loss myself to connect these things with a profession in a social
+point of view."
+
+"What would you have thought," inquired Ernest, "if you had seen
+Newton and Kepler gazing at the sky, before the one had determined the
+movements of the celestial bodies, and the other the laws of
+gravitation? What would you have thought of Parmentier passing hours
+and days in manipulating a rough-looking bulb, that possessed no kind
+of value in the eyes of the vulgar, but which afterwards, as the
+potato, became the chief food of two-thirds of the population of
+Europe? What would you think of Jenner, with his finger on his brow,
+searching for a means of preserving humanity from the scourge of the
+small-pox?"
+
+"But these men had an object in view."
+
+"Jenner, yes; but not the other two. They thought, studied,
+contemplated, and reflected, satisfied that one day their thoughts,
+calculations, and reflections would aid in disclosing some mystery of
+Nature; but it would have perplexed them sorely to have named
+beforehand the nature and scope of their discoveries."
+
+"According to you, then," said Jack, "there could not be a more
+dignified profession than that of the scarecrow. The greatest
+dunderhead in Christendom might simply, by going a star-gazing, pass
+himself off as an adept in the occult sciences, and claim the right of
+being a benefactor of mankind in embryo."
+
+"At all events," replied Ernest, "you will admit that, so long as I am
+ready to bear my share of the common burdens, and take my part in
+providing for the common wants, and in warding of the common dangers,
+it is immaterial whether I occupy my leisure hours in reflection or in
+rifle practice."
+
+"Well," said Jack, "when you have made some discovery that will enrol
+your name with Descartes, Huygens, Cassini, and such gentlemen, you
+will do us the honor of letting us know."
+
+"With the greatest pleasure."
+
+"It is a pity that Herschell has invented the telescope: he might have
+left you a chance for the glory of that invention."
+
+"If I have not discovered a new star, brother, I discovered long ago
+that you would never be one."
+
+"Well, I hope not; their temperature is too unequal for me--they are
+either freezing or boiling: at least, so said Fritz the other day,
+whilst we were--all, what were we doing, Willis?"
+
+"We were supposed to be hunting."
+
+"Ah, so we were."
+
+"Now, Master Jack, it is your turn to enlighten us as to your future
+career."
+
+"It is quite clear, Mr. Wolston, that, since my brothers are to be so
+illustrious, I cannot be an ordinary mortal; the honor of the family
+is concerned, and must be consulted. I am, therefore, resolved to
+become either a great composer, like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; a
+renowned painter, like Titian, Carrache, or Veronese; or a great poet,
+like Homer, Virgil, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton, Goethe, and Racine."
+
+"That is to say," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that you are resolved to be
+a great something or other."
+
+"Decidedly, madam; on reflection, however, as I value my eyesight, I
+must except Homer and Milton."
+
+"But have you not determined to which of the muses you will throw the
+handkerchief?"
+
+"I thought of music at first. It must be a grand thing, said I to
+myself, that can charm, delight, and draw tears from the eyes of the
+multitude--that can inspire faith, courage, patriotism, devotion and
+energy, and that, too, by means of little black dots with tails,
+interspersed with quavers, crotchets, sharps and flats."
+
+"Have you composed a sonata yet?"
+
+"No, madam; I was going to do so, but it occurred to me that I should
+require an orchestra to play it."
+
+"And not having that, you abandoned the idea?"
+
+"Exactly, madam. I then turned to poetry. That is an art fit for the
+gods; it puts you on a level with kings, and makes you in history even
+more illustrious than them. You ascend the capitol, and there you are
+crowned with laurel, like the hero of a hundred fights."
+
+"What is the subject of your principal work in this line?"
+
+"Well, madam, I once finished a verse, and was going on with a second,
+but, somehow or other, I could not get the words to rhyme."
+
+"Then it occurred to you that you had neither a printer nor readers,
+and you broke your lyre?"
+
+"I was about to reproach you, Master Jack," said Wolston, "for
+undertaking too many things at once; but I see the ranks are beginning
+to thin."
+
+"Beautiful as poetry may be," continued Jack, one gets tired of
+reading and re-reading one's own effusions."
+
+"It is even often intensely insipid the very first time," remarked
+Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"There still remains painting," continued Jack. "Painting is vastly
+superior to either music or poetry. In the first place, it requires no
+interpreter between itself and the public;--what, for example, remains
+of a melody after a concert? nothing but the recollection. Poesy may
+excite admiration in the retirement of one's chamber; your nostrils
+are, as it were, reposing on the bouquet, though often you have still
+a difficulty in smelling anything. But if once you give life to
+canvas, it is eternal."
+
+"Eternal is scarcely the proper word," remarked Wolston: "the
+celebrated fresco of Leonardo da Vinci, in the refectory of the
+Dominicans at Milan, is nothing but a confused mass of colors and
+figures."
+
+"I answer that by saying that the painting in question is only a
+fresco. Besides, I use the word eternal in a modified or relative
+sense. A painting is preserved from generation to generation, whilst
+its successive races of admirers are mingled with the dust. Then
+suppose a painter in his studio; he cannot look around him without
+awakening some memory of the past. He can associate with those he
+loves when they are absent, nay, even when they are dead, and they
+always remain young and beautiful as when he first delineated them."
+
+"Take care," cried Ernest, pushing back his seat, "if you go on at
+that rate you will take fire."
+
+"No fear of that, brother, unless you have a star or a comet in your
+pocket, in which case you are not far enough away yet."
+
+These occasional bickerings between Ernest and Jack were always given
+and taken in good part, and had only the effect of raising a
+good-humored laugh.
+
+"Let the painter," he continued, "fall in with a spot that pleases
+him, he can take it with him and have it always before his eyes. The
+hand of God or of man may alter the original, the forest may lose its
+trees, the old castle may be destroyed by fire or time, the green
+meadow may be converted into a dismal swamp, but to him the landscape
+always retains its pristine freshness, the same butterfly still
+flutters about the same bush, the same bee still sucks at the same
+flower."
+
+"Really," said Mrs. Wolston, "it is a pity, after all, that you did
+not achieve your second verse."
+
+"And yet," continued Jack, "that is only a copy. How much more sublime
+when we regard the painter as a creator! If there is in the past or
+present a heroic deed--if there is in the infinity of his life one
+moment more blessed than another, like Pygmalion he breathes into it
+the breath of life, and it becomes imperishable. Who would think a
+century or two hence of the victories of Fritz, unless the skill of
+the painter be called in to immortalize them!"
+
+"I agree with you in thinking that the arts you name are the source of
+beautiful and legitimate emotions. But generally it is better to view
+them as a recreation or pastime, rather than a profession. They have
+doubtless made a few men live in posterity, but, on the other hand,
+they have embittered and shortened the lives of thousands."
+
+"You will never guess what led me to adopt this art in preference to
+the two others. It was the discovery, that we made some years ago, of
+a gum tree, the name of which I do not recollect."
+
+"The myrica cerifera," said Ernest.
+
+"From the gum of this tree the varnish may be made. Now, like my
+brother, who, when he sees the sun overhead, considers he ought to
+profit by the circumstance and become a discoverer, so I said to
+myself: You have varnish, all you want, therefore, to produce a
+magnificent painting is canvas, colors, and talent; consequently, you
+must not allow such an opportunity to pass--it would be unpardonable.
+Accordingly, I set to work with an energy never before equalled; and,"
+added he, showing the design he had just finished, "here are two eyes
+and a nose, that I do not think want expression."
+
+"Capital!" said Mrs. Wolston; "your painting will be in admirable
+keeping with the hangings my daughters have promised to work for your
+mamma."
+
+"Nobody can deny," continued Jack, laughing, "that the colony is
+advancing in civilization; it already possesses a conqueror, a member
+of the Royal Society minus the diploma, and an Apelles in embryo."
+
+"It is now your turn, Frank."
+
+"I," replied Frank, in his mild but penetrating voice, "if I may be
+allowed to liken the flowers of the garden to the occupations of human
+life, I should prefer the part of the violet."
+
+"It hides itself," said Mrs. Wolston, "but its presence is not the
+less felt."
+
+"When I have allowed myself to indulge in dreams of the future, I have
+pictured myself dwelling in a modest cottage, partially shrouded in
+ivy, not very far from the village church. My coat is a little
+threadbare."
+
+"Why threadbare?" inquired Sophia.
+
+"Because there are a number of very poor people all round me, and I
+cannot make up my mind to lay out money on myself when it is wanted by
+them."
+
+"Such a coat would be sacred in our eyes," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"In the morning I take a walk in my little garden; I inspect the
+flowers one after the other; chide my dog, who is not much of a
+florist; then, perhaps, I retire to my study, where I am always ready
+to receive those who may require my aid, my advice, or my personal
+services."
+
+Here Mrs. Wolston shook Frank very warmly by the hand.
+
+"Sometimes I go amongst the laborers in the fields, talk to them of
+the rain, of the fine weather, and of HIM who gives both. I enter the
+home of the artizan, cheer him in his labors, and interest myself in
+the affairs of his family; I call the children by their names, caress
+them, and make them my friends. I talk to them of our Redeemer, and
+thus, in familiarly conversing with the young, I find means of
+instructing the old. They, perhaps, tell me of a sick neighbor; I
+direct my steps there, and endeavor to mitigate the pangs of disease
+by words of consolation and hope; I strive to pour balm on the wounded
+spirit, and, if the mind has been led away by the temptations of the
+world, I urge repentance as a means of grace. If death should step in,
+then I kneel with those around, and join them in soliciting a place
+amongst the blessed for the departed soul."
+
+"We shall all gladly aid you in such labors of love," said Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"When death has deprived a family of its chief support, then I appeal
+to those whom God has blessed with the things of this world for the
+means of assisting the widow and the fatherless. To one I say, 'You
+regret having no children, or bemoan those you have lost; here are
+some that God has sent you.' I say to another, 'You have only one
+child, whilst you have the means of supporting ten; you can at least
+charge yourself with two.' Thus I excite the charity of some and the
+pity of others, till the bereaved family is provided for. I obtain
+work for those that are desirous of earning an honest living, I bring
+back to the fold the sheep that are straying, and rescue those that
+are tottering on the brink of infidelity."
+
+Here the girls came forward and volunteered to assist Frank in such
+works of mercy.
+
+"I accept your proffered aid, my dear girls, but, as yet, I am only
+picturing a future career for myself. After a day devoted to such
+labors as these, I return to my home, perhaps to be welcomed by a
+little circle of my own, for I hope to be received as a minister of
+the Protestant Church, and, as such, may look forward to a partner in
+my joys and troubles. Should Providence, however, shape my destiny
+otherwise, I shall have the poor and afflicted--always a numerous
+family--to bestow my affections upon. But, whilst much of my time is
+thus passed amongst the sorrowing and the sick, still there are hours
+of gaiety amongst the gloom--there are weddings, christenings, and
+merrymakings--there are happy faces to greet me as well as sad
+ones--and I am no ascetic. I take part in all the innocent amusements
+that are not inconsistent with my years or the gravity of my
+profession--but you seem sad, Mrs. Wolston."
+
+"Yes, Frank; you have recalled my absent son, Richard, so vividly to
+my memory, that I cannot help shedding a tear."
+
+"Is your son in orders then, madam?"
+
+"He is precisely what you have pictured yourself to be, a minister of
+the gospel, and a most exemplary young man."
+
+"If," remarked Becker, "we have hitherto refrained from inquiring
+after your son, madam, it was because we had no wish to recall to your
+mind the distance that separated you from him, and we should be glad
+to know his history."
+
+"There is little to relate; he is very young yet, and as soon as he
+had obtained his ordination, he was offered a mission to Oregon, which
+he accepted; but the ship having been detained at the Cape of Good
+Hope, he regarded the accident as a divine message, to convert the
+heathen of Kafraria, where he now is."
+
+"It is no sinecure to live amongst these copper-colored rascals," said
+Willis; "they are constantly stealing the cattle of the Dutch settlers
+in their neighborhood. About twelve years ago, our ship was stationed
+at the Cape, and I was sent with a party of blue jackets into the
+interior, as far as Fort Wiltshire, on the Krieskamma, the most remote
+point of the British possessions in South Africa. There we dispersed a
+cloud of them that had been for weeks living upon other people's
+property. They are tall, wiry fellows, as hardy as a pine tree, and as
+daring as buccaneers. The chief of the _kraals_, or huts, wear leopard
+or panther skins, and profess to have the power of causing rain to
+fall, besides an endless number of other miraculous attributes.
+Amongst them, a wife of the ordinary class costs eight head of cattle,
+but the price of a young lady of the higher ranks runs as high as
+twenty cows. When a Kafir is suspected of a crime, his tongue is
+touched seven times with hot iron, and if it is not burnt he is
+declared innocent."
+
+"I am afraid," said Jack, "if they were all subjected to that test,
+they would be found to be a very bad lot. But now, since we have all
+decided upon a profession, let us hear what the young ladies intend
+doing with themselves; let them consult their imagination for a
+beautiful future gilded with sunshine, and embroidered with gold."
+
+"There is only one occupation for women," said Mrs. Becker, "and that
+is too well defined to admit of speculation, and too important to
+admit of fanciful embellishments."
+
+"Well, then, mother, let us hear what it is."
+
+"It is to nurse you, and rear you, when you are unable to help
+yourselves; to guide your first steps, and teach you to lisp your
+first syllables. For this purpose, God has given her qualities that
+attract sympathy and engender love. She is so constituted as to impart
+a charm to your lives, to share in your labors, to soothe you when you
+are ruffled, to smooth your pillow when you are in pain, and to
+cherish you in old age; bestowing upon you, to your last hour, cares
+that no other love could yield. These, gentlemen, are the duties and
+occupations of women; and you must admit, that if it is not our
+province to command armies, or to add new planets to the galaxy of the
+firmament; that if we have not produced an Iliad or an �nead, a
+Jerusalem Delivered, or a Paradise Lost, an Oratorio of the Creation,
+a Transfiguration, or a Laocoon, we have not the less our modest
+utility."
+
+"I should think so, mother," replied Jack; "it would take no end of
+philosophers to do the work of one of you."
+
+"It surprises me," said Willis, "that not one of you has selected the
+finest profession in the world--that of a sailor."
+
+"The finest profession of the sea, you mean, Willis. There is no doubt
+of its being the finest that can be exercised on the ocean, since it
+is the only one. If it is the best, Willis, it is also the worst."
+
+"It has also produced great men," continued Willis; "there are
+Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Captain Cook, to whom you are indebted
+for a new world."
+
+"No thanks to them for that," said Jack; "if they had not discovered a
+new world we should have been in an old one."
+
+"That does not follow," remarked Ernest; "the new world would have
+existed even if it had not been discovered, and you might have found
+your way there all the same."
+
+"Not very likely," replied Jack, "unless one of the stars you intend
+to discover had shown us the way; otherwise it would only have existed
+in conjecture; and as nobody under such circumstances would have
+dreamt of settling in it, they would not have been shipwrecked during
+the voyage."
+
+"Very true," remarked Fritz; "if we had not been here we should, very
+probably, have been somewhere else, and perhaps in a much worse
+plight. Let me ask if there is any one here who regrets his present
+position?"
+
+Willis was about to reply to this question, but Sophia observing that
+there was something wrong with the handkerchief that he wore round his
+neck, hastened towards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.
+
+The hour had now arrived when the families separated for the night.
+Mary was preparing as usual to recite the evening prayer, but before
+doing so she whispered a few words in her mother's ear.
+
+"Yes, my child;" and, turning to Frank, she added, "Since you are
+determined to adopt the ministry as a profession, it is but right that
+we should for the future entrust ourselves to your prayers."
+
+The two families were now located in their respective eyries; and
+Jack, whilst escorting the Wolstons to the foot of their tree, said to
+Sophia,
+
+"I thought the chimpanzee had been playing some prank."
+
+"So he has. Has nobody told you of it?"
+
+"No, not a soul."
+
+"Then I will be as discreet as my neighbors; good night, Master Jack."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HERBERT AND CECILIA--THE LITTLE ANGELS--A CATASTROPHE--THE
+DEPARTURE--MARRIAGE OF THE DOGE WITH THE ADRIATIC--SOVEREIGNS OF THE
+SEA--DANTE AND BEATRIX--ELEONORA AND TASSO--LAURA AND PETRARCH--THE
+RETURN--SURPRISES--WHAT ONE FINDS IN TURBOTS--A HORROR--THE
+PRICE OF CRIME--BALLOONING--PHILIPSON AND THE CHOLERA--A
+METAMORPHOSIS--ADVENTURE OF THE CHIMPANZEE--ARE YOU RICH?
+
+
+Next day the sky was shrouded in dense masses of cloud, some grey as
+lead, some livid as copper, and some black as ink. Towards evening the
+two families, as usual, resolved themselves into a talking party, and
+Wolston, requesting them to listen, began as follows:--
+
+"There were two rich merchants in Bristol, between whom a very close
+intimacy had for a long time existed. One of them, whom I shall call
+Henry Foster, had a daughter; and the other, Nicholas Philipson, had a
+son, and the two fathers had destined these children for one another.
+The boy was a little older than the girl, and their tastes, habits,
+and dispositions seemed to fit them admirably for each other, and so
+to ratify the decision of the parents. Little Herbert and Cecilia were
+almost constantly together. They had a purse in common, into which
+they put all the pieces of bright gold they received as presents on
+birthdays and other festive occasions. In summer, when the two
+families retired to a retreat that one of them had in the country, the
+children were permitted to visit the cottagers, and to assist the
+distressed, if they chose, out of their own funds--a permission which
+they availed themselves of so liberally that they were called by the
+country people the two little angels."
+
+"What a pity there are no poor people here!" said Sophia, dolefully.
+
+"Why?" inquired her mother.
+
+"Because we might assist them, mamma."
+
+"It is much better, however, as it is, my child; our assistance might
+mitigate the evils of poverty, but might not be sufficient to remove
+them."
+
+This reasoning did not seem conclusive to Sophia, who shook her head
+and commenced plying her wheel with redoubled energy.
+
+"When Herbert Philipson was twelve years of age he was sent off to
+school, and Cecilia was confided to the care of a governess, who,
+under the direction of Mrs. Foster, was to undertake her education.
+But neither music nor drawing, needlework, grammars nor exercises,
+could make little Cecilia forget her absent companion. Absence, that
+cools older friendships, had a contrary effect on her heart; the
+months, weeks, days, and hours that were to elapse before Herbert
+returned for the holidays, were counted and recounted. When that
+period--so anxiously desired--at length arrived, there was no end of
+rejoicing: she told Herbert of all the little boys and little girls
+she had clothed and fed, of the old people she had relieved, of the
+tears she had shed over tales of woe and misery, how she had carried
+every week a little basket covered with a white napkin to widow
+Robson, how often she had gone into the damp and dismal cottage of the
+dying miner, and how happy she always made his wife and their nine
+pitiful looking children."
+
+"That is a way of conquering human hearts," remarked Mrs. Becker,
+"often more effective than those referred to the other day."
+
+"Once, when Herbert was at home for the holidays, he accompanied
+Cecilia on her charitable visits, and was greatly surprised to find
+that blessings were showered upon his own head wherever they went;
+people, whom he had never seen before, insisted upon his being their
+benefactor. This he could not make out. At last, by an accident, he
+discovered the secret--Cecilia had been distributing her gifts in his
+name! He remonstrated warmly against this, declaring that he had no
+wish to be praised and blessed for doing things that he had no hand
+in. Finding that his protestations were of no avail, he determined,
+on the eve of his returning to school, to have his revenge."
+
+"He did not buy Cecilia a doll, did he?" inquired Jack.
+
+"No; he collected all the eatables, clothing, blankets, and money he
+could obtain; went amongst the poorest of the cottages, and
+distributed the whole in Cecilia's name."
+
+"Ah," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is a pity we could not all remain at
+the age of these children, with the same purity, the same innocence,
+and the same freshness of sensation; the world would then be a
+veritable Paradise."
+
+"For some years this state of things continued, the affection between
+the young people strengthened as they grew older, the occasional
+holiday time was always the happiest of their lives. Herbert, in due
+course, was transferred from school to college, where he obtained a
+degree, and rapidly verged into manhood. Cecilia from the girl at
+length bloomed into the young lady. A day was finally fixed when they
+were to be bound together by the holy ties of the church; everything
+was prepared for their union, when the commercial world was startled
+by the announcement that Philipson was a ruined man. A ship in which
+he had embarked a valuable freight had been wrecked, and an agent to
+whom he had entrusted a large sum of money had suddenly disappeared."
+
+"How deplorable!" cried Fritz.
+
+"Not so very unfortunate, after all," remarked Mary.
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Because nothing had occurred to interrupt the marriage; only one of
+the families was ruined, and there was still enough left for both."
+
+"But," said Fritz, "even admitting that the friendship between the two
+families continued uninterrupted, and that the father of Cecilia was
+willing to share his property with the father of Herbert, still the
+young man, in the parlance of society, was a beggar; and it is always
+hard for a man to owe his position to a woman, and to become, as it
+were, the _prot�g�_ of her whom he ought rather to protect."
+
+"If that is the view you take, Master Fritz, then I agree with you
+that the misfortune was deplorable," said Mary, bending at the same
+time to hide her blushes, under pretence of mending a broken thread.
+
+"And what if Cecilia's father had been ruined instead of Herbert's?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"I should say," replied Sophia, "that we have as much right to be
+proud and dignified as you have."
+
+"The best way in such a case," observed Willis, laughing, "would be
+for both parties to get ruined together."
+
+"Herbert," continued Wolston, "was a youth of resolution and energy.
+He entertained the same opinion as Fritz; and instead of wasting his
+time in idle despondency, got together some articles of merchandise,
+and sailed for the Indian Archipelago, promising his friends that he
+would return to his native land in two years."
+
+"Two years is a long time," remarked Mary; "but sometimes it passes
+away very quickly."
+
+"Ah!" observed Sophia, Cecilia, in the meantime, would redouble her
+charities and her prayers."
+
+"The two years passed away, then a third, and then a fourth, but not a
+single word had either been heard of or from the absentee. Cecilia was
+rich, and her hand was sought by many wealthy suitors, but hitherto
+she had rejected them all."
+
+"The dear, good Cecilia," cried Sophia.
+
+"Up till this period the family had permitted her to have her own way.
+But as it is necessary for authority to prevent excesses of all kinds,
+they thought it time now to interfere; they could not allow her to
+sacrifice her whole life for a shadow. Her parents, therefore,
+insisted upon her making a choice of one or other of the suitors for
+her hand. She requested grace for one year more, which was granted."
+
+"Come back, truant, quick; come back, Master Herbert!" cried Sophia.
+
+"There now, Willis," cried Jack, "you see the effect of your new
+world; people go away there, and never come back again."
+
+"Oh, but you must bring him back in time, father; you must indeed,"
+urged Sophia.
+
+"If it were only a romance I were relating to you, Sophia, I could
+very easily bring him back; but the narrative I am giving you is a
+matter of fact, which I cannot alter at will. There would be no
+difficulty in bringing a richly-laden East Indiaman, commanded by
+Captain Philipson, into the Severn, and making Herbert and Cecilia
+conclude the story in each other's arms, but it would not be true."
+
+"Then if I had been Cecilia, I should have become a nun," said Mary,
+timidly.
+
+"Exaggeration, my daughter, is an enemy to truth. It is easy to say,
+'I would become a nun,' and in Roman Catholic countries it is quite as
+easy to become one; but, though it may be sublime to retire in this
+way from the world, it is frightful when a woman has afterwards to
+regret the inconsiderate step she has taken, and which is often the
+case with these poor creatures."
+
+"As you said of myself," remarked Willis, "it is a crime to go down
+with a sinking ship so long as there is a straw to cling to."
+
+"I presume," continued Wolston, "that during this year poor Cecilia
+prayed fervently for the return of her old playfellow; but her prayers
+were all in vain, the year expired, and still no news of the young
+man; at last she despaired of ever seeing him again, and, after a
+severe struggle with herself, she decided upon complying with the
+desire of her parents and her friends. A few months after the expiring
+of the year of grace, she was the affianced bride of a highly
+respectable, well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman. John Lindsey, her
+intended husband, could not boast of his good looks; he was little,
+rather stout, was deeply pitted in the face with the small-pox, and
+had a very red nose, but he was considered by the ladies of Bristol as
+a very good match for all that."
+
+"Oh, Cecilia, how ridiculous!" exclaimed Sophia.
+
+"Better, at all events, than turning nun," said Jack.
+
+"The family this season had gone to pass the summer at the sea-coast;
+and one day that Cecilia and her intended were taking their accustomed
+walk along the shore--"
+
+"Holloa!" cried Jack, "the truant is going to appear, after all."
+
+"John Lindsey, observing a ring of some value upon Cecilia's finger,
+politely asked her if she had any objections to tell him its history.
+She replied that she had none, and told him it was a gift of young
+Philipson's. 'I am well acquainted with your story,' said Lindsey,
+'and do not blame the constancy with which you have treasured the
+memory of that young man; on the contrary, I respect you for it--in
+fact, it was the knowledge of your self-sacrifice to this affection
+and all its attendant circumstances, that led me to solicit the honor
+of your hand; for, said I to myself, one who has evinced so much
+devotion for a mere sentiment, is never likely to prove unfaithful to
+sacred vows pledged at the altar,' 'Come what may, you may at least
+rely upon that, sir,' she answered. 'Then,' continued Lindsey, 'as an
+eternal barrier is about to be placed between yourself and your past
+affections, perhaps you will pardon my desire to separate you, as much
+as possible, from everything that is likely to recal them to your
+mind.' Saying that, he gently drew the ring from her finger, and threw
+it into the sea."
+
+It was strongly suspected that Mary shed a tear at this point of the
+recital.
+
+"It is all over with you now, Herbert," cried Fritz.
+
+"You had better make a bonfire of your ships, like Fernando Cortez in
+Mexico; or, if you are on your way home, better pray for a hurricane
+to swallow you up, than have all your bright hopes dashed to atoms,
+when you arrive in port."
+
+"I am only a little girl," said Sophia; "but I know what I should have
+said, if the gentleman had done the same thing to me."
+
+"And what would you have said, child?" inquired her mother.
+
+"I should have said, that I was not the Doge of Venice, and had no
+intention of marrying the British Channel."
+
+"Can you describe the ceremony to which you refer?"
+
+"Yes; but it would interrupt papa's story, and Jack would laugh at
+me."
+
+"Never mind my story," replied her father, "there is plenty of time
+to finish that."
+
+"And as for me," said Jack, "though I do not wear a cocked hat and
+knee breeches, and though, in other respects, my tailor has rather
+neglected my outward man, still I know what is due to a lady and a
+queen."
+
+"There, he begins already!" said Sophia.
+
+"Never mind him, child; go on with your account of the marriage."
+
+"Well," began Sophia, "for a long time, there had been disputes
+between the states of Bologna, Ancona, and Venice, as to which
+possessed the sovereignty of the Adriatic."
+
+"If it had been a dispute about the Sovereignty of the ocean in
+general," remarked Willis, "there would have been another competitor."
+
+"Venice," continued Sophia, "carried the day, and about 1275 or 76 she
+resolved to celebrate her victory by an annual ceremony. For this
+purpose, a magnificent galley was built, encrusted with gold, silver,
+and precious stones. This floating _bijou_ was called the
+_Bucentaure_, was guarded in the arsenal, whence it was removed on the
+eve of the Ascension. Next day the Doge, the patriarch, and the
+Council of Ten embarked, and the galley was towed out to the open sea,
+but not far from the shore. There, in the presence of the foreign
+ambassadors, whilst the clergy chanted the marriage service, the Doge
+advanced majestically to the front of the galley, and there formally
+wedded the sea."
+
+"He might have done worse," observed Willis.
+
+"The ceremony," continued Sophia, "consisted in the Doge throwing a
+ring into the sea, saying, 'We wed thee, O sea! to mark the real and
+perpetual dominion we possess over thee.'"
+
+"And it may be added," observed Becker, "that the history of Venice
+shows how religiously the spouses of the Adriatic kept their vows."
+
+"Now," said Sophia, "that I have told my tale, let us hear what became
+of Cecilia."
+
+"Well, the marriage took place the morning after Herbert's ring had
+been thrown to the fishes. Whilst the bride, bridegroom, and their
+friends were congratulating each other over the wedding breakfast, as
+is usual in England on such occasions, Cecilia's father was called out
+of the room."
+
+"Too late," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Herbert Philipson had arrived that same morning; but, as Fritz
+observes, he was just an hour too late. He had acquired a fortune, but
+his long-cherished hopes of happiness were completely blasted."
+
+"Why did he stay away five years without writing?" inquired Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"He had written several times, but at that time no regular post had
+been established, and his letters had never reached their
+destination."
+
+"When did he find out that Cecilia was married?"
+
+"Well, some people think it more humane to kill a man by inches rather
+than by a single blow of the axe. Not so with Herbert's friends; the
+first news that greeted him on landing were, that his ever-remembered
+Cecilia was probably at that moment before the altar pledging her vows
+to another."
+
+"I should rather have had a chimney-pot tumble on my head," remarked
+Willis.
+
+"Herbert was a man in every sense of the word--the mode of his
+departure proves that. On hearing this painful intelligence, he simply
+covered his face with his hands, and, after a moment's thought,
+resolved to see his lost bride at least once more."
+
+"Poor Herbert!" sighed Mary.
+
+"Foster was thunderstruck when the stranger declared himself to be the
+son of his old friend; and, after cordially bidding him welcome,
+sorrowfully asked him what he meant to do. 'I should wish to see Mrs.
+Lindsey in presence of her husband,' he replied, 'providing you have
+no objections to introduce me to the company.'"
+
+"Bravo!" ejaculated Willis.
+
+"Foster could not refuse this favor to an unfortunate, who had just
+been disinherited of his dearest hopes. He, therefore, took Herbert by
+the hand and led him into the room. Nobody recognized him. 'Ladies and
+gentlemen,' said he, 'permit me to introduce Mr. Herbert Philipson,
+who has just arrived from Sumatra.' You may readily conceive the
+dismay this unexpected announcement called up into the countenances of
+the guests. There was only one person in the room who was calm,
+tranquil, and unmoved--that person was Cecilia herself. She rose
+courteously, bade him welcome, hoped he was well, coolly asked him why
+he had not written to his friends, and politely asked him to take a
+seat beside herself and husband, just, for all the world, as if he had
+been some country cousin or poor relation to whom she wished to show a
+little attention."
+
+"I would rather have been at the bottom of the sea than in her place,
+for all that," said Mary.
+
+"Why? She had nothing to reproach herself with. Had she not waited
+long enough for him?"
+
+"Young heads," remarked Becker, "are not always stored with sense. A
+foolish pledge, given in a moment of thoughtlessness is often
+obstinately adhered to in spite of reason and argument. The young idea
+delights in miraculous instances of fidelity. What more charming to a
+young and ardent mind than the loves of Dante and Beatrix, of Eleonora
+and Tasso, of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, or of Dean
+Swift and Stella? Young people do not reflect that most of these
+stories are apocryphal, and that the men who figure in them sought to
+add to their renown the prestige of originality; they put on a passion
+as ordinary mortals put on a new dress, they yielded to imagination
+and not to the law of the heart, and almost all of them paid by a life
+of wretchedness the penalty of their dreams."
+
+"That is, I presume," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "you do not object to any
+reasonable amount of constancy, but you object to its being carried to
+an unwarrantable excess."
+
+"Exactly so, madam," replied Becker; "constancy, like every thing else
+when reasonable limits are exceeded, becomes a vice."
+
+"The merriments of the marriage breakfast," continued Wolston
+"slightly interrupted by the arrival of the new guest, were resumed.
+Fresh dishes were brought in, and, amongst others, a fine turbot was
+placed on the table. The gentleman who was engaged in carving the
+turbot struck the fish-knife against a hard substance."
+
+"I know what!" exclaimed two or three voices.
+
+"I rather think not," said Wolston, drily.
+
+"Oh, yes, the ring! the ring!"
+
+"No, it was merely the bone that runs from the head to the tail of the
+fish."
+
+"Oh, father," cried Sophia, "how can you tease us so?"
+
+"If they had found the ring," replied Wolston, laughing, "I should
+have no motive for concealing it. Fruit was afterwards placed before
+Herbert, and, when nobody was looking, he pulled a clasped dagger out
+of his pocket."
+
+Here Sophia pressed her hands closely on her ears, in order to avoid
+hearing what followed.
+
+"It was a very beautiful poignard," continued Wolston, "and rather a
+bijou than a weapon; and, as the servants had neglected to hand him a
+fruit-knife, he made use of it in paring an apple."
+
+"Is it all over?" inquired Sophia, removing a hand from one ear.
+
+"Alas! yes!" said Jack, lugubriously, "he has been and done it."
+
+"O the monster!"
+
+"Travelling carriages having arrived at the door for the bridal party,
+Herbert quietly departed."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Sophia, "did they not arrest and drag him to
+prison?"
+
+"Oh," replied Jack, "the crime was not so atrocious as it appears."
+
+"Not atrocious!"
+
+"No; you must bear in mind that young Philipson had passed the
+preceding five years of his life amongst demi-savages, whose manners
+and customs he had, to a certain extent, necessarily contracted. In
+some countries, what we call crimes are only regarded as peccadillos.
+In France, for example, till very lately, there existed what was
+called the law of _combette_, by right of which pardon might be
+obtained for any misdeed on payment of a certain sum of money. There
+was a fixed price for every imaginable crime. A man might
+consequently be a Blue Beard if he liked, it was only necessary to
+consult the tariff in the first instance, and see to what extent his
+means would enable him to indulge his fancy for horrors."
+
+"On quitting the house," continued Wolston, "Herbert Philipson bent
+his way to the shore, and shortly after was observed to plunge into
+the sea."
+
+"So much the better," exclaimed Sophia; "it saved his friends a more
+dreadful spectacle."
+
+"The weather being fine and the water warm, Herbert enjoyed his bath
+immensely; he then returned to his hotel, went early to bed, and slept
+soundly till next morning."
+
+"The wretch!" cried Sophia, "to sleep soundly after assassinating his
+old playfellow, who had suffered so much on his account."
+
+"It is pretty certain," continued Wolston, "that, if Philipson had
+been left entirely to himself, he would always have shown the same
+degree of moderation he had hitherto displayed."
+
+"Oh, yes, moderation!" said Sophia.
+
+"But his friends began to prate to him about the shameful way he had
+been jilted by Cecilia, and, by constantly reiterating the same thing,
+they at last succeeded in persuading him that he was an ill-used man.
+His self-esteem being roused by this silly chatter, he began to affect
+a ridiculous desolation, and to perpetrate all manner of outrageous
+extravagances."
+
+"Bad friends," remarked Willis, "are like sinking ships; they drag you
+down to their own level."
+
+"The first absurd thing he did was to purchase a yacht, and when a
+storm arose that forced the hardy fishermen to take shelter in port,
+he went out to sea, and it is quite a miracle that he escaped
+drowning. Then, if there were a doubtful scheme afloat, he was sure to
+take shares in it. Nothing delighted him more than to go up in a
+balloon; he would have gladly swung himself on the car outside if the
+proprietor had allowed him."
+
+"I have often seen balloons in the air," remarked Willis, "but I could
+never make out their dead reckoning."
+
+"A balloon," replied Ernest, "is nothing more than an artificial
+cloud, and its power of ascension depends upon the volume of air it
+displaces.
+
+"Very good, Master Ernest, so far as the balloon itself is concerned;
+but then there is the weight of the car, passengers, provisions, and
+apparatus to account for."
+
+"Hydrogen gas, used in the inflation of balloons, is forty times
+lighter than air. If a balloon is made large enough, the weight of the
+car and all that it contains, added to that of the gas, will fall
+considerably short of the weight of the air displaced by the machine."
+
+"I suppose it rises in the air just as an empty bottle well corked
+rises in the water?"
+
+"Very nearly. Air is lighter than water; consequently, any vessel
+filled with the one will rise to the surface of the other. So in the
+case of balloons. The gas, in the first place, must be inclosed in an
+envelope through which it cannot escape. Silk prepared with
+India-rubber is the material usually employed. As the balloon rises,
+the gas in the interior distends, because the air becomes lighter the
+less it is condensed by its superincumbent masses; hence it is
+requisite to leave a margin for this increase in the volume of the
+gas, otherwise the balloon would burst in the air."
+
+"If a balloon were allowed to ascend without hindrance where would it
+stop?"
+
+"It would continue ascending till it reached a layer of air as light
+as the gas; beyond that point it could not go."
+
+"And if the voyagers do not wish to go quite so far?"
+
+"Then there is a valve by which the gas may be allowed to escape, till
+the weight of the machine and its volume of air are equal, when it
+ceases to ascend. If a little more is permitted to escape, the balloon
+descends."
+
+"And should it land on the roof of a house or the top of a tree, the
+voyagers have their necks broken."
+
+"That can only happen to bunglers; there is not the least necessity
+for landing where danger is to be apprehended. When the aeronaut is
+near the ground, and sees that the spot is unfavorable for
+debarkation, he drops a little ballast, the balloon mounts, and he
+comes down again somewhere else."
+
+"The fellow that made the first voyage must have been very daring."
+
+"The first ascent was made by Montgolfier in 1782, and he was followed
+by Rosiers and d'Arlandes."
+
+"With your permission, father," said Ernest, "I will claim priority in
+aerial travelling for Icarus, Doedalus, and Phaeton."
+
+"Certainly; you are justified in doing so. Gay-Lussac, a philosophic
+Frenchman, rose, in 1804, to the height of seven thousand yards."
+
+"He must have felt a little giddy," remarked Jack.
+
+"Most of the functions of the body were affected, more or less, by the
+extreme rarity of the air at that height. Its dryness caused wet
+parchment to crisp. He observed that the action of the magnetic needle
+diminished as he ascended, sounds gradually ceased to reach his ear,
+and the wind itself ceased to be felt."
+
+"That, of course," remarked Ernest, "was when he was travelling in the
+same direction and at the same speed."
+
+"Well," said Jack, "we can find materials here for a balloon; the
+ladies have silk dresses, there is plenty of India-rubber--we used to
+make boots and shoes of it; hydrogen gas can be obtained from a
+variety of substances. What, then, is to prevent us paying a visit to
+some of Ernest's friends in the skies?"
+
+"Unfortunately for your project, Jack, no one has discovered the art
+of guiding a balloon; consequently, instead of finding yourself at
+_Cassiope_, you might land at _Sirius_, where your reception would be
+somewhat cool."
+
+"But what became of Herbert?" inquired one of the ladies.
+
+"Singularly enough, he escaped all the dangers he so recklessly
+braved, and all the bad speculations he embarked in turned out good.
+Somehow or other, the moment he took part in a desperate scheme it
+became profitable."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Sophia, "his victim, like a guardian angel, continued
+to watch over him."
+
+"When the cholera appeared in England, he was sure to be found where
+the cases were most numerous. He followed up the pest with so much
+pertinacity and publicity, that it was no unusual thing to find it
+announced in the newspapers that Philipson and the cholera had arrived
+in such and such a town."
+
+"The bane and the antidote," remarked Jack.
+
+"If Cecilia had been one of those women who delight in horse-racing,
+fox-hunting, opera-boxes, and public executions, she would have been
+highly amused to see her old friend's name constantly turning up under
+such extraordinary circumstances."
+
+"Is she not dead, then?" inquired Sophia, with astonishment,
+
+"It appears that her wounds were not mortal," quietly replied her
+mother.
+
+"Besides," observed Jack, "there are human frames so constituted that
+they can bear an immense amount of cutting and slashing. So in the
+case of animals; there, for instance, is the fresh-water polypus--if
+you cut this creature lengthwise straight through the middle, a right
+side will grow on the one half and a left side on the other, so that
+there will be two polypi instead of one. The same thing occurs if you
+cut one through the middle crosswise, a head grows on the one half and
+a tail on the other, so that you have two entire polypi either way."
+
+"And you may add," observed Ernest, "since so interesting a subject is
+on the _tapis_, that if two of these polypi happen to quarrel over
+their prey, the largest generally swallows the smallest, in order to
+get it out of the way; and the latter, with the exception of being a
+little cramped for space, is not in the slightest degree injured by
+the operation."
+
+"And does that state of matters continue any length of time?"
+
+"The polypus that is inside the other may probably get tired of
+confinement, in which case it makes its exit by the same route it
+entered; but, if too lazy to do that, it makes a hole in the body of
+its antagonist and gets out that way. But, what is most curious of
+all, these processes do not appear to put either of the creatures to
+the slightest inconvenience."
+
+"I am quite at a loss to make you all out," said Sophia.
+
+"Well, my child," replied her mother, "you should not close up your
+ears in the middle of a story."
+
+"Cecilia, or rather Mrs. Lindsey, however," continued Wolston, "was a
+pious, painstaking, simple-minded woman, who devoted her whole
+attention to her domestic duties. Notwithstanding her fortune, she did
+not neglect the humblest affairs of the household, and thought only of
+making her husband pleased with his home. When she was told of the
+vagaries of Philipson, she prayed in private that he might be led from
+his evil ways, and could not help thanking Providence that she was not
+the wife of such a dreadful scapegrace."
+
+"I should think so," remarked Mrs. Becker.
+
+"At last, Herbert Philipson astonished even his own companions by a
+crowning act of folly. There was then a young woman in Bristol, of
+good parentage, but an unmitigated virago; her family were thoroughly
+ashamed of her temper and her exploits. They allowed her to have her
+own way, simply for fear that, through contradiction, she might plunge
+herself into even worse courses than those she now habitually
+followed. In short, she was the talk and jest of the whole town."
+
+"What a charming creature!" remarked Mrs. Becker.
+
+"No servant of her own sex could put up with her for two days
+together; she styled everybody that came near her fools and asses, and
+did not hesitate to strike them if they ventured to contradict her.
+She got on, however, tolerably well with ostlers, stable-boys, cabmen,
+and such like, because they could treat her in her own style, and were
+not ruffled by her abuse."
+
+"How amiable!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Herbert heard of this young person, and, through a fast friend of his
+own, obtained an introduction to her, and on the very first interview
+he offered her his hand. He was known still to be a wealthy man, so
+neither the lady herself nor anybody connected with her made the
+slightest objection to the match, thinking probably that, if there
+were six of the one, there were at least half a dozen of the other."
+
+"They ought to have gone to Bedlam, instead of to church," said
+Willis; "that is my idea."
+
+"Nevertheless, they went to church; and, after the marriage, Cecilia
+sought and obtained an introduction to the lady, and, whether by
+entreaties or by her good example, I cannot say; be this as it may,
+the unpromising personage in question became one of the best wives and
+the best mothers that ever graced a domestic circle--in this respect
+even excelling the pattern Cecilia herself; and, what is still more to
+the purpose, she succeeded in completely reforming her husband. When I
+left England there was not a more prosperous merchant, nor a more
+estimable man in the whole city of Bristol, than Herbert Philipson."
+
+"From which we may conclude," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is always
+advisable to have angels for friends."
+
+"We may also conclude," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that when a stroke of
+adversity, or any other misfortune, overturns the edifice of happiness
+we had erected for the future, we may build a new structure with fresh
+material, which may prove more durable than the first."
+
+"Talking of having angels for friends," said Becker, "puts me in mind
+of the association of Saint Louis Gonzaga, at Rome. On the anniversary
+of this saint, the young and merry phalanx forming the association
+march in procession to one of the public gardens. In the centre of
+this garden a magnificent altar has been previously erected, on which
+is placed a chafing-dish filled with burning coals. The procession
+forms itself into an immense ring round the altar, broken here and
+there by a band of music. These bands play hymns in honor of the
+saints, and other _morceaux_ of a sacred character. Each member of the
+association holds a letter inclosed in an embossed and highly
+ornamented envelope, bound round with gay-colored ribbons and threads
+of gold. These letters are messages from the young correspondents to
+their friends in heaven, and are addressed to 'Il Santo Giovane Luigi
+Gonzaga, in Paradiso.' At a given signal, the letters, in the midst of
+profound silence, are placed on the chafing-dish. This done, the music
+resounds on all sides, and the assembly burst out into loud
+acclamations, during which the letters are supposed to be carried up
+into heaven by the angels."
+
+"A curious and interesting ceremony," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and one
+that may possibly do good, inasmuch as it may induce the young people
+composing the association to persevere in generous resolutions."
+
+The two families again separated for the night. And whilst the young
+men were escorting the Wolstons to their tree, Sophia went towards
+Jack. "Will you tell me," inquired she, "what happened whilst I had my
+ears closed up, Jack?"
+
+"Yes, with all my heart, if you will tell me first what the chimpanzee
+had been about during our absence."
+
+"Well, he got up into our tree when we were out of the way. After
+soaping his chin, he had taken one of papa's razors, and just as he
+was beginning to shave himself, some one entered and caught him."
+
+"Oh, is that all? What I have to tell you is a great deal more
+appalling than that."
+
+"Well, then, be quick."
+
+"But I am afraid you will be shocked."
+
+"Is it very dreadful?"
+
+"More so than you would imagine. If you dream about it during the
+night, you will not be angry with me for telling you?"
+
+"No, I will be courageous, and am prepared to hear the worst."
+
+"What was your father saying when you shut up your ears?"
+
+"Herbert had just pulled out a dagger."
+
+"And when you took your hands away?"
+
+"All was then over; Herbert had done some dreadful thing with the
+dagger, and I want to know what it was."
+
+"He pared an apple with it," replied Jack, bursting into a roar of
+laughter, and, running off, he left Sophia to her reflections.
+
+A few seconds after he returned. This time he had almost a solemn air,
+the laughter had vanished from his visage, like breath from polished
+steel.
+
+"Miss Sophia," inquired he gravely, "are you rich?"
+
+"I don't know, Master Jack; are you?"
+
+"Well, I have not the slightest idea either."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE TEARS OF CHILDHOOD AND RAIN OF THE TROPICS--CHARLES'S
+WAIN--VOLUNTARY ENLISTMENT--A LIKENESS GUARANTEED--THE WORLD AT
+PEACE--ALAS, POOR MARY!--THE SAME BREATH FOR TWO BEINGS--THE FIRST
+PILLOW--THE LOGIC OF THE HEART--HOW FRITZ SUPPORTED GRIEF--A GRAIN OF
+SAND AND THE HIMALAYA.
+
+
+At daybreak next morning, all the eyes in the colony were busily
+engaged in scrutinizing the sky. This time the operation seemed
+satisfactory, for immediately afterwards, all the hands were, with
+equal diligence, occupied in packing up and making other preparations
+for the meditated excursion to the remote dependencies of New
+Switzerland.
+
+The dense veil that the day before had shrouded them in gloom was now
+broken up into shreds. The azure depths beyond had assumed the
+appearance of a blue tunic bespattered with white, and the clouds
+suggested the idea of a celestial shepherd, driving myriads of sheep
+to the pasture. Children alone can dry up their tears with the
+rapidity of Nature in the tropics; perhaps we may have already made
+the remark, and must, therefore, beg pardon for repeating the simile a
+second time.
+
+In a short time, the two families were assembled on the lawn, in front
+of the domestic trees of Falcon's Nest, ready to start on their
+journey. The cow and the buffalo were yoked to the carriage, which was
+snugly covered over with a tarpauling, thrown across circular girds,
+like the old-fashioned waggons of country carriers. Frank mounted the
+box in front; Mrs. Becker, Wolston, and Sophia got inside; whilst
+Ernest and Jack, mounted on ostriches that had been trained and broken
+in as riding horses, took up a position on each side, where the doors
+of the vehicle ought to have been. These dispositions made, after a
+few lashes from the whip, this party started off at a brisk rate in
+the direction of Waldeck.
+
+It had been previously arranged that one half of the expedition should
+go by land, and the other half by water, and that on their return this
+order should be reversed, so that both the interior and the coast
+might be inspected at one and the same time. The only exception was
+made in favor of Willis, who was permitted both to go and return by
+sea.
+
+The second party, consisting of Mrs. Wolston, Becker, Mary, and Fritz,
+started on foot in the direction of the coast. They had not gone far
+before Becker observed a large broadside plastered on a tree.
+
+"What is that?" he inquired.
+
+Nobody could give a satisfactory reply.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Wolston, "paper grows ready made on the
+trees of this wonderful country."
+
+"They all approached, and, much to their astonishment, read as
+follows:--
+
+"TAKE NOTICE.
+
+"The renowned Professor Ernest Becker is about to enlighten the
+benighted inhabitants of this country, by giving a course of lectures
+on optics. The agonizing doubts that have hitherto enveloped
+astronomical science, particularly as regards the interiors of the
+moon and the stars, have arisen from the absurd practice of looking at
+them during the night. These doubts are about to be removed for ever
+by the aforesaid professor, as he intends to exhibit the luminaries in
+question in open day. He will also place Charles's Wain[C] at the
+disposal of any one who is desirous of taking a drive in the Milky
+Way. The learned professor will likewise stand for an indefinite
+period on his head; and whilst in this position will clearly
+demonstrate the rotundity of the earth, and the tendency of heavy
+bodies to the centre of gravity. In order that the prices of admission
+may be in accordance with the intrinsic value of the lectures, nothing
+will be charged for the boxes, the entrance to the pit will be gratis,
+and the gallery will be thrown open for the free entry of the people.
+The audience will be expected to assume a horizontal position. Persons
+given to snoring are invited to stay at home."
+
+"I rather think I should know that style," remarked Willis.
+
+"It is a pity Ernest is not with us," observed Fritz; "but the placard
+will keep for a day or two."
+
+"They say laughing is good for digestion," remarked Mrs. Wolston; "and
+if so, it must be confessed that Master Jack is a useful member of the
+colony in a sanitary point of view."
+
+The party had scarcely advanced a hundred paces farther, when Fritz
+called out,
+
+"Holloa! there is another broadside in sight."
+
+This one was headed by a smart conflict between two ferocious looking
+hussars, and was couched in the following terms:--
+
+"PROCLAMATION.
+
+"All the inhabitants of this colony capable of bearing arms, who are
+panting after glory, are invited to the Fig Tree, at Falcon's Nest,
+there to enrol themselves in the registry of Fritz Becker, who is
+about to undertake the conquest of the world. Nobody is compelled to
+volunteer, but those who hold back will be reckoned contumacious, and
+will be taken into custody, and kept on raw coffee till such time as
+they evince a serious desire to enlist. There will be no objection to
+recruits returning home at the end of the war, if they come out of it
+alive. Neither will there be any objections to the survivors bringing
+back a marshal's baton, if they can get one. The Commander-in-chief
+will charge himself with the fruits of the victory. Surgical
+operations will be performed at his cost, and cork legs will be served
+out with the rations. In the event of a profitable campaign, a
+monument will be erected to the memory of the defunct, by way of a
+reward for their heroism on the field of battle."
+
+"Well, Fritz," said Becker, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "you were
+sorry that Ernest was not present to hear the last placard read;
+fortunately, you are on the spot yourself this time."
+
+Fritz tried to look amused, but the attempt was a decided failure.
+
+When the party had gone a little farther, another announcement met
+their gaze; all were curious to know whose turn was come now; as they
+approached, the following interesting question, in large letters,
+stared them in the face:--
+
+"HAVE YOU HAD YOUR PORTRAIT TAKEN YET?
+
+"It has been reserved for the present age, and for this prolific
+territory, so exuberant in cabbages, turnips, and other potables, to
+produce the greatest of living artists--real genius--who is destined
+to outshine all the Michel Angelos and Rubenses of former ages. Not
+that these men were entirely devoid of talent, but because they could
+do nothing without their palette and their paint brushes. Now that
+illustrious _maestro_, Mr. Jack Becker, has both genius and ingenuity,
+for he has succeeded in dispensing with the aforementioned troublesome
+auxiliaries of his art. His plan which has the advantage of not being
+patented, consists in placing his subject before a mirror, where he is
+permitted to stay till the portrait takes root in the glass. By this
+novel method the original and the copy will be subject alike to the
+ravages of time, so that no one, on seeing a portrait, will be liable
+to mistake the grand-mother for the grand-daughter. Likenesses
+guaranteed. Payments, under all circumstances, to be made in advance.
+
+"Ah, well," said Becker, laughing, "it appears that the scapegrace has
+not spared himself."
+
+"I hope there is not a fourth proclamation," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"There are no more trees on our route, at all events," replied
+Becker.
+
+"Glad to hear that; Jack must respect the avocation chosen by Frank,
+since he sees nothing in it to ridicule."
+
+As they drew near the Jackal River, in which the pinnace was moored,
+Mary and Fritz were a little in advance of the party.
+
+"Are you really determined to turn the world upside down, Master
+Fritz?"
+
+"At present, Miss Wolston, I am myself the sum and substance of my
+army, in addition to which I have not yet quite made up my mind."
+
+"It is an odd fancy to entertain to say the least of it."
+
+"Does it displease you?"
+
+"In order that it could do that, I must first have the right to judge
+your projects."
+
+"And if I gave you that right?"
+
+"I should find the responsibility too great to accept it. Besides, a
+determination cannot be properly judged, without putting one's self in
+the position of the person that makes it. You imagine happiness
+consists in witnessing the shock of armies, whilst I fancy enjoyment
+to consist in the calm tranquility of one's home. You see our views of
+felicity are widely different."
+
+"Not so very widely different as you seem to think, Miss Wolston. As
+yet my victories are _nil_; I have not yet come to an issue with my
+allies; to put my troops on the peace establishment I have only to
+disembody myself, and I disembody myself accordingly."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "you are very easily turned from your purpose."
+
+"Easily! no, Miss Wolston, not easily; you cannot admit that an
+objection urged by yourself is a matter of no moment, or one that can
+be slighted with impunity."
+
+"Ah! here we are at the end of our journey."
+
+"Already! the road has never appeared so short to me before."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston, coming up to her daughter, "you appear
+very merry."
+
+"Well, not without reason, mamma; I have just restored peace to the
+world."
+
+The pinnace was soon launched, and, under the guidance of Willis, was
+making way in the direction of Waldeck. The sea had not yet recovered
+from the effects of the recent storm; it was still, to use an
+expression of Willis, "a trifle ugly." Occasionally the waves would
+catch the frail craft amidships, and make it lurch in an uncomfortable
+fashion, especially as regarded the ladies, which obliged Willis to
+keep closer in shore than was quite to his taste. The briny element
+still bore traces of its recent rage, just as anger lingers on the
+human face, even after it has quitted the heart.
+
+Whilst the pinnace was in the midst of a series of irregular
+gyrations, a shrill scream suddenly rent the air, and at the same
+instant Fritz and Willis leaped overboard.
+
+_Mary had fallen into the sea_.
+
+Becker strained every nerve to stay the boat. Mrs. Wolston fell on her
+knees with outstretched hands, but, though in the attitude of prayer,
+not a word escaped her pallid lips.
+
+The two men floated for a moment over the spot where the poor girl had
+sunk; suddenly Fritz disappeared, his keen eye had been of service
+here, for it enabled him to descry the object sought. In a few seconds
+he rose to the surface with Mary's inanimate body in his left arm.
+Willis hastened to assist him in bearing the precious burden to the
+boat, and Becker's powerful arms drew it on deck.
+
+The joy that all naturally would have felt when this was accomplished
+had no time to enter their breasts, for they saw that the body evinced
+no signs of life, and a fear that the vital spark had already fled
+caused every frame to shudder. They felt that not a moment was to be
+lost; the resources of the boat were hastily put in requisition;
+mattresses, sheets, blankets, and dry clothes were strewn upon the
+deck. Mrs. Wolston had altogether lost her presence of mind, and could
+do nothing but press the dripping form of her daughter to her bosom.
+
+"Friction must be tried instantly," cried Becker; "here, take this
+flannel and rub her body smartly with it--particularly her breast and
+back."
+
+Mrs. Wolston instinctively followed these directions.
+
+"It is of importance to warm her feet," continued Becker; "but,
+unfortunately, we have no means on board to make a fire."
+
+Mrs. Wolston, in her trepidation, began breathing upon them.
+
+"I have heard," said the Pilot, "that persons rescued from drowning
+are held up by the feet to allow the water to run out."
+
+"Nonsense, Willis; a sure means of killing them outright. It is not
+from water that any danger is to be apprehended, but from want of air,
+or, rather, the power of respiration. What we have to do is to try and
+revive this power by such means as are within our reach."
+
+The Pilot, meantime, endeavored to introduce a few drops of brandy
+between the lips of the patient. Fritz stood trembling like an aspen
+leaf and deadly pale; he regarded these operations as if his own life
+were at stake, and not the patient's.
+
+"There remains only one other course to adopt, Mrs. Wolston," said
+Becker, "you must endeavor to bring your daughter to life by means of
+your own breath."
+
+"Only tell me what to do, Mr. Becker, and, if every drop of blood in
+my body is wanted, all is at your disposal."
+
+"You must apply your mouth to that of your daughter, and, whilst her
+nostrils are compressed, breathe at intervals into her breast, and so
+imitate the act of natural respiration."
+
+Stronger lungs than those of a woman might have been urgent under such
+circumstances, but maternal love supplied what was wanting in physical
+strength.
+
+The Pilot had turned the prow of the pinnace towards home; he felt
+that, in the present case at least, the comforts of the land were
+preferable to the charms of the sea.
+
+"This time it is not my breath, but her own," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Her pulse beats," said Becker; "she lives."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Fritz and Willis in one voice.
+
+A quarter of an hour had scarcely yet elapsed since the patient's
+first immersion in the sea; but this brief interval had been an age of
+agony to them all. As yet, her head lay quiescent on her mother's
+bosom, that first pillow, common alike to rich and poor, at the
+threshold of life.
+
+The%signs of returning animation gradually became more and more
+evident; at length, the patient gently raised her head, and glanced
+vacantly from one object to another; then, her eyes were turned upon
+herself, and finally rested upon Fritz and Willis, who still bore
+obvious traces of their recent struggle with the waves. Here she
+seemed to become conscious, for her body trembled, as if some terrible
+thought had crossed her mind. After this paroxysm had passed, she
+feebly inclined her head, as if to say--"I understand--you have saved
+my life--I thank you." Then, like those jets of flame that are no
+sooner alight than they are extinguished, she again became insensible.
+
+As soon as they reached the shore, Fritz hastened to Rockhouse, and
+made up a sort of palanquin of such materials as were at hand, into
+which Mary was placed, and thus was conveyed, with all possible care
+and speed, on the shoulders of the men to Falcon's Nest. A few hours
+afterwards she returned to consciousness and found herself in a warm
+bed, surrounded with all the comforts that maternal anxiety and
+Becker's intelligent mind could suggest.
+
+Fritz was unceasing in his exertions; no amount of fatigue seemed to
+wear him out. As soon as he saw that everything had been done for the
+invalid that their united skill could accomplish, he bridled an
+untrained ostrich, and rode or rather flew off in search of the land
+portion of the expedition.
+
+"Mary is saved," he cried, as he came up with them.
+
+"From what?" inquired Wolston, anxiously.
+
+"From the sea, that was about to swallow her up."
+
+"And by whom?"
+
+"By Willis, myself, and us all."
+
+The same evening, the two families were again assembled at Falcon's
+Nest, and thus, for a second time, the long talked-of expedition was
+brought to an abrupt conclusion.
+
+"Ah," said Willis, "we must cast anchor for a bit; yesterday it was
+the sky, to-day it was the sea, to-morrow it will be the land,
+perhaps--the wind is clearly against us."
+
+How often does it not happen, in our pilgrimage through life, that we
+have the wind against us? We make a resolute determination, we set out
+on our journey, but the object we seek recedes as we advance; it is no
+use going any farther--the wind is against us. We re-commence ten,
+twenty, a hundred times, but the result is invariably the same. How is
+this? No one can tell. What are the obstacles? It is difficult to say.
+Perhaps, we meet with a friend who detains us; perhaps, a recollection
+that our memory has called, induces us to swerve from the path--the
+blind man that sung under our window may have something to do with
+it--perhaps, it was merely a fly, less than nothing.
+
+It is not our minor undertakings, but rather our most important
+enterprises, that are frustrated by such trifles as these; for it must
+be allowed that we strive less tenaciously against an obstacle that
+debars us from a pleasure, than against one that separates us from a
+duty--in the one case we have to stem the torrent, in the other we
+sail with the current.
+
+When we observe some deplorable instance of a wrecked career--when we
+see a man starting in life with the most brilliant prospects
+collapsing into a dead-weight on his fellows, we are apt to suppose
+that some insurmountable barrier must have crossed his path--some
+Himalaya, or formidable wall, like that which does not now separate
+China from Tartary; but no such thing. Trace the cause to its source,
+and what think you is invariably found? A grain of sand; the
+unfortunate wretch has had the wind against him--nothing more.
+
+Rescued from the sea, Mary Wolston was now a prey to a raging fever.
+Ill or well, at her age there is no medium, either exuberant health or
+complete prostration; the juices then are turbulent and the blood is
+ardent.
+
+Somehow or other, a good action attaches the doer to the recipient;
+so, in the case of Fritz, apart from the brotherly affection which he
+had vaguely vowed to entertain for the two young girls that had so
+unexpectedly appeared amongst them, he now regarded the life of Mary
+as identical with his own, and felt that her death would inevitably
+shorten his own existence; "for," said he to himself, "should she die,
+I was too late in drawing her out of the water." In his tribulation
+and irreflection, he drew no line between the present and the past,
+but simply concluded, that if he saved her too late, he did not save
+her at all. Hope, nevertheless, did not altogether abandon him. He
+would sometimes fancy her restored to her wonted health, abounding in
+life and vigour. Then the pleasing thought would cross his mind that,
+but for himself, that charming being, in all probability, would have
+been a tenant of the tomb. Would that those who do evil only knew the
+delight that sometimes wells up in the breasts of those who do good!
+
+The first day of Mary's illness, Fritz bore up manfully. On the
+second, he joined his father and brothers in their field labors; but,
+whilst driving some nails into a fence, he had so effectually fixed
+himself to a stake that it was only with some difficulty that he could
+be detached. The third day, at sunrise, he called Mary's dog,
+shouldered his rifle, and was about to quit the house.
+
+"Where are you going?" inquired Jack.
+
+"I don't know--anywhere."
+
+"Anywhere! Well, I am rather partial to that sort of place; I will go
+with you."
+
+"But I must do something that will divert my thoughts. There may be
+danger."
+
+"Well I can help you to look up a difficulty."
+
+Every day the two brothers departed at sunrise, and returned together
+again in the evening. Mrs. Becker felt acutely their sufferings. She
+watched anxiously for the return of the two wanderers, and generally
+went a little way to meet them when they appeared in the distance.
+
+"She does not run to meet us," said Fritz, one day; "that is a bad
+sign."
+
+"Not a bit of it," replied Jack. "If she had any bad news to give us,
+she would not come at all."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] The constellation known in astronomy as the _Great Bear_ is in,
+some parts of England termed the _Plough_, and in others _Charles's
+Wain_ or _Waggon_. It may be added, that the same constellation is
+popularly known in France as the _Chariot of David_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GOD'S GOVERNMENT--KING STANISLAUS--THE DAUPHIN SON OF LOUIS XV.--THE
+SHORTEST ROAD--NEW YEAR'S DAY--A MIRACLE--CLEVER ANIMALS--THE
+CALENDAR--MR. JULIUS C�SAR AND POPE GREGORY XIII.--HOW THE DAY AFTER
+THE 4TH OF OCTOBER WAS THE 15TH--OLYMPIAD--LUSTRES--THE HEGIRA--A
+HORSE MADE CONSUL--JACK'S DREAM.
+
+
+Some men, when they regard the sinister side of events, are apt to
+call in question the axiom, Nothing is accomplished without the will
+of God. Why, they ask, do the wicked triumph? Why are the just
+oppressed? Why this evil? What is the use of that disaster? Was it
+necessary that Mary Wolston should be thrown into the sea, and that
+she should afterwards die in consequence of the accident?
+
+To these questions we reply, that God does not interrupt the ordinary
+course of His works. Man is a free agent in so far as regards his own
+actions; were it otherwise, we should not be responsible for our own
+crimes. We might as well plunge into vice as adhere to virtue; for we
+could not be called upon to expiate the one, nor could we hope to be
+rewarded for the other. It is not to be expected that God is to
+perform miracles at every instant for our individual benefit. It is
+unreasonable in us to suppose that, in obedience to our wishes or
+desires, He will alter His immutable laws.
+
+A foot slips on the brink of a precipice, and we are dashed to atoms.
+Our boat is upset in a squall, and we are drowned. Like Stanislaus
+Leszinsky, King of Poland, we fall asleep in the corner of a chimney,
+our clothes take fire, and we are burned to death. We go a hunting; we
+mistake a grey overcoat for the fur of a deer, and we kill our friend
+or his gamekeeper, as once happened to the son of Louis XV., who in
+consequence almost died of grief, and renounced forever a sport of
+which he was passionately fond. Did Providence will, exact, or
+pre-ordain all these calamities? Certainly not; but our Creator has
+seen fit to tolerate and permit them, since he did not interpose to
+prevent them.
+
+The government of God is a conception so wonderful, so sublime, that
+none but Himself can fathom its depths. Human intelligence is too
+finite to penetrate or comprehend a system so complex, and yet so
+uniform. The mind of man can only form a just idea of a cause when the
+effect has been made manifest to his understanding. There might have
+been a reason for the death of Mary Wolston--who knows? But if it were
+so, that reason was beyond the pale of mortal ken.
+
+Let us not, however, anticipate. Mary Wolston is not yet dead. On the
+contrary, when the ninth day of her illness had passed, Fritz and Jack
+were returning from an expedition, the nature of which was only known
+to themselves, but which, to judge from the packs that they bore on
+their backs, had been tolerably productive. The two young men observed
+their mother advancing, as usual, to meet them, but this time _she
+ran_. They had no need to be told in words that Mary Wolston was now
+out of danger; the serenity of their mother's countenance was more
+eloquent than the most elaborate discourse that ever stirred human
+souls.
+
+Mrs. Becker herself felt that words were superfluous, so she quietly
+took her son's arm, and they walked gently homewards, whilst Jack
+strode on before. On turning a corner of the road, the latter stumbled
+upon Wolston and Ernest, who, in the exuberance of their joy, had also
+come out to meet the hunters. They were, however, a little behind; but
+that was nothing new. These two members of the colony had become quite
+remarkable for procrastination and absence of mind. When Wolston the
+mechanician, and Ernest the philosopher, travelled in company, it was
+rare that some pebble or plant, or question in physics, did not induce
+them to deviate from their route or tarry on their way. One day they
+both started for Rockhouse to fetch provisions for the family dinner,
+but instead of bringing back the needful supplies of beef and mutton,
+they returned in great glee with the solution of an intricate problem
+in geometry. All fared very indifferently on that occasion, and, in
+consequence, Wolston and Ernest were, from that time on, deprived of
+the office of purveyors.
+
+In the present instance, instead of running like Mrs. Becker, they had
+philosophically seated themselves on the trunk of a tree. At their
+feet was a diagram that Wolston had traced with the end of his stick;
+this was neither a tangent nor a triangle, as might have been
+expected, but a figure denoting how to carve one's way to a position,
+amidst the rugged defiles of life.
+
+"In all things," observed Wolston, "in morals as well as physics, the
+shortest road from one point to another, is the straight line."
+
+"Unless," objected Ernest, "the straight line were encumbered with
+obstacles, that would require more time to surmount than to go round.
+Two leagues of clear road would be better than one only a single
+league in length, if intersected by ditches and strewn with wild
+beasts."
+
+"Bah!" cried Jack, who had just come up out of breath, "you might leap
+the one and shoot the others."
+
+"Your argument," replied Wolston, "is that of the savage, who can
+imagine no obstacles that are not solid and tangible. The obstacles
+that retard our progress in life neither display yawning chasms nor
+rows of teeth; they dwell within our own minds--they are versatility,
+disgust, ennui, thirst after the unknown, and love of change. These
+lead us to take bye-paths and long turnings, and fritter away the
+strength that should be used in promoting a single aim. Hence arise a
+multiplicity of hermaphrodite avocations and desultory studies, that
+terminate in nothing but vexation of spirit. Let us suppose, for
+example, that Peter has made up his mind to be a lawyer."
+
+"I do not see any particular reason why Peter should not be a lawyer,"
+said Jack.
+
+"Nor I either; but unfortunately when Peter has pored a certain time
+over Coke upon Littleton, and other abstruse legal authorities, he
+accidentally witnesses a review; he throws down his books, and
+resolves to become a soldier."
+
+"After the manner and style of our Fritz," suggested Jack.
+
+"He changes the Pandects for Polybius, and Gray's Inn for a military
+school. All goes well for awhile; the idea of uniform helps him over
+the rudiments of fortification and the platoon exercise. He passes two
+examinations creditably, but breaks down at the third, in consequence
+of which he throws away his sword in disgust. He does not like now to
+rejoin his old companions in the Inn, who have been working steadily
+during the years he has lost. He therefore, perhaps, adopts a middle
+course, and gets himself enrolled in the society of solicitors, which
+does not exact a very elaborate diploma."
+
+"Well, after all, the difference between a barrister and a solicitor
+is not so great."
+
+"True; but the exercises to which he has been accustomed previously
+unfit him for the drudgeries of his new employment, and he soon
+abandons that, just as he abandoned the other two."
+
+"Your friend Peter is somewhat difficult to please," said Jack.
+
+"He then goes into business, a term which may mean a great deal or
+nothing at all; it admits of one's going about idle with the
+appearance of being fully occupied. Then a few unsuccessful
+speculations bring him back, at the end of his days, to the point
+whence he started--that is, zero."
+
+"Ah, yes, I see now," cried Jack, whilst he traced a diagram on the
+ground. "Poor Peter has always stopped in the middle of each
+profession and gone back to the starting point of another, thus
+passing his life in making zig-zags, and only moving from one zero to
+another."
+
+"Exactly," added Wolston: "whilst those who persevered in following up
+the profession they chose at first finally succeeded in attaining a
+position, and that simply by adhering to a straight line."
+
+Here Fritz and his mother arrived, arm in arm.
+
+"Ha! there you are," cried Ernest. "We were on our way to meet you."
+
+"You surely do not call sitting down there being on your way to meet
+us, do you?"
+
+"Well, yes, mother," suggested Jack, "on the principle that two bodies
+coming into contact meet each other."
+
+Like those flowers that droop during a storm, but recover their
+brilliancy with the first rays of the sun, so a few days more sufficed
+to restore Mary Wolston to better health than she had ever enjoyed in
+her life before. Some months now elapsed without giving rise to any
+event of note. All the men, women, and children in the colony had been
+busily employed from early morn to late at e'en. No sooner had one
+field been sown than there was another to plant; then came the grain
+harvest and its hard but healthy toil; next, much to the delight of
+Willis, herrings appeared on the coast, followed by their attendant
+demons, the sea-dogs; salmon-fishing, hunting ortolans, the foundries
+and manufactories, likewise exacted a portion of their time.
+Frequently parties were occupied for weeks together in the remote
+districts; so that, with the exception of one day each week--the
+Sabbath--the two families had of late been rarely assembled together
+in one spot.
+
+The hope of ever again beholding the _Nelson_ had gradually ceased to
+be entertained by anybody. Like an echo that resounds from rock to
+rock until it is lost in the distance, this hope had died away in
+their breasts. Willis nevertheless continued to keep the beacon on
+Shark's Island alight; but he regarded it more as a sepulchral lamp in
+commemoration of the dead, than as a signal for the living.
+
+One morning, the break of day was announced by a cannon-shot. All
+instantly started on their feet and gazed inquiringly in each other's
+faces. One thing forced itself upon all their thoughts--daybreak
+generally arrives without noise; it is not accustomed to announce
+itself with gunpowder; like real merit, it requires no flourish of
+trumpets to announce its advent.
+
+"Good," said Becker; "Fritz and Jack are not visible, therefore we may
+easily guess who fired that shot."
+
+"Particularly," added Wolston, "as this is the first of January. Last
+night I observed an unusual amount of going backwards and forwards,
+so, I suppose, nobody need be much at a loss to solve the mystery."
+
+"Aye," sighed Willis, "New Year's Day brings pleasing recollections to
+many, but sad ones to those who are far away from their own homes."
+
+Shortly after, the absentees arrived, each mounted on his favorite
+ostrich.
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, spreading out a fine leopard's skin, "be
+good enough to accept this, with the compliments of the season."
+
+"Mr. Wolston," said Jack, at the same time, "here is the outer
+covering of a panther, who, stifling with heat, commissioned me to
+present you with his overcoat."
+
+"I am very proud of your gift, Master Fritz," said Mrs. Wolston; "it
+is really very handsome."
+
+"It may, perhaps, be useful at all events, madam," said Fritz; "for,
+in the absence of universal pills and such things, it is a capital
+preventative of coughs and colds."
+
+"You have been over the way again, then?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes; but, as you see, we adopted a more efficacious mode of
+operations than the one you suggested."
+
+"Ah," replied Willis, drily, "you did not light a fire this time to
+frighten the brutes away, and go to sleep when it went out!"
+
+Sophia then presented Willis with a handsome tobacco pouch, on which
+the words, "From Susan," were embroidered.
+
+"Bless your dear little heart!" said the sailor, whilst a tear
+sparkled in the corner of his eye, "you make me almost think I am in
+Old England again."
+
+"What is the matter?" inquired Mrs. Wolston, as Mary came running in.
+
+"Oh, such a miracle, mamma! my parrot commenced talking this morning."
+
+"And what did it say, child?"
+
+Here Mary blushed and hesitated; Mrs. Wolston glanced at Fritz, and
+thought it might be as well not to inquire any further.
+
+"Perhaps somebody has changed it," suggested Jack.
+
+"Not very likely that a strange parrot could pronounce my own name."
+
+"Well, perhaps your own has been learning to spell for a long time,
+and has just succeeded in getting into words of two or more syllables.
+These creatures abound in sell-esteem; and yours, perhaps, would not
+speak till it could speak well."
+
+"Odd, that it should pitch upon New Year's morning to say all sorts of
+pretty things. They do not carry an almanack in their pockets, do
+they?"
+
+"Well," remarked Willis, "parrots do say and do odd things. I heard of
+one that once frightened away a burglar, by screaming out, 'The
+Campbells are coming;' so, Miss Wolston, perhaps yours does keep a
+log."
+
+"By counting its knuckles," suggested Jack.
+
+"Counting one's knuckles is an ingenious, but rather a clumsy
+substitute for the calendar," remarked Wolston.
+
+"And who invented the calendar?" inquired Willis.
+
+"I am not aware that the calendar was ever invented," replied Wolston.
+"Fruit commences by being a seed, the admiral springs from the
+cabin-boy, words and language succeed naturally the babble of the
+infant; so, I presume, the calendar has grown up spontaneously to its
+present degree of perfection."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Wolston, but some one must have laid the first plank."
+
+"The motions of the sun, moon, and stars would, in all probability,
+suggest to the early inhabitants of our globe a natural means of
+measuring time. God, in creating the heavenly bodies, seems to have
+reflected that man would require some index to regulate his labors and
+the acts of his civil life. The primary and most elementary
+subdivisions of time are day and night, and it demanded no great
+stretch of human ingenuity to divide the day into two sections, called
+forenoon and afternoon, or into twelve sections, called hours. Such
+subdivisions of time would probably suggest themselves simultaneously
+to all the nations of the earth. Necessity, who is the mother of all
+invention, doubtless called the germs of our calendar into existence."
+
+"Yes, so far as the days and hours are concerned. There are other
+divisions--weeks, for example."
+
+"The division of time into weeks is a matter that belongs entirely to
+revelation; the Jews keep the last day of every seven as a day of
+rest, in accordance with the law of Moses, and the Christians dedicate
+the first day of every seven to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
+
+"Then there are months."
+
+"The month is another natural division. The return of the moon in
+conjunction with the sun, was observed to occur at regular intervals
+of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and some minutes. This interval is
+called the _lunar month_, which for a long time was regarded as the
+radical unit in the admeasurement of time."
+
+"But the year is now the unit, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, in course of time the moon, in this respect, gave place to the
+sun. It was observed that the earth, in performing her revolution
+round the sun, always arrived at the same point of her orbit at the
+end of three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, fifty-eight
+minutes, and forty-five seconds."
+
+"Does the earth invariably pass the same point at that interval?"
+
+"Yes, invariably; and the interval in question is termed the solar
+year."
+
+"After all," remarked Jack, "the perseverance of the earth is very
+much to be admired. It goes on eternally, always performing the same
+journey, never deviates from its path, and is never a minute too
+late."
+
+"If the earth had performed her annual voyage in a certain number of
+entire days, the solar year would have been an exact unit of time; but
+the odd fraction defied all our systems of calculation. Originally, we
+reckoned the year to consist of three hundred and sixty-five days."
+
+"And left the fraction to shift for itself!"
+
+"Yes, but the consequence was, that the civil year was always nearly a
+quarter of a day behind; so that at the end of a hundred and
+twenty-one years the civil year had become an entire month behind. The
+first month of winter found itself in autumn, the first month of
+spring in the middle of winter, and so on.
+
+"Rather a lubberly sort of log, that," remarked Willis.
+
+"This confusion became, with time, more and more embarrassing. Another
+evil was, likewise, eventually to be apprehended, for it was seen
+that, on the expiring of fourteen hundred and sixty revolutions of the
+earth round the sun, fourteen hundred and sixty-one civil years would
+be counted."
+
+"But where would have been the evil?"
+
+"All relations between the dates and the seasons would have been
+obliterated, astronomical calculations would have become inaccurate,
+and the calendar virtually useless."
+
+"Well, Willis, you that are so fertile in ideas, what would you have
+done in such a case?" inquired Jack.
+
+"I! Why I scarcely know--perhaps run out a fresh cable and commenced a
+new log."
+
+"Your remedy," continued Wolston, "might, perhaps, have obviated the
+difficulty; but Julius C�sar thought of another that answered the
+purpose equally well. It was simply to add to every fourth civil year
+an additional day, making it to consist of three hundred and sixty-six
+instead of three hundred and sixty-five, This supplementary day was
+given to the month of February."
+
+"Why February?"
+
+"Because February, at that time, was reckoned the last month of the
+year. It was only in the reign of Charles IX. of France, or in the
+second half of the sixteenth century, that the civil year was made to
+begin on the 1st of January. As the end of February was five days
+before the 1st or kalends of March, the extra day was known by the
+phrase _bis sexto_ (_ante_) _calendus martii_. Hence the fourth year
+is termed in the calendar _bissextile_, but is more usually called by
+us in England _leap year_."
+
+"The remedy is certainly simple; but are your figures perfectly
+square? If you add a day every four years, do you not overleap the
+earth's fraction?"
+
+"Yes, from ten to eleven minutes."
+
+"And what becomes of these minutes? Are they allowed to run up another
+score?"
+
+"No, not exactly. In 1582, the civil year had got ten clear days the
+start of the solar year, and Pope Gregory XIII. resolved to cancel
+them, which he effected by calling the day after the 4th of October
+the 15th."
+
+"That manner of altering the rig and squaring the yards," said Willi
+laughing, "would make the people that lived then ten days older. If it
+had been ten years, the matter would have been serious. Had the Pope
+said to me privately, 'Willis, you are now only forty-seven, but
+to-morrow, my boy, you will fill your sails and steer right into
+fifty-seven,' I should have turned 'bout ship and cleared off. Few men
+care about being put upon a short allowance of life, any more than we
+sailors on short rations of rum."
+
+"But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your
+age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that."
+
+"Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a
+latitude than Mr. Julius C�sar--but what are you laughing at?"
+
+"Nothing; only Julius C�sar is not generally honored with the prefix
+_Mr_. It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of _Sir
+Newton_ and _Mr. William Shakespeare_; the latter, however, by way of
+amends, they sometimes style the _immortal Williams_.'"
+
+"Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed
+the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder. But who
+was Julius C�sar."
+
+"Julius C�sar," replied Jack, sententiously, "was first of all an
+author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin
+Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England,
+and gave _Mr._ Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia."
+
+"He must have been a clever fellow to do all that; still, my idea
+continues the same. When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to
+have finished the business in a workmanlike manner."
+
+"That, however," continued Wolston, "he left to Pope Gregory, who
+decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries.
+Thus, the years 1700 and 1800, which should have been leap years, did
+not reckon the extra day; so the years 2000 and 2400 will likewise be
+deprived of their supplementary four-and-twenty hours."
+
+"There is one difficulty about this mode of stowing away extra days;
+these leap years may be forgotten."
+
+"Not if you keep in mind that leap years alone admit of being divided
+by four."
+
+"Did the Pope manage to get entirely rid of the fraction?"
+
+"Not entirely; but the error does not exceed one day in four thousand
+years, and is so small that it is not likely to derange ordinary
+calculations; and so, Willis, you now know the origin of the calendar,
+and likewise how time came to be divided into weeks, months, and
+years."
+
+"You have only spoken of the Christian calendar," remarked Ernest.
+"There have been several other systems in use. Those curious people
+that call themselves the children of the sun and moon, possess a mode
+of reckoning that carries them back to a period anterior to the
+creation of the world. Then, the Greeks computed by Olympiads, or
+periods of four years. The Romans reckoned by lustri of five years,
+the first of which corresponds with the 117th year of the foundation
+of Rome."
+
+"And when does our calendar begin?"
+
+"It dates only from the birth of Christ, but may be carried back to
+the creation, which event, to the best of our knowledge, occurred four
+thousand and four years before the birth of our Savior. This period,
+added to the date of the present, or any future year, gives us, as
+nearly as we can ascertain, the interval that has elapsed since our
+first parents found themselves in the garden of Eden."
+
+"Our calendar," remarked Jack, "appears simple enough; it is to be
+regretted that there have been, and are, so many other modes of
+reckoning extant. What with the Greek Olympiads, the Roman lustres,
+the Mahometan hegira, and Chinese moonshine, there is nothing but
+perplexity and confusion."
+
+"It is possible, however," said Becker, "to accommodate all these
+systems with each other. Leaving the Chinese out of the question, we
+have only to bear in mind, that the Christian era begins on the first
+year of the 194th Olympiad, 753 years after the building of Rome, and
+622 years before the Mahometan hegira. These three figures will serve
+us as flambeaux to all the dates of both ancient and modern history."
+
+The discourse was here interrupted by Toby, who entered the room, and
+was gleefully frisking and bounding round Mary.
+
+"Really," observed Mrs. Becker, "Toby does seem to know that this is
+New Year's Day, he looks so lively and so smart."
+
+The animal, in point of fact, wore a new collar, and seemed conscious
+that he was more than usually attractive that particular morning. At a
+sign from Mary, the intelligent brute went and wagged his tail to
+Fritz. Hereupon the young man, observing the collar more closely,
+noticed the following words embroidered upon it: _I belong now
+entirely to Master Fritz, who rescued my mistress from the sea_.
+
+"Ah, Miss Wolston," said Fritz, "you forget I only did my duty; you
+must not allow your gratitude to over-estimate the service I rendered
+you."
+
+"Well, I declare," cried Mrs. Wolston, laughing "here is another
+animal that speaks."
+
+"The age of Aesop revived," suggested Mrs. Becker.
+
+"What do you say, Master Jack?" inquired Mrs. Wolston. "Do you suppose
+that Toby has learned embroidery in the same way that the parrot
+learned grammar?"
+
+"Oh, more astonishing things than that have happened! Mr. Wolston
+there will tell you that he has seen a wooden figure playing at chess;
+why, therefore, should the most sagacious of all the brutes not learn
+knitting?"
+
+"I fear, in speaking so highly of the dog," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you
+are doing injustice to other animals. Marvellous instances of
+sagacity, gratitude, and affection, have been shown by other brutes
+beside the dog. A horse of Caligula's was elevated to the dignified
+office of consul."
+
+"Yes, and talking of the affection of animals," observed Ernest, "puts
+me in mind of an anecdote related by Aulus Gellius. It seems that a
+little boy, the son of a fisher man, who had to go from Bai� to his
+school at Puzzoli, used to stop at the same hour each day on the brink
+of the Lucrine lake. Here he often threw a bit of his breakfast to a
+Dolphin that he called Simon, and if the creature was not waiting for
+him when he arrived, he had only to pronounce this name, and it
+instantly appeared."
+
+"Nothing very wonderful in that," said Jack; "the common gudgeon,
+which is the stupidest fish to be found in fresh water, would do that
+much."
+
+"Yes; but listen a moment. The dolphin, after having received his
+pittance, presented his back to the boy, after having tacked in all
+his spines and prickles as well as he could, and carried him right
+across the lake, thus saving the little fellow a long roundabout walk;
+and not only that, but after school hours it was waiting to carry him
+back again. This continued almost daily for a year or two; but at last
+the boy died, and the dolphin, after waiting day after day for his
+reappearance, pined away, and was found dead at the usual place of
+rendezvous. The affectionate creature was taken out of the lake, and
+buried beside its friend.[D]
+
+"And, on the other hand," added Jack, "if animals sometimes attach
+themselves to us, we attach ourselves to them. We are told that
+Crassus wore mourning for a dead ferret, the death of which grieved
+him as much as if it had been his own daughter.[E] Augustus crucified
+one of his slaves, who had roasted and eaten a quail, that had fought
+and conquered in the circus.[F] Antonia, daughter-in-law of Tiberius,
+fastened ear-rings to some lampreys that she was passionately fond
+of."[G]
+
+"That, at all events, was attachment in one sense of the word," said
+Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Without reference to the dog in particular," continued Jack, "proofs
+of sagacity in animals are very numerous. The nautilus, when he wants
+to take an airing, capsizes his shell, and converts it into a gondola;
+then he hoists a thin membrane that serves for a sail; two of his
+arms are resolved into oars, and his tail performs the functions of a
+rudder. There are insects ingenious enough to make dwellings for
+themselves in the body of a leaf as thin as paper. At the approach of
+a storm some spiders take in a reef or two of their webs, so as to be
+less at the mercy of the wind. Beavers will erect walls, and construct
+houses more skilfully than our ablest architects. Chimpanzees have
+been known spontaneously to sit themselves down, and perform the
+operation of shaving."
+
+"Stop, Jack," cried Mrs. Wolston; "I must yield to such a deluge of
+argument, and admit that Toby may have acquired the art of embroidery
+with or without a master, only I should like to see some other
+specimen of his skill."
+
+"Probably you will by-and-by," replied Jack, laughing, "if you keep
+your eyes open."
+
+Here Sophia came into the room leading her gazelle.
+
+"Ah, just in time," said Mrs. Wolston; "here is another animal that
+probably has something to say."
+
+"Wrong, mamma," replied Sophia; "my gazelle is as mute as a mermaid.
+Very provoking, is it not, when all the other animals in the house
+talk?"
+
+"You had better apply to Master Jack; he may, probably, be able to hit
+upon a plan to make your gazelle communicative."
+
+"Will you, Master Jack?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Sophia. The plan I would suggest is very simple. Feed
+him for a week or two with nouns, adjectives, and verbs."
+
+Here Sophia, addressing her gazelle, said, "Master Jack Becker is a
+goose."
+
+Meantime Fritz was leaning on the back of Mary's chair.
+
+"Miss Wolston," said he, "did you not tell me that you had brought
+Toby up, and that you were very fond of him?"
+
+"Yes, Fritz."
+
+"Then it would be unfair in me to withdraw his allegiance from you
+now, and, consequently, I must refuse your present"
+
+"But where would have been the merit of the gift if I did not hold
+him in some esteem? Besides, I thought you were fond of Toby."
+
+"So I am, Miss Wolston."
+
+"Then you will not be indebted to me for anything--I owe you much."
+
+"No such thing; you owe me nothing."
+
+"My life, then, is nothing?"
+
+"Oh, I did not mean that; I must beg your pardon."
+
+"Which I will only grant on condition you accept my gift."
+
+"Well, if you insist upon it, I will."
+
+"I can see him as before; the only difference will be that you are his
+master, in all other respects he will belong to us both."
+
+"May I know what your knight-errant is saying to you, Mary?" inquired
+Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Oh, I have been so angry with him; he was going to refuse my
+present."
+
+"That was very naughty of him, certainly."
+
+"He has, however, consented, like a dutiful squire, to obey my
+behests."
+
+"Yes, mother, Toby is henceforth to be divided between us."
+
+"Divided?"
+
+"Yes; that is, he is to be nominally mine, but virtually to belong to
+us both. Is it not so, Miss Wolston?"
+
+"Yes, Master Fritz."
+
+On his side, Jack had approached Miss Sophia.
+
+"So you won't give me your gazelle?" he whispered.
+
+"No, certainly not, Mr. Jack," replied Sophia; "if you had saved my
+life, as Fritz saved my sister's, I should then have had the right to
+make you a present. But you know it is not my fault."
+
+"Nor mine either," said Jack.
+
+"Perhaps not; but if I had fallen into the sea, you would have allowed
+the sharks to swallow me, would you not?"
+
+"I only wish we had been attacked by a hyena or a bear on our way to
+Waldeck."
+
+"God be thanked, that we were not!"
+
+"Well, but look here, Miss Sophia; let me paint the scene. You have
+fainted, as a matter of course, and fallen prostrate on the ground,
+insensible."
+
+"That is likely enough, if we had encountered one of the animals you
+mention."
+
+"Then I throw myself between you and the savage brute."
+
+"Supposing you were not half a mile off at the time."
+
+"No fear of that--he rises, on his hind legs, and glares."
+
+"Is it a hyena or a bear?"
+
+"Oh, whichever you like--he opens his jaws, and growls."
+
+"Like the wolf at Little Red Riding Hood."
+
+"I plunge my arm down his throat and choke him."
+
+"Clever, very; but are you not wounded?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, however; all my thoughts are centred in you--I
+think of nothing else."
+
+"I am insensible, am I not?"
+
+"Yes, more than ever--we all run towards you, and exert ourselves to
+bring you back to your senses."
+
+"Then I come to life again."
+
+"No, stop a bit."
+
+"But it is tiresome to be so long insensible."
+
+"My mother has luckily a bottle of salts, which she holds to your
+nose--I run off to the nearest brook, and return with water in the
+crown of my cap, with which I bathe your temples."
+
+"Oh, in that case, I should open one eye at least. Which eye is opened
+first after fainting?"
+
+"I really don't know."
+
+"In that case, to avoid mistakes, I should open both."
+
+"It is only then, when I find you are recovering, that I discover the
+brute has severely bitten my arm."
+
+"Then comes my turn to nurse you."
+
+"You express your thanks in your sweetest tones, and I forget my
+wounds."
+
+"Sweet tones do no harm, if they are accompanied with salves and
+ointment."
+
+"In short, I am obliged to carry my arm in a sling for three months
+after."
+
+"Is that not rather long?"
+
+"No; because your arm, in some sort, supplies, meantime, the place of
+mine."
+
+"Your picture has, at least, the merit of being poetic. Is it
+finished?"
+
+"Not till next New Year's Day, when you present me with an embroidered
+scarf, as the ladies of yore used to do to the knights that defended
+them from dragons and that sort of thing."
+
+"What a pity all this should be only a dream!"
+
+"Well, I am not particularly extravagant, at all events; others dream
+of fortune, honor, and glory."
+
+"Whilst you confine your aspirations to a bear, a bite, and a scarf."
+
+"You see nothing was wanted but the opportunity."
+
+"And foresight."
+
+"Foresight?"
+
+"Yes; if you had previously made arrangements with a bear, the whole
+scene might have been realized."
+
+"You are joking, whilst I am taking the matter _au serieux_."
+
+"That order is usually reversed; generally you are the quiz and I am
+the quizzee."
+
+"You will admit, at all events, that I would not have permitted the
+bear to eat you."
+
+Here Sophia burst into a peal of laughter, and vanished with her
+gazelle.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] Aulus Gellius, VII., 8.
+
+[E] Macrobius, _Saturn_, XL, 4.
+
+[F] Plutarch.
+
+[G] Pliny, IX., 53.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SEPARATION--GUELPHS AND GHIBELINES--MONTAGUES AND
+CAPULETS--SADNESS--THE REUNION--JOCKO AND HIS EDUCATION--THE
+ENTERTAINMENTS OF A KING--THE MULES OF NERO AND THE ASSES OF
+POPP�A--HERCULES AND ACHILLES--LIBERTY AND EQUALITY--SEMIRAMIS AND
+ELIZABETH--CHRISTIANITY AND THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER--THE WILLISONIAN
+METHOD--MORAL DISCIPLINE VERSUS BIRCH.
+
+
+Winter was now drawing near, with its storms and deluges. Becker
+therefore felt that it was necessary to make some alterations in their
+domestic arrangements; and he saw that, for this season at all events,
+the two families must be separated--this was to create a desert within
+a desert; but propriety and convenience demanded the sacrifice.
+
+It was decided that Wolston and his family should be quartered at
+Rockhouse, whilst Becker and his family should pass the rainy season
+at Falcon's Nest, where, though these aerial dwellings were but
+indifferently adapted for winter habitations, they had passed the
+first year of their sojourn in the colony. The rains came and
+submerged the country between the two families, thus, for a time,
+cutting off all communication between them. The barriers that
+separated the Guelphs from the Ghibelines, the Montagues from the
+Capulets, the Burgundians from the Armagnacs, and the House of York
+from that of Lancaster, could not have been more impenetrable than
+that which now existed between the Wolstons and Beckers.
+
+Whenever a lull occurred in the storm, or a ray of sunshine shot
+through the murky clouds, all eyes were mechanically turned to the
+window, but only to turn them away again with a sigh; so completely
+had the waters invaded the land, that nothing short of the dove from
+Noah's Ark could have performed the journey between Rockhouse and
+Falcon's Nest.
+
+Dulness and dreariness reigned triumphant at both localities. The calm
+tranquility that Becker's family formerly enjoyed under similar
+circumstances had fled. They felt that happiness was no longer to be
+enjoyed within the limits of their own circle. Study and conversation
+lost their charms; and if they laughed now, the smile never extended
+beyond the tips of their lips. The young people often wished they
+possessed Fortunatus's cap, or Aladdin's wonderful lamp, to transport
+them from the one dwelling to the other; but as they could obtain no
+such occult mode of conveyance, there was no remedy for their miseries
+but patience. To the Wolstons this interval of compulsory separation
+was particularly irksome, as this was the first time in their lives
+that they had been entirely isolated for any length of time.
+
+At Falcon's Nest, Ernest was the most popular member of the domestic
+circle. His astronomical predilections made him the Sir Oracle of the
+storm, and he was constantly being asked for information relative to
+the progress and probable duration of the rains. Every morning he was
+called upon for a report as to the state of the weather; but, with all
+his skill, he could afford them very little consolation.
+
+But all things come to an end, as well as regards our troubles as our
+joys. One morning, Ernest reported that less rain had fallen during
+the preceding than any former night of the season; the next morning a
+still more favorable report was presented; and on the third morning
+the floods had subsided, but had left a substratum of mud that
+obliterated all traces of the roads. Notwithstanding this, and a smart
+shower that continued to fall, Fritz and Jack determined to force a
+passage to Rockhouse.
+
+Towards evening, the two young men returned, soaking with wet and
+covered with mud, but with light hearts, for they had found their
+companions in the enjoyment of perfect health and in the best spirits.
+They brought back with them a missive, couched in the following
+terms:--
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, greeting, desire the favor of Mr. and Mrs.
+Becker's company to dinner, together with their entire family, this
+day se'nnight, weather permitting."
+
+Ernest was hereupon consulted, and stated that, in so far as the rain
+was concerned, they should in eight days be able to undertake the
+journey to Rockhouse. This assurance was not, however, entirely relied
+upon, for between this and then many an anxious eye was turned
+skywards, as if in search of some more conclusive evidence. Those who
+possess a garden--and he who has not, were it only a box of
+mignionette at the window--will often have observed, in consequence of
+absence or forgetfulness, that their flowers have begun to droop; they
+hasten to sprinkle them with water, then watch anxiously for signs of
+their revival. So both families continued unceasingly during these
+eight days to note the ever-varying modifications of the clouds.
+
+At length the much wished-for day arrived; the morning broke with a
+blaze of sunshine, and though hidden with a dense mist, the ground was
+sufficiently hardened to bear their weight. Wolston awaited his guests
+at a bridge of planks that had been thrown across the Jackal River,
+where he and Willis had erected a sort of triumphal arch of mangoe
+leaves and palm branches. Here Becker and his family were welcomed, as
+if the one party had just arrived from Tobolsk, and the other from
+Chandernagor, after an absence of ten years.
+
+Another warm reception awaited them at Rockhouse, where an abundant
+repast was already spread in the gallery. Mrs. Becker had often
+intended to work herself a pair of gloves, but the increasing demand
+for stockings had hitherto prevented her. She was pleased, therefore,
+on sitting down to dinner, to discover a couple of pairs under her
+plate, with her own initials embroidered upon them.
+
+"Ah," said she, "I was almost afraid I had lost my daughters, but I
+have found them again."
+
+After dinner the girls showed her a quantity of cotton they had spun,
+which proved that, though they might have been dull, they had, at
+least, been industrious.
+
+"Mary span the most of it," said Sophia; "but you know, Mrs. Becker,
+she is the biggest."
+
+"Oh, then," said Jack, "the power of spinning depends upon the bulk
+of the spinner?"
+
+"Oh, Master Jack, I thought you had been ill, that you had not
+commenced quizzing us before."
+
+"Never mind him, Soffy," said her father; "to quote Hudibras,
+
+  "There's nothing on earth hath so perfect a phiz,
+  As not to give birth to a passable quiz."
+
+Here Willis led in the chimpanzee, who made a grimace to the assembled
+company.
+
+"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said Willis, "Jocko is about to show you
+the progress he has made in splicing and bracing."
+
+"Good!" said Becker, "you have been able to make something of him,
+then?"
+
+"You will see presently. Jocko, bring me a plate."
+
+Hereupon the chimpanzee seized a bottle of Rockhouse malaga, and
+filled a glass.
+
+"He has erred on the safe side there," said Jack, drily.
+
+"Well," added Willis, laughing, "we must let that pass. Jocko," said
+he, assuming a sententious tone, "I asked you for a plate."
+
+The chimpanzee looked at him, hesitated a moment, then seized the
+glass, and drank the contents off at a single draught. A box on the
+ears then sent him gibbering into a corner.
+
+"Your servant," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "has been taking lessons from
+Dean Swift as well as yourself, Willis."
+
+"I will serve him out for that, the swab; he does not play any of
+those tricks when we are alone. I must admit, however, that I am
+generally in the habit of helping myself."
+
+Here attention was called to the parrot, who was screaming out
+lustily, "I love Mary, I love Sophia."
+
+"Holloa," exclaimed Fritz, "Polly loves everybody now, does she?"
+
+"Well, you see," replied Sophia, "I grew tired of hearing him scream
+always that he loved my sister, so by means of a little coaxing, and a
+good deal of sugar, I got him to love me too."
+
+The poultry were next mustered for the inspection of their old
+masters. These did not consist of the ordinary domestic fowls alone;
+amongst them were a beautiful flamingo, some cranes, bustards, and a
+variety of tame tropical birds. With the fowls came the pigeons, which
+were perching about them in all directions.
+
+"We are now something like the court of France in the fourteenth
+century," said Wolston.
+
+"How so?" inquired Becker.
+
+"In the reign of Charles V., they were obliged to place a trellis at
+the windows of the Palace of St. Paul to prevent the poultry from
+invading the dining room."
+
+"Rural anyhow," observed Jack.
+
+"Of course, most other features of the palace were in unison with this
+primitive state of matters. The courtiers sat on stools. There was
+only one chair in the palace, that was the arm-chair of the king,
+which was covered with red leather, and ornamented with silk fringes."
+
+"So that we may console ourselves with the reflection, that we are as
+comfortable here as kings were at that epoch in Europe," remarked
+Ernest.
+
+"Yes; historians report, that when Alphonso V. of Portugal went to
+Paris to solicit the aid of Louis XI. against the King of Arragon, who
+had taken Castile from him, the French monarch received him with great
+honor, and endeavored to make his stay as agreeable as possible."
+
+"Reviews, I suppose, feasts, tournaments, spectacles, and so forth."
+
+"A residence was assigned him in the Rue de Prouvaires, at the house
+of one Laurent Herbelot, a grocer."
+
+"What! amongst dried peas and preserved plums?"
+
+"Precisely; but the house of Herbelot might then have been one of the
+most commodious buildings in all Paris. Alphonso was afterwards
+conducted to the palace, where he pleaded his cause before the king.
+Next day he was entertained at the archiepiscopal residence, where he
+witnessed the induction of a doctor in theology. The day after that a
+procession to the university was organized, which passed under the
+grocer's windows."
+
+"These were singular marvels to entertain a king withal," said Jack.
+
+"Such were the amusements peculiar to the epoch. It must be observed
+that the Louis in question was somewhat close-fisted, and rarely drew
+his purse-strings unless he was certain of a good interest for his
+money. But courts in those days were very simple and frugal. The
+sumptuary laws of Philip le Bel (1285) had fixed supper at three
+dishes and a lard soup. The king's own dinner was likewise limited to
+three dishes."
+
+"These three dishes might, however, have yielded a better repast than
+the fifty-two saucers of the Chinese," remarked Jack.
+
+"No one could obtain permission to give his wife four dresses a year,
+unless he had an income of six thousand francs."
+
+"What business had the laws to interfere with these things, I should
+like to know?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Those who possessed two thousand francs income were only allowed to
+wear one dress a year, the cloth for which was not permitted to exceed
+tenpence a yard; but ladies of rank could go as high as fifteen
+pence."
+
+"Philip le Bel must have been an old woman," insisted Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"No private citizen was permitted to use a carriage, and such persons
+were likewise interdicted the use of flambeaux."
+
+"They were permitted to break their necks at all events, that is
+something."
+
+"In England, the same primitive simplicity prevailed; Queen Elizabeth
+is said to have breakfasted on a gallon of ale, her dining-room floor
+was strewn every day with fresh straw or rushes, and she had only one
+pair of silk stockings in her entire wardrobe."
+
+"At the same time," observed Ernest, "these usages stand in singular
+contradiction to those that prevailed at an earlier age. The supper of
+Lucullus rarely cost him less than thirty thousand francs, and he
+could entertain five and twenty thousand guests. Six citizens of Rome
+possessed a great part of Africa. Domitius had an estate in France of
+eighty thousand acres."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+"When Nero went to Baize he was accompanied by a thousand chariots and
+two thousand mules caparisoned with silver. Popp�a followed him with
+five hundred she asses to furnish milk for her bath. Cicero purchased
+a dining-room table that cost him a million sesterces, or about two
+hundred thousand francs. I can understand the progress of
+civilization, and I can also understand civilization remaining
+stationary for a given period; but I cannot understand why a citizen
+of ancient Rome should be able to lodge twenty-five thousand men,
+whilst a king of France could scarcely keep the ducks from waddling
+about his apartments, and a queen of England could fare no better than
+a ploughman."
+
+"If," replied Frank, "there were no other criterion of civilization
+than luxury and riches, you would have good grounds for surprise; but
+such is not the case. Between ancient and modern times, Christianity
+arose, and that has tended in some degree to keep down the ostentation
+of the rich, and to augment, at the same time, the comforts of the
+poor. In place of the heroes, Hercules and Achilles, we have had the
+apostles Peter and Paul; so Luther and Calvin have been substituted
+for Semiramis and Nero. Pride has given place to charity, and
+corruption to virtue."
+
+"Would that it were so, Frank," continued Ernest. "Christianity has,
+doubtless, effected many beneficial changes, and produced many able
+men; but in this last respect antiquity has not been behind. It has
+also its sages: Thales, Socrates, and Pythagoras, for example."
+
+"True," replied Frank, "antiquity has produced some virtuous men, but
+their virtue was ideal, and their creed a dream."
+
+"And the Stoics?"
+
+"The Stoics despised suffering, and Christians resign themselves to
+its chastisements; this constitutes one of the lines of demarcation
+between ancient and modern theology."
+
+"But there were many signal instances of virtue manifested in ancient
+times."
+
+"Yes; but for the most part, it was either exaggerated or false;
+unyielding pride, obstinate courage, implacable resentment of
+injuries. Errors promenaded in robes under the porticos. Ambition was
+honored in Alexander, suicide in Cato, and assassination in Brutus."
+
+"But what say you to Plato?"
+
+"The immolation of ill-formed children, and of those born without the
+permission of the laws, prosecution of strangers and slavery; such
+were the basis of his boasted republic, and the gospel of his
+philosophy."
+
+"Why, then, are these men held up as models for our imitation?"
+
+"Because they are distant and dead; likewise, because they were, in
+many respects, great and wise, considering the paganism and darkness
+with which they were surrounded. Life was then only sacred to the few;
+the many were treated as beasts of burden. The Emperor Claudian even
+felt bound to issue an edict prohibiting slaves from being slain _when
+they were old and feeble_."
+
+"Which leaves a margin for us to suppose that they might be slain when
+they were young and strong," observed Jack.
+
+"By the constitution of Constantine certain cases were defined, where
+a master might suspend his slave by the feet, have him torn by wild
+beasts, or tortured by slow fire."
+
+"Does slavery and its horrors not still exist, for example, in Russia
+and the United States of America?"
+
+"Slavery does exist, to the great disgrace of modern civilization, in
+the countries you mention; but, so far as I am aware, its horrors are
+not recognized by the laws."
+
+"There, Mr. Frank," said Wolston, "I am very sorry to be under the
+necessity of contradicting you. I have visited the slave states of
+North America, and have witnessed atrocities perhaps less brutal, but
+not less heart-rending, than those you mention."
+
+"But do the laws recognize them?"
+
+"Yes, tacitly; the testimony of the slaves themselves is not received
+as evidence."
+
+"Why do a people that call their county a refuge for the down-trodden
+nations of Europe suffer such abominations?"
+
+"Well, according to themselves, it is entirely a question of the
+_almighty dollar_. If there were no slaves, the swamps and morasses of
+the south could not be cultivated. It has been found that the negro
+will dance, and sing, and starve, but he will not work in the fields
+when free. Besides, they assert, that the slaves are generally well
+cared for, and that it is only a few detestable masters that beat them
+cruelly."
+
+"Then, at all events, dollars are preferred to humanity by the United
+States men, in spite of their vaunted emblems--liberty and equality."
+
+"Quite so. In all matters of internal policy, the dollar reigns
+supreme."
+
+"Admitting," continued Frank, "that the evils of slavery may exist in
+a section of the American Union, and amongst the barbarous hordes of
+Russia, these evils are trifling in comparison with others that stain
+the annals of antiquity. We are told that a hundred and twenty persons
+applied to Otho to be rewarded for killing Galba. That so many men
+should contend for the honor of premeditated murder, is sufficiently
+characteristic of the epoch. There was then no corruption, no brutal
+passion, that had not its temple and its high priest. In the midst of
+all this wickedness and vice there appeared a man, poor and humble,
+who accomplished what no man ever did before, and what no man will
+ever do again--he founded a moral and eternal civilization. Judaism
+and the religion of Zoroaster were overthrown. The gods of Tyre and
+Carthage were destroyed. The beliefs of Miltiades and of Pericles, of
+Scipio and Seneca, were disavowed. The thousands that flocked annually
+to worship the Eleusinian Ceres ceased their pilgrimage. Odin and his
+disciples have all perished. The very language of Osiris, which was
+afterwards spoken by the Ptolemies, is no longer known to his
+descendants. The paganisms which still exist in the East are rapidly
+yielding to the march of western intelligence. Christianity alone,
+amidst all these ring and fallen fabrics, retains its original
+vitality, for, like its author, it is imperishable."
+
+"It is a curious thing what we call conversation," observed Mrs.
+Wolston. "No sooner is one subject broached than another is
+introduced; and we go on from one thing to another until the original
+idea is lost sight of. Leaving the palace of Charles V., to go with
+the King of Portugal to a grocer's shop in some street or other of
+Paris, we cross the Alps, the Himalaya, and the Atlantic. Lucullus,
+Nero, Achilles, Peter, Paul, Tyre and Sidon, Semiramis and
+Elizabeth--queens, saints, and philosophers, are all passed in review,
+and why? Because the pigeons put my husband in mind of the Palace of
+St. Paul!"
+
+"No wonder," observed Jack; "these pigeons are carriers, and naturally
+suggest wandering."
+
+Once more seated round the table, Fritz, observing that the
+misunderstanding between Willis and the chimpanzee still continued,
+thrust a plate into the hand of the latter, and pointed with his
+finger to Willis. This time Jocko obeyed, for the language was
+intelligible, and he went and placed the plate before his master.
+
+"Ho, ho!" cried Willis, "so you have come to your senses at last, have
+you? Well, that saves you an extra lesson to-morrow, you lubber you."
+
+"He takes rather long to obey your orders, though, Willis; it is
+rather awkward to wait an hour for anything you ask for. What system
+do you pursue in educating him--the Pestalozzian or the parochial?"
+
+"We follow the system in fashion aboard ship," replied Willis.
+
+"And what does that consist of?"
+
+"A rope's end."
+
+"Oh, then, you are an advocate for the birch, are you?" said Wolston;
+"it is, doubtless, a very good thing when moderately and judiciously
+administered. That puts me in mind of the missionary and the king of
+the Kuruman negroes."
+
+"A tribe of Southern Africa, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, the missionary and the king were great friends. The king not
+only permitted him to baptize his subjects, but offered to whip them
+all into Christianity in a week. This summary mode of proselytism did
+not, however, coincide with the Englishman's ideas, and he refused the
+offer, although the king insisted that it was the only kind of
+argument that could ever reach their understandings."
+
+The day at length drew to a close, and, though no one asked the time
+yet all felt that the moment of departure was approaching; whether
+they were willing to go was doubtful, but at they were loth to depart
+was certain.
+
+"It is time to return now," said Becker, rising.
+
+"Already!"
+
+"There are some clouds in the distance that bode no good."
+
+"Nothing more than a little rain at worst," said Jack.
+
+"And your mother?" inquired Decker.
+
+"Oh! we can make a palanquin for her."
+
+"Your plan, Jack, is not particularly bright; it puts me in mind of
+some genius or other that took shelter in the water to keep out of the
+wet."
+
+"Very odd," said Jack, "we are always wishing for rain, and when it
+comes, we do all we can to keep out of its way."
+
+"That is, because we are neither green pease nor gooseberries," said
+Ernest, drily.
+
+"True, brother; and as the rain is your affair, perhaps you will be
+good enough to delay it for an hour or so."
+
+"I am sorry on my own account, as well as yours, that I have not yet
+discovered the art of controlling the skies."
+
+Here Fritz whispered a few words in his mother's ear, that called up
+one of those ineffable smiles that the maternal heart alone can
+produce.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Becker, "if you think so, deliver the message
+yourself."
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, "I am charged to invite you and your
+family to Falcon's Nest this day week."
+
+"The invitation is accepted, unless my daughters have any objections
+to urge."
+
+"How can you fancy such a thing, mamma?" said both girls.
+
+"The fact is, that my daughters have got such a dread of cold water,
+that they dread to wet the soles of their shoes, unless one or other
+of you gentlemen is within hail."
+
+"Mamma does so love to tease us," said Mary; "we are afraid of nothing
+but putting you to inconvenience."
+
+"Well, in that case, we shall be at Falcon's Nest on the appointed
+day, unless the roads are positively submerged."
+
+"In that case," said Jack, "a line of canoes will be placed upon the
+highway, between the two localities."
+
+As the prospect of a prize incites the young scholar to increased
+exertion--as the prospect of worldly honors urges the ambitious man on
+in his career--as the oasis cheers the weary traveller on his journey
+through the desert, and makes him forget hunger and thirst--as the
+dreams of comfort and home warm the blood of a wayfarer amongst snow
+and ice--as hope smooths the ruggedness of poverty and softens the
+calamities of adversity, so the prospect of meeting again mitigates
+the regrets of parting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY--MUCIUS SC�VOLA--WHAT'S TO BE
+DONE?--BRUTUS TORQUATUS AND PETER THE GREAT--AUSTRALIA, BOTANY BAY,
+AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN--NEW GUINEA AND THE BUCCANEER--VANCOUVER'S
+ISLAND--WHITE SKINS--DANGER OF LANDING ON A WAVE--HANGED OR
+DROWNED--ROUTE TO HAPPINESS--OMENS.
+
+
+The old saw, _Where there's a will there's a way_, means--if it means
+anything--that a great deal may be effected by energy. A man without
+energy is a helpless character, and invariably lags behind his fellow
+mortals in the stream of life; like a cork in an eddy, he is rebuffed
+here and jostled there, and goes on travelling in a circle to the end
+of the chapter. Not so the man of action; no jostling thwarts him, no
+rebuffs retard him; he breaks through all sorts of obstacles, and
+floats along with the current.
+
+Such a man was Becker. Though surrounded with dangers, and harassed by
+the elements, almost alone he had converted a wilderness into fertile
+fields; he pursued the track that his judgment suggested, and followed
+it up with invincible resolution; he manfully resisted the severest
+trials, and cheerfully bore the heaviest burdens; his reliance on
+Truth or Virtue and on God were unfaltering; but had he provided for
+every emergency? Is mortal power capable of overcoming every
+difficulty? We shall see.
+
+A day or two after the entertainment at Rockhouse, Becker whispered to
+the Pilot--
+
+"Willis, take a rifle, and come along with me; I have something to say
+to you."
+
+They walked a quarter of an hour or so without uttering a word, when
+Willis broke the silence.
+
+"You seem sad, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Yes, Willis, I am almost distracted."
+
+"Still, you seem well enough; you are as hale and hearty as if you
+had just been keel-hauled and got a new rig."
+
+"It is not my body that is suffering, Willis; it is my mind."
+
+"Whatever is the matter?"
+
+"Willis, _my wife is dying_."
+
+And so it was. For a long period Becker's wife had been a prey to
+racking pains, which, so to speak, she hid from herself, the better to
+conceal them from others, just as if suffering had been a crime. After
+having resisted for fourteen years the afflictions of exile, long and
+perilous expeditions, nights passed under tents, humid winters and
+fierce burning summers, her health had, at length, succumbed, not all
+at once, like fabrics sapped by gunpowder, but little by little, like
+those that are demolished piecemeal with the pickaxe of the workman.
+Day by day she grew more and more feeble, without those who were
+constantly by her side observing the insidious workings of disease.
+Like Mucius Sc�vola, who held his hands in a burning brazier without
+uttering a word, she so effectually hid her griefs within the recesses
+of her own bosom, that no one even suspected her illness.
+
+"But, Mr. Becker," said Willis, "I saw your wife this morning, and she
+seemed as well as usual."
+
+"Yes, _seemed_, Willis, that is true enough; not to give us pain, she
+has concealed her illness from us all. It is only within the last
+twelve hours that I accidentally discovered that she has been long
+laboring under some fearful malady."
+
+"Do you know the nature of the disease?"
+
+"No, that I have no means of ascertaining; it may be a distinct form
+of disease, or it may be a complication of disorders, which I know
+not."
+
+"It would not signify about the name if we only knew a remedy."
+
+"True; but I dread some malady of a cancerous type, which could not be
+eradicated without surgical skill."
+
+"I wish I had been born a doctor instead of a pilot," sighed Willis.
+
+"I cannot see her perish before my eyes."
+
+"Certainly not, Mr. Becker; it would never do to allow a ship to sink
+if she can be saved."
+
+"Well, what is to be done?"
+
+"There lies the difficulty; had it been a question of anything that
+floats on the water, I might have suggested a remedy; but, in this
+case, I am fairly run aground."
+
+"I know too well what must be done, Willis. In cases of ordinary
+maladies, with care and due precaution, proper nourishment and time,
+Nature will generally effect a cure."
+
+"Nature has no diploma, but she accomplishes more cures than those
+that have."
+
+"Unfortunately this is not a malady that can be cured by such means;
+and, unless its progress be checked in time, it may ultimately assume
+a form that will render a cure impossible."
+
+"Is death, then, inevitable?"
+
+"A patient may retain a languishing life under such circumstances for
+some time; but if the disease be cancer, a cure is hopeless without
+instruments and scientific skill."
+
+"I thought I was the only wretched being in the colony," said Willis,
+sighing, "but I find I am not alone."
+
+"There are no hopes of the _Nelson_, are there?" inquired Becker.
+
+"None now; for some time Mr. Wolston and yourself almost persuaded me
+that she had escaped; but had she reached the Cape, we should have
+heard of her ere now."
+
+"The probabilities of another vessel touching here are small, are they
+not?"
+
+"We are not in the direct track to anywhere; therefore, unless a ship
+has been driven out of her course by a gale, there is not a chance."
+
+"Unfortunate that I am!" exclaimed Becker, covering his face with his
+hands. "Brutus, Manlius Torquatus, and Peter the Great, condemned
+their sons to death, but they were guilty; still the sacrifice must be
+made."
+
+Here Willis stared aghast, and began to fear Becker's intellect had
+been affected by his troubles.
+
+"I do not exactly understand you, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Two of my sons have gone on before us; they were to embark in the
+canoe for Shark's Island, and wait for us there. I must have courage,
+and you also, Willis."
+
+This exordium did not tend to alter the Pilot's impression. They
+walked on for some time in silence towards the coast.
+
+"Do you know the latitude and longitude of this coast, Willis?"
+
+"Good!" thought the Pilot, "he has changed the subject."
+
+"Yes; we are in the South Sea, and no great distance from the line."
+
+"What continent is nearest us?"
+
+"We cannot be very far off the south coast of New Holland, or, as it
+is named in some charts, Australia. You know that the _Nelson_ hailed
+from Botany Bay, or Sydney, as the convict colony which the English
+Government has just founded there is called."
+
+"How far do you suppose we are from Sydney?"
+
+"Well, I should say, with a fair wind and a smart craft, Sydney is not
+above two months' sail, if so much."
+
+"Is the coast inhabited?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What character do the inhabitants bear?"
+
+"According to the Dutch sailors, who have been on the coast, they are
+the most plundering and lubberly set of rascals to be met with
+anywhere."
+
+"They are not acquainted with the use of fire-arms, are they?"
+
+"No not of fire-arms; but they have a machine of their own that they
+call a waddy, or something of that sort, which they throw like a
+harpoon; but the thing takes a twist in the air, and strikes behind
+them."
+
+"Is the coast accessible?"
+
+"No; it is fringed with reefs, and, in some places, the surf runs for
+miles out to sea."
+
+"The navigation along shore, then, is extremely perilous?"
+
+"Whatever can he be driving at?" thought Willis.
+
+"Yes; such a lee shore in a gale would terrify the Flying Dutchman
+himself."
+
+Here Becker shook his head dolefully, and they walked on a little
+further in silence.
+
+"What islands do you suppose are nearest us, Willis?"
+
+"I should say we are in or near the group marked in the chart
+Papuasia; beyond them is the territory of New Guinea, and a point to
+nor'ard are a whole nest of islands discovered by the celebrated
+buccaneer, Dampi�re."
+
+"And their inhabitants?"
+
+"Oh, some of them are pretty fair; but, taking them in the lump, they
+are a bad lot."
+
+"The islands to the west are those discovered by Cook, Vancouver, and
+Bougainville, are they not?"
+
+"They are marked Polynesia in the charts."
+
+"Do you know of any European settlements on these islands?"
+
+"Well, there is a fort of the Hudson's Bay Company on Vancouver's
+Island, but that is a long way north; and, I believe, a factory has
+recently been anchored in New Zealand, but that is a long way south."
+
+"And what are the principal islands between?"
+
+"There is New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the
+Societies' Islands, the Marquesas, Tahite, and the Pelew Islands; but
+each navigator gives them a new name, so that it is hard to say which
+is which; all you can do is to say that there is an island in latitude
+so and so and longitude so and so, but the name is almost out of the
+question."
+
+"And the natives?"
+
+"Some of them are remarkably tame, and trade freely with strangers;
+but others have strongly marked cannibal propensities, and dote upon a
+white-skin feast when they can get one."
+
+Here Becker shuddered, and uttered an exclamation of horror.
+
+"That would be a terrible fate, Willis."
+
+"Whatever can he mean?" thought the Pilot.
+
+"Willis, to reach Europe from here, what course do you think would be
+best?"
+
+"Now I think I shall fix him at last," said the Pilot, levelling his
+rifle at an imaginary bird.
+
+"You will only waste gunpowder," said Becker; "I see nothing."
+
+"You asked me just now what course I should steer for Europe, did you
+not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the most direct course would be to make the Straits of
+Macassar, and then steer for Java."
+
+"And when there?"
+
+"You would then be fifteen or sixteen hundred leagues from the Cape."
+
+"So much?"
+
+"Yes, that is about the distance in a straight line across the Indian
+Ocean. When at the Cape, another fifteen days' sail will bring you to
+the line; five or six weeks after that St. Helena will heave in sight;
+then you fall in with the Island of Ascension; leaving which a week or
+two will bring you to the Straits of Gibraltar, where you get the
+first glimpse of Europe. But if you are bound for England, your
+daughter may commence working a pair of slippers for you; they will be
+ready by the time you get there."
+
+They had now arrived at the point of the Jackal River where the
+pinnace was moored.
+
+"What do you think of this boat?" inquired Becker.
+
+"The pinnace is well enough for fair weather; but it is not the sort
+of craft I should like to command in a storm at sea."
+
+"So that to venture to sea in it would be to incur imminent danger?"
+
+"There is no denying that, Mr. Becker; if she shipped a moderately
+heavy sea, down she must go to the bottom, like a four and twenty
+pound shot; and if she should spring a leak, you cannot land to put
+her to rights; the waves are by no means solid."
+
+"Just as I thought!" exclaimed Becker; "I was right in judging that it
+would be a sacrifice. It is almost certain death; but they must go."
+
+"Where?" inquired Willis.
+
+"To Europe if need be, if God in his mercy spares the pinnace."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I have the means of purchasing surgical skill, and I must use all the
+sacrifices at my command to obtain it."
+
+"Avast heaving, Mr. Becker," cried Willis; "now I understand; the
+thing is as clear as the tackle of the best bower, and when a
+resolution is once formed, nothing like paying it out at the word of
+command. When shall we start?"
+
+"I am not talking of either you or myself, Willis."
+
+"Of whom then, may I ask?"
+
+"Fritz and Jack. Fritz knows something of navigation; and if they
+succeed, they will have saved their mother; if they perish, they will
+have died to save her."
+
+"Fritz, as you say, does know something of navigation, particularly as
+regards coasting; but here you have a pilot, accustomed to salt water,
+quite handy, why not engage him also?"
+
+"Willis, you have yourself said that the undertaking is perilous in
+the extreme, and your life is not bound up like theirs in that of
+their mother."
+
+"True; but do you not see that I am sick of dry land, and that I am
+getting rusty for the want of a little sea air?"
+
+"I felt ashamed to ask you to share in so desperate an enterprise,
+otherwise I would have proposed it to you, Willis."
+
+"But you might have seen that I was growing thin, absolutely pining
+away, and drying up on land. There are ducks that can live without
+water, but I am not one of them."
+
+"Am I, then, to understand that you offer to risk your life in this
+forlorn hope?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Becker; a man condemned to be hanged, running the risk
+of being drowned is no great sacrifice."
+
+"Willis, I accept your offer, to share in the dangers of this
+enterprise, most gratefully. I thank you in the name of my sons and of
+their mother, and trust that God may enable me to recompense you for
+your devotion to them and to myself."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You forget," added Willis, wiping a tear from the corner of his
+eye, that he ascribed to a grain of dust, "you forget that I was on
+the point of venturing out to sea in the canoe, had you yourself and
+Mr. Wolston not prevented me. There is work to be done, I admit; and
+it is not impossible to cross even the Indian Ocean in the pinnace.
+But we may find a doctor, perhaps, at some of the settlements--for
+instance, at Manilla, in the Philippines."
+
+"That is not to be hoped for, Willis; there is, probably, only one
+skilful medical man in each colony, and he will be prevented leaving
+by Government engagements."
+
+"True; then we had better hoist sail for Europe direct, and trust to
+falling in with a ship now and then."
+
+"Alas!" sighed Becker, "in a path so wide as the ocean, it would be
+unwise to trust to such chances; you will have to rely, I fear,
+entirely upon the resources of the pinnace alone."
+
+"Well, I dare say, though we may have to put up with half rations, we
+shall not starve on the voyage, at all events."
+
+They had unmoored the pinnace, and were on their way to Shark's
+Island.
+
+"You are about to announce to your sons their departure?" said Willis,
+inquiringly.
+
+"Yes; but my heart almost fails me."
+
+"The iron must be struck while it is hot. Will you commission me to
+whisper a few words in their ear?"
+
+"Thanks, Willis; but what right have I to expect courage from them, if
+I exhibit weakness myself? No, my friend, I may shed tears in your
+presence, but not before them."
+
+"A man ought never to allow his feelings to get the better of his
+courage," said Willis, in whose eyes, however, the dust was evidently
+playing sad havoc.
+
+"These boys have almost never been absent from me. I have watched them
+grow up from infancy to adolescence, and from adolescence to manhood;
+they have always been dutiful and obedient, and with gratitude I have
+blessed them every night of their lives. But stern are the decrees of
+Fate; I must command them to depart from me--perhaps for ever!"
+
+"There are evils that lead to good," said Willis, "even though these
+evils be the Straits of Magellan or the storms of the Indian Ocean."
+
+Here the pinnace reached the offing of Shark's Island, where Fritz and
+Jack, leaning on the battery, watched the progress of the boat.
+
+"Do you observe how downcast my father looks?" said Fritz.
+
+"Willis does not look much gayer," remarked Jack.
+
+"Do you believe in omens, Jack?"
+
+"Now and then."
+
+"Well, mark me, there is a screw loose somewhere, or I am no oracle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+BACON AND BISCUIT--LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE--THE PATERNAL BENEDICTION--AN
+APPARITION--A MOTHER NOT EASILY DECEIVED--THE ADIEU--THE EMPEROR
+CONSTANTINE--IN HOC SIGNO VINCES--THE SAILOR'S POSTSCRIPT--C�SAR AND
+HIS FORTUNES--RECOLLECTIONS--MRS. BECKER PLUCKS STOCKINGS AND KNITS
+ORTOLANS--HOW DELIGHTFUL IT IS TO BE SCOLDED--THE BODIES VANISH, BUT
+THE SOULS REMAIN.
+
+
+On their return from Shark's Island, Fritz and Jack were deeply
+affected, not by the dread of the perils they were destined to
+encounter--these never gave them a moment's uneasiness--but by the
+knowledge that a merciless vulture was preying upon the vitals of
+their beloved mother.
+
+Willis on the contrary, appeared as lively as if he had just received
+notice of promotion; but whether the idea of again dwelling on the
+open sea had really elevated his spirits, or whether this gaiety was
+only assumed to encourage Becker and his sons, was best known to
+himself.
+
+It was arranged amongst them that no one, under any circumstances,
+should be made acquainted with the design they had in contemplation.
+By this means all opposition would be vanquished, and the regrets of
+separation would, in some degree, be avoided. Besides, if the project
+were divulged, might not Frank and Ernest insist upon their right to
+share its dangers? This eventuality alone was sufficient to impress
+upon them all the urgency of secrecy. The really strong man knows his
+weakness, and therefore dislikes to run the risk of exposing it, so
+Becker dreaded the tears and entreaties that this desperate
+undertaking would inevitably exercise, were it generally known
+beforehand to the rest of the family; whereas, if once the pinnace
+were fairly at sea, it could not be recalled, and time would do the
+rest.
+
+Since, then, all the preparations had to be made in such a way as not
+to excite suspicion that any thing extraordinary was on foot, the
+progress was necessarily slow. Willis, under pretext of amusing
+himself, refitted the pinnace, and strengthened it so far as he could
+without impairing its sailing efficiency. He called to mind that, when
+Captain Cook reached Batavia, after his first voyage round the world,
+he observed with astonishment that a large portion of the sides of his
+famous ship the _Endeavor_ was, under the water line, no thicker than
+the sole of a shoe.
+
+As soon as the weather had settled, and the tropical heats set in, the
+Wolstons resumed their abode at Falcon's Nest; whilst, under some
+plausible pretext or other, Willis, Fritz, and Jack took up their
+quarters at Rockhouse. This arrangement gave the destined navigators
+the means of carrying on their operations unobserved, especially as
+regards salting provisions and baking for the voyage.
+
+Along with the stores, a portion of the valuables, that still remained
+in the magazines of Rockhouse, were placed on board the pinnace; for,
+though gold and precious stones were not of much value in New
+Switzerland, Becker had not forgotten that such was not the case in
+other portions of the world; he reflected that his sons must be
+furnished with the means of returning to the colony with comfort.
+There was also a man of science and education to be bought, and that,
+he knew, could not be done without as the French proverb has it,
+having some hay in one's boots.
+
+Storms are usually heralded by some premonitory symptoms: the
+atmosphere becomes oppressive, the clouds increase in density, the sky
+gradually becomes obscure and large drops of rain begin to fall, then
+follows the deluge, and the elements commence their strife. It is much
+the same with impending misfortunes: gloom gathers on the countenance,
+our movements become constrained, our thoughts wander, and a tear
+lingers in the corner of the eye. Fritz and Jack endeavored in vain to
+appear unconcerned, but, in spite of their efforts, it was painfully
+evident that their minds were burdened by some heavy weight. They
+were more tender and more affectionate, particularly towards their
+mother. Towards evening, when they quitted the family circle for
+Rockhouse, their adieus were so earnest, so warm, and so often
+repeated, that it almost appeared as if they were laying in a stock of
+them for their voyage, to store up and preserve with the bacon and
+biscuits. Even the animals came in for an extra share of caresses,
+and, if they were capable of reflection, it must have puzzled them
+sorely to account for all the endearments that were lavished upon them
+by the two brothers.
+
+Becker himself was no less affected than his sons; sometimes, when the
+latter were busily occupied with some preparation for the voyage, he
+would fix his eyes sadly upon them, just as if every trait of these
+cherished features had not already been deeply graven on his soul.
+
+During the preceding rainy season, the two young men felt the days
+long and tedious, and wished in their inmost hearts that they would
+pass away more swiftly; now, the hours seemed to fly with
+unaccountable rapidity, and they would gladly have lengthened them if
+they had had the power. But no one can arrest
+
+  Le temps, cette image mobile
+  De l'immobile �ternit�.
+
+And time is right in holding on the even tenor of its way; for if it
+once yielded to the desires of mortals, there would be no end of
+confusion and perplexity. It takes unto itself wings and flies away,
+say the fortunate; it lags at a snail's pace, say the unfortunate. The
+idler knows not how to pass it away. The man of action does not
+observe its progress. Those who are looking forward to some favorite
+amusement exclaim, "Would that it were to-morrow!" but how many there
+are that might well ejaculate, from the bottom of their souls, "Would
+that to-morrow may never arrive!" How, then, could such wishes be met
+in a way to satisfy all?
+
+A day at length arrived when everything was ready for departure, and
+when nothing was wanted to weigh anchor but courage on the part of
+the voyagers. The pinnace was laden to the gunwale, the compass was in
+its place, the casks were filled with fresh water from the Jackal
+River, and Willis reported that both wind and sea were propitious for
+a start.
+
+The morning of that day was lovely in the extreme. Willis, Fritz, and
+Jack were early at Falcon's Nest; the two families breakfasted
+together under the trees in the open air. After breakfast an
+adjournment to the umbrageous shade of the bananas was proposed and
+agreed to.
+
+"Mother," said Fritz, taking Mrs. Becker's arm, "I want you all to
+myself."
+
+"I object to that, if you please," cried Jack, taking her other arm.
+
+"Why, you boys seem extravagantly fond of your mother to-day," said
+Mrs. Becker, gaily.
+
+"Well, you see, mother, we have the right to have an idea now and
+then--Willis has one every week."
+
+"So long as your ideas are about myself, I have no reason to object to
+them," said Mrs. Becker, smiling.
+
+"We have always been dutiful sons, have we not, mother?" inquired
+Fritz.
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+"You are well pleased with us then?"
+
+"Yes, surely."
+
+"We have never caused you any uneasiness, have we?" inquired Jack.
+
+"That is to say, inadvertently," added Fritz; "designedly is out of
+the question."
+
+"No, not even inadvertently," replied their mother.
+
+"Were you very sorry when Frank and Ernest were going to leave us?"
+
+"Yes, my children, the tears still burn my cheek."
+
+"Nevertheless, you knew that it was for the common welfare, and you
+felt resigned to the separation."
+
+"But why do you ask such a question now?"
+
+"Well, _� propos de rien_, mother," replied Jack, "simply because we
+love you, and, like misers, we treasure your love."
+
+Towards the afternoon both families were again assembled under the
+trees at Falcon's Nest This time it was dinner that brought them
+together; the repast consisted of cold meats of various kinds, but the
+chief dish was a wonderful salad, the rich, fresh odor of which
+perfumed the air. Wolston, Frank, and Ernest kept up a lively
+conversation, yet, though all seemed happy and pleased, there were
+bursting hearts at the table that day."
+
+"I am going to take a turn in the pinnace to-morrow," said Willis,
+quietly; "who will go with me?"
+
+"I will!" cried all the four brothers.
+
+"I shall require you, Frank and Ernest, to take a look at the rice
+plantation to-morrow," said Becker, "so I wish you to put off the
+excursion till another time."
+
+"We are at your orders, father," replied the two young men.
+
+"Where are you going, Willis?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Well, I am anxious to discover whether we inhabit an island or a
+continent, and may, consequently, extend the survey beyond the points
+already known; so you must not be disappointed should we not return
+the same night."
+
+"But what is the good of such an expedition?" inquired Mrs. Becker.
+
+"The country may be inhabited, or there may be inhabited islands in
+the vicinity," replied Willis.
+
+"If there be natives anywhere near," said Mrs. Becker, "they have left
+us at peace hitherto, and, in my opinion, since the dog sleeps, it
+will be prudent for us to let it lie."
+
+"It is not a question of creating any inconvenience," suggested
+Becker, "but only to ascertain more accurately our geographical
+position: such a knowledge can do us no possible harm, but, some day,
+it may be of immense service to us."
+
+"What if you should fall in with a ship?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"In that case we shall give your compliments to the commander,"
+replied Jack.
+
+"You may do that if you like, but try and bring it back with you if
+you can."
+
+"Do you wish to leave us?"
+
+"I do not mean that," hastily added Mrs. Wolston, "but I am beginning
+to get anxious about my son, poor fellow. If the _Nelson_ has not
+arrived at the Cape, then he will suppose we are all drowned, and I
+should like to fall in with some means of assuring him of our safety."
+
+"Oh yes," cried the two girls, "do try and fall in with a ship; our
+poor brother will be so wretched."
+
+"You might say our brother as well," added the two young men.
+
+Here the two mothers interchanged a glance of intelligence, which
+might mean very little, but which likewise might signify a great deal.
+
+A moment of intense anxiety had now arrived for Becker and his two
+sons; they could scarcely refrain from shedding tears, but they felt
+that the slightest imprudence of that nature would divulge everything.
+
+"Come now, my lads, look alive," cried Willis, in a voice which he
+meant to be gruff; "if you intend to take a few hours' repose before
+we start in the morning, it is time to be off."
+
+Fritz and Jack, had it been to save their lives, could not now have
+helped throwing more than usual energy into their parting embraces
+that particular afternoon; but they passed through the ordeal with
+tolerable firmness, and then with heavy hearts turned towards the
+door.
+
+"I think I will walk with you as far as Rockhouse," said Becker.
+
+All four then departed; and when the party were about fifty yards from
+Falcon's Nest, Fritz and Jack turned round and waved a final adieu to
+those loved beings whom probably, they might never see again.
+
+"It is well," said Becker. "I am satisfied with your conduct
+throughout this trying interval."
+
+It was now an hour when there is something indescribably sombre about
+the country; day was declining, the outlines of the larger objects in
+the landscape were becoming less distinct, and the trees were assuming
+any sort of fantastical shape that the mind chose to assign to them.
+Here and there a bird rustled in the foliage, but otherwise the
+silence was only broken by footsteps of the four men.
+
+In ordinary life children quit the parental home by easy and almost
+imperceptible gradations. First, there is the school, then college;
+next, perhaps, the requirements of the profession they have adopted.
+Thus they readily abandon the domestic hearth; friends, intercourse,
+and society divide their affection, and the separation from home
+rarely, if ever, costs them a pang. Not so with Becker's two sons;
+their world was New Switzerland; therefore, like the rays of the sun
+absorbed by the mirror of Archimedes, all their affections were
+concentrated on one point.
+
+On the former occasion when the family ties were on the eve of being
+rent asunder, the case was very different. It is true, Frank and
+Ernest were about to leave for an indefinite period of time; but then,
+every comfort that the most fastidious voyager could desire was
+awaiting them on board the _Nelson_; for a well-appointed ship is like
+a well-appointed inn on shore, all your wants are ministered to with
+the utmost celerity. Besides, Captain Littlestone had taken the young
+men under his special protection, and had promised to see them
+properly introduced and cared for in Europe. How dissimilar was the
+position of Fritz and his brother; they were about to tumble into the
+old world should they be so fortunate as to reach it, much as if they
+had dropped from the skies, without a guide and without a friend. They
+were about to entrust themselves to the ocean, separated from its
+treacherous floods by a few wretched planks; to be exposed for months,
+almost unsheltered, to wind, rain, and the mercy of pitiless storms.
+
+"If God in His mercy preserves you, my sons," said Becker, breaking at
+last the silence, "you will find yourselves launched in an ocean still
+more turbulent than that you have escaped--an ocean where falsehood
+and cunning assume the names of policy and tact; where results always
+justify the means, whatever these may be; where everything is
+sacrificed to personal interest and ambition; where fortune is honored
+as a virtue that dispenses with all others, and where profligacies of
+the most odious kinds are decorated with gay and seductive colors. It
+is difficult for me to foresee the various circumstances amidst which
+you may be placed; but there are certain rules of conduct that
+provide for nearly every emergency. I have no need to urge loyalty or
+courage--these qualities are inseparable from your hearts. Strive only
+for what is just and honest. Submit to be cheated rather than be
+cheats yourselves; ill-gotten gains never made any one rich. Put your
+trust in Providence. Seek aid from on high, when you find yourselves
+surrounded with difficulties. Never forget that there is no corner on
+the earth's surface, however obscure, that the eyes of the Lord are
+not there to behold your actions. Act promptly and with energy. Bear
+in mind that every moment lost will be to your mother an age of
+suffering, and that her life is suspended on the fragile thread of
+your return."
+
+The party had now reached the banks of the Jackal River, where the
+pinnace was moored. Fritz and Jack were shedding tears unrestrainedly,
+and had dropped on their knees at their father's feet.
+
+"I call," said Becker, in a trembling voice, "the benediction of
+Heaven upon your heads, my sons."
+
+"Oh, but they must not go!" cried Mrs. Becker, rushing out from behind
+some tall brushwood that hid her from their view; "they shall not go!"
+
+Fritz and Jack were instantly inclosed within their mother's arms.
+
+"Ah!" cried she, pushing aside the hair from their brows, the better
+to observe their features, "you thought to deceive your mother, did
+you?"
+
+"Pardon!" exclaimed both the young men.
+
+Here Becker thought it necessary to interfere; and, summoning all the
+courage he could muster to the task, said--
+
+"Why should they not go? Is this the first expedition they have
+undertaken?"
+
+"No, it is not the first expedition they have undertaken, but it is
+the first time their eyes and their looks betokened an eternal adieu.
+It is the first time that I felt they were forsaking me for ever, and
+it is the first time you ever addressed them with the words you just
+now uttered."
+
+Becker saw that it was useless to attempt to carry deceit any
+further; he therefore withdrew his eyes from the piercing glance of
+his wife. Willis, caught in the act, as it were, was completely thrown
+off his guard, and had not a word to say for himself. Fritz and Jack
+had again fallen on their knees, this time at the feet of their
+mother.
+
+"Ah! I begin to understand," she screamed, as she glanced around on
+the scared group that surrounded her, like a wounded lioness whose
+cubs were being carried off; "now the bandage begins to drop from my
+eyes. A thousand inexplicable things dart into my mind. You are
+sending the boys on an impracticable voyage to secure the safety of
+their mother; but you did not think that in order to prolong my
+existence for a few years, you would kill me instantly with grief!
+What right have you to impose a remedy upon me that is a thousand
+times worse than the malady? Have I ever complained? May my sufferings
+not be agreeable to me? May I not like them? Is pain and suffering not
+our lot from the cradle to the tomb? But I am not ill, I was never
+better in my life than I am at this moment."
+
+Here she was seized with a paroxysm of nervous tremors that convulsed
+her frame most fearfully, and completely belied her words. Becker
+rushed forward and held her firmly in his arms.
+
+"God give me strength!" he murmured. "Go, my children, where your duty
+calls you; go, my friend, do not prolong this terrible scene an
+instant longer."
+
+Not another word was spoken, the pinnace was unmoored; Fritz, Jack,
+and Willis embarked. When at some little distance from the shore,
+there was just light enough for Fritz to notice that his father was
+directing the feeble steps of his mother in the direction of Falcon's
+Nest. In a few moments more all the objects on shore were one confused
+mass of unfathomable shadow. The pinnace dropped anchor at Shark's
+Island, where some few final preparations for the voyage had to be
+made. Fritz here took a pen and wrote:
+
+"We part. We are gone. When you read this letter, the sea, for some
+distance, will extend between us. We shall live and move elsewhere,
+but our hearts still with you. We wish that Ernest and Frank would
+erect a flagstaff on the spot where we last parted with our parents.
+It may be to us what the celestial standard bearing the scroll, _in
+hoc signo vinces_ was to the Emperor Constantine. The place is already
+sacred, and may be hallowed by your prayers for us. Our confidence in
+the divine mercy is boundless. Do not despair of seeing us again. We
+have no misgivings, not one of us but anticipates confidently the
+period when we shall return and bring with us health, happiness, and
+prosperity to you all.
+
+"Let me add a word," said Jack.
+
+"The sea is calm, our hearts are firm, our enterprise is under the
+protection of Heaven--there never was an undertaking commenced under
+more favorable auspices. Farewell then, once more, farewell. All our
+aspirations are for you.
+
+"FRITZ.
+
+"JACK.
+
+"P.S.--Willis was going to write a line or two when, lo and behold! a
+big tear rolled upon the paper. 'Ha!' said he, 'that is enough, I will
+not write a word, they will understand that, I think,' and he threw
+down the pen."
+
+"How is the letter to be sent on shore?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"There is a cage of pigeons on board the pinnace," replied Jack, "but
+I do not want them to know that, for, if they should expect to hear
+from us, and some accident happen to the pigeons, they might be
+dreadfully disappointed."
+
+"We can return on shore," observed Willis, "and place it on the spot,
+where we embarked; they are sure to be there to-morrow."
+
+This suggestion was incontinently adopted. The letter was attached to
+a small cross, and fixed in the ground. The voyagers had all
+re-embarked in the pinnace, which was destined to bear even more than
+C�sar and his fortunes. Willis had already loosened the warp, when, a
+thought crossed the mind of Fritz.
+
+"I must revisit Falcon's Nest once more," said he.
+
+"What!" cried Willis, "you are not going to get up such another scene
+as we witnessed an hour or two ago?"
+
+"No, Willis, I mean to go by stealth like the Indian trapper, so as to
+be seen by no mortal eye. I wish to take one more look at the old
+familiar trees, and endeavor to ascertain whether my mother has
+reached home in safety."
+
+"But the dogs?" objected Willis.
+
+"The dogs know me too well to give the slightest alarm at my approach.
+I shall not be long gone; but really I must go, the desire is too
+powerful within me to be resisted."
+
+"I will go with you," said Jack.
+
+Here Willis shook his head and reflected an instant.
+
+"You are not angry with us, Willis, are you?"
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "and I think the best thing I can do, under
+the circumstances, is to go too."
+
+"Very well, make fast that warp again, and come along."
+
+The party then disappeared amongst the brushwood.
+
+"Some time ago," remarked Fritz, "we followed this track about the
+same hour; there was danger to be apprehended, but the enterprise was
+bloodless, though successful."
+
+"You mean the chimpanzee affair," said Willis.
+
+"Yes; this time we have only an emotion to conquer, but I am afraid it
+is too strong for us."
+
+"These are the trees," said Jack, as they debouched upon the road,
+"that I stuck my proclamations upon. We had very little to think of in
+those days."
+
+As the party drew near Falcon's Nest, the dogs approached and welcomed
+them with the usual canine demonstrations of joy.
+
+"I have half a mind to carry off Toby," said Fritz; "but I fear Mary
+would miss him."
+
+Externally all appeared tranquil at Falcon's Nest; this satisfied the
+young men that their mother had succeeded in reaching home, at least,
+in safety; a light streaming through the window of Becker's dwelling,
+however, showed that the family had not yet retired for the night.
+
+"If they only knew we were so near them!" remarked Jack.
+
+The entire party then sat down upon a rustic bench, shrouded with
+flowering orchis and Spanish jasmine.
+
+"How often, on returning from the fields or the chase, we have seen
+our mother at work on this very seat," observed Fritz.
+
+"Aye," added Jack; "once I observed she had fallen asleep whilst
+knitting stockings. I advanced on tip-toe, removed gently her knitting
+apparatus, stockings, and all, and placed on her lap some ortolans
+that I had caught and strangled; but I first plucked one of them, and
+scattered the feathers all about, and then retreated into a thicket to
+watch the _d�nouement_ of my scheme. She awoke, put down her hand to
+take up a stocking, and laid hold of a bird. She stared, rubbed her
+eyes, stared again, looked about, and could find nothing but the
+ortolan feathers. I then ran forward and embraced her, looking as if I
+had just come from unearthing turnips. 'Well, I declare,' she said
+with a bewildered air, 'I could have sworn that I was knitting just
+now, and here I find myself plucking ortolans; and what is more, I
+have not the slightest idea where, in all the world, the birds have
+come from!' Of course, I looked as innocent as possible; so that the
+more she stared and reflected, the less she could make the matter out.
+At last, she went on plucking the birds, and when this was done she
+stuck them on the spit. When the ortolans were roasted and ready to be
+served up, I went into the kitchen, carried them off, and put my
+mother's knitting apparatus on the spit. Imagine her surprise when she
+beheld her worsted and stockings at the fire, knowing, at the same
+time, that four hungry stomachs were waiting for their dinners! At
+last, fearing that she was going to ascribe the metamorphosis to some
+hallucination of her own, I went up to her, threw my arms round her
+neck, told her the whole story, and we both of us enjoyed a hearty
+laugh over it."
+
+"Aye, Jack, those were laughing times," said Fritz, sadly.
+
+"Not only that, but our mother was always so even--tempered; she was
+never ruffled in the slightest degree by my nonsense; though she often
+had the right to be very angry, yet she never once took offence. On
+another occasion, Mary and Sophia Wolston were working here at those
+mysterious embroideries which they always hid when we came near."
+
+"Toby's collar, I suppose," remarked Fritz.
+
+"My tobacco pouch," suggested Willis.
+
+"I approached," continued Jack, "with the muffled softness of a cat,
+and was just on the point of discovering their secret, when my monkey,
+Knips, who was cracking nuts at their feet, made a spring, and drew a
+bobbin of silk after it; this caused them to look round, and great was
+my astonishment to find myself caught at the very moment I expected to
+surprise them. They commenced scolding me at an immense rate, but then
+it was so delightful to be scolded!"
+
+"Aye," murmured Fritz, "that is all over now."
+
+Like a file of sheep, one recollection dragged another after it, so
+that the whole of the past recurred to their memories. Some faint
+streaks of light now warned them that day was about to break; the
+cocks began to crow one after the other, and to fill the air with
+their shrill voices.
+
+"Now," said Willis, "it is high time to be off."
+
+Jack hastily gathered two bouquets of flowers, which he suspended to
+the lintel of each dwelling.
+
+"These," said he, "will show them that we have paid them another
+visit."
+
+They then bent down all three on their knees, uttered a short prayer,
+and afterwards disappeared amidst the shadows of the chestnut trees.
+
+"Listen!" said Willis, seeing that his companions were about to make a
+halt, "if you stop again, or speak of returning any more, I will cease
+to regard you as men."
+
+Half an hour afterwards, on the morning of the 8th March, 1812, the
+pinnace bore out to sea, and when day broke, the crew could not descry
+a single trace of New Switzerland on any point of the horizon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE--THE MARY--COUNT UGOLINO--THE
+SOURCES OF RIVERS--THE ALPS DEMOLISHED--NO MORE PYRENEES--THE
+FIRST SHIP--ADMIRAL NOAH--FLEETS OF THE ISRAELITES--THE
+COMPASS--PRINTING--GUNPOWDER--ACTIUM AND SALAMIS--DIDO AND
+AENEAS--STEAM--DON GARAY AND ROGER BACON--MELCHTHAL, FURST, AND
+WILLIAM TELL--GOING A-PLEASURING--UPSET VERSUS BLOWN UP--A DEAD
+CALM--THE LOG--WILLIS'S ARCHIPELAGO--THE ISLAND OF SOPHIA--THE BREAD
+FRUIT-TREE--NATIVES OF POLYNESIA--STRIPED TROWSERS--ABDUCTION OF
+WILLIS--IS HE TO BE ROASTED OR BOILED?--WHEN THE WINE IS POURED OUT,
+WE MUST DRINK IT.
+
+
+At the date of the events narrated in the preceeding chapter,
+comparatively little was known of Oceania, that is, of the islands and
+continents that are scattered about the Pacific Ocean. Most of them
+had been discovered, named, and marked correctly enough in the charts,
+but beyond this all was supposition, hypothesis, and mystery. The
+mighty empire of England in the east was then only in its infancy,
+Sutteeism and Thuggism were still rampant on the banks of the Ganges,
+but the power of the descendants of the Great Mogul was on the wane.
+California was only known as the hunting-ground of a savage race of
+wild Indians. The now rich and flourishing colonies of Australia were
+represented by the convict settlement of Sydney. The Dutch had
+asserted that the territory of New Holland was utterly uninhabitable,
+and this was still the belief of the civilized world; nor was it
+without considerable opposition on the part of _soi-disant_
+philanthropists that the English government succeeded in establishing
+a prison depot on what at the time was considered the sole spot in
+that vast territory susceptible of cultivation. At the present time,
+these formerly-despised regions send _one hundred tons of pure gold_
+to England. The political state of Europe itself had at this time
+assumed a singular aspect. Napoleon had made himself master of nearly
+all the continental states; Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and a
+part of Germany were at his feet; and, by the Peace of Tilsit, he had
+secured the co�peration of Alexander, Emperor of Russia, in his
+schemes to ruin the trade and commerce of Great Britain. England, by
+her opportune seizure of the Danish fleet, broke up the first great
+northern confederacy that was formed against her. This act, though
+much impugned by the politicians of the day, is now known not only to
+have been perfectly justifiable, but also highly creditable to the
+political foresight of Canning and Castlereagh, by whom it was
+suggested, to say nothing of the daring and boldness that Nelson
+displayed in executing the manoeuvre. When news of this event reached
+the Russian Emperor it threw him into a paroxysm of rage, and he
+declared war against England in violent language. He had the insolence
+to make peace with France the _sina qua non_ of his friendship. At the
+distance of nearly half a century, the actual language employed has a
+peculiar flavor. The emperor, after detailing his grievances, declares
+that henceforth there shall be no connection between the two
+countries, and calls on his Britannic Majesty to dismiss his
+ministers, and conclude a peace forthwith. The British Government
+replied to this by ordering Nelson to set sail forthwith for the mouth
+of the Neva. A bitter and scorching manifesto was at the time
+forwarded to the emperor. It accused him flatly of duplicity, and
+boldly defied him and all his legions. The whole document is well
+worthy of perusal in these lackadaisical times. It is dated
+Westminister, December 18, 1807. It sets forth anew the principles of
+maritime war, which England had then rigidly in force. Napoleon had
+declared the whole of the British Islands in a state of blockade. The
+British Government replied by blockading _de facto_ the whole of
+Europe. This was done by those celebrated orders in council, which,
+more than anything else, precipitated the downfall of Napoleon. They
+threw the trade of the world into the hands of England. Of course,
+Russia was deeply affected, so was Spain and all the other maritime
+states; and they were all, one way or another, in open hostility with
+this country. But England laughed all their threats to scorn; and in
+the whole history of the country, there was not a more brilliant
+period in her eventful history. She stood alone against the world in
+arms. Even the blusterings of the United States were unheeded, and in
+no degree disturbed her stern equanimity. She saw the road to victory,
+and resolved to pursue it. But England then had great statesmen, and,
+of them all, Lord Castlereagh was the greatest, although he served a
+Prince Regent who cared no more for England or the English people,
+than the Irish member, who, when reproached for selling his country,
+thanked God that he had a country to sell.
+
+At length the ill-will of the Americans resolved itself into open
+warfare, and the United States was numbered with the overt enemies of
+England. This resulted in British troops marching up to Washington and
+burning the Capitol, or Congress House, about the ears of the members
+who had stirred up the strife. Meanwhile, all the islands of France in
+the east and west had been taken possession of; the British flag waved
+on the Spanish island of Cuba, and in the no less valuable possessions
+of Holland, in Java. Everywhere on the ocean England held undisputed
+sway. This state of things gave rise to one great evil--the sea
+swarmed with cruisers and privateers, English, French, and American;
+so that no vessel, unless sailing under convoy, heavily armed, or a
+very swift sailer, but ran risk of capture.
+
+The _Mary_--for so Fritz now called the pinnace--had been ten days at
+sea, the wind had died away, and for some time scarcely a zephyr had
+ruffled the surface of the water, the sails were lazily flapping
+against the mast, and but for the currents, the voyagers would have
+been almost stationary. It may readily be supposed that, under such
+circumstances, their progress was somewhat slow, and, as Jack
+observed, to judge from their actual rate of sailing, they ought to
+have started when very young, in order to arrive at the termination of
+the voyage before they became bald-headed old men.
+
+They prayed for a breeze, a gale, or even a storm; their fresh water
+was beginning to get sour, and they reflected that, if the calm
+continued any length of time, their provisions would eventually run
+short, and the ordinary resource of eating one another would stare
+them in the face. Jack, being the youngest, would probably disappear
+first, next Fritz, then Willis would be left to eat himself, in order
+to avoid dying of hunger, just as the unfortunate Count Ugolino
+devoured his own children to save them from orphanage.
+
+As yet, however, there were no symptoms of such a dire disaster; they
+were in excellent health and tolerable spirits; they had provisions
+enough to last them for six months at least, and consequently had not
+as yet, at all events, the slightest occasion to manifest a tendency
+to anthropophagism.
+
+"I can understand the sea," remarked Jack, "as I understand the land
+and the sky; God created them, that is enough; but I cannot understand
+how a mighty river like the Nile or the Ganges can continue eternally
+discharging immense deluges of water into the sea without becoming
+exhausted. From what fathomless reservoirs do the Amazon and the
+Mississippi receive their endless torrents?"
+
+"The reservoirs of the greatest rivers," replied Fritz, "are nothing
+more than drops of water that fall from the crevice of some rock on or
+near the summit of a hill; these are collected together in a pool or
+hollow, from which they issue in the form of a slender rivulet. At
+first, the smallest pebble is sufficient to arrest the course of this
+thread of water; but it turns upon itself, gathers strength, finally
+surmounts the obstacle, dashes over it, unites itself with other
+rivulets, reaches the plain, scoops out a bed, and goes on, as you
+say, for ever emptying its waters into the sea."
+
+"Yes; but it is the source of these sources that I want to know the
+origin of. You speak of hills, whilst we know that water naturally, by
+reason of its weight and fluidity; seeks to secrete itself in the
+lowest beds of the earth."
+
+"It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that water may come down
+a hill, although it never goes up. Rain, snow, dew, and generally all
+the vapors that fall from the atmosphere, furnish the enormous masses
+of water that are constantly flowing into the sea. The vapor alone
+that is absorbed in the air from the sea is more than sufficient to
+feed all the rivers on the face of the earth. Mountains, by their
+formation, arrest these vapors, collect them in a hole here and in a
+cavern there, and permit them to filter by a million of threads from
+rock to rock, fertilizing the land and nourishing the rivers that
+intersect it. If, therefore, you were to suppress the Alps that rise
+between France and Italy, you would, at the same time, extinguish the
+Rhone and the Po."
+
+"It would be a pity to do that," said Jack; "there was a time though
+when there were no Pyrenees."
+
+"That must have been, then, at a period prior to the formation of
+granite, which is esteemed the oldest of rocks."
+
+"No such thing," insisted Jack; "it was so late as 1713, when, by the
+peace of Utrecht, the crown of Spain was secured to the Duke of Anjou,
+grandson of Louis XIV."
+
+"Howsomever," remarked Willis, "all the mariners in the French fleet
+could not convince me that the Pyrenean mountains are only a hundred
+years old."
+
+"My brother is only speaking metaphorically," said Fritz; "when the
+crown of Spain was assigned to the Duke of Anjou, his grandfather
+said--_Qu il n'y avait plus de Pyr�n�es_. He meant by that simply,
+that France and Spain being governed by the same prince, the moral
+barrier between them existed no longer. The formidable mountains still
+stood for all that, and he who removes them would certainly be
+possessed of extraordinary power."
+
+"I am always putting my foot in it," said Willis, "when the yarn is
+about the land; let us talk of the sea for a bit. Who built the first
+ship?"
+
+"Well," replied Fritz, "I should say that the first ship was the ark."
+
+"Whence we may infer," added Jack, "that Noah was the first admiral."
+
+"We learn from the Scriptures," continued Fritz, "that the first
+navigators were the children of Noah, and it appears from profane
+history that the earliest attempts at navigation were manifested near
+where the ark rested; consequently, we may fairly presume that the art
+of ship-building arose from the traditions of the deluge and the ark."
+
+"In that case, the art in question dates very far back."
+
+"Yes, since it dates from 2348 years before the birth of Christ; but
+the human race degenerated, the traditions were forgotten, and
+navigation was confined to planks, rafts, bark canoes, or the trunk of
+a tree hollowed out by fire."
+
+"That is the sort of craft used by the inhabitants of Polynesia at the
+present day," remarked Willis.
+
+"It appears, however, by the Book of Job, that pirates existed in
+those days, and that they went to sea in ships and captured
+merchantmen, which proves, to a certain extent, that there were
+merchantmen to conquer. We know also that David and Solomon equipped
+large fleets, and even fought battles on sea."
+
+"Whether an ancient or modern, a Jew or a Gentile," said Willis, "he
+must have been a brave fellow who launched the first ship, and risked
+himself and his goods at sea in it."
+
+"True," continued Fritz; "but when once the equilibrium of a floating
+body was known, there would be no longer any risk; as soon as it came
+to be understood that any solid body would float if it were lighter
+than its bulk of water, the matter was simple enough."
+
+"Very good," interrupted Jack; "but the words 'when' and 'as soon as'
+imply a great deal; _when_, or _as soon as_, we know anything, the
+mystery of course disappears. But before! there is the difficulty.
+Particles of water do not cohere--how is it, then, that a ship of war,
+that often weighs two millions of pounds, does not sink through them,
+and go to the bottom? Individuals, like myself for example, who are
+not members of a learned society, may be pardoned for not knowing how
+water bears the weight of a seventy-four."
+
+"The seventy-four would, most undoubtedly, sink if it were heavier
+than the weight of water it displaced; but this is not the case; wood
+is generally lighter than water."
+
+"The wood, yes; but the cannon, the cargo, and the crew?"
+
+"You forget the cabooses, the cockpits, and the cabins, that do not
+weigh anything. Allowing for everything, the weight of a ship, cargo
+and all, is much lighter than its bulk of water, and consequently it
+cannot sink."
+
+"But how is it, then, that the immense bulk of a seventy-four moves so
+easily in the water? One would think that its prodigious weight would
+make it stick fast, and continue immoveable."
+
+"When the seventy-four in question has displaced its weight of water,
+its own weight is substituted for the water, and is in consequence
+virtually annihilated; it does not, in point of fact, weigh anything
+at all, and therefore is easily impelled by the wind."
+
+"When there is any, understood," added Jack.
+
+"And a yard or so of canvas," suggested Willis.
+
+"True," continued Fritz, "a sail or two would be very desirable; these
+instruments of propulsion do not appear, however, to have been used by
+the ancients. We first hear of a sail being employed at the time when
+Isis went in search of her husband Osiris, who was killed by his
+brother Typhon, and whose quarters were scattered in the Nile. This
+lady, it seems, took off the veil that covered her head, and fastened
+it to an upright shaft stuck in the middle of the boat, and, much to
+her astonishment, it impelled her onwards at a marvellous speed."
+
+"A clever young woman that," said Willis; "but I doubt whether veils
+would answer the purpose on board a seventy-four, particularly as
+regards the mainsail and mizentops."
+
+"The Phoenicians were the most enterprising of the early navigators.
+They appeared to have sailed round Africa without a compass, for they
+embarked on the Red Sea and reappeared at the mouth of the Nile, and
+the compass was not invented till the fourteenth century."
+
+"And who was the inventor of the compass?" inquired Willis.
+
+"According to some authorities, it was invented by a Neapolitan named
+Jean Goya; according to others, the inventor was a certain Hugues de
+Bercy."
+
+"Then," said Jack, "you do not admit the claims of the Chinese and
+Hindoos, who assert priority in the discovery?"
+
+"I neither deny nor admit their claims, because I do not know the
+grounds upon which they are founded; like the invention of gunpowder
+and printing, the discovery of the compass has many rival claimants."
+
+"I am of opinion," said Jack, "that Guttenberg is entitled to the
+honor of discovering printing, and that Berthold Schwartz invented
+gunpowder."
+
+"Perhaps you are right; but there is scarcely any invention of
+importance that has not two or three names fastened to it as
+inventors; they stick to it like barnacles, and there is no way to
+shake any of them off. So, in the case of illustrious men, nations
+dispute the honor of giving them birth; there are six or seven towns
+in Asia Minor that claim to be the birth-place of Homer. National
+vanities justly desire to possess the largest amount of genius; hence,
+no sooner does anything useful make its appearance in the world, than
+half a dozen nations or individuals start up to claim it as their
+offspring. The wisest course, under such circumstances, is to side
+with the best accredited opinion, which I have done in the case of the
+compass."
+
+"It was no joke," said Willis, "to circumnavigate Africa without a
+compass."
+
+"You are quite right, Willis, if you judge the navigation of those
+days by the modern standard; but it is to be borne in mind that the
+ancients never lost sight of the coast. They steered from cape to
+promontory, and from promontory to cape, dropping their anchor every
+night and remaining well in-shore till morning. If by accident they
+were driven out into the open sea, and the stars happened to be hidden
+by fog or clouds, they were lost beyond recovery, even though within a
+day's sail of a harbor; because, whilst supposing they were making for
+the coast, they might, in all probability, be steering in precisely
+the opposite direction."
+
+"It is certainly marvellous," said Jack, "that a piece of iron stuck
+upon a board should be a safe and sure guide to the mariner through
+the trackless ocean, even when the stars are enveloped in obscurity
+and darkness!"
+
+"It is a symbol of faith," remarked Willis, "that supplies the doubts
+and incertitudes of reason."
+
+"As for the ships, or rather galleys, of the ancients," continued
+Fritz, "with the exception of the ambitious fleets of the Greeks and
+Romans that fought at Salamis and Actium, one of the modern ships of
+war could sweep them all out of the sea with its rudder."
+
+"Yes," said Jack, "at the period of which you speak, the ancients
+possessed a great advantage over us. The winds in those days were
+personages, and were very well known; they were called Aeolus, Boreas,
+and so forth. They were to be found in caves or islands, and, if
+treated with civility, were remarkably condescending. Queen Dido,
+through one of these potentates, obtained contrary winds, to prevent
+Aeneas from leaving her."
+
+"By the way," said Willis, "there is, or at least was, in one of the
+Scottish rivers, a ship without either oars or sails."
+
+"Yes, very likely; but it did not move."
+
+"It did though, and, what is more, against both wind and tide."
+
+"I wish we had your wonderful ship here just now, it is just the thing
+to suit us under present circumstances," said Jack.
+
+"So it would, Master Jack, for it sails against currents, up rivers,
+and the crew care no more about the wind than I do about the color of
+the clouds when I am lighting my pipe."
+
+"You don't happen to mean that the _Flying Dutchman_ has appeared on
+the Scotch coast, do you, Willis?"
+
+"Not a bit of it, I mean just exactly what I say. It is a real ship,
+with a real stern and a real figure-head, but manned by blacksmiths
+instead of mariners."
+
+"Well, but how does it move? Does somebody go behind and push it, or
+is it dragged in front by sea-horses and water-kelpies?"
+
+"No, it moves by steam."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Aye, there lies the mystery. The affair has often been discussed by
+us sailors on board ship; some have suggested one way and some
+another."
+
+"Neither of which throws much light on the subject," observed Jack;
+"at least, in so far as we are concerned."
+
+"All I can tell you," said Willis, "is, that the steam is obtained by
+boiling water in a large cauldron, and that the power so obtained is
+very powerful."
+
+"That it certainly is, if it could be controlled, for steam occupies
+seventeen or eighteen hundred times the space of the water in its
+liquid state; but then, if the vessel that contains the boiling water
+has no outlet, the steam will burst it."
+
+"It appears that it can be prevented doing that, though," replied
+Willis, "even though additional heat be applied to the vapor itself."
+
+"By heating the steam, the vapor may acquire a volume forty thousand
+times greater than that of the water; all that is well known; but as
+soon as it comes in contact with the air, nothing is left of it but a
+cloud, which collapses again into a few drops of water."
+
+"That may be all very true, Master Fritz, if the steam were allowed to
+escape into the air; but it is only permitted to do that after it has
+done duty on board ship. It appears that steam is very elastic, and
+may be compressed like India-rubber, but has a tendency to resist the
+pressure and set itself free. Imagine, for example, a headstrong young
+man, for a long time kept in restraint by parental control, suddenly
+let loose, and allowed scope to follow the bent of his own
+inclinations."
+
+"Very good, Willis; for argument's sake, let us take your headstrong
+young man, or rather the steam, for granted, and let us admit that it
+is as elastic as ever you please--but what then?"
+
+"Then you must imagine a piston in a cylinder, forced upwards when
+the steam is heated, and falling downwards when the steam is cooled.
+Next fancy this upward and downward motion regulated by a number of
+wheels and cranks that turn two wheels on each side of the ship,
+keeping up a constant jangling and clanking, the wheels or paddles
+splashing in the water, and then you may form a slight idea of the
+thing."
+
+"Oh!" cried Jack, "we invented a machine of that kind for our canoe,
+with a turnspit. Do you recollect it, Fritz?"
+
+"Yes, I recollect it well enough; and I also recollect that the canoe
+went much better without than with it."
+
+"You spoke just now," continued Willis, "of rival nations, who pounce
+like birds of prey upon every new invention; and so it is with the
+steamship. An American, named Fulton, made a trial in the Hudson with
+one in 1807--that is about five years ago--and I believe the Yankees,
+in consequence, are laying claim to the invention."
+
+"Now that you bring the thing to my recollection," said Fritz, "the
+idea of applying steam in the arts is by no means new, although, I
+must candidly admit, I never heard of it being used in propelling
+ships before. The Spaniards assert that a captain of one of their
+vessels, named Don Blas de Garay, discovered, as early as the
+sixteenth century, the art of making steam a motive power."
+
+"I don't believe that," said Jack.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because a real Spaniard has never less than thirty-six words in his
+name. If you had said that the steam engine was discovered by Don
+Pedrillo y Alvares y Toledo y Concha y Alonzo y Martinez y Xacarillo,
+or something of that sort, then I could believe the man to have been a
+genuine Spaniard, but not otherwise."
+
+"Spaniard or no Spaniard, the Spanish claim the discovery of steam
+through Don Blas; the Italians likewise claim the discovery for a
+mechanician, named Bianca; the Germans assign its discovery to
+Solomon de Causs; the French urge Denis Papin; and the English claim
+the invention for Roger Bacon."
+
+"You have forgotten the Swiss," said Jack.
+
+"The Swiss," replied Fritz, with an air of dignity, "put forward no
+candidate: steam and vapor and smoke are not much in their line. They
+discovered something infinitely better--the world is indebted to them
+for the invention of liberty. I mean rational, intelligent, and true
+liberty--not the savagery and mob tyranny of red republicanism. The
+three discoverers of this noble invention were Melchthal, Furst, and
+William Tell."
+
+"You can have no idea," continued Willis, "of the stir that steam was
+creating in Europe the last time I was there. Of course there were
+plenty of incredulous people who said that it was no good; that it
+would never be of any use; and that if it were, it would not pay for
+the fuel consumed. On the other hand, the enthusiasts held that,
+eventually, it would be used for everything; that in the air we should
+have steam balloons; on the sea, steam ships, steam guns, and perhaps
+steam men to work them; that on land there would be steam coaches
+driven by steam horses. Journeys, say they, will be performed in no
+time, that is, as soon as you start for a place you arrive at it, just
+like an arrow, that no sooner leaves the bow than you see it stuck in
+the bull's eye."
+
+"In that case," observed Jack, "it will be necessary to do away with
+respiration, as well as horses."
+
+"A Londoner will be able to say to his wife, My dear, I am going to
+Birmingham to-day, but I will be back to dinner; and if a Parisian
+lights his cigar at Paris, it will burn till he arrives at Bordeaux."
+
+"Holloa, Willis, you have fairly converted Fritz and me into marines
+at last."
+
+"I am only speaking of what will be, not of what is--that makes all
+the difference you know. It is expected that there will be steam
+coaches on every turnpike-road; so that, instead of hiring a
+post-chaise, you will have to order a locomotive, and instead of
+postboys, you will to engage an engineer and stoker."
+
+"Then, instead of saying, Put the horses to," remarked Jack, "we
+shall have to say, Get the steam up."
+
+"Exactly; and when you go on a pleasure excursion, you will be whisked
+from one point to another without having time to see whether you pass
+through a desert or a flower-garden."
+
+"What, then, is to become of adventures by the way, road-side inns,
+and banditti?"
+
+"All to be suppressed."
+
+"So it appears," said Jack; "men are to be carried about from place to
+place like flocks of sheep; perhaps they will invent steam dogs as
+well to run after stragglers, and bring them into the fold by the calf
+of the leg. Your new mode of going a-pleasuring may be a very
+excellent thing in its way, Willis; but it would not suit my taste."
+
+"Probably not; nor mine either, for the matter of that, Master Jack."
+
+"At all events," said Fritz, "you would run no danger of being upset
+on the road."
+
+"No; but, by way of compensation, you may be blown up."
+
+"True, I forgot that."
+
+"This conversation has carried us along another knot," said Jack,
+opening the log, which he had been appointed to keep; "and now, by
+your leave, I will read over some of my entries to refresh your
+memories as to our proceedings.
+
+"March 9th.--Wind fair and fresh--steered to north-west--a flock of
+seals under our lee bow--feel rather squeamish.
+
+"10th.--No wind--fall in with a largish island and four little ones,
+give them the name of Willis's Archipelago.
+
+"11th.--A dead calm--sea smooth as a mirror--all of us dull and
+sleepy.
+
+"12th.--Heat 90 deg.--shot a boobie, roasted and ate him, rather
+fishy--passed the night amongst some reefs.
+
+"13th.--Same as the 12th, but no boobie.
+
+"14th.--Same as the 13th.
+
+"Dreadfully tiresome, is it not," said Jack; "no wonder they call this
+ocean the Pacific."
+
+"Alas!" sighed Willis, thinking of the _Nelson_, "it does not always
+justify the name."
+
+"15th.--Hailed a low island, surrounded with breakers, named it
+Sophia's Island."
+
+"But all these islands have been named half a dozen times already,"
+said Willis.
+
+"Oh, never mind that, another name or two will not break their backs."
+
+"16th.--Current bearing us rapidly to westward--caught a sea cow, and
+had it converted into pemican.
+
+"17th.--Shot another boobie, which we put in the pot to remind us that
+we were no worse off than the subjects of Henry IV. No wind--sea
+blazing like a furnace."
+
+"You will have to turn over a new leaf in your log by-and-by," said
+Willis, "or I am very much mistaken."
+
+"Well, I hope you are not mistaken, Willis, for I am tired of this
+sort of thing."
+
+A red haze now began to shroud the sun, the heat of the air became
+almost stifling, but the muffled roar of distant thunder and bright
+flashes of light warned the voyagers to prepare for a change. Willis
+reefed the canvas close to the mast, and suggested that everything
+likely to spoil should be put under hatches. This was scarcely done
+before the storm had reached them, and they were soon in the midst of
+a tropical deluge. At first, a light breeze sprung up, blowing towards
+the south-east, which continued till midnight, when it chopped round.
+Towards morning, it blew a heavy gale from east to east-south-east,
+with a heavy sea running. In the meantime, the pinnace labored
+heavily, and several seas broke over her. Willis now saw that their
+only chance of safety lay in altering their course. All the canvas was
+already braced up except the jib, which was necessary to give the
+craft headway, and with this sail alone they were soon after speeding
+at a rapid rate in the direction of the Polynesian Islands. The gale
+continued almost without intermission for three weeks, during which
+period Willis considered they must have been driven some hundreds, of
+miles to the north-west.
+
+The gale at length ceased, the sea resumed its tranquility, and the
+wind became favorable. The pinnace had, however, been a good deal
+battered by the storm, and their fresh water was getting low, and it
+was decided they should still keep a westerly course till they reached
+an island where they could refit before resuming their voyage.
+
+"The gale has not done us much good," said Jack, sadly; "if it had
+blown the other way, we might have been in the Indian Ocean by this
+time."
+
+"Cheer up," said Willis, taking the glass from his eye, "I see land
+about three miles to leeward, and the landing appears easy."
+
+"But the savages?" inquired Jack.
+
+"The islands of this latitude are not all inhabited," replied Fritz;
+"besides, under our present circumstances, we have no alternative but
+to take our chance with them."
+
+"Well, I do not know that," objected Jack; "it would be better for us
+to do without fresh water than to run the risk of being eaten."
+
+"What a beautiful coast!" cried Willis, who still kept the telescope
+at his eye. "Near the shore the land is flat, and appears cultivated;
+but behind, it rises gradually, and is closed in with a range of
+hills, covered with trees. There is a beautiful bay in front of us,
+which appears to invite us ashore. But the place is inhabited; the
+shore is strewn with huts, and I can see clumps of the bread-fruit
+tree growing near them."
+
+"What sort of vegetable is the bread-fruit?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"It is a very excellent thing, and supplies the natives with bread
+without the intervention of grain, flour-mills, or bakers. It can be
+eaten either raw, or baked, or boiled; either way, it is palatable.
+The tree itself is like our apple trees; but the fruit is as large as
+a pine-apple--when it is ripe, it is yellow and soft. The natives,
+however, generally gather it before it is ripe; it is then cooked in
+an oven; the skin is burnt or peeled off--the inside is tender and
+white, like the crumb of bread or the flour of the potato."
+
+"Let me have the telescope an instant," said Fritz; "I should like to
+see what the natives are like. Ah, I see a troop of them collecting on
+shore; some of them seem to be covered with a kind of wrought-steel
+armor."
+
+"Perhaps the descendants of the Crusaders," remarked Jack, "returning
+from the Holy Land by way of the Pacific Ocean!"
+
+"Others wear striped pantaloons," continued Fritz.
+
+"That is to say," observed Willis, "the whole lot of them are as naked
+as posts. What you suppose to be cuirasses and pantaloons, are their
+tabooed breasts and legs."
+
+"Are you sure of that, Willis?"
+
+"Not a doubt about it."
+
+"Such garments are both durable and economical," remarked Jack; "but I
+scarcely think they are suitable for stormy weather. But do you think
+it is safe to land amongst such a set of barebacked rascals, Willis?"
+
+"I should not like to take the responsibility of guaranteeing our
+safety; but I do not see what other course we can adopt."
+
+They had now approached within musket-shot of the shore. They could
+see that a venerable-looking old man stood a few paces in front of the
+group of natives. He held a green branch in one hand, and pressed with
+the other a long flowing white beard to his breast.
+
+"According to universal grammar," said Jack, "these signs should mean
+peace and amity."
+
+"Yes," replied the Pilot; "the more so that the rear-guard are pouring
+water on their heads, which is the greatest mark of courtesy the
+natives of Polynesia can show to strangers."
+
+"Gentlemen," cried Jack, taking off his cap and making a low bow, "we
+are your most obedient servants."
+
+"We must be on our guard," said Willis; "these savages are very
+deceitful, and sometimes let fly their arrows under a show of
+friendship. I will go on shore alone, whilst you keep at a little
+distance off, ready to fire to cover my retreat, if need be."
+
+The young men objected to Willis incurring danger that they did not
+share; but on this point Willis was inexorable, so they were obliged
+to suffer him to depart alone. By good chance, they had shipped a
+small cask of glass beads on board the pinnace. The Pilot took a few
+of these with him, and, placing a cask and a couple of calabashes in
+the canoe, he rowed ashore.
+
+The natives were evidently in great commotion; there was an immense
+amount of running backwards and forwards. Something important was,
+obviously enough, going forward; but, whether the excitement was
+caused by curiosity or admiration, it was hard to say. They might be
+preparing a friendly reception for the stranger, or they might be
+preparing to eat him--which of the two was an interesting question
+that Willis did not care about probing too deeply at that particular
+moment.
+
+Fritz and Jack anxiously watched the operations of the natives from
+the bay. They could not with safety abandon the pinnace; but to leave
+Willis to the mercy of the sinister-looking people on shore was not to
+be thought of either. The _Mary_ was, therefore, run in as close as
+possible, and Jack leaped on the sands a few minutes after the Pilot.
+
+Willis marched boldly on towards the natives, and when he arrived
+beside the old man, the crowd opened up and formed an avenue through
+which a chief advanced, followed by a number of men, seemingly
+priests, who carried a grotesque-looking figure that Jack presumed to
+be an idol. The figure was made up of wicker-work--was of colossal
+height--the features, which represented nothing on earth beneath nor
+heaven above, were inconceivably hideous--the eyes were discs of
+mother-of-pearl, with a nut in the centre--the teeth were apparently
+those of a shark, and the body was covered with a mantle of red
+feathers.
+
+At the command of the chief, some of the natives advanced and placed a
+quantity of bananas, bread-fruits, and other vegetables at the Pilot's
+feet; the priests then came forward and knelt down before him, and
+seemed to worship after the fashion of the ancients when they paid
+their devotions to the Eleusinian goddess, or the statue of Apollo.
+Meanwhile, Jack, on his side, was likewise surrounded by the natives,
+who was treated with much less ceremony than Willis. Instead of
+falling down on their knees, each of them, one after the other, rubbed
+their noses against his, and then danced round him with every
+demonstration of savage joy.
+
+Jack had now an opportunity of observing the personages about him more
+in detail. They were mostly tall and well-formed; their features bore
+some resemblance to those of a negro, their nose being flat and their
+lips thick; on the other hand, they had the high cheek-bones of the
+North American Indian and the forehead of the Malay. Nearly all of
+them were entirely naked, but wore a necklace and bracelets of shells.
+They were armed with a sort of spear and an axe of hard wood edged
+with stone. Their skins were tattooed all over with lines and circles,
+and painted; these decorations, in some instances, exhibiting careful
+execution and no inconsiderable degree of artistic skill. These
+observations made, Jack pushed his way to the spot where Willis was
+receiving the homage of the priests.
+
+"What! you here?" said the Pilot.
+
+"Yes, Willis, I have come to see what detained you. By the way, is
+there anything the matter with my nose?"
+
+"Nothing that I can see; but the natives of New Zealand rub their
+noses against each other, and probably the same usage is fashion
+here."
+
+"Why, then, do they make you an exception?"
+
+"I have not the remotest idea."
+
+The priests at length rose, and the chief advanced. This dignitary
+addressed a long discourse to Willis in a sing-song tone, which lasted
+nearly half an hour. After this, he stood aside, and looked at Willis,
+as if he expected a reply.
+
+"Illustrious chief, king, prince, or nabob," said Willis, "I am highly
+flattered by all the fine things you have just said to me. It is true,
+I have not understood a single word, but the fruits you have placed
+before me speak a language that I can understand. Howsomever, most
+mighty potentate, we are not in want of provisions; but if you can
+show us a spring of good water, you will confer upon us an everlasting
+favor."
+
+"You might just as well ask him to show you what o'clock it is by the
+dial of his cathedral," said Jack.
+
+"They would only point to the sun if I did."
+
+"But suppose the sun invisible."
+
+"Then they would be in the same position as we are when we forget to
+wind up our watches. Gentlemen savages," he said, turning to the
+natives and handing them the glass beads, "accept these trifles as a
+token of our esteem."
+
+The natives required no pressing, but accepted the proffered gifts
+with great good-will. The dancing and singing then recommenced with
+redoubled fury, and poor Jack's nose was almost obliterated by the
+constant rubbing it underwent.
+
+Suddenly the hubbub ceased, and a profound silence reigned throughout
+the assembly. The oldest of the priests brought a mantle of red
+feathers, similar to the one that covered the idol. This was thrown
+over the Pilot's shoulders; a tuft of feathers, something resembling a
+funeral plume, was placed upon his head, and a large semi-circular fan
+was thrust into his hand. Thus equipped, a procession was formed, one
+half before and the other half behind him. The _cort�ge_ began to move
+slowly in the direction of the interior, but the operation was
+disconcerted by Willis, who remained stock-still.
+
+"Thank you," he said, "I would rather not go far away from the shore."
+
+As soon as the natives saw clearly that Willis was not disposed to
+move, the chief issued a mandate, and four stout fellows immediately
+removed the idol from its position, and Willis was placed upon the
+vacant pedestal.
+
+The kind of adoration with which all these proceedings were
+accompanied greatly perplexed the voyagers. What could it all mean?
+Was this a common mode of welcoming strangers? It occurred to Jack
+that the Romans were accustomed to decorate with flowers the victims
+they designed as sacrifices to the altars of their gods before
+immolating them. This reminiscence made his flesh creep with horror,
+and filled him with the utmost dismay.
+
+"Willis!" he cried to the Pilot, whom they were now leading off in
+triumph, "let us try the effects of our rifles on this rabble; you
+jump over the heads of your worshippers, and we will charge through
+them to shore. I will shoot the first man that pursues us, and signal
+Fritz to discharge the four-pounder amongst them."
+
+"Impossible," replied Willis; "we should both be stuck all over with
+arrows and lances before we could reach the pinnace. Did I not tell
+you not to come ashore?"
+
+"True, Willis, but did you suppose I had no heart? How could I look on
+quietly whilst you were surrounded by a mob of ferocious-looking men?"
+
+"Well, well, Master Jack, say no more about it; I do not suppose they
+mean to do me any harm; but there would be danger in rousing the
+passions of such a multitude of people. They seem, luckily, to direct
+their attentions exclusively to me, so you had better go back and look
+after the canoe."
+
+"No; I shall follow you wherever you go, Willis, even into the
+soup-kettles of the wretches."
+
+"In that case," said Willis, "the wine is poured out, and, such as it
+is, we must drink it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+JUPITER TONANS--THE THUNDERS OF THE PILOT--WORSHIPPERS OF THE
+FAR WEST--A LATE BREAKFAST--RONO THE GREAT--A POLYNESIAN
+LEGEND--MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OCEANIA--MR. AND MRS. TAMAIDI--REGAL
+POMP--ELBOW ROOM--KATZENMUSIK--QUEEN TONICO AND THE SHAVING
+GLASS--CONSEQUENCES OF A PINCH OF SNUFF--DISGRACE OF THE GREAT
+RONO--MARIUS--CORIOLANUS--HANNIBAL--ALCIBIADES--CIMON--ARISTIDES--A
+SOP FOR THE THIRSTY--AIR SOMETHING ELSE BESIDES OXYGEN AND
+HYDROGEN--MARYLAND AND WHITECHAPEL--HALF-WAY UP THE CORDILLERAS--HUMAN
+MACHINES--STAR OF THE SEA, PRAY FOR US!
+
+
+Was he on his way to the Capitol or to the Gemoniae? The solution of
+this question became, for the moment, of greater importance to Willis
+than the "to be or not to be" of Hamlet to the State of Denmark. This
+incertitude was all the more painful, that it was accompanied by
+myriads of insects, created by the recent rains; these swarmed in the
+air to such an extent, that it was utterly impossible to inhale the
+one without swallowing the other. The sailor, notwithstanding his
+elevated and somewhat perilous position, true to his instincts and
+tormented by the flies, took out his pipe, filled it, and struck a
+light. As soon as the first column of smoke issued from his mouth, the
+cavalcade halted spontaneously, the natives fell on their faces, their
+noses touching the ground, and in an attitude of the profoundest fear
+and apprehension. Jupiter thundering never created such a sensation as
+Willis smoking. The savages seemed glued to the earth with terror. If
+the Pilot had thought it advisable to escape, he might have walked
+over the prostrate bodies of his captors, not one of whom would have
+been bold enough to follow what appeared to be a human volcano,
+vomiting fire and smoke,--the fire of course being understood.
+
+Willis, however, now saw that he possessed in his pipe a ready means
+of awing them. Besides, it was clear that, through some fortunate
+coincidence, the natives had mistaken him for a divinity. There was,
+consequently, no immediate danger to be apprehended; he therefore
+became himself again, and began to enjoy the novelty of his new
+dignity.
+
+It was certainly a curious contrast. Willis, seated on a sort of
+throne, crowned with a waving plume of feathers, shrouded in a fiery
+mantle, and surrounded by a crowd of prostrate figures, was quietly
+puffing ribbons of smoke from the tips of his lips. There he sat, for
+all the world like a crane in a duck-pond. From time to time the more
+daring of the worshippers slightly raised their heads to see whether
+Jupiter was still thundering; but when their eye caught a whiff of
+smoke, they speedily resumed their former posture. Some of them even
+thrust their heads into holes, or behind stones, as if more
+effectually to shelter themselves from the fury of the fiery furnace.
+At last the eruption ceased, Willis knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
+replaced it in his pocket, and the convoy resumed its route. After
+half an hour's march, the procession halted near a clump of plantains,
+in front of a structure more ambitious than any of those in the
+neighborhood. A female, laden with rude ornaments, was standing at the
+door. This lady, who rivalled the celebrated Daniel Lambert in
+dimensions, would have created quite a _furore_ at Bartholomew Fair;
+according to Jack, she was so amazingly fat, that it would have taken
+full five minutes to walk round her. She took the Pilot respectfully
+by the hand, and led him into the interior of the building, which was
+crowded with images of various forms, and was evidently a temple.
+Willis, at a sign from his conductress, seated himself in a chair,
+raised on a dais, and surmounted by a terrific figure similar to the
+one already described, but draped in white feathers instead of red.
+
+The fat lady, or rather the high priestess--for she was the reigning
+potentate in this magazine of idols--took a sucking pig that was held
+by one of the priests. After muttering a prayer or homily of some
+sort, she strangled the poor animal, and returned it to the priest. By
+and by, the pig was brought in again cooked, and presented with great
+ceremony to Willis. There were likewise sundry dishes of fruit, nuts,
+and several small cups containing some kind of liquid. One of the
+priests cut up the pig, and lifted pieces of it to Willis's mouth;
+these, however, he refused to eat. The fat priestess, observing this,
+chewed one or two mouthfuls, which she afterwards handed to the Pilot.
+This was putting the sailor's gallantry to rather a rude test. He was
+equal to the emergency, and did not refuse the offering. But he must
+have felt at the time, that being a divinity was not entirely without
+its attendant inconveniences.
+
+Nor was this the only infliction of the kind he was doomed to
+withstand. One of the priests took up a piece of kava-root, put it
+into his mouth, chewed it, and then dropped a bit into each of the
+cups already noticed. One of these, containing this nectar, was
+presented to Willis by the fat Hebe who presided at the feast, and he
+had the fortitude to taste it. Another of the cups was handed to Jack.
+
+"No, I thank you," said he, shaking his head; "I breakfasted rather
+late this morning."
+
+Meantime, another personage had entered upon the scene. After having
+performed an obeisance to Willis like the rest, this individual backed
+himself to where Jack was standing, by this means adroitly avoiding
+both the kava and the nose-rubbings. He was distinguished from the
+other natives by an ornament round his waist, which fell to his knees.
+His skin seemed a trifle less dark, his features less marked; but his
+body was tattooed and stained after the common fashion.
+
+The new comer turned out to be a Portuguese deserter, who had
+abandoned his ship twenty years before, and had married the daughter
+of a chief of the island on which he now was. At the present moment,
+he filled the part of prime minister to the king, an office be could
+not have held in his own ungrateful country, since he could neither
+read nor write. These accomplishments, it appeared, were not,
+however, absolutely indispensable in Polynesia. It has been found that
+when a savage is transferred to Europe, he readily acquires the habits
+of civilized life. By a similar adaptation of things to circumstances,
+this European had identified himself with the savages. He had adopted
+their manners, their customs, and their costume. When he thought of
+his own country, it was only to wonder why he ever submitted to the
+constraint of a coat, or put himself to the trouble of handling a fork
+and spoon. He had not, however, entirely forgotten his mother tongue,
+and, moreover, still retained in his memory a few English words. He
+was likewise very communicative, and told Jack that they were in the
+Island of Hawai; that the name of the king was Toubowrai Tamaidi, who,
+he added, intended visiting the pinnace with the queen next day, to
+pay his respects in person to the great Rono. "His Majesty," said the
+Portuguese, "would have been amongst the first to throw himself at his
+feet, but unfortunately the royal residence is a good way off; and
+though both the king and the queen are on the way, running as fast as
+they can, it may take them some time yet to reach the shore."
+
+"But who is the great Rono?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Well," replied the prime minister, "you ought to know best, since you
+arrived with him."
+
+Jack felt that he was touching on delicate ground, and saw that it was
+necessary to diplomatise a little.
+
+"True," said he; "but I am not acquainted with the position that
+illustrious person holds in relation to Hawai." The Portuguese then
+made a very long, rambling, and not very lucid statement, from which
+Jack gleaned the following details. About a hundred years before,
+during the reign of one of the first kings, there lived a great
+warrior, whose name was Rono. This chief was very popular, but he was
+very jealous. In a moment of anger he killed his wife, of whom he was
+passionately fond. The regret and grief that resulted from this act
+drove him out of his senses; he wandered disconsolately about the
+island, fought and quarrelled with every one that came near him. At
+last, in a fit of despair, he embarked in a large canoe, and, after
+promising to return at the expiration of twelve hundred moons, with a
+white face and on a floating island, he put out to sea, and was never
+heard of more.
+
+This tradition, it appears, had been piously handed down from family
+to family. The natives of Hawai--who are not more extravagant in the
+matter of idols than some nations who boast a larger amount of
+civilization, but who do not destroy them so often--enrolled Rono
+amongst the list of their divinities. An image of him was set up,
+sacrifices were instituted in his honor. Every year the day of his
+departure was kept sacred, and devoted to religious ceremonies. The
+twelfth hundred moon had just set, when a large boat appeared in the
+bay, and a man came ashore. The high priest of the temple, Raou, and
+his daughter, On La, priestess of Rono, solemnly declared that the man
+in question was Rono himself, who had returned at the precise time
+named, and in the manner he promised.
+
+It was, therefore, clear from this statement that Willis was to be
+henceforward Rono the Great.
+
+Jack was rather pleased than otherwise to learn that he was the
+companion of a real live divinity. It assured him, in the first place,
+that the danger of his being converted into a stew or a fricassee was
+not imminent. He did not forget, however, that the consequences might
+be perilous if, by any chance, the illusion ceased; for he knew that
+the greater the height from which a man falls, the less the mercy
+shown to him when he is down. As soon, therefore, as the ceremonies
+had a little relaxed, and Willis was left some freedom of action, Jack
+went forward, and knelt before him in his turn.
+
+"O sublime Rono," said he, "I know now why your nose has escaped all
+the rubbings that mine has had to undergo."
+
+"Do you?" said Willis; "glad to hear it, for I am as much in the dark
+as ever."
+
+Jack then related to him the fabulous legend he had just heard.
+
+After a while, Willis shook off his _entourage_ as gently as possible,
+and succeeded in getting out of the temple. Accompanied by Jack, he
+proceeded towards the shore, receiving, as he went, the adoration of
+the people. The route was strewn with fruit, cocoa-nuts, and pigs, and
+the natives were highly delighted when any of their offerings were
+accepted by the deified Rono.
+
+The islanders appeared mild, docile, and intelligent, notwithstanding
+the singular delusion that possessed them. Living from day to day,
+they were, doubtless, ignorant of those continual cares and
+calculations for the future that in the old world pursue us even into
+the hours of sleep. Were they happier in consequence? Yes, if the
+child is happier than the man, and if we admit that we often loose in
+tranquillity and happiness what we gain in knowledge and perfection:
+yes, if happiness is not exclusively attached to certain peoples and
+certain climates; yes, if it is true that, with contentment, happiness
+is everywhere to be found.
+
+The houses of the Hawaians are singular structures, and scarcely can
+be called dwellings. They consist of three rows of posts, two on each
+side and one in the middle, the whole covered with a slanting roof,
+but without any kind of wall whatever.
+
+They do not bury their dead, but swing them up in a sort of hammock,
+abundantly supplied with provisions. It is supposed that this is done
+with a view to enable the souls of the departed to take their flight
+more readily to heaven. The practice, consequently, seems to indicate
+that the natives possess a confused idea of a future state. When a
+child dies, flowers are placed in the hammock along with the
+provisions--a touch of the nature common to us all. They express deep
+grief by inflicting wounds upon their faces with a shark's tooth; and,
+when they feel themselves in danger of dying, they cut off a joint of
+the little finger to appease the anger of the Divinity. There was
+scarcely one of the adult islanders who was not mutilated in this way.
+
+Though the worshippers of the great Rono appeared gentle and peaceable
+enough, there were to be seen here and there a human jaw-bone,
+seemingly fresh, with the teeth entire, suspended over the entrances
+to the huts. These ghastly objects sent a shudder quivering through
+Jack's frame, and made Willis aware that it would not be advisable
+rashly to throw off his sacred character.
+
+As it was now late, and as they knew that Fritz would be uneasy about
+them, they put off laying in their stock of water till next day. Jack
+told the prime minister that the great Rono would be prepared to
+receive their majesties whenever they chose to visit him. This done,
+Willis and his companion seated themselves in the canoe, and rowed out
+to the pinnace.
+
+"God be thanked, you have returned in safety!" cried Fritz; "I never
+was so uneasy in the whole course of my life."
+
+"Well, brother, we have not been without our anxieties as well, and
+had we not happened to have had a divinity amongst us, we might not
+have come off scathless."
+
+Jack then related their adventures, which gradually brought a smile to
+the pale lips of Fritz.
+
+"But the water?" inquired Fritz, after he had heard the story.
+
+"Oh, water; they offered us something to drink on shore that will
+prevent us being thirsty for a month to come, but we shall see to that
+to-morrow."
+
+Towards dark, some fireworks were discharged on board the pinnace, by
+way of demonstrating that Willis's pipe was not the only fiery terror
+the great Rono had at his command.
+
+Early next morning a flotilla of canoes were observed rounding one of
+the points that formed the bay. The one in advance was larger than the
+others, and was evidently the trunk of a large tree hollowed out.
+Jack's new friend, the Portuguese, hailed the pinnace, and announced
+the King and Queen of Hawai, who thereupon scrambled into the pinnace.
+His majesty King Toubowrai had probably felt it incumbent upon himself
+to do honor to the illustrious Rono, for he wore an old uniform coat,
+very likely the produce of a wreck, through the sleeves of which the
+angular knobs of his copper-colored elbows projected. He did not seem
+very much at his ease in this garment, which contrasted oddly with the
+tight-fitting tattooed skin that served him for pantaloons.
+
+His wife, Queen Tonico, princess-like was half stifled in a thick
+blanket or mat of cocoa-nut fibre. Her ears were heavily laden with
+teeth and ornaments of various kinds, made out of bone, mother of
+pearl, and tortoise-shell. Her nails were two or three inches long;
+and, to judge by the number of finger-joints that were wanting, she
+was either troubled with delicate nerves, or was slightly
+hypochondriac.
+
+The royal pair were accompanied by a band of music: fortunately, this
+remained in the regal barge. It consisted of a flute with four holes,
+a nondescript instrument, seemingly made of stones; a drum made out of
+the hollow trunk of a tree, covered at each end with skin, of what
+kind it is needless to inquire. The sounds emitted by this orchestra
+were of an ear-rending nature, and of a kind graphically termed by the
+Germans Katzenmusik.
+
+"Illustrious Rono," cried Jack, "for goodness sake, tell these
+gentlemen you are not a lover of sweet sounds."
+
+"Belay there!" roared Willis.
+
+This command, however, had no effect; the artists continued thumping
+and blowing away as before. Willis, thinking to make himself better
+heard, placed his hands on his mouth, and roared the same order
+through them. This action seemed to be received as a mark of
+approbation, for the noise became absolutely terrific.
+
+"No use," said Willis: "I can make nothing of them. You try what you
+can do."
+
+"Very good," said Jack, lighting what is technically termed an
+_artichoke_, but better known as a zig-zag cracker; "if they do not
+understand English, perhaps they may comprehend pyrotechnics."
+
+The artichoke was thrown into the royal barge. At first there was only
+a slight whiz, finally it gave an angry bound and leaped into the
+midst of the musicians. Startled, they tried to get out of its way;
+but they were no sooner at what they thought to be a safe distance,
+than the thing was amongst them again. Their majesties, who were just
+then engaged in kissing the Rono's feet, started up in alarm; but when
+they saw the danger did not menace themselves, they burst into a
+hearty laugh at the antics of their suite.
+
+This episode over, and the orchestra silenced, the Sovereign of Hawai
+proceeded to inspect the pinnace. He expressed his delight every now
+and then by uttering the syllables "_ta-ta_." Fritz handed one of
+those shaving glasses to the Queen that lengthen the objects they
+reflect. This astonished her Majesty vastly, and caused her to _ta-ta_
+at a great rate. She looked behind the mirror, turned it upside down,
+and at last, when she felt assured that it was the royal person it
+caricatured, she commenced measuring her cheeks to account for the
+extraordinary disproportion.
+
+They next all sat down to a repast that was spread on deck. Their
+Majesties observing Rono use a fork, did so likewise; but though they
+stuck a piece of meat on the end of it, and held it in one hand, they
+continued carrying the viands to their mouths with the other. At the
+conclusion of the feast, Willis took a pinch of snuff out of a
+canister. Their Majesties insisted upon doing so likewise. Willis
+handed them the canister, and they filled their noses with the
+treacherous powder. Then followed a duet of sneezing, accompanied with
+facial contortions. The royal personages thinking, probably, that they
+were poisoned, leaped into the sea like a couple of frogs, and swam to
+the royal barge.
+
+"Holloa, sire," cried Jack, "where are you off to?"
+
+This was answered by the barge paddling away rapidly towards land.
+Hitherto, the whole affair had been a farce; but now the natives, who
+had collected in great numbers along the shore, seeing their king and
+queen leap into the water with a terrified air, supposed that an
+attempt had been made to cut short their royal lives, and, under this
+impression, discharged a cloud of arrows at the pinnace, and matters
+began to assume a serious aspect.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jack, "shooting at the great Rono!"
+
+"That," said Fritz, "only proves they are men like ourselves. He who
+is covered with incense one day, is very often immolated the next."
+
+"And that simply because Rono treated Mr. and Mrs. What's-their-names
+to a pinch of snuff. Serve them right to discharge the contents of the
+four-pounder amongst them."
+
+"No, no," cried Willis; "the worthy people are, perhaps, fond of their
+king and queen."
+
+"Worthy people or not," said Fritz, drawing out an arrow that had sunk
+into the capstan, "it is very likely that if this dart had hit one of
+us, there would only have been two instead of three in the crew of the
+pinnace."
+
+"Well," said Willis, "Master Jack thought the voyage rather dull; now
+something has turned up to relieve the monotony of his log."
+
+"We are still without fresh water though, Willis; I wish you could say
+that had turned up as well."
+
+"It will be prudent to go in search of that somewhere else now," said
+Willis, unfurling the sails. "Fortunately the wind is fresh, and we
+can make considerable headway before night."
+
+As they steered gently out of the bay a second cloud of arrows was
+sent after them, but this time they fell short.
+
+"The belief in Rono is about to be seriously compromised," remarked
+Fritz; "I should advise the priestess to retire into private life."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because she is too fat to live in an ordinary house, she could only
+breathe in a temple. But, O human vicissitudes!" added Jack, rolling
+himself up in a sail after the manner of the Roman senators; "behold
+Rono the Great banished from his country, and compelled to go and
+pillow his head on a foreign sail, like Marius at Minturnus--like
+Coriolanus amongst the Volcians--like Hannibal at the house of
+Antiochus--like Alcibiades at the castle of Grunium in Phrygia, given
+to him out of charity by the benevolent Pharnabazus, and in which he
+was burnt alive by his countrymen--like Cimon, voted into exile by
+ballot and universal suffrage--like Aristides, whom the people got
+tired of hearing called the Just, and many others."
+
+"Who are all these personages?" inquired Willis.
+
+"They were worthies of another age," replied Fritz; "very excellent
+men in their way, and you are in no way dishonored by being numbered
+amongst them."
+
+"Yesterday," continued Jack, "an entire people were upon their knees
+before you; they offered up sacrifices, and poured out incense on
+their altars for you; fruit and pigs were scattered in heaps, like
+flowers, upon your path; the crowd were prostrated by the fumes of
+your pipe. To-day--alas, the change!--a cloud of arrows, and not a
+single glass of cold water!"
+
+"That gives you an opportunity of quenching your thirst with the
+nectar offered to you yesterday," said Fritz; "as for myself, I have
+no such resource."
+
+"Yes, that was a posset to quench one's thirst withal; I only wish I
+had a cupful to give you. I do not regret having had an opportunity of
+becoming acquainted with the people though. They have enabled me to
+rectify some erroneous notions I formerly entertained. If, for
+example, I were to ask you what air consists of? you would, no doubt,
+reply that is a compound body made of oxygen and hydrogen or azote, in
+the proportion of twenty-one of the one to seventy-nine of the other."
+
+"Yes, most undoubtedly."
+
+"Well, such is not the case; there are other elements in the air
+besides these."
+
+"If you mean that the air accidentally, or even permanently, holds in
+solution a certain quantity of water, or a portion of carbonic acid
+gas, and possibly some particles of dust arising from terrestrial
+bodies, then I grant your premises."
+
+"No; what I mean is, that the air of Hawai is composed of three
+distinct elements."
+
+"Possibly; but if so, the air in question is not known to chemists."
+
+"These three elements are oxygen, hydrogen, and insects."
+
+"Ah, insects! I might have fancied you were driving at some hypothesis
+of that sort."
+
+"I intend to communicate this discovery to the first learned society
+we fall in with."
+
+"In the Pacific Ocean?"
+
+"Yes: there or elsewhere."
+
+"I always understood," observed Willis, "that air was a sort of cloud,
+one and indivisible."
+
+"A cloud if you like, Willis; but do you know the weight of it you
+carry on your shoulders?"
+
+"Well, it cannot be very great, otherwise I should feel it."
+
+"What do you say to a ton or so, old fellow?"
+
+"If you wish me to believe that, you will have to explain how, where,
+when, why, and wherefore."
+
+"Very good. Willis; you have bathed sometimes?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"In the sea?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know what water weighs?"
+
+"No, but I know that it is heavy."
+
+"Well, a square yard of air weighs two pounds and a half, but a square
+yard of water weighs two thousand pounds. Now, can you calculate the
+weight of the water that is on your back and pressing on your sides
+when you swim?"
+
+"No, I cannot."
+
+"You are not sufficiently up in arithmetic to do that, Willis?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor am I either, Willis; but let me ask you how it is that the waves
+do not carry you along with them?"
+
+"Because one wave neutralises the effect of another."
+
+"Very good; but how is it that these ponderous waves, coming down upon
+you, do not crush you to atoms by their mere weight?"
+
+"Well, I suppose that liquids do not operate in the same way as
+solids: perhaps there is something in our bodies that counterbalances
+the effect of the water."
+
+"Very likely; and if such be the case as regards water, may it not be
+so also as regards air?"
+
+"But I do not feel air; whereas, if I go into water, I not only feel
+it, but taste it sometimes, and I cannot force my way through it
+without considerable exertion."
+
+"That is because you are organized to live in air and not in water.
+You ask the smallest sprat or sticklebake if it does not, in the same
+way feel the air obstruct its progress."
+
+"But would the stickleback answer me, Master Fritz?"
+
+"Why not, if it is polite and well bred?"
+
+"By the way, Willis," inquired Jack, "do you ever recollect having
+lived without breathing?"
+
+"Can't say I do."
+
+"Very well, then; had you felt the weight of the air at any given
+moment, it must have produced an impression you never felt before, but
+you have not, because circumstances have never varied. A sensation
+supposes a contrast, whilst, ever since you existed, you have always
+been subject to atmospheric pressure."
+
+"Ah, now I begin to get at the gist of your argument. You mean, for
+example, that I would never have appreciated the delicate flavor of
+Maryland or Havanna, had I not been accustomed to smoke the
+cabbage-leaf manufactured in Whitechapel."
+
+"Precisely so; and take for another example the farm of Antisana,
+which is situated about midway up the Cordilleras, mountains of South
+America. When travellers, arriving there from the summits which are
+covered with perpetual snow, meet others arriving from the plain where
+the heat is intense, those that descend are invariably bathed in
+perspiration, whilst those that have come up are shivering with cold
+and covered with furs. The reason of this is, that we cannot feel warm
+till we have been cold, and _vice vers�_."
+
+"Our bodies," resumed Fritz, "however much the thermometer descends,
+never mark less than thirty-five degrees above zero. In winter the
+skin shrinks, and becomes a bad conductor of heat from without; but,
+at the same time, does not allow so much gas and vapor to escape from
+within. In summer, on the contrary, the skin dilates and allows
+perspiration to form, a process that consumes a considerable amount of
+latent heat. Starting from this principle, it has been calculated that
+a man, breathing twenty times in a minute, generates as much heat in
+twenty-four hours as would boil a bucket of water taken at zero."
+
+"If means could be found," remarked Jack, "to furnish him with a
+boiler, by fixing a piston here and a pipe there man might be
+converted into one of the machines we were talking about the other
+day."
+
+"Were I disposed to philosophize," added Fritz, "I might prove to you
+that for a long time men have been little else than mere machines."
+
+Before night they had run about thirty miles further to the
+north-east, without seeing any thing beyond a formidable bluff,
+guarded by a fringe of breakers, that would soon have swallowed up the
+_Mary_ had she ventured to reach the land. It was necessary however to
+obtain fresh water at any price before they resumed their voyage.
+
+It was to be feared that all the islanders of the Pacific were not in
+expectation of a great Rono, consequently Willis suggested that it
+would be as well to search for an uninhabited spot. The only question
+was, how long they might have to search before they succeeded; for
+they knew that there were plenty of small islands in these latitudes
+unencumbered by savages, and furnished with pools and springs of
+water.
+
+Night at length closed in upon them, and with it came a dense mist,
+that enveloped the _Mary_ as if in a triple veil of muslin.
+
+"Willis," inquired Jack, "what difference is there between a mist and
+a cloud?"
+
+"None that I know of," replied the Pilot, "except that a cloud which
+we are in is mist, and mist that we are not in is a cloud. And now, my
+lads," he added, "you may turn in, for I intend to take the first
+watch."
+
+Before turning in, however, all three joined in a short prayer. The
+young men had not yet forgotten the pious precepts of their father.
+Prayer is beautiful everywhere, but nowhere is it so beautiful as on
+the open sea, with infinity above and an abyss beneath. Then, when all
+is silent save the roar of the waves and the howling of the winds, it
+is sublime to hear the humble voice of the sailor murmuring, "Star of
+the night, pray for us!"
+
+That night the star of the night did pray for the three voyagers, for
+the rays of the moon burst through the darkness and the mist, and fell
+upon a long line of reefs under the lee of the pinnace. Had they held
+on their course a few minutes longer, our story would have been ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LYING TO--HEART AND INSTINCT--SPARROWS VIEWED AS
+CONSUMERS--MIGRATIONS--POSTING A LETTER IN THE
+PACIFIC--CANNIBALS--ADVENTURES OF A LOCKET.
+
+
+The glimpse of moonshine only lasted a second, but it was sufficient
+to light up the valley of the shadow of death. All around was again
+enveloped in obscurity. The moon, like a modest benefactor who hides
+himself from those to whose wants he has ministered, concealed itself
+behind its screen of blackness.
+
+The pinnace was thrown into stays, and they resolved to lie-to till
+daybreak. There might be rocks to windward as well as to leeward; at
+all events, they felt that their safest course lay in maintaining, as
+far as possible, their actual position; and, after having returned
+thanks for their almost miraculous escape, they made the usual
+arrangements for passing the night.
+
+Next morning they found themselves in the midst of a labyrinth of
+rocks, from which, with the help of Providence, they succeeded in
+extricating themselves. The rocks, or rather reefs, amongst which they
+were entangled, are very common in these seas. As they are scarcely
+visible at high water, they are extremely dangerous, and often baffle
+the skill of the most expert navigator.
+
+Whilst Willis steered the pinnace amongst the islands and rocks of the
+Hawaian Archipelago, Fritz kept a look-out for savages, fresh water,
+and eligible landing-places. And Jack, after having posted up his log,
+set about inditing a letter for home.
+
+"The voyage," said he, "has lately been so prolific in adventure, that
+I scarcely know where to begin."
+
+"Begin by saluting them all round," suggested Fritz.
+
+"But, brother of mine, that is usually done at the end of the
+letter," objected Jack.
+
+"What then? you can repeat the salutations at the end, and you might
+also, for that matter, put them in the middle as well."
+
+"I have written lots of letters on board ship for my comrades,"
+remarked Willis, "and I invariably commenced by saying--_I take a pen
+in my hand to let you know I am well, hoping you are the same_."
+
+"What else could you take in your hand for such a purpose, O Rono?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Sometimes, after this preamble, I added, '_but I am afraid_.'"
+
+"I thought you old salts were never afraid of anything, short of the
+Flying Dutchman."
+
+"Yes; but the letters I put that in were for young lubbers, who,
+instead of sending home half their pay, were writing for extra
+supplies, and were naturally in great fear that their requests would
+be refused."
+
+"I scarcely think I shall adopt that style, Willis, even though it
+were recognized by the navy regulations."
+
+"Do you think the pigeon will find its way with the letter from here
+to New Switzerland?" inquired Willis.
+
+"I have no doubt about that," replied Fritz, "it naturally returns to
+its nest and its affections. If you had wings, would you not fly
+straight off in the direction of the Bass Rock or Ailsa Craig, to hunt
+up your old arm-chair?"
+
+"Don't speak of it; I feel my heart go pit-pat when I think of home,
+sweet home."
+
+"So do the birds. When they soften the grain before they throw it into
+the maw of their fledgelings--when they fly off and return laden with
+midges to their nests--when they tear the down from their breasts to
+protect their eggs and their young, do you think their hearts do not
+beat as well as yours?"
+
+"But all that is said to be instinct."
+
+"Heart or instinct, where is the difference? The Abb� Spallanzani saw
+two swallows that were carried to Milan return to Pavia in fifteen
+minutes, and the distance between the two cities is seven leagues."
+
+"That I can easily believe."
+
+"When you see a little, insignificant bird flying backwards and
+forwards, perching on one branch and hopping off to another,
+whistling, carolling, perching here and there, you think that it has
+no cares, that it does not reflect, and that it does not love!"
+
+"Well, I have heard in my time a great many wonderful stories of
+robin-redbreasts and jenny-wrens, but I always understood that they
+were intended only to amuse little boys and girls."
+
+"You consider, doubtless, that a field-sparrow is not a creature of
+much importance; but do you know that he consumes half a bushel of
+corn annually?"
+
+"If that is his only merit, the farmers, I dare say, would be glad to
+get rid of him."
+
+"But it is not his only merit. What do you think of his killing three
+thousand insects a week."
+
+"That is more to the purpose. But, to return to the pigeon, supposing
+it is possible for it to find its way, how long do you suppose it will
+take to get there?"
+
+"It is estimated that birds of passage fly over two hundred miles a
+day, if they keep on the wing for six hours."
+
+"Two hundred miles in six hours is fast sailing, anyhow."
+
+"Swallows have been seen in Senegal on the 9th of October, that is,
+eight or nine days after they leave Europe; and that journey they
+repeat every year."
+
+"They must surely make some preparations for such a lengthy
+excursion."
+
+"When the period of departure approaches, they collect together in
+troops on the chimneys or roofs of houses, and on the tops of trees.
+During this operation, they keep up an incessant cry, which brings
+families of them from all quarters. The young ones try the strength of
+their wings under the eyes of the parents. Finally, they make some
+strategic dispositions, and elect a chief."
+
+"You talk of the swallows as if they were an army preparing for
+battle, with flags flying, trumpets sounding, and ready to march at
+the word of command."
+
+"The resemblance between flocks of birds and serried masses of men in
+martial array is striking. Wild ducks, swans, and cranes fly in a kind
+of regimental order; their battalions assume the form of a triangle or
+wedge, so as to cut through the air with greater facility, and
+diminish the resistance it presents to their flight.
+
+"But how do you know it is for that?"
+
+"What else could it be for? The leader gives notice, by a peculiar
+cry, of the route it is about to take. This cry is repeated by the
+flock, as if to say that they will follow, and keep the direction
+indicated. When they meet with a bird of prey whose attacks they may
+have to repulse, the ranks fall in so as to present a solid phalanx to
+the enemy."
+
+"If they had a commissariat in the rear and a few sappers in front,
+the resemblance would be complete."
+
+"If a storm arises," continued Fritz, without noticing Willis's
+commentary, "they lower their flight and approach the ground."
+
+"Forgotten their umbrellas, perhaps."
+
+"When they make a halt, outposts are established to keep a look out
+while the troop sleeps."
+
+"And, in cases of alarm, the outposts fire and fall in as a matter of
+course."
+
+"Great Rono," said Jack, "you are become a downright quiz. I have
+finished my letter whilst you have been discussing the poultry," he
+added, handing the pen to his brother, "and it only waits your
+postscriptum." Fritz having added a few lines, the epistle was sealed,
+and was then attached to one of the pigeons, which, after hovering a
+short time round the pinnace, took a flight upwards and disappeared in
+the clouds.
+
+They were now in sight of a large island, which bore no traces of
+habitation. There was a heavy surf beating on the shore, but the case
+was urgent, so Willis and Jack embarked in the canoe, and, after a
+hard fight with the waves, landed on the beach.
+
+Each of them were armed with a double-barrelled rifle, and furnished
+with a boatswain's whistle. The whistle was to signal the discovery of
+water, and a rifle shot was to bring them together in case of danger.
+These arrangements being made, Jack proceeded in the direction of a
+thicket, which stood at the distance of some hundred yards from the
+shore. He had no sooner reached the cover in the vicinity of the trees
+than he was pounced upon by two ferocious-looking savages. They gave
+him no time to level his rifle or to draw a knife. One of his captors
+held his hands firmly behind his back, whilst the other dragged him
+towards the wood. At this moment the Pilot's whistle rang sharply
+through the air. This put an end to any hopes that Jack might have
+entertained of being rescued through that means. Had he sounded the
+whistle, it would only have led Willis to suppose that he had heard
+the signal, and was on his way to join him.
+
+Poor Jack judged, from the aspect of the men who held him, that they
+were cannibals, and consequently that his fate was sealed, for if his
+surmises were correct, there was little chance of the wretches
+relinquishing their prey. Jack had often amused himself at the expense
+of the anthropophagi, but here he was actually within their grasp.
+Though death terminates the sorrows and the sufferings of man, and
+though the result is the same in whatever shape it comes, yet there
+are circumstances which cause its approach to be regarded with terror
+and dismay. In one's bed, exhausted by old age or disease, the lips
+only open to give utterance to a sigh of pain; life, then, is a burden
+that is laid down without reluctance; we glide imperceptibly and
+almost voluntarily into eternity.
+
+At twenty years of age, however, when we are full of health and ardor,
+the case is very different. Then we are at the threshold of hope and
+happiness; our illusions have not had time to fade, the future is a
+brilliant meteor sparkling in sunshine. At that age our seas are
+always calm, and the rocks and shoals are all concealed. Our barks
+glide jauntily along, the sailors sing merrily, the perils are
+shrouded in romance, and the flag flutters gaily in the breeze. Then
+life is not abandoned without a tear of regret.
+
+To die in the midst of one's friends is not to quit them entirely.
+They come to see us through the marble or stone in which we are
+shrouded. It is another thing to have no other sepulchre than the
+�sophagus of a cannibal. How the recollections of the past darted into
+Jack's mind! He felt that he loved those whom he was on the point of
+leaving a thousand times more than he did before. What would he not
+have given for the power to bid them one last adieu? The idea of
+quitting life thus was horrible.
+
+It was in vain that he tried to shake off his assailants; his
+adolescent strength was as nothing in the arms of steel that bound
+him. He saw that he was powerless in their hands, and at length ceased
+making any further attempts to escape.
+
+The savages, finding that he had relaxed his struggles, commenced to
+rifle and strip him. They tore off his upper garments, and discovered
+a small locket, containing a medallion of his mother, which the
+unfortunate youth wore round his neck. This prize, which the savages
+no doubt regarded as a talisman of some sort, they both desired to
+possess. They quarrelled about it, and commenced fighting over it.
+Jack's hands were left at liberty. In an instant he had seized his
+rifle. He ran a few paces back, turned, took deliberate aim at the
+most powerful of his adversaries, who, with a shriek, fell to the
+ground. The other savage, scared by the report of the shot and its
+effects upon his companion, took to flight, but he carried off the
+locket with him.
+
+Jack had now regained his courage. He felt, like Telemachus in the
+midst of his battles, that God was with him, and he flew, perhaps
+imprudently, after the fugitive. Seeing, however, that he had no
+chance with him as regards speed, he discharged his second rifle. The
+shot did not take effect, but the report brought the savage to his
+knees. The frightened wretch pressed his hands together in an attitude
+of supplication. Jack stopped at a little distance, and, by an
+imperious gesture, gave him to understand that he wanted the locket.
+The sign was comprehended, for the savage laid the talisman on the
+ground.
+
+"Now," said Jack, "in the name of my mother I give you your life."
+
+By another sign, he signified to the man that he was at liberty, which
+he no sooner understood than he vanished like an arrow.
+
+Great was the consternation of Fritz when he heard the reports; he
+feared that the whole island was in commotion, and that both his
+brother and the Pilot were surrounded by a legion of copper-colored
+devils. From the conformation of the coast he could see nothing, and,
+like Sisiphus on his rock, he was tied by imperious necessity to his
+post.
+
+The Pilot, on hearing the first shot, ran to the spot, and both he and
+Jack arrived at the same instant, where the savage lay bleeding on the
+ground.
+
+"You are safe and sound, I hope?" said Willis, anxiously.
+
+"With the exception of some slight contusions, and the loss of my
+clothes, thank God, I am all right, Willis."
+
+"We are born to bad luck, it seems."
+
+"Say rather we are the spoilt children of Providence. I have just
+passed through the eye of a needle."
+
+"Is this the only savage you have seen?"
+
+"No, there were two of them; and, to judge from their actions, I
+verily believe the rascals intended to eat me. As for this one, he is
+more frightened than hurt."
+
+And so it was, he had escaped with some slugs in his shoulders; but he
+seemed, by the contortions of his face, to think that he was dying.
+
+"Fortunately," said Jack, "my rifle was not loaded with ball. I should
+be sorry to have the death of a human being on my conscience."
+
+"Well," said Willis, "I am not naturally cruel, but, beset as you have
+been, I should have shot both the fellows without the slightest
+compunction."
+
+"Still," said Jack, giving the wounded savage a mouthful of brandy,
+"we ought to have mercy on the vanquished--they are men like
+ourselves, at all events."
+
+"Yes, they have flesh and bone, arms, legs, hands, and teeth like us;
+but I doubt whether they are possessed of souls and hearts."
+
+"The chances are that they possess both, Willis; only neither the one
+nor the other has been trained to regard the things of this world in a
+proper light. Their notions as to diet, for example, arise from
+ignorance as to what substances are fit and proper for human food."
+
+"As you like," said Willis; "but let us be off; there may be more of
+them lurking about."
+
+"What! again without water?"
+
+"No, this time I have taken care to fill the casks; the canoe is laden
+with fresh water."
+
+"Fritz must be very uneasy about us; but this man may die if we leave
+him so."
+
+"Very likely," said the Pilot; "but that is no business of ours."
+
+"Good bye," said Jack, lifting up the wounded savage, and propping him
+against a tree; "I may never have the pleasure of seeing you again,
+and am sorry to leave you in such a plight; but it will be a lesson
+for you, and a hint to be a little more hospitable for the future in
+your reception of strangers."
+
+The savage raised his eyes for an instant, as if to thank Jack for his
+good offices, and then relapsed into his former attitude of dejection.
+
+Twenty minutes later the canoe was aboard the pinnace.
+
+"Fritz," said Jack, throwing his arms round his brother's neck, "I am
+delighted to see you again; half an hour ago I had not the shadow of a
+chance of ever beholding you more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE UTILITY OF ADVERSITY--AN ENCOUNTER--THE HOROKEN--BILL ALIAS BOB.
+
+
+A light but favorable breeze carried them away from land, and they
+were once again on the open sea. Willis, after a prolonged
+investigation of the sun's position, taken in relation to some
+observations he had made the day before, concluded that the best
+course to pursue, under existing circumstances, was to steer for the
+Marian Islands.[H] In addition to the distance they had originally to
+traverse, all the way lost during the storm was now before them. As
+regards provisions, they had little to fear; they could rely upon
+falling in with a boobie or sea-cow occasionally, and fresh fish were
+to be had at any time. Their supply of water, however, gave them some
+uneasiness, for the quantity was limited, and they might be retarded
+by calms and contrary winds. The chances of meeting a European ship
+were too slender to enter for anything into their calculations.
+
+"It appears to me," said Jack, one beautiful evening, when they were
+some hundreds of miles from any habitable spot, "that, having escaped
+so many dangers, the watchful eye of Providence must be guarding us
+from evil."
+
+"Very possibly," replied Fritz; "one of the early chroniclers of the
+Christian Church says that Lazarus, whom our Saviour resuscitated at
+the gates of Jerusalem, became afterwards one of the most popular
+preachers of Christianity, and in consequence the Jews regarded him
+with implacable hatred."
+
+"But what, in all the world, has that to do with the Pacific Ocean?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Very little with the Pacific in particular, but a great deal with
+the ocean in general. Lazarus, his sisters, and some of his friends,
+were thrown into prison, tried, and condemned."
+
+"And stoned or crucified," added Jack.
+
+"No; the high priest of the temple had a great variety of punishments
+on hand besides these. He resolved to expose them to the mercy of the
+waves, without provisions, and without a mast, sail, or rudder."
+
+"Thank goodness, we are not so badly off as that."
+
+"_He_, for whom Lazarus suffered, and who is the same that nourishes
+the birds of the air and feeds the beasts of the field; watched over
+the forlorn craft; under his guidance, the little colony of martyrs
+were wafted in safety to the fertile coasts of Provence. They landed,
+according to the tradition, at Marseilles, of whom Lazarus was the
+first bishop, and has always been the patron saint. Who knows?--the
+same good fortune may perhaps await us."
+
+"We are not martyrs."
+
+"True; but Providence does not always measure its favors by the merits
+of those upon whom they are bestowed--misfortune, alone, is often a
+sufficient claim; so it is well for us to be patient under a little
+suffering, for sweet often is the reward."
+
+"A little hardship, now and then," added Jack, "is, no doubt,
+salutary. The Italians say: '_Le avversit� sono per l'animo cio ch' �
+un temporale per l'aria_.' Suffering teaches us to prize health and
+happiness; were there no such things as pain and grief, we should be
+apt to regard these blessings as valueless, and to estimate them as
+our legitimate rights. For my own part, I was never so happy in my
+whole life as when I embraced you the other day, after escaping out of
+the clutches of the savages."
+
+"There are many charms in life that are almost without alloy: the
+perfume of flowers--music--the singing of birds--the riches of
+art--the intercourse of society--the delights of the family
+circle--the treasures of imagination and memory. Some of the most
+beneficent gifts of Nature we only know the existence of when we are
+deprived of them; occasional darkness alone enables us to appreciate
+the unspeakable blessing of light. Man has a multitude of enjoyments
+at his command; but so many sweets would be utterly insipid without a
+few bitters."
+
+"The rheumatism, for example," said Willis, rubbing his shoulders.
+
+"Many enjoyments," continued Fritz, "spring from the heart alone; the
+affections, benevolence, love of order, a sense of the beautiful, of
+truth, of honesty, and of justice."
+
+"On the other hand," said Willis, "there are dishonesty, injustice,
+disappointment, and blighted hopes; but you are too young to know much
+about these. When you have seen as much of the world on sea and on
+land as I have, perhaps you will be disposed to look at life from
+another point of view. In old stagers like myself, the tender emotions
+are all used up; it is only when we are amongst you youngsters that we
+forget the present in the past; when we see you struggling with
+difficulties, it recalls our own trials to our mind, rouses in us
+sentiments of commiseration, and softens the asperities of our years."
+
+"According to you, then," said Fritz, levelling his rifle at a petrel,
+"the misfortunes of the one constitute the happiness of the other?"
+
+"Unquestionably," said Jack; "for instance, if you miss that bird, so
+much the worse for you, and so much the better for the petrel."
+
+"It is very rarely, brother, that you do not interrupt a serious
+conversation with some nonsense."
+
+"Keep your temper, Fritz; I am about to propose a serious question
+myself. How is it that the petrel you are aiming at does not come and
+perch itself quietly on the barrel of your rifle?"
+
+"Jack, Jack, you are incorrigible."
+
+"Did you ever see a hare or a pheasant come and stare you in the face
+when you were going to shoot it?"
+
+"Stunsails and tops!" cried Willis, "if I do not see something
+stranger than that staring us in the face."
+
+"The sea-serpent, perhaps," said Jack.
+
+"I thought it was a sea-bird at first," said Willis, "but they do not
+increase in size the longer you look at them."
+
+"They naturally appear to increase as they approach," observed Fritz.
+
+"Yes, but the increase must have a limit, and I never saw a bird with
+such singular upper-works before. Just take a cast of the glass
+yourself, Master Fritz."
+
+"Halls of �olus!" cried Fritz, "these wings are sails."
+
+"So I thought!" exclaimed Willis, throwing his sou'-wester into the
+air, and uttering a loud hurrah.
+
+"If it is the _Nelson_" said Jack, "it would be a singular encounter."
+
+"_The Nelson_!" sighed Willis, "in the latitude of Hawai; no, that is
+impossible."
+
+"She is bearing down upon us," said Fritz.
+
+"Just let me see a moment whether I can make out her figure-head,"
+said Willis. "Aye, aye!"
+
+"Can you make it out?"
+
+"No; but, from the sheer of the hull, I think the ship is British
+built."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed both the young men.
+
+"Yes, you may say 'Thank God;' but, if it turns out to be a
+man-of-war, I must report myself on board, and I doubt whether my
+story will go down with the captain."
+
+"But if it is the _Nelson_?" insisted Jack.
+
+"Aye, aye; the _Nelson_," replied Willis, "is not going to turn up
+here to oblige us, you may take my word for that."
+
+"I have better eyes than you, Willis; just let me see if I can make
+her out. No, impossible; nothing but the hull and sails."
+
+"It is just possible," persisted Jack, "that the _Nelson_ may have
+been detained at the Cape, and afterwards blown out of her course like
+ourselves."
+
+"All I can say is," replied Willis, "that if Captain Littlestone be on
+board that ship, it will make me the happiest man that ever mixed a
+ration of grog. But these things only turn up in novels, so it is no
+use talking."
+
+"She has hoisted a flag at the mizzen," cried Fritz.
+
+"Can you make it out?"
+
+"Well, let me see--yes, it must be so."
+
+"What, the Union Jack?" cried Willis.
+
+"No, a red ground striped with blue."
+
+"The United States, as I am a sinner!" cried Willis. "Well, it might
+have been worse. We can go to America; there are surgeons there as
+well as in Europe--at all events, we can get a ship there for England.
+But let me see, we must hoist a bit of bunting; unfortunately, we have
+only British colors aboard, and I am afraid they are not in
+particularly high favor with our Yankee cousins just now."
+
+"Never mind a flag," said Fritz.
+
+"Oh, that will never do, they have hoisted a flag and are waiting a
+reply. But let me see," added Willis, rummaging amongst some stores,
+"here is one of our Shark's Island signals--that, I think, will puzzle
+the Yankee considerably."
+
+The Pilot's signal was answered by a gun, the report of which rang
+through the air. The strange ship's sails were thrown back and she
+stood still. A boat then put off with a young man in uniform and six
+rowers on board.
+
+"Pinnace ahoy!" cried the officer through a speaking trumpet, "who are
+you?"
+
+"Shipwrecked mariners," cried Fritz, in reply.
+
+"What is the name of your craft?"
+
+"The _Mary_."
+
+"What country?"
+
+"Switzerland."
+
+"I was not aware that Switzerland was a naval power," observed Willis.
+
+"She has no sea-port," said Jack, "but she has a fleet--of row boats."
+
+"Where do you hail from?" inquired the officer.
+
+"New Switzerland."
+
+"That gentleman is very curious," observed Jack.
+
+Here a silence of some minutes ensued; the officer seemed at fault in
+his geography.
+
+"Where away?" at last resounded from the trumpet.
+
+"Bound for Europe," replied Fritz.
+
+This reply elicited an expression of doubt, accompanied with such a
+tremendous exjurgation as made both Fritz and Jack almost shrink into
+the hold.
+
+A few minutes after the Yankee in command stepped on board, and
+explanations were entered into that perfectly satisfied the republican
+officer. He continued, however, to eye Willis curiously.
+
+The _Hoboken_, for that was the name of the strange ship, was an
+American cruiser, carrying twelve ship guns and a long paixhan. She
+was attached to the Chinese station, but had recently obtained
+information that war had been declared between England and the States.
+She was now making her way to the west by a circuitous route to avoid
+the British squadron, and, at the same time, with a view to pick up an
+English merchantman or two.
+
+Fritz and Jack being citizens of a sister republic, and subjects of a
+neutral power, were received on board with a hearty welcome, and with
+the hospitality due to their interesting position. Willis also
+received some attention, and was treated with all the courtesy that
+could be shown to the native of an enemy's country.
+
+The pinnace was taken in tow till the young men made up their minds as
+to the course they would adopt. A free passage to the States was
+kindly offered to them, and even pressed upon their acceptance; but
+the captain left the matter entirely to their own option.
+
+Fritz and Jack were delighted with the warmth of their reception; and,
+after being so long cooped up in the narrow quarters of the pinnace,
+looked upon the Yankee cruiser, with its men and officers in uniform,
+as a sort of floating palace. The _Nelson_ having been only a
+despatch-boat, it had given them but an indifferent idea of a
+man-of-war. On board the Yankee every thing was kept in apple-pie
+order. Discipline was maintained with martinet strictness. The
+fittings shone like a mirror. The brass cappings glistened in the sun.
+Complicated rolls of cable were profusely scattered about, but without
+confusion. The deck always seemed as fresh as if it had been planked
+the day before. The sails overhead seemed to obey the word of command
+of their own accord. The boatswain's whistle seemed to act upon the
+men like electricity. The seamen's cabins, six feet long by six feet
+broad, in which a hammock, locker, and lashing apparatus were
+conveniently stowed, were something very different from the
+accommodation on board the pinnace. These things were regarded by
+Fritz and Jack with great interest; and nowhere is the genius of man
+so brilliantly displayed as on board a well-appointed ship of war.
+
+The young men, however, when they sat down to dinner in the captain's
+cabin, and beheld a long table flanked with cushioned seats, commanded
+at each end by arm-chairs, the side-board plentifully garnished with
+plate and crystal of various kinds, fastened with copper nails to
+prevent damage from the ship's pitching, they did not reflect that
+they were in the crater of a volcano, and that two paces from where
+they sat there was powder enough to blow the ship and all its crew up
+into the air.
+
+They were likewise highly amused by the perpetual "guessing,"
+"calculating," "reckoning," and inexhaustible curiosity of the crew;
+but their admiration of the ship, her guns, her stores, and her
+tackle, were boundless; they felt that their pinnace was a mere toy in
+comparison. The urbanity of the officers also was a source of much
+gratification to them; Jack even declared that all the civilization of
+Europe had been shipped on board the _Hoboken_, and in so far as that
+was concerned, they had no occasion to go on much further.
+
+The object of this expedition, however, was a surgeon. There was one
+on board. Would he go to New Switzerland? Jack determined to try, and
+accordingly he walked straight off to the personage in question.
+
+"Doctor," said he, "would you do myself and my brother a great favor?"
+
+"Certainly; and, if it is in my power, you may consider it done."
+
+"Well, will you embark with us for New Switzerland?"
+
+"For what purpose, my friend?"
+
+"My mother is laboring under a malady, which there is every reason to
+fear is cancer."
+
+"And suppose a fever was to break out in this ship whilst I am
+absent, what do you imagine is to become of the officers and crew?"
+
+"There are no symptoms of disease on board; but my mother is dying."
+
+"You forget, young man, that disease may make its appearance at any
+moment. There are many sons on board whose lives are as dear to their
+mothers as your mother's is to you, and for every one of these lives I
+am officially accountable."
+
+Jack hung down his head and was silent.
+
+"No, my good friend, it is impossible for me to grant such a request;
+but, from what I know of your history, and the means at your command,
+you may be able to obtain the services of a competent medical man. I
+would, therefore, recommend you to abandon your boat, and proceed with
+us to our destination."
+
+After a lengthy consultation, the two brothers and Willis determined
+to adopt this course. The cargo of the pinnace was accordingly
+transferred to the hold of the _Hoboken_. A short summary of their
+history was written, corked up in a bottle, and fastened to the mast
+of the _Mary_, which was then cut adrift. A tear gathered on the
+cheeks of the young men as they saw their old friend in adversity
+dropping slowly behind, and they did not withdraw their eyes from it
+till every vestige of its hull was lost in the shadows of the waters.
+
+As Fritz and Jack were thus engaged in gazing listlessly on the ocean,
+and reflecting upon their altered prospects, and perhaps trying to
+penetrate the veil of the future, Willis came towards them rubbing his
+breast, as if he had been seized with a violent internal spasm.
+
+"Hilloa," cried Jack, "the Pilot is sea-sick! Shall I run for some
+brandy, Willis?"
+
+"No, stop a bit; we were in hopes of falling in with Captain
+Littlestone, were we not?"
+
+"Yes; but what then?"
+
+"We were disappointed, were we not?"
+
+"Yes. That has not made you ill, has it?"
+
+"No; somebody else has turned up; there is one of the _Nelson's_ crew
+on board this ship."
+
+"One of the _Nelson's_ crew?"
+
+"Aye, and if you only knew how my heart beat when I saw him."
+
+"I can easily conceive your feelings," said Jack, "for my own heart
+has almost leaped into my mouth."
+
+"And I am thunderstruck," added Fritz.
+
+"I went towards my old friend," continued Willis, "with tears in my
+eyes, threw my arms round him, and gave him a hearty but affectionate
+hug."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Nothing, at first; but, as soon as I left his arms at liberty, he
+gave me such a punch in the ribs as almost doubled me in two; it was
+enough to knock the in'ards out of a rhinoceros--ugh!"
+
+"A blow in earnest?" exclaimed Fritz in astonishment.
+
+"Yes; there was no mistake about it; it was a real, good, earnest John
+Bull knock-down thump; it put me in mind of Portsmouth on a pay
+day--ugh!"
+
+"Extremely touching," said Jack, smiling.
+
+"Then, when I called him by his name Bill Stubbs, and asked what had
+become of the sloop, he said that he knew nothing at all about the
+sloop, and swore that he had never set his eyes on my figure-head
+before, the varmint--ugh!"
+
+"Odd," remarked Jack.
+
+"Are you sure of your man?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"But you say his name is Bill, whilst he declares his name is Bob."
+
+"Aye, he has evidently been up to some mischief, and changed his
+ticket."
+
+"Then what conclusion do you draw from the affair."
+
+"I am completely bewildered, and scarcely know what to think; perhaps
+the crew has mutinied, and turned Captain Littlestone adrift on a
+desert island. That is sometimes done. Perhaps--"
+
+"It is no use perhapsing those sort of melancholy things," said Fritz;
+"we may as well suppose, for the present, that Captain Littlestone is
+safe, and that your friend has been put on shore for some
+misdemeanour."
+
+"May be, may be, Master Fritz; and I hope and trust it is so. But to
+have an old comrade amongst us, who could give us all the information
+we want, and yet not to be able to get a single thing out of him--"
+
+"Except a punch in the ribs," suggested Jack.
+
+"Exactly; and a punch that will not let me forget the lubber in a
+hurry," added Willis, clenching his fist; "but I intend, in the
+meantime, to keep my weather eye open."
+
+A few weeks after this episode the _Hoboken_ was slowly wending her
+way along the bights of the Bahamas. Fritz, Jack, and Willis were
+walking and chatting on the quarter-deck. The sky was of a deep azure.
+The sea was covered with herbs and flowers as far as the eye could
+reach--sometimes in compact masses of several miles in extent, and at
+other times in long straight ribbons, as regular as if they had been
+spread by some West Indian Le Notre. The ship seemed merely displaying
+her graces in the sunshine, so gentle was she moving in the water. The
+air was laden with perfumes, and a soft dreamy languor stole over the
+friends, which they were trying in vain to shake off. In one direction
+rose the misty heights of St. Domingo, and in another the cloud-capped
+summits of Cuba. Sometimes the highest peaks of the latter pierced the
+veil that enveloped them, and seemed like islands floating in the sky,
+or heads of a race of giants.
+
+"The air here is almost as balmy and fragrant as that of New
+Switzerland," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Aye, aye," said the Pilot; "but it is not all gold that glitters: in
+these sweet smells a nasty fever is concealed, with which I have no
+wish to renew my acquaintance."
+
+"By the way, talking about acquaintances, Willis, have you obtained
+any further intelligence from your friend Bill, _alias_ Bob?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"No, not a syllable; the viper is as cunning as a fox, and keeps his
+mouth as close as a mouse-trap."
+
+"He seems as obstinate as a mule, and as obdurate as a Chinaman into
+the bargain."
+
+"All that, and more than that; but," added Willis, "I have found out
+from the mate that he was pressed on board this ship at New Orleans."
+
+"Pressed on board?" said Fritz, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes; that is a mode of recruiting for the navy peculiar to England
+and the United States. Would you like to hear something about how the
+system is carried out?"
+
+"Yes, Willis, very much."
+
+"The transactions, however, that I shall have to relate are in no way
+creditable, either to myself or anybody else connected with them; and
+I am afraid, when you hear the particulars, you will be ready to turn
+round and say, your friend the Pilot is no good after all."
+
+"Have you, then, been desperately wicked, Willis?"
+
+"Well, that depends entirely upon the view you take of what I am to
+tell you. Listen."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[H] Sometimes called the _Ladrones_ or _Archipelago of Saint Lazarus_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+IN WHICH WILLIS SHOWS, THAT THE TERM PRESS-GANG MEANS SOMETHING ELSE
+BESIDES THE GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS.
+
+
+"When I was a youngster, about a year or two older than you are now,
+Master Fritz, I slipped on board the brig _Norfolk_ as boatswain's
+mate. The ship at the time was short of hands, so there was no
+immediate probability of her weighing anchor; but on the same day I
+scratched my name on the books a despatch arrived, in consequence of
+which we left the harbor, and proceeded out to sea under sealed
+orders. One day, when off the Irish coast, I was called aft by the
+first lieutenant.
+
+"'You know something of Cork, my man, I believe?' said he.
+
+"'Yes, your honor, I have been ashore there once or twice,' said I.
+
+"'Very good,' said he; 'get ready to go ashore there again as quick as
+you like.'
+
+"Leave to go on shore is always agreeable to a sailor. He prefers the
+sea, but likes to stretch himself on land now and then, just to enjoy
+a change of air, and look about him a bit; so it was with all possible
+expedition that I made the requisite preparations.
+
+"When I reappeared, I found a party of twenty men mustered on deck in
+pipe-clay order. A full ration of small arms was served out to them,
+and, under the command of the lieutenant, we embarked in the long-boat
+and rowed ashore. We landed at a point of the coast some miles distant
+from Cork, and it was dark before we reached the military barracks of
+that town, which, for the present, appeared to be our destination.
+
+"I had not the slightest idea of what we were to do on shore. From our
+being so heavily armed, I knew it was no mere escort or parade duty
+that was in question, and began to think there was work of some kind
+on hand. This gave me no kind of uneasiness. I only wondered whatever
+it could be, for there was clearly a mystery of some kind or other.
+Were we going to besiege Paddy, in his own peaceable city of Cork? Had
+some of the peep-o'-day boys been burning down farmer Magrath's ricks
+again? or was there a private still to be routed out and demolished? I
+could not tell.
+
+"Half an hour after our arrival, I was called into a private room by
+the lieutenant, who was seated at a table with a package of clothes
+beside him. The first lieutenant of the _Norfolk_, I must remark, was
+a bit of an original. He had won his way up to the rank he then held
+from before the mast. His build was rather squat, and his face was
+garnished with a pair of fiery red whiskers, so he was no beauty,
+added to which he was reckoned one of the most rigid martinets in the
+service; yet, for all that, his crew liked him, for they knew his
+heart was in the right place.
+
+"'See, my man,' said he, 'take this package, and rig yourself out in
+the toggery it contains.'
+
+"I obeyed this order, and soon after stood before him, in a pair of
+jack-boots, with a slouching sort of tarpauling hat on my head, so
+that I might either have passed for a manner out of luck or a dustman.
+
+"'Well,' said the lieutenant, laughing, 'now you have quite the air of
+the hulks about you.'
+
+"This remark not being very complimentary, I did not feel called upon
+to make any reply.
+
+"'You know,' he continued, 'that the brig is short about a dozen
+hands, and I want you to pick up a few likely lads here. I understand
+there are a number of able-bodied seamen skulking about the
+public-houses, where they will likely remain as long as their money
+lasts. I should like to secure as many of them as possible, and then
+capture a few stout landsmen to make up the number; but, in the first
+place, I want you to go and find out the best place to make a razzia.'
+
+"I stared when I found myself all at once promoted to the post of
+pioneer for a party of kidnappers, and muttered something or other
+about honor.
+
+"'Honor, sir!' roared the lieutenant, 'what has honor to do with it,
+sir? It is duty, sir. It is the laws of the service, sir, and you must
+obey them, sir.'
+
+"'But it is hard, your honor,' said I, 'that the laws of the service
+should force men to do what they think is wrong.'
+
+"'And what right, sir, have you to think it is wrong, or to judge the
+acts of your superiors? If the laws of the service order you fifty
+lashes at the yard-arm to-morrow, you will find that you will get
+them. Do you want to be handed over to the drummer, and to cultivate
+an acquaintance with the cat?'
+
+"'No, your honor,' said I, laughing.
+
+"The lieutenant's face by this time was as red as his whiskers, and,
+though he was in a towering rage, he quickly calmed down again, like
+boiling milk when it is taken off the fire.
+
+"'Then,' said he, quietly, 'am I to understand you refuse?'
+
+"'No, your honor,' said I. 'If it is my duty, I must obey; but you
+will pardon the liberty, when I say that it is hard to be forced to
+drag away a lot of poor fellows against their wills.'
+
+"'Look ye,' replied the lieutenant, 'I tolerate your freedom of speech
+for two reasons--the first, because we are here alone, and no harm is
+done; the second, because I entertain the same opinion myself; but,
+mind you, we are both bound by the regulations of the service, and it
+is mutiny for either of us to disobey.'
+
+"According to the moral law, the mission with which I was charged
+could scarcely be considered honorable; but, according to the laws of
+the land, or rather of the sea, it was perfectly unexceptionable.
+Amongst the seamen, a foray amongst the landlubbers was regarded more
+in the light of a spree than anything else. If, indeed, it were
+possible to pick up the lazy and idle amongst the population, this
+mode of enlistment might be useful; but often the industrious head of
+a family was seized, whilst the idle escaped. It was rare, however,
+that a ship's crew were employed in this sort of duty; men were more
+usually obtained through the crimps on shore, who often fearfully
+abused the authority with which they were invested for the purpose. As
+for myself, the lieutenant's arguments removed all my scruples, if I
+ever had any.
+
+"I then suggested a plan of operations, which was approved. The men
+were to be kept ready for action, and the lieutenant himself was to
+await my report at the 'Green Dragon,' one of the hotels in the town.
+
+"At that time there was in the outskirts of Cork a sort of tavern and
+lodging-house, called the 'Molly Bawn.' This establishment was
+frequented by the lowest class of seamen and 'tramps.' Thither I
+wended my way. It was late when I arrived in front of the place; and
+whilst hesitating whether I should venture into such a precious
+menagerie, I happened to look round, and, by the light of a dim lamp
+that burned at the corner of the street, I caught a glimpse of the
+lieutenant leaning against the wall, quietly smoking an Irish dudeen."
+
+"Like Rono the Great in the island of Hawai," suggested Jack.
+
+"Something. This, however, cut short my deliberations. I walked in.
+There was a crowd of men and women drinking and smoking about the bar.
+These, however, were not the people I sought. The regular tenants of
+the house were not amongst that lot, and it was essential for me to
+find out in what part of the premises they were stowed. I commenced
+proceedings by ordering a noggin of whisky, and making love to the
+damsel that brought it in. After having formally made her an offer of
+marriage, I asked after the landlord. She told me he was engaged with
+some customers, but offered to take a message to him.
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'just tell him that a friend of One-eyed Dick's would
+like to have a parley with him.'"
+
+"And who was One-eyed Dick?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"One of the crew of a piratical craft captured by one of our cruisers
+a few months before, and who at that time was safely lodged in
+Portsmouth jail.
+
+"The girl soon returned. She told me to walk with her, and led me
+through some narrow passages into what appeared to be another house.
+She knocked at a door that was strongly barred and fastened inside. A
+slight glance at these precautions made me aware that there was no
+chance of making a capture here without creating a great disturbance.
+So, after reflecting an instant, I decided upon adopting some other
+course.
+
+"When the door was opened I could see nothing distinctly; there was a
+turf-fire throwing a red glare out of the chimney, a dim oil-lamp hung
+from the roof, but everything was hidden in a dense cloud of tobacco
+smoke, through which the light was not sufficiently powerful to
+penetrate."
+
+"The atmosphere must have been stifling," observed Fritz.
+
+"Yes, it puts me in mind of your remark about the air, which, you
+said, consists of--let me see--"
+
+"Oxygen and hydrogen."
+
+"Just so; but the air a sailor breathes when he is at home consists
+almost entirely of tobacco smoke. At last, I could make out twenty or
+thirty rough-looking fellows seated on each side of a long deal table
+covered with bottles, glasses, and pipes. Dan Hooligan, the landlord,
+sat at the top--a fit president for such an assembly. He was partly a
+smuggler, partly a publican, and wholly a sinner. I should say that
+the liquor consumed at that table did not much good to the revenue.
+How Dan contrived to escape the laws, was a mystery perhaps best known
+to the police."
+
+"So you are a pal of One-eyed Dick's, are you?' said he.
+
+"'Rather,' said I, adopting the slang of the place.
+
+"'Well,' said he, 'Dick has been a good customer of mine, and all his
+pals are welcome at the 'Molly.' I have not seen him lately,
+however--how goes it with him now?'
+
+"'Right as a trivet,' said I, 'and making lots of rhino.'
+
+"'Glad to hear it; and what latitude does he hail in now?'
+
+"'That,' said I, 'is private and confidential.'
+
+"'Oh,' said he, 'there are no outsiders here, we are all sworn friends
+of Dick's, every mother's son of us.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'Dick is off the Cove in the schooner _Nancy_, of
+Brest,'"
+
+"Holloa, Willis," cried Jack, "there was a fib!"
+
+"Well, I told you to look out for something of that sort when I
+began."
+
+"'What!' cried the landlord, 'Dick in a schooner off the Irish coast?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I; 'and aboard that schooner there is as tight a cargo of
+brandy and tobacco as ever you set eyes upon.'
+
+"Here the landlord pricked up his ears, and the rest of the company
+began to listen attentively. The fellow that sat next me coolly told
+me that both he and Dick had been lagged for horse-stealing, and had
+subsequently broken out of prison and escaped. He further told me that
+most of the gentlemen present had been all, one way or another, mixed
+up with Dick's doings; from which I concluded they were a rare parcel
+of scamps, and resolved, within myself, to try and bag the whole
+squad. They were all stout fellows enough, most of them seamen. I
+thought they might be able to 'do the State some service,' and
+determined to convert them into honest men, if I could.'
+
+"'Dick cannot come ashore,' said I; 'some one of his old pals here has
+peached, and there is a warrant out against him.'
+
+"This information threw the assembly into a state of violent
+commotion. They rose up, and swore terrible vengeance against the head
+of the unfortunate culprit when they caught him. The oaths rather
+alarmed me at first, for they were of a most ferocious stamp.
+
+"'Yes,' continued I, 'Dick is aboard the schooner, but, as there are
+two or three warrants out against him, he does not care about coming
+ashore; so said he to me, 'We want a lugger and a few hands to run the
+cargo ashore; and if you look in at the 'Molly,' and see my old pal,
+Dan, perhaps you will find some lads there willing to give us a turn.
+The captain said, if the thing was done clean off, he would stand
+something handsome."
+
+"'Just the thing for us!' shouted half a dozen voices.
+
+"'But the lugger?' said I.
+
+"'Oh, Phil Doolan, at the Cove, has a craft that has landed as many
+cargoes as there are planks in her hull. Besides, he has stowage for a
+fleet of East Indiamen.'
+
+"'Well, gentlemen," said I, 'the chaplain, One-eyed Dick, and myself,
+will be at Phil Doolan's to-morrow at midnight; do you agree to meet
+us there?'
+
+"This question was answered by a universal 'Yes;' and by way of
+clenching the affair, I ordered a couple of gallons of the stiffest
+potheen in the house. This was received with three cheers, and before
+I left the 'Molly' every man-jack of them had disappeared under the
+table. Dan himself, however, kept tolerably sober, and promised, on
+account of his friendship for One-eyed Dick, to have the whole kit
+safe at Phil Doolan's by twelve o'clock next night, and with this
+assurance I made my exit from the premises, and steered for the
+'George and Dragon.'
+
+"The lieutenant agreed with me in thinking that it would cause too
+much uproar to attack the 'Molly Bawn.' He congratulated me on my
+success in laying a trap for the people, and promising to meet me at
+the Cove, he ordered a car, and drove off in the direction of the
+_Norfolk's_ boat. Early next morning I started to reconnoitre the
+ground and organize my plan of operations. I found Phil Doolan's
+mansion to be a mud-built tenement, larger, and standing apart from,
+the houses that then constituted the village. It was ostensibly a
+sailor's lodging-house and tavern for wayfarers, but, like the 'Molly
+Bawn,' was in reality a rendezvous of smugglers, occasionally
+patronized by fugitive poachers and patriots. It was known to its
+familiars as 'The Crib,' but was registered by the authorities as the
+'Father Mahony,' who was represented on the sign-post by a full-length
+portrait of James the Second. What gave me most satisfaction was to
+observe that the building was conveniently situated for a sack.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"When night set in I marched the _Norfolk's_ men in close order,
+and as secretly as possible, to the Cove. Approaching Phil Doolan's in
+one direction, I could just catch a glimpse of the red coats of a file
+of marines advancing in another, with the lieutenant at their head,
+and, exactly as twelve o'clock struck on the parish clock, the 'Father
+Mahony' was surrounded on all sides by armed men. Two or three
+lanterns were now lit, and dispositions made to close up every avenue
+of escape."
+
+"'There he is!' cried Willis, interrupting himself, and staring into
+the air.
+
+"Who?" inquired Jack--"Phil Doolan?"
+
+"No--Bill Stubbs, late of the _Nelson_."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"That squat, broad-shouldered man there, bracing the maintops."
+
+"Yes, now that you point him out, I think I have seen him before,"
+said Fritz.
+
+"Holloa, Bill," cried Jack.
+
+"You see," said Willis, "he turned his head."
+
+"How d'ye do, Bill?" added Jack.
+
+"Are you speak'ng to me, sir?" inquired the sailor.
+
+"Yes, Bill."
+
+"Then was your honor present when I was christened? I appear to have
+forgotten my name for the last six-and thirty years."
+
+"No use, you see," said Willis; "he is too old a bird to be caught by
+any of these dodges. But I have lost the thread of my discourse."
+
+"You had surrounded the cabin, and were lighting lamps."
+
+"Half a dozen men were stationed at the door, pistol in hand, ready to
+rush in as soon as it opened. The lieutenant and I went forward and
+knocked, but no one answered. We knocked again, louder than before,
+but still no answer.
+
+"'Open the door, in the King's name!' thundered the lieutenant.
+Silence, as before.
+
+"Calling to the marines, he ordered them to root up Phil Doolan's
+sign-post, and use it as a battering ram against the door. The first
+blow of this machine nearly brought the house down, and a cracked
+voice was heard calling on the saints inside.
+
+"'Blessed St. Patrick!' croaked the voice, 'whativer are ye kicking up
+such a shindy out there for? Whativer d'ye want wid an old woman, and
+niver a livin' sowl in the house 'cept meself and Kathleen in her
+coffin?'
+
+"'Kathleen is dead, then?' said the lieutenant with a grin.
+
+"'Save yer honor's presence, she's off to glory, an' as dead as a
+herrin,' replied the voice.
+
+"'Really!' said the lieutenant, 'and where is Phil Doolan?'
+
+"'Och, yer honor? he's gone to get some potheen for the wake.'
+
+"'Well,' said the lieutenant, 'I should like to take a share in waking
+the defunct--what's her name?'
+
+"'Kathleen, yer honor.'
+
+"'Well, just let us in to take a last look at the worthy creature.'
+
+"The door then creaked on its rusty hinges, and we entered. Not a
+soul, however, was to be seen anywhere, save and except the old woman
+herself. The coffin containing the remains of Kathleen, resting on two
+stools, stood in the middle of the floor, with a plate of salt as
+usual on the lid. I fairly thought I had been done, and looked upon
+myself as the laughing stock of the entire fleet."
+
+"So far," remarked Jack, "your story has been all right, but the last
+episode was rather negligently handled."
+
+"How?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Why, you did not make enough of the coffin scene; your description is
+too meagre. You should have said, that the wind blew without in fierce
+gusts, the weathercocks screeched on the roofs, and caused you to
+dread that the ghost of the defunct was coming down the chimney; large
+flakes of snow were rushing through the half-open door; a solitary
+rushlight dimly lit up the chamber, and cast frightful shadows upon
+the wall."
+
+"Well; but the night was fine, and there was not a breath of wind."
+
+"What about that? A little wind, more or less, a weathercock or so,
+some drops of rain, or a few flakes of snow, do not materially detract
+from the truth, whilst they heighten the color of the picture."
+
+"And if some lightning tearing through the clouds were added?"
+
+"Yes, that would most undoubtedly increase the effect; but go on with
+your story."
+
+"I knew Phil to be an artful dodger, and was determined not to be
+foiled by a mere trick, so I laid hold of a lantern and closely
+examined the walls and flooring. My investigation was successful, for
+just under the coffin I detected traces of a trap-door."
+
+"'Well, my good woman, what have you got down there?" inquired the
+lieutenant.
+
+"'Is it underground, ye mane, yer honor? divil a hail's there, if it
+isn't the rats.'
+
+"'Well, just remove the coffin a little aside; we shall see if we
+cannot pepper some of the rats for you.'
+
+"Here the old woman appealed to a vast number of saints, and protested
+against Kathleen's remains being disturbed. The lieutenant, however,
+grew tired of this farce, and ordered the coffin to be shifted. A
+sailor accordingly laid hold of each end.
+
+"'Blazes!' said one, 'here is a body that weighs.'
+
+"'Perhaps,' said the other, 'the coffin is lined with lead.'
+
+"The trap-door was drawn up, and the lieutenant, pistol in hand,
+descended alone.
+
+"'Now, my lads,' said he, addressing some invisible personages, 'we
+know you are here, and I call upon you to yield in the King's
+name--resistance is useless, the house is surrounded, and we are in
+force, so you had better give in without more ado.'
+
+"No answer was returned to this exordium; but we heard the murmuring
+of muffled voices, as if the rapscallions were deliberating. I now
+descended with my lamp, followed by some of the seamen, and beheld my
+friends of the night before either stretched on the ground or propped
+up against the walls, like a lot of mummies in an Egyptian tomb.
+
+"They were handcuffed one by one, pushed or hauled up the stairs, and
+then tied to one another in a line. When we had secured the whole lot
+of them in this way--
+
+"'Lieutenant,' said I, winking, 'will you permit me to send a ball
+into that coffin?'
+
+"'Please yourself about that, young man,' said he.
+
+"Here the old woman recommenced howling again and called upon all the
+saints in the calendar to punish us for my sacrilegious design.
+
+"'Shoot a dead body,' said I, 'where's the harm?' Besides, what is
+that salt there for?'
+
+"'To keep away evil spirits,' was the reply.
+
+"'Very well,' said I, 'my pistol will scare them away as well.' Then,
+cocking it with a loud clink, I presented it slowly at the coffin."
+
+"The lid all at once flew off--the salt-was thrown on the ground with
+a crash--the defunct suddenly returned from the other world in perfect
+health, and sat half upright in his bier. I did not recognize the
+individual at first, but, on closer inspection, found him to be my
+communicative companion of the preceding night--the horse-stealer of
+the 'Molly Bawn;' and, being a stout young fellow, he was harnessed to
+the others, and we commenced our march to the boats."
+
+"You do not appear to have had much trouble in effecting the capture,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"No; the men were unarmed, and were nearly all intoxicated. You never
+saw such a troop; scarcely one of them could walk straight; they
+assumed all sorts of figures; the file of prisoners was just like a
+bar of music, it was a string of quavers, crotchets, and zig-zags.
+Luckily, it was late at night, else we might have had the village
+about our ears, and, instead of flakes of snow and screeching
+weathercocks, we might have had a shower of dead cats and rotten eggs.
+Probably a rescue might have been attempted; at all events, we might
+have calculated on a volley of brickbats on our way to the boats.
+There would have been no end of commotion, uproar, confusion, and
+hubbub, possibly smashed noses, blackened eyes, broken beads--"
+
+"Holloa, Willis!"
+
+"You said just now that a little colouring was necessary."
+
+"Certainly; but the privilege ought not to be abused. Besides, broken
+heads and smashed faces are the realities, and not the accessories of
+the picture."
+
+"Oh, I see. If it is night, the moon should be introduced; and if it
+is day, the sun--and so on?"
+
+"Of course; and, if the circumstances are of a pleasing nature, you
+must leave horrors and terrors on your pallette; change gusts into
+zephyrs, snow into roses and violets, and the weathercocks into golden
+vanes glittering in the sunshine."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"You want to color a popular outbreak, do you not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you should introduce a tempest howling, the waves roaring, the
+lightning flashing, and discord raging in the air as well as on the
+earth."
+
+"Well, to continue my story. Although it was midnight, the disturbance
+began to wake up the villagers, and a crowd was collecting, so we
+hurried off our prisoners to the boats as speedily as we could. Some
+five and twenty able bodied men were thus added to his Majesty's
+fleet. The object of our visit to the Irish coast was accomplished,
+and the _Norfolk_ continued her voyage to the West Indies. Now you
+know what is meant by the word _pressed_, and likewise the nautical
+signification of the word _press-gang_."
+
+"And you say that Bill Stubbs has been trapped on board this ship by
+such means?"
+
+"Yes, at New Orleans."
+
+"According to your story, then, that does not say very much in his
+favor?"
+
+"No, not a great deal; still, that proves nothing--the fact of his
+calling himself Bob is a worse feature. A man does not generally
+change his name without having good, or rather bad, reasons for it."
+
+"What appears to me," remarked Fritz, "as the most singular feature of
+your press-gang adventure is, that you are alive to tell it."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because I think it ought to end thus: 'The victims of the press-gang
+strangled Willis a few days after,'"
+
+"Aye, aye, but you do not know what a sailor is; our recruits had not
+been a fortnight at sea before they entirely forgot the trick I had
+played them."
+
+Just as Willis concluded his narrative, the man at the mast-head
+called out, "Sail ho!"
+
+"Where away?" bawled the captain.
+
+"Right a-head," replied the voice.
+
+The _Hoboken_ had hitherto pursued her voyage uninterruptedly, and the
+Yankee captain now prepared to signalize himself by a capture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A SEA FIGHT--ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S--THE BOUDEUSE.
+
+
+The captain of the _Hoboken_ was rather pleased than otherwise when
+the look-out reported the strange sail to show English colors. He
+looked rather glum, however, half an hour afterwards, when the same
+voice bawled that she was a bull-dog looking craft, schooner-rigged,
+and pierced for sixteen guns. The Yankee had hoped to fall in with a
+fat West Indiaman, instead of which he had now to deal with a
+man-of-war, carrying, perhaps, a larger weight of metal than himself.
+
+The heads of the two ships were standing in towards each other, there
+was no wind to speak of, but every hour lessened the distance that
+separated the antagonists.
+
+"Pilot," said the captain, addressing Willis, "be kind enough to let
+me know what you think of that craft."
+
+"I think," said Willis, taking the telescope, "I have had my eyes on
+her before. Aye, aye, just as I thought. An old tub of a Spaniard
+converted into an English cruiser, and commanded by Commodore
+Truncheon, I shouldn't wonder. She has caught a Tartar this time,
+however. Nothing of a sailer. If a breeze springs up, you may easily
+give her the slip, if you like, captain."
+
+"Give her the slip! No, not if I can help it. My cruise hitherto has
+not been very successful, and I must send her into New York as a
+prize. Mr. Brill," added he, addressing the officer next in command,
+"prepare for action."
+
+In an instant all was commotion and bustle on deck. Half an hour
+after, the captain, now in full uniform, took a hasty glance at the
+position of his crew. A portion of the men were stationed at the guns,
+with lighted matches. Others were engaged in heating shot, and
+preparing other instruments of destruction. Jack and Fritz, armed with
+muskets, were ready to act as sharp-shooters as soon as the enemy came
+within range, and Willis was standing beside them, with his hands in
+his pockets, quietly smoking his pipe.
+
+"What, Pilot!" exclaimed the captain in passing, "don't you intend to
+take part in the skirmish?"
+
+"I am much your debtor, captain, but I cannot do that."
+
+"And these young men?"
+
+"They are not Englishmen, and your kindness to them entitles you to
+claim their assistance. I am sorry that honor and duty prevent me
+giving you mine."
+
+"No matter, captain," said Fritz, "my brother and myself will do duty
+for three."
+
+"Then, Pilot, you had better go below."
+
+"With your permission, captain, I would rather stay and look on."
+
+"But what is the use of exposing yourself here?"
+
+"It is an idea of mine, captain. But I shall remain perfectly neutral
+during the engagement."
+
+"As you like then, Pilot, as you like," said the captain, as he
+resumed his place on the quarter-deck.
+
+At this moment a cannon ball whistled through the air.
+
+"Good," said Willis; "the commodore gives the signal."
+
+"That shot," observed Jack, "passed at no great distance from your
+head, Willis. You had better take a musket in self-defence. Besides,
+that ship is English, and you are a Scotchman."
+
+"The ship is a Spaniard by birth," replied Willis, "and it is pretty
+well time it was converted into firewood, for the matter of that. But
+it is the flag, my boy--_that_ is neither Spanish nor English."
+
+"What is it, then?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"It is the union-jack, Master Fritz. It is the ensign of Scotland,
+England, and Ireland united under one bonnet; and as such, it is as
+sacred in my eyes as if it bore the cross of St. Andrew."
+
+Musket balls were now rattling pretty freely amongst the shrouds. The
+young men levelled their muskets and fired.
+
+Soon after, the two ships were abreast of each other, and almost at
+the same instant both discharged a deadly broadside. The conflict
+became general. The crashing of the woodwork and the roaring of the
+guns was deafening. A thick smoke enveloped the two vessels, so that
+nothing could be seen of the one from the other; still the firing and
+crashing went on. The sails were torn to shreds, the deck was
+encumbered with fragments of timber; men were now and then falling,
+either killed or wounded, and a fatigue party was constantly engaged
+in removing the bodies. There are people who consider such a spectacle
+magnificent; but that is only because they have never witnessed its
+horrors.
+
+Already many immortal souls had returned to their Maker; many sons had
+become orphans, and many wives had been deprived of their husbands;
+but as yet there was nothing to indicate on which side victory was to
+be declared. Soon, however, a cry of fire was raised, which caused
+great confusion; and another cry, announcing that the captain had
+fallen, increased the disorder.
+
+A ball crashed through the taffrail, near where Jack and Fritz were
+standing; it passed between them, but they were both severely wounded
+by the splinters, and were conveyed by Willis to the cockpit. The
+doctor, seeing his old friend Jack handed down the ladder, hastened
+towards him and tore out a piece of wood from the fleshy part of his
+arm. He next turned to Fritz, who had received a severe flesh-wound on
+the shoulder. When both wounds were bandaged, he left the care of the
+young men to Willis, who had escaped with a few scratches, which,
+however, were bleeding pretty freely--to these he did not pay the
+slightest attention.
+
+"How stands the contest?" inquired Fritz in a weak voice.
+
+"The _Hoboken_ is done for," replied Willis; "the commodore was
+preparing to board when we left the deck; but it does not make much
+difference; we shall go to England instead of America, that is all."
+
+"God's will be done," said Fritz.
+
+Just then Bill Stubbs was swung down in a hammock; both his legs had
+been shot off by a cannon ball. The surgeon could only now attend to a
+tithe of his patients, so numerous had the wounded become. A glance at
+the new comer satisfied him that he was beyond all human skill, and he
+directed his attention to the cases that promised some hopes of
+recovery. Willis, seeing that his old comrade was abandoned to die
+almost uncared for, staunched his wounds as well as he could, fetched
+him a panniken of water, and performed a number of other little acts
+of kindness and good will. This he did, less with a view of obtaining
+an explanation from him at a moment when no man lies, than to mitigate
+the pangs of his last convulsions. For an instant the old mariner's
+body appeared re-animated with life. His eyes were fixed upon Willis
+with an ineffable expression of recognition and regret. He
+convulsively grasped the Pilot's hand and pressed it to his breast,
+and his lips parted as if to speak. Willis bent his ear to the mouth
+of the dying man, but all that followed was an expiring sigh. His
+earthly career was ended.
+
+The hardy sailor who is supposed never to shed a tear, then wiped the
+corner of his eyes. Next he turned to the children of his adoption,
+whose pale faces indicated the amount of blood they had shed, and
+whose wounds, if he could have transferred them to himself, would have
+less pained his powerful muscles than they now grieved his excellent
+heart.
+
+A party of boarders from the enemy had taken possession of the ship.
+Willis reported himself to the officer in command, and at his request,
+Fritz and Jack, together with the cargo of the pinnace, were conveyed
+on board the victorious schooner. Shortly after the _Hoboken_ was
+despatched to Bermuda as a prize, with the prisoners, the wounded, and
+the dying.
+
+The old tub that had gained this victory was named the _Arzobispo_,
+having, as Willis supposed, been captured in the Spanish Main. It was
+under the command of Commodore Truncheon, better known in the fleet by
+the _soubriquet_ of Old Flyblow.
+
+The _Arzobispo_, though old and clumsy, was a stout-built craft; and
+so thick was its hide, that the broadsides of the Yankee had done the
+hull no damage to speak of. The superstructure, however, was
+completely shattered; the masts and rigging hung like sweeps over the
+sides; and, to the unpractised eye, the ship was a complete wreck. A
+few days, however, sufficed to put everything to rights again so far
+as regards external appearance; but how this impromptu carpentry would
+stand a storm was another question.
+
+The commodore was on his way to Europe when he fell in with the
+Yankee, and, notwithstanding the disabled condition of the ship, he
+resolved to continue his voyage. Some of the officers expostulated
+with him on the hazard of crossing the Atlantic in so shaky a trim. He
+only got red in the face, and said that he had crossed the
+herring-pond hundreds of times in crafts not half so seaworthy. He was
+like the
+
+  Froggy who would a wooing go,
+  Whether his mother would let him or no.
+
+The consequences of this defiance of advice were fatal to Old Flyblow;
+for, a week or two after his victory, he was pounced upon by the
+French corvette, _Boudeuse_, which was fresh, heavily armed, and well
+manned. The commodore's jury masts were knocked to pieces by the first
+broadside, his flag went by the board, and he was completely at the
+enemy's mercy. Willis lent a hand this time with a good will; but it
+was of no use, the wreck would not obey the helm, and the corvette
+hovered about, firing broadsides, and sending in discharges of
+musketry, when and where she liked. It was only when the commodore saw
+clearly that there was neither mast nor sail enough to yaw the ship,
+that he waved his cocked hat in token of surrender.
+
+Fritz and Jack were still confined below with their wounds, when
+Willis brought them word that they would have to shift themselves and
+their cargo once more. The captain received them on board the
+_Boudeuse_ with marked courtesy, and informed them that he was bound
+direct for Havre de Grace.
+
+"It seems, then," said the Pilot, "that neither America nor England
+is to be our destination after all. But never mind, there are no lack
+of surgeons amongst the _mounseers_."
+
+"If we go on this way much longer," said Jack, sighing, "we shall be
+carried round the world without arriving anywhere. Alas, my poor
+mother!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+DELHI--WILLIAM OF NORMANDY AND KING JOHN--ISABELLA OF BAVARIA AND JOAN
+OF ARC--POITIERS AND BOVINES--HISTORY OF A GHOST, A GRIDIRON, AND A
+CHEST OF GUINEAS.
+
+
+At first the three adventurers were regarded as prisoners of war;
+when, however, their entire history came to be known, and their
+extraordinary migrations from ship to ship authenticated, they were
+looked upon as guests, and treated as friends.
+
+"I thought I had only obtained possession of an English cruiser," said
+the captain; "but I find I have also acquired the right of being
+useful to you."
+
+The commander of the _Boudeuse_ was a very different sort of a person
+from Commodore Truncheon; the former treated his men as if every one
+of them had a title and great influence at the Admiralty, whilst the
+latter swore at his crew as if the word of command could not be
+understood without a supplementary oath. The English commodore might
+be the better sailor of the two, but certainly the French captain
+carried off the palm as regards politeness, urbanity, and gentlemanly
+bearing.
+
+The wounds of Fritz and Jack were healing rapidly under the skilful
+treatment of the French surgeon, and, with a lift from Willis, they
+were able to walk a portion of the day on deck. With reviving health,
+their cheerful hopes of the future returned, their dormant spirits
+were re-awakened, and their minds regained their wonted animation.
+
+"The corvette spins along admirably," said the Pilot, "and is steering
+straight for the Bay of Biscay."
+
+"Ah!" said Jack sighing, "it is very easy to steer for a place, but it
+is not quite so easy to get there. I am sick of your friend the sea,
+Willis; and would give my largest pearl for a glimpse of a town, a
+village, or even a street."
+
+"If you want to see a street in all its glory, Master Jack, you must
+try and get the captain to alter his course for Delhi."
+
+"But I should think, Willis, that there is nothing in the
+street-scenery of Delhi to compare with the Boulevards of Paris,
+Regent-street in London, or the Broadway of New York."
+
+"Beg your pardon there, Master Jack; I know every shop window in
+Regent-street; I have often been nearly run over in the Broadway, and
+can easily imagine the turn out on the Boulevards; but they are
+solitudes in comparison with an Indian street."
+
+"How so, Willis?"
+
+"Well, it is not that there are more inhabitants, nor on account of
+the traffic, for no streets in the world will beat those of London in
+that respect--it is because the people live, move, and have their
+being in the streets; they eat, drink, and sleep in the streets; they
+sing, dance, and pray in the streets; conventions, treaties, and
+alliances are concluded in the streets; in short, the street is the
+Indians' home, his club, and his temple. In Europe, transactions are
+negotiated quietly; in India, nothing can be done without roaring,
+screaming, and bawling."
+
+"There must be plenty of deaf people there," observed Jack.
+
+"Possibly; but there are no dumb people. Added to the endless
+vociferations of the human voice, there is an eternal barking of dogs,
+elephants snorting, cows lowing, and myriads of pigs grunting. Then
+there is the thump, thump of the tam-tam, the whistling of fifes, and
+the screeching of a horrible instrument resembling a fiddle, which can
+only be compared with the Belzebub music of Hawai. If, amongst these
+discordant sounds, you throw in a cloud of mosquitoes and a hurricane
+of dust, you will have a tolerable idea of an Indian street."
+
+"There may be animation and life enough, Willis, but I should prefer
+the monotony of Regent-street for all that. Would you like to air
+yourself in Paris a bit?"
+
+"Yes, but not just now; the less my countrymen see of France, under
+present circumstances, the better."
+
+"What is England and France always fighting about, Willis?"
+
+"Well, I believe the cause this time to be a shindy the _mounseers_
+got up amongst themselves in 1788. They first cut off the head of
+their king, and then commenced to cut one another's throats, and
+England interfered."
+
+"That," observed Fritz, "may be the immediate origin of the present
+war [1812]. But for the cause of the animosity existing between the
+two nations, you must, I suspect, go back as far as the eleventh
+century, to the time of William, Duke of Normandy."
+
+"What had he to do with it?"
+
+"A great deal. He claimed a right, real or pretended, to the English
+throne. He crossed the Channel, and, in 1066, defeated Harold, King of
+England, at the battle of Hastings."
+
+"Both William and Harold were originally Danes, were they not?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Yes; I think Rollo, William's grandfather, was a Norman adventurer,
+or sea-king, as these marauders were sometimes called. William, after
+the victory of Hastings, proclaimed himself King of England and Duke
+of Normandy, and assumed the designation of William the Conqueror."
+
+"Then how did France get mixed up in the affair?" inquired Willis.
+
+"William's grandfather, when he seized the dukedom cf Normandy, became
+virtually a vassal of the King of France, though it is doubtful
+whether he ever took the trouble to recognize the suzerainty of the
+throne. As sovereign, however, the King of France claimed the right of
+homage, which consisted, according to feudal usage, in the vassal
+advancing, bare-headed, without sword or spurs, and kneeling at the
+foot of the throne."
+
+"Was this right ever enforced?"
+
+"Yes, in one case at least. John Lackland--or, as the French called
+him, John Sans Terre--having assassinated his nephew Arthur, Duke of
+Brittany, in order to obtain possession of his lands, was summoned by
+Philip Augustus, King of France, to justify his crime. John did not
+obey the summons, was declared guilty of felony, and Philip took
+possession of Normandy. Thus the first step to hostilities was laid
+down."
+
+"The English having lost Normandy, the vassalage ceased."
+
+"Yes, so far as regards Normandy; but, in the meantime, Louis le
+Jeune, King of France, unfortunately divorced his wife, Elenor of
+Aquitaine, who afterwards married an English prince, and added
+Guienne, another French dukedom to the English crown."
+
+"So another vassalage sprung up."
+
+"Exactly. All the French King insisted upon was the homage; but Edward
+III. of England, instead of bending his knee to Philip of Valois,
+argued with himself in this way: 'If I were King of England and France
+as well, the claim of homage for the dukedom of Guienne would be
+extinguished.'"
+
+"Rather cool that," said Jack, laughing.
+
+"'We shall then,' Edward said to himself, 'be our own sovereign, and
+do homage to ourself, which would save a deal of bother.'"
+
+"Well, he was right there, at least," remarked the Pilot.
+
+"The King of France, however, entertained a different view of the
+subject. Hence arose an endless succession of sieges, battles,
+conquests, defeats, exterminations, and hatreds, which, no doubt, gave
+rise to the ill-feeling that exists at present between England and
+France. It is curious, at the same time, to observe what mischief
+individual acts may occasion. If William of Normandy had remained
+contented with his dukedom, and Louis le Jeune had not divorced his
+wife, France would not have lost the disastrous battles of Agincourt
+and Poitiers."
+
+"Nor gained the brilliant victory of Bovines," suggested Jack.
+
+"Certainly not; but she would have been spared the indignity of having
+one of her kings marched through the streets of London as a prisoner."
+
+"True; but, on the other hand, the captured monarch would not have
+had an opportunity of illustrating the laws of honor in his own
+person. He returned loyally to England and resumed his chains, when he
+found that the enormous sum demanded by England for his ransom would
+impoverish his people: otherwise he could not have given birth to the
+maxim, 'That though good faith be banished from all the world beside,
+it ought still to be found in the hearts of kings.'"
+
+"One of the kings of Scotland," remarked Willis, "was placed in a
+similar position. The Scottish army had been cut to pieces at the
+battle of Flodden, the king was captured in his harness, conveyed to
+London, and the people had to pay a great deal more to obtain his
+freedom than he was worth. But, before that, the Scotch nearly caught
+one of the Edwards. This time the English army had been cut to pieces;
+but the king did not wait to be captured, he took to his heels, or
+rather to his horse's hoofs. He was beautifully mounted, and followed
+by half a dozen Scottish troopers; away he went, over hill and dale,
+ditch and river. Dick Turpin's ride from London to York was nothing to
+it. The king proved himself to be a first-rate horseman, for, after
+being chased this way over half the country, he succeeded in baffling
+his pursuers. All these escapades between England and Scotland are,
+however, forgotten now, or at least ought to be; there are, doubtless,
+a few thick-headed persons in both sections of the empire who delight
+in keeping alive old prejudices, but they will die out in time."
+
+"It seems, however, they have not died away yet," said Fritz, "in so
+far as regards France and England, since the two countries are at war
+again. But, as I observed before, had it not been for the ambition of
+William and the anti-connubial propensities of John, the English would
+never have been masters of Paris, and a great part of France under
+Charles VI."
+
+"Still, in that case," persisted Jack, "Charles VII. would not have
+had the opportunity of liberating his country."
+
+"Then," continued Fritz, "history would not have had to record the
+shameless deeds of Isabella of Bavaria."
+
+"Nor chronicle the brilliant achievements of Joan of Arc," added Jack.
+
+"Any how," observed Willis, "the mounseers are a curious people. I
+have heard it remarked that they are occupied all day long in getting
+themselves into scrapes, and that Providence busies herself all night
+in getting them out again."
+
+By chatting in this way, Fritz, his brother, and the Pilot contrived
+to relieve the monotony of the voyage, and to pass away the time
+pleasantly enough. Each contributed his quota to the common fund;
+Fritz his judgment, Jack his humor, and Willis his practical
+experience, strong good sense, and vigorous, though untutored
+understanding. A portion of Jack's time was passed with the surgeon,
+between whom a great intimacy had sprung up. Time did not, therefore,
+hang heavily on the hands of the young men; for even during the night
+their thoughts were busy forming projects, or in embroidering the
+canvas of the future with those fairy designs which youth alone can
+create.
+
+One morning Willis arrived on deck, pale, and with an air of fatigue
+and lassitude altogether unusual. He gazed anxiously into every nook
+and cranny of the ship.
+
+"Whatever is the matter, Willis?" inquired Jack. "Have you seen the
+Flying Dutchman?"
+
+"No, Master Jack," said he in a forlorn tone; "but I have either seen
+the captain or his ghost."
+
+"What! the captain of the _Hoboken_?"
+
+"No; the captain of the _Nelson_."
+
+"In a dream?"
+
+"No, my eyes were as wide open as they are now; he looked into my
+cabin, and spoke to me."
+
+"Impossible, Willis."
+
+"I assure you it is the case though, impossible or not."
+
+"Where is he then?" exclaimed both the young men, starting.
+
+"That I know not; I have looked for him everywhere."
+
+"What did he say to you?"
+
+"At first he said, How d'ye do, Willis?"
+
+"Naturally; and what then?"
+
+"He asked me what I thought of the cloud that was gathering in the
+south-west."
+
+"Imagination, Willis."
+
+"But look there, you can see a storm is gathering in that quarter."
+
+"The nightmare, Willis. But what did you say to him?"
+
+"I could not answer at the moment; my tongue clove to the roof of my
+mouth, and I rose to take hold of his hand."
+
+"Then he disappeared, did he not?"
+
+"Yes, Master Jack."
+
+"I thought so."
+
+"But I heard the door of my cabin shut behind him, as distinctly as I
+now hear the waves breaking on the sides of the corvette at this
+moment."
+
+"You ought to have run after him."
+
+"I did so."
+
+"Well, did you catch him?"
+
+"No; I was stopped by the watch, for I had nothing on me but my shirt;
+the officers stared, the sailors laughed, and the doctor felt my
+pulse. But, for all that, I am satisfied there is a mystery
+somewhere."
+
+"But, Willis, the thing is altogether improbable."
+
+"Well, look here; Captain Littlestone is either dead or alive, is he
+not?"
+
+"Yes," replied Jack, "there can be no medium between these
+hypotheses."
+
+"Then all I can say is this, that as sure as I am a living sinner, I
+have seen him if he is alive, and, if he is dead, I have seen his
+ghost."
+
+"You believe in visitations from the other world then, Willis?"
+
+"I cannot discredit the evidences of my own senses, can I?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"Besides, this brings to my recollection a similar circumstance that
+happened to an old comrade of mine. Sam Walker is as fine a fellow as
+ever lived, he sailed with me on board the _Norfolk_, and I know him
+to be incapable of telling a falsehood. Though his name is Sam
+Walker, we used to call him 'Hot Codlins.'"
+
+"Why, Willis?"
+
+"Because he had an old woman with a child tatooed on his arm, instead
+of an anchor, as is usual in the navy."
+
+"A portrait of _Notre Dame de Bon Lecours_, I shouldn't wonder," said
+Jack; "but what had that to do with hot codlins: a codlin is a fish,
+is it not?"
+
+"I will explain that another time," said Willis, the shadow of a smile
+passing over his pale features. "The short and the long of the story
+is, that Sam once saw a ghost."
+
+"Well, tell us all about it, Willis."
+
+"But I am afraid you will not believe the story if I do."
+
+"On the contrary, I promise to believe it in advance."
+
+"Very well, Master Jack. Did you ever see a windmill?"
+
+"No, but I know what sort of things they are from description."
+
+"There are none in Scotland," continued Willis; "at least I never saw
+one there."
+
+"How do they manage to grind their corn then? There should be oats in
+the land o' cakes, at all events," said Jack, with a smile.
+
+"Well, in countries that have plenty of water, they can dispense with
+mills on land. Though there are no wind-mills in Scotland, there are
+some in the county of Durham, on the borders of England, for it
+appears my mate Sam was born in one of them. His father and mother
+died when he was very young, and he, conjointly with the rats, was
+left sole owner and occupant of the mill. Some of the neighboring
+villagers, seeing the poor boy left in this forlorn condition, got him
+into a charity school, whence he was bound apprentice to a shipmaster
+engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young
+Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the
+hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him
+about."
+
+"I thought so," said Jack; "the mark in question represents the patron
+saint of French sailors."
+
+"After a variety of ups and downs, Sam found himself rated as a
+first-class seaman on board a British man-of-war. He served with
+myself on board the _Norfolk_, and was wounded at the battle of
+Trafalgar [1806], which, I dare say, you have heard of."
+
+"Yes, Willis, it was there that your Admiral Nelson covered himself
+with immortal renown."
+
+"There and elsewhere, Master Fritz."
+
+"It cost him his life, however, Willis, and likewise shortened those
+of the French Admiral Villeneuve and the Spanish Admiral Gravina;
+that, you must admit, is too many eggs for one omelet."
+
+"As you once said yourself, great victories are not won without loss,
+and the battle of Trafalgar was no exception to the rule. Sam, having
+been wounded, was sent to the hospital, and when his wound was healed,
+he was allowed leave of absence to recruit his strength, so he thought
+he would take a run to Durham and see how it fared with the paternal
+windmill. Time had, of course, wrought many changes both outside and
+in, but it still remained perched grimly on its pedestal, but now
+entirely abandoned to the bats and owls. The sails were gone, and the
+woodwork was slowly crumbling away; but the basement being of hewn
+granite, it was still in a tolerable state of preservation. The place,
+however, was said to be haunted; exactly at twelve o'clock at night
+dismal howls were heard by the villagers to issue from the mill.
+According to the blacksmith, who was a great authority in such
+matters, Sam's father was a very avaricious old fellow, and had hid
+his money somewhere about the building; and you know, Master Jack,
+that when a man dies and leaves his money concealed, there is no rest
+for him in his grave till it is discovered."
+
+"I really was not aware of it before," replied Jack; "but I am
+delighted to hear it."
+
+"When Sam arrived, nobody disputed his title to the property, except
+the ghost; but Sam had seen a good deal of hard service, and declared
+that he would not be choused out of his patrimony for all the ghosts
+in the parish; and, in spite of the persuasions of the villagers,
+resolved to take up his abode there forthwith. Sam accordingly laid in
+a supply of stores, including a month's supply of tobacco and rum. He
+first made the place water-tight, then made a fire sufficient to roast
+an ox, and when night arrived made a jorum of grog, a little stiff, to
+keep away the damp. This done, he lit his pipe, and began to cook a
+steak for his supper. The old mill, for the first time since the
+decease of the former proprietor, was filled with the savory odor of
+roast beef."
+
+"And there are worse odors than that," remarked Jack. "Whilst the
+steak was frizzling, he took a swig at the grog; and, thinking one
+side was done, he gave the gridiron a twist, which sent the steak a
+little way up the chimney, and, strange to say, it never came down
+again.
+
+"'Ten thousand What's-a-names,' cried Sam, 'where's my steak?'
+
+"No answer was vouchsafed to this query; he looked up the chimney, and
+could see no one."
+
+"The steak had really disappeared then?" said Jack, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes, not a fragment remained; but he had more beef, so he cut off
+another; and, as his head had got a little middled with the grog, he
+thought it just possible that he might have capsized the gridiron into
+the fire, so he quietly recommenced the operation."
+
+"And the second steak disappeared like the first?" "Yes, Master Fritz,
+with this difference--there was a dead man's thigh-bone in its place."
+
+"An awkward transformation for a hungry man," said Jack.
+
+"'Here's a go!' cried Sam, like to burst his sides with laughing,
+'they expect to frighten me with bones, do they? they've got the wrong
+man--been played too many tricks of that kind at sea to be scared by
+that sort of thing. Ha, ha, ha! capital joke though.'"
+
+"Your friend Sam must have been a merry fellow, Willis."
+
+"Yes, but he was hungry, and wanted his supper; so he continued
+supplying the gridiron with steaks as long as the beef lasted, but
+only obtained human shin-bones, clavicles and tibias.
+
+"'Never mind,' said Sam to himself, 'they will tire of this game in
+course of time.'
+
+"When the beef was done, he kept up a supply of rashers of bacon, and
+threw the bones as they appeared in a corner, consoling himself in the
+meantime with his pipe and his grog."
+
+"He must have been both patient and persevering," remarked Jack.
+
+"This went on till a skull appeared on the gridiron."
+
+"A singular object to sup upon," observed Jack.
+
+"'I wonder what the deuce will come next,' said Sam to himself,
+throwing the skull amongst the rest of the bones.
+
+"The next time, however, he took the gridiron off the fire, there was
+his last rasher done to a turn.
+
+"'Now,' said Sam, 'I am going to have peace and quietness at last.'
+
+"He sat down then very comfortably, and kept eating and drinking, and
+drinking and smoking, till the village clock struck twelve."
+
+"Good!" cried Jack. "You may come in now, ladies and gentlemen; the
+performance is just a-going to begin."
+
+"Sam heard a succession of crack cracks amongst the bones, and turning
+round he beheld a frightful-looking spectre, pointing with its finger
+to the door."
+
+"Was it wrapped up in a white sheet?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Yes, I rather think it was."
+
+"Very well, then, I believe the story; for spectres are invariably
+wrapped up in white sheets."
+
+"The bones, instead of remaining quietly piled up in the corner, had
+joined themselves together--the leg bones to the feet, the ribs to the
+back-bone--and the skull had stuck itself on the top. Where the flesh
+came from, Sam could not tell; but he strongly suspected that his own
+steaks and bacon had something to do with it. But, be that as it may,
+there was not half enough of fat to cover the bones, and the figure
+was dreadfully thin. Sam stared at first in astonishment, and began to
+doubt whether he saw aright. When, however, he beheld the figure move,
+there could be no mistake, and he knew at once that it was a ghost.
+Anybody else would have been frightened out of their senses, but Sam
+took the matter philososophically and went on with his supper.
+
+"'How d'ye do, old fellow?' he said to the spectre. 'Will you have a
+mouthful of grog to warm your inside? Sit down, and be sociable.'
+
+"The spectre did not make any reply, but continued making a sign for
+Sam to follow.
+
+"'If you prefer to stand and keep beckoning there till to-morrow you
+may, but, if I were in your place, I would come nearer the fire,' said
+Sam; 'you may catch cold standing there without your shirt, you know.'
+
+"The same silence and the same gesture continued on the part of the
+ghost, and Sam, seeing that his words produced no effect, recommenced
+eating."
+
+"There is one thing," remarked Jack, "more astonishing about your
+friend Sam than his coolness, and that is his appetite."
+
+"The spectre did not appear satisfied with the state of affairs, for
+it assumed a threatening attitude and strode towards the fire-place.
+
+"'Avast heaving, old fellow,' cried Sam, 'there is one thing I have
+got to say, which is this here: you may stand and hoist signals there
+as long as ever you like; but if you touch me, then look out for
+squalls, that's all.'
+
+"The 'old fellow,' however, paid no attention to this caution. He
+strode right up to the fire-place, and, whilst pointing to the door
+with one hand, grasped Sam's arm with the other. Sam started up, shook
+off the hand that held him, and pitched into the spectre right and
+left. But, strange to say, his hands went right through its bones and
+all, just as if it had been made of the hydrogen gas you spoke of the
+other day. Sam saw that it was no use laying about him in this
+fashion, for the spectre stood grinning at him all the time, so he
+gave it up.
+
+"'I wish,' said he, 'you would be off, and go to bed, and not keep
+bothering there.'
+
+"Still the spectre maintained the same posture, and kept
+pertinaciously pointing to the door.
+
+"'Well,' said Sam, 'since you insist upon it, let us see what there is
+outside. Go a-head, I will follow.'
+
+"The spectre led him into what used to be the garden of the mill, but
+the enclosure was now overgrown with rank and poisonous weeds. There
+was a path running through it paved with flagstones; the spectre
+pointed with its finder to one of them. Sam stooped down, and, much to
+his astonishment, raised it with ease. Beneath there was an iron
+chest, the lid of which he also opened, and saw that it was filled
+with old spade guineas and Spanish dollars.
+
+"'You behold that treasure!' said the spectre, in a hollow voice.
+
+"'Ha, ha, old fellow! you can speak, can you? Now we shall understand
+each other. Yes, I see a box, filled with what looks very like gold
+and silver coins.'
+
+"'I placed that treasure there before my death,' added the spectre.
+
+"'Ah, so! than you are dead?' said Sam.
+
+"'One half of that money I wish you to give to the poor, and the other
+half you may keep to yourself, if you choose.'
+
+"'Golley!' said Sam, 'you are not much of a swab after all, though you
+look as thin as a purser's clerk. Give us a shake of your paw, my
+hearty.'
+
+"Here Sam, somehow or other, stumbled over the lamp, and when he got
+up again the spectre had vanished. He laid hold of the chest, however,
+and groped his way back to the mill. When safe inside, he made a stiff
+jorum of grog, and then fell comfortably asleep. That night he dreamt
+that he was eating gold and silver, that he was his own captain, that
+the cat-o'-nine tails was entirely abolished in the navy, and that his
+ship, instead of sailing in salt water was floating in rum. When he
+awoke, the sun was steaming through all the nooks and crannies of the
+old mill. All the marks of the preceding night's adventures were
+there--the gridiron, the empty rum jar, the the table o'erturned in
+the _m�l�e_ with the ghost--but the chest of money was gone."
+
+"And what did Sam conclude from that incident?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"Well, he supposed that he had slept rather long, and that somebody
+had come in before he as up and had walked off with the box."
+
+"If I had been in his place," continued Fritz, "I should have said to
+myself that the mind often gives birth to strange fancies,
+particularly after a heavy supper, and that I had muddled my brain
+with rum; consequently, that all the things I imagined I had seen were
+only the chimeras of a dream."
+
+"But that could not be, Master Fritz, for two reasons; the first, that
+the mark of the ghost's hand remained on his arm."
+
+"Very likely burnt it when he grilled the bacon."
+
+"The second, that the ghost was no more seen or heard of in the mill."
+
+"That proof is a poser for you, brother, I think," said Jack.
+
+"Did you heave that sigh just now, Master Fritz?" inquired Willis, in
+a low tone.
+
+"It was not I," said Fritz, looking at his brother.
+
+"Nor I," said Jack, looking at Willis.
+
+"Nor I," said Willis, looking behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+WILLIS FALLS IN WITH THE SLOOP ON TERRA FIRMA, INSTEAD OF AT THE
+BOTTOM OF THE SEA, AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED--ADMIRAL CICERO--THE
+DEFUNCT NOT YET DEAD.
+
+
+The corvette, notwithstanding the multitude of British cruisers
+scattered about the ocean, and the other dangers that beset her, held
+on the even tenor of her way. A gale sprung up now and then, but they
+only tended to give a filip to the common-place incidents recorded in
+the log. This quietude was not, however, enjoyed by all the persons on
+board. Willis was a prey to violent emotions; and so it often happens,
+in the midst of the profoundest calm, storms often rage in the heart
+of man.
+
+Whether in reality or in a dream, Willis declared that Captain
+Littlestone paid him a visit every night, and invariably asked him
+precisely the same questions. On these occasions, Willis asserted that
+he distinctly heard the door open and shut whilst a shadow glided
+through. That he might once, or even twice, have been the dupe of his
+own imagination, is probable enough; but a healthy mind does not
+permit a delusion to be indefinitely prolonged--it struggles with the
+hallucination, and eventually shakes it off; providing always the mind
+has a shadow, and not a reality, to deal with, and that the patient is
+not a monomaniac. The dilemma was consequently reduced to this
+position--either Willis was mad, or Captain Littlestone was on board
+the _Boudeuse_.
+
+In all other respects, Willis was perfectly sane. He himself searched
+every corner of the ship, but without other result than a confirmation
+of his own impression that there were no officers on board other than
+those of the corvette; and yet, notwithstanding his own conviction in
+daylight, he still continued to assert the reality of his interviews
+with Captain Littlestone during the night. The Italians say, _La
+speranza � il sogno d'an uomo svegliato_. Was Willis also dreaming
+with his eyes open? Might not the wish be father to the thought, and
+the thought produce the fancy? There is only one other supposition to
+be hazarded--could it be possible, in spite of all his researches,
+that Willis did see what he maintained with so much pertinacity he had
+seen?
+
+These questions are too astute to admit of answers without due
+consideration and reflection; therefore, with the reader's permission,
+we shall leave the replies over for the present.
+
+On the 12th June a voice from the mast-head called "Land ahoy!" much
+to the delight of the voyagers. The land in question was the island of
+St. Helena. This sea-girt rock had not at that time become classic
+ground. It had not yet become the prison and mausoleum of Napoleon the
+Great. The petulant squabbles between Sir Hudson Lowe and his
+illustrious prisoner had not been heard of. Little wotted then the
+proud ruler of France the fate that awaited him, for, when the
+_Boudeuse_ touched at the island, all Europe, with the single
+exception of England, was kneeling at his feet.
+
+On the 30th the Island of Ascension was reached. Here, in accordance
+with a usage peculiar to French sailors, a bottle, containing a short
+abstract of the ship's log, was committed to the deep. Willis thought
+this ceremony, under existing circumstances, would have been better
+observed in the breach than the observance, for, said he, if a British
+cruiser picked up that bottle within twenty-four hours, she stood a
+chance of picking up the _Boudeuse_ as well.
+
+On the 15th July the peak of Teneriffe hove in sight This remarkable
+basaltic rock rises to the extraordinary height of three thousand
+eight hundred yards above the level of the sea; it is consequently
+seen at a considerable distance, and constitutes a valuable landmark
+for navigators in these seas. Six weeks later the _Boudeuse_ dropped
+anchor in the Havre roads.
+
+Here the three adventurers had to encounter by far the greatest
+misfortune that had as yet befallen them. The continental system of
+Napoleon was then in force. The importation of everything English or
+Indian was strictly prohibited. The cargo the young men had brought
+with them from New Switzerland, which already had escaped so many
+perils, was, therefore, declared contraband, and seized by the French
+_fisc_--an institution that rarely permitted such a prize to quit its
+rapacious grasp.
+
+Behold now our poor friends, Fritz and Jack, in a strange land,
+deprived at once of their fortune and their chance of returning
+home--the two beacons that had cheered them on their way! All their
+bright hopes of the future were thus annihilated at one fell swoop.
+Their fortitude almost gave way under the severity of this blow; the
+excess of their distress alone saved them. Grief requires leisure to
+give itself free vent; but when we are compelled, by absolute
+necessity, to earn our daily bread, we cannot find time for tears; and
+such was the case with Willis and his two friends; they were here
+without a friend and without resources of any kind whatever.
+
+If they had only known Greek and Latin; if they had only been half
+doctors or three-quarter barristers, or if even they had been doctors
+and lawyers complete, it would have sorely puzzled their skill to have
+raised a single sous in hard cash. Fortunately, however, whilst
+cultivating their minds, they had acquired the art of handling a saw
+and wielding a hammer. The blouse of the workman, consequently, fitted
+them as well as the gown of the student, and they set themselves
+manfully to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. They were
+carpenters and blacksmiths by turns, regulating their occupations by
+the grand doctrines of supply and demand.
+
+Jack alone of the three was defective in steadiness; he only joined
+Willis and his brother at mid-day. What he did with himself during the
+forenoon was a profound mystery. He rose before daybreak, and
+disappeared no one knew where, or for what purpose. His companions in
+adversity endeavored in vain to discover his secret; he was determined
+to conceal his movements, and succeeded in baffling their curiosity.
+To judge, however, by the ardor with which he worked, he was engaged
+in some one of those schemes that are termed follies before success,
+but which, after success, are universally acknowledged to be brilliant
+and praiseworthy instances of industrial enterprise.
+
+If, after a hard day's work, when assembled together in the little
+room that served them for parlor, kitchen, and hall, the power of
+regret vanquished fatigue, and sadness drove away sleep, then Jack,
+who compared himself to Peter the Great, when a voluntary exile in the
+shipyards of Saardam, would endeavor to infuse a little mirth into the
+lugubrious party. If all his efforts to make them merry failed, all
+three would join together in a humble prayer to their Heavenly Father,
+who bestowed resignation upon them instead.
+
+If Willis and his two friends were not accumulating wealth, at all
+events they were earning the bread they ate honestly and worthily.
+They had all three laid their shoulders vigorously to the wheel and
+kept it jogging along marvellously for a month. By that time, a
+detailed report of the seizure of their property had been placed
+before the director of the Domaine Extraordinaire, who was the
+sovereign authority in all matters pertaining to the exchequer of the
+empire. He saw at once that this capture was extremely harsh, and
+probably thought that, if it became known, it would raise a storm of
+indignation about the ears of his department. Here were two young
+men--Moseses, as it were, saved from the bulrushes. Lost in the desert
+from the period of their birth, and ignorant of the dissensions then
+raging in Europe, they were unquestionably beyond the ordinary
+operation of the law. This will never do, he probably said to himself;
+the civilization which these two young men have come through so many
+perils to seek ought not to appear to them, the moment they arrived in
+Europe, in the form of spoliation and barbarism.
+
+The name of this _extraordinary_ director of Domaine Extraordinaire
+was M. de la Boullerie, and, when we fall in with the name of a really
+good-hearted man, we delight to record it. He felt that the two young
+men had been hardly dealt with, but he had not the power to order a
+restitution of the property, now that the seizure had been made, and
+sundry perquisities, of course, deducted by the excise officials.
+Accordingly, he referred the matter to the Emperor, who commanded the
+goods to be immediately restored intact. Napoleon, at the same time,
+praised the functionary we have named for calling his attention to the
+merits of the case, and thanked him for such an opportunity of
+repairing an injustice.[I]
+
+There are many such instances of generosity as the foregoing in the
+career of the great Emperor--mild rays of the sun in the midst of
+thunderstorms; sweet flowers blowing here and there, in the bosom of
+the gigantic projects of his life--which many will esteem more highly
+than his miracles of strategy and the renown of his battles. As
+nothing that tends to elevate the soul is out of place in this volume,
+we may be permitted to insert one or two of these anecdotes.
+
+In 1806, Napoleon was at Potsdam. The Prussians were humbled to the
+dust, and the outrage of Rossbach had been fearfully avenged. A letter
+was intercepted, in which Prince Laatsfeld, civil governor of Berlin,
+secretly informed the enemy of all the dispositions of the French
+army. The crime was palpable, capital, and unpardonable. There was
+nothing between the life and death of the prince, except the time to
+load half a dozen muskets, point them to his breast, and cry--Fire.
+The princess flew to the palace, threw herself at the feet of the
+Emperor, beseeched, implored, and seemed almost heart-broken. "Madam,"
+said Napoleon, "this letter is the only proof that exists of your
+husband's guilt. Throw it into the fire." The fatal paper blazed,
+crisped, passed from blue to yellow, and the treachery of Prince
+Laatsfeld was reduced to ashes.
+
+Another time, a young man, named Von der Sulhn, journeyed from Dresden
+to Paris; unless you are told, you could scarcely imagine for what
+purpose. There are people who travel for amusement, for business, for
+a change of air, or merely to be able to say they have been at such
+and such a place. Some go abroad for instruction, others, perhaps,
+with no other object in view than to eat frogs in Paris, bouillabaisse
+at Marseilles, a polenta at Milan, macaroni at Naples, an olla podrida
+in Spain, or conscoussou in Africa. Von der Sulhn travelled to
+assassinate the Emperor. Like Sc�vola and Brutus, he, no doubt,
+imagined the crime would hand down his name to posterity. In youth,
+all of us have erred in judgment more or less. Sulhn thought the
+Emperor ought to be slain. Unfortunately for him, the Duke of Rovigo,
+the then minister of police, entertained a different opinion. He
+thought, in point of fact, that the Emperor ought not to be killed:
+hence it was that the young Saxon found himself in chains, and that
+the Duke went to ask the Emperor what he should do with him. We ought,
+however, to mention that the young man, in his character of an
+enlightened German, testified his regret that he had not succeeded in
+carrying out his project, and protested that, in the event of
+regaining his liberty, he would renew the attempt. "Never mind," said
+the Emperor to the duke, "the young man's age is his excuse. Do not
+make the affair public, for, if it is bruited about, I must punish the
+headstrong youth, which I have no wish to do. I should be sorry to
+plunge a worthy family into grief by immolating such a scapegrace.
+Send him to Vincennes, give him some books to read, and write to his
+mother." In 1814, the young man obtained his liberty, his family, and
+his Germany, and it is to be hoped that he afterwards became a
+respectable pater-familias, a sort of Aulic councillor, and that,
+during the troublesome times in the land of Sauerkraut, he was before,
+and not behind, the barricades of his darling patria. If he be dead,
+it is to be supposed that, instead of lying a headless trunk
+ignominiously in a ditch, or in the unconsecrated cemetery of Clamort,
+he is reposing entire in the paternal tomb.
+
+On the 15th of March, 1815, the Emperor landed at Cannes--he had
+returned from the island of Elba. On the beach he was joined by one
+man, at Antibes by a company, at Digne by a battalion, at Gap by a
+regiment (that of Labedoyer), at Grenoble by an army. The hearts of
+the soldiers of France went to him like steel to the loadstone--first
+a drop, and then a torrent; the Empire, like a snowball, increased as
+it progressed. At Lyons, the Count of Artois, the setting sun, is
+obliged to go out of one gate the moment that Napoleon, the rising
+sun, comes in at another. Smiles, orations, triumphal arches, and even
+the discourses that had been prepared to welcome the Bourbons, were
+used to congratulate their successor on his return. Cockades and flags
+were altered to suit the occasion, by inserting a stripe of red here
+and another of blue there. One national guard, but only one, remained
+faithful to the Bourbons; he would neither alter his cockade nor his
+colors, and remained true to his patrons in the hour of disaster.
+Everybody asked, what would the Emperor do with him? Would he be
+imprisoned or banished? Neither; the Emperor sent him a cross of the
+order of merit! It is, no doubt, grand to have overthrown the
+brilliant army of Murad Bey in Egypt; to have vanquished Melas,
+Wurmser, and Davidowich in Italy; Bragation, Kutusoff, and Barclay de
+Tolly in Russia; Mack in Germany; and thus to have reduced the entire
+continent of Europe to subjection. But it appears to us that a still
+greater feat was the victory he gained over himself, when, in the
+midst of the fever excited by his return, and the animosity of
+parties, he gave this cross to the solitary adherent of misfortune.
+Having made these slight digressions into the future, it is proper
+that we should return to our story.
+
+The mysterious roads of Providence do not always lead to the places
+they seem to go; it often happens that, when we expect to be swallowed
+up by the breakers that surround us, we are wafted into a harbor, and
+that we encounter success where we only anticipated disappointment.
+The rigorous enactments of the continental system, that the other day
+had ruined the two brothers, became all at once the source of
+unlooked-for wealth; for, on account of the scarcity of colonial
+produce, a scarcity dating from the prohibitory laws promulgated in
+1807, the merchandise of the young men had more than quadrupled in
+value.
+
+From the grade of hard-working mechanics they were suddenly promoted
+to the rank of wealthy merchants. They consequently abandoned the
+laborious employments that for a month had enabled them to live, and
+to keep despair and misery at bay. Willis, greatly to his
+inconvenience, found himself transformed into a gentleman at large,
+which caused him to make some material alterations in the manipulation
+and quality of his pipes.
+
+Fritz busied himself in collecting in, the by no means inconsiderable
+sums, which their property realised. He did not value the gold for its
+glitter or its sound, he valued it only as a means of enabling himself
+and his brother to return promptly to their ocean home. Jack undertook
+the task of finding a scalpel to save his mother--doubtless a
+difficult task; for how was he to induce a surgeon of standing to
+abandon his connexion, his family, and his fame, and to undertake a
+perilous voyage to the antipodes, for the purpose of performing an
+operation in a desert, where there were neither newspapers to proclaim
+it, academicians to discuss it, nor ribbons to reward it? As for the
+gentlemen of the dentist and barber school, like Drs. Sangrado and
+Fontanarose of Figaro, the remedy was even worse by a great deal than
+the disease. But, as we have said, Jack promised to find a surgeon,
+and the research was so arduous, that he was scarcely ever seen during
+the day by either Willis or his brother.
+
+To Willis was confided the office of chartering a ship for the
+homeward voyage, and there were not a few obstacles to overcome in
+order to accomplish this. French ship-masters at that time engaged in
+very little legitimate business; they embarked their capital in
+privateering, prefering to capture the merchantmen of England to
+risking their own. One morning, Willis started as usual in search of a
+ship, but soon returned to the inn where they had established their
+head-quarters in a state of bewilderment; he threw himself into a
+chair, and, before he could utter a word, had to fill his pipe and
+light it.
+
+"Well," said he, "I am completely and totally flabbergasted."
+
+"What about?" inquired the two brothers.
+
+"You could not guess, for the life of you, what has happened."
+
+"Perhaps not, Willis, and would therefore prefer you to tell us at
+once what it is."
+
+"After this," continued Willis, "no one need tell me that there are no
+miracles now-a-days."
+
+"Then you have stumbled upon a miracle, have you, Willis?"
+
+"I should think so. That they do not happen every day, I can admit;
+but I have a proof that they do come about sometimes."
+
+"Very probably, Willis."
+
+"It is my opinion that Providence often leads us about by the hands,
+just as little children are taken to school, lest they should be
+tempted to play truant by the way."
+
+"Not unlikely, Willis; but the miracle!"
+
+"I was going along quietly, not thinking I was being led anywhere in
+particular, when, all at once, I was hove up by--If a bullet had hit
+me right in the breast, I could not have been more staggered."
+
+"Whatever hove you up then, Willis?"
+
+"I was hove up by the sloop."
+
+"What sloop?"
+
+"The _Nelson_."
+
+"Was it taking a walk, Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Have you been to sea since we saw you last?" asked Fritz.
+
+"If I had fallen in with the craft at sea, Master Fritz, I should not
+have been half so much astonished. The sea is the natural element of
+ships; we do not find gudgeons in corn fields, nor shoot hares on the
+ocean. But it was on land that I hailed the _Nelson_."
+
+"Was it going round the corner of a street that you stumbled upon it,
+Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Not exactly; but to make a long story short--"
+
+"When you talk of cutting anything short, we are in for a yarn," said
+Jack.
+
+"And you are sure to interrupt him in the middle of it," said Fritz.
+
+"Well, in two words," said Willis, knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
+"I was cruising about the shipyards, looking if there was a condemned
+craft likely to suit us--some of them had gun-shot wounds in their
+timbers, others had been slewed up by a shoal--and, to cut the matter
+short--"
+
+"Another yarn," suggested Jack.
+
+"I luffed up beside the hull of a cutter-looking craft that had been
+completely gutted. But, changed and dilapidated as that hull is, I
+recognized it at once to be that of the _Nelson_. Now do you believe
+in miracles?"
+
+"But are you sure, Willis?"
+
+"Suppose you met Ernest or Frank in the street to-morrow, pale,
+meagre, and in rags, would you recognize them?"
+
+"Most assuredly."
+
+"Well, by the same token, sailors can always recognize a ship they
+have sailed in. They know the form of every plank and the line of
+every bend. There are hundreds of marks that get spliced in the
+memory, and are never forgotten. But in the present case there is no
+room for any doubt, a portion of the figure head is still extant, and
+the word _Nelson_ can be made out without spectacles."
+
+"But how did it get there?"
+
+"You know, Master Fritz, it could not have told me, even if I had
+taken the trouble to inquire."
+
+"Very true, Willis."
+
+"I was determined, however, to find it out some other way, so I
+steered for a caf� near the harbor, where the pilots and long-shore
+captains go to play at dominoes. I was in hopes of picking up some
+stray waif of information, and, sooth to say, I was not altogether
+disappointed."
+
+"Another meeting, I'll be bound," said Jack.
+
+"My falling in with the _Nelson_ astonished you, did it not?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"Then I'll bet my best pipe that this one will surprise you still
+more. You recollect my comrade, Bill, _alias_ Bob, of the _Hoboken_?"
+
+"Yes, perfectly."
+
+"Then I met him."
+
+"What! the man who had both his legs shot off, and died in consequence
+of his wounds?" inquired Jack.
+
+"The same."
+
+"And that was afterwards thrown overboard with a twenty-four pound
+shot tied to his feet!" exclaimed Fritz.
+
+"The same."
+
+At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an
+air of apprehension.
+
+"You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?"
+
+"Whatever can we think, Willis?"
+
+"I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but
+still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by. I could scarcely
+believe my eyes when I saw him. 'Is that you, Bill Stubbs,' says I,
+'at last?'
+
+"'Lor love ye!' says he, 'is that you, Pilot?'
+
+"He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost
+wrenched it off.
+
+"'Where in all the earth did you hail from?' he said. 'I thought you
+were dead and gone?'
+
+"'And I thought you were the same,' said I, 'and no mistake.'
+
+"'Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea
+amongst the _mounseers_.'
+
+"'But what about the _Hoboken_?' says I.
+
+"'What _Hoboken_?' says he.
+
+"'Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?'
+
+"'Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,' says Bill.
+
+"And no more he was, for he never left the _Nelson_ till she was high
+and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I
+must have been wrong in that instance."
+
+"So I should think," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Yet the resemblance was very remarkable; the only difference was a
+carbuncle on the nose, which the real Bill has and the other has not,
+but which I had forgotten."
+
+"Like Cicero," remarked Jack.
+
+"Another Admiral?" inquired Willis, drily.
+
+"No, he was only an orator."
+
+"Bill soon satisfied me that he was the very identical William Stubbs,
+and that the other was only a very good imitation."
+
+"He did not receive you with a punch in the ribs, at all events, like
+the apocryphal Bill," remarked Jack.
+
+"No; but what is more to the purpose, he told me that, after having
+struggled with the terrible tempest off New Switzerland--which you
+recollect--the _Nelson_ found herself at such a distance, that Captain
+Littlestone resolved to proceed on his voyage, and to return again as
+speedily as possible.
+
+"'We arrived at the Cape all right,' added Bill, 'landed the New
+Switzerland cargo, and sailed again with the Rev. Mr. Wolston on
+board. A few days after leaving the Cape, we were pounced upon by a
+French frigate; the _Nelson_, with its crew, was sent off as a prize
+to Havre, and here I have been ever since,' said Bill, 'a prisoner at
+large, allowed to pick up a living as I can amongst the shipping.'"
+
+"And the remainder of the crew?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"Are all here prisoners of war."
+
+"And the Rev. Mr. Wolston and the captain?"
+
+"Are prisoners on parole."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here."
+
+"What! in Havre?"
+
+"Yes, close at hand, in the Hotel d'Espagne."
+
+"And we sitting here," cried Jack, snatching up his hat and rushing
+down stairs four steps at a time.
+
+Willis and Fritz followed as fast as they could.
+
+When they all three reached the bottom of the stairs.
+
+"If Captain Littlestone is here, Willis," said Jack, "he could not
+have been on board the _Boudeuse_."
+
+"That is true, Master Jack."
+
+"In that case, Great Rono, you must have been dreaming in the
+corvette as well as in the Yankee."
+
+"No," insisted Willis, "it was no dream, I am certain of that."
+
+"Explain the riddle, then."
+
+"I cannot do that just at present, but it may be cleared up by-and-by,
+like all the mysteries and miracles that surround us."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[I] This circumstance is historical, and will be found at length in
+the Memoirs of Napoleon, by Am�d�e Goubard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+CAPTAIN LITTLESTONE IS FOUND, AND THE REV. MR. WOLSTON IS SEEN FOR THE
+FIRST TIME.
+
+
+Jack, on arriving at the hotel, ascertained the number of the room in
+which Captain Littlestone was located. In his hurry to see his old
+friend, the young man did not stop to knock at the door, but entered
+without ceremony, with Fritz and Willis at his heels. They found
+themselves in the presence of two gentlemen, one of whom sat with his
+face buried in his hands, the other was reading what appeared to be a
+small bible.
+
+The latter was a young man seemingly of about twenty-four or
+twenty-five years of age. He had a mild but noble bearing, and his
+aspect denoted habitual meditation. His eyes were remarkably piercing
+and expressive; in short, he was one of those men at whom we are led
+involuntarily to cast a glance of respect, without very well knowing
+why; perhaps it might be owing to the gravity of his demeanour,
+perhaps to the peculiar decorum of his deportment, or perhaps to the
+scrupulous propriety of his dress. He raised his eyes from the book he
+held in his hand, and gazed tranquilly at the three figures who had so
+abruptly interrupted his reveries.
+
+"May I inquire," said he, "to what we owe this intrusion on our
+privacy, gentlemen?"
+
+"We have to apologise for our rudeness," said Fritz; "but are you not
+the Rev. Mr. Wolston?"
+
+"My name is Charles Wolston, and I am a minister of the gospel, and
+missionary of the church."
+
+"Then, sir," continued Fritz, "I am the bearer of a message from your
+father."
+
+"From my father!" exclaimed the missionary, starting up; "you come
+then from the Pacific Ocean?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here the second gentleman raised his head, and looked as if he had
+just awakened from a dream. He gazed at the speakers with a puzzled
+air.
+
+"Do you know me, captain?" said Willis.
+
+Littlestone, for it was he, continued to gaze in mute astonishment, as
+if the events of the past had been defiling through his memory; and he
+probably thought that the figures before him were mere phantom
+creations of his brain.
+
+"Willis! can it be possible?" he exclaimed, taking at the same time
+the Pilot's proffered hand.
+
+"Yes, captain, as you see."
+
+"And the two young Beckers, as I live!" cried Littlestone.
+
+"Yes," said Jack, "and delighted to find you at last."
+
+Littlestone then shook them all heartily by the hand.
+
+"It is but a poor welcome that I, a prisoner in the enemy's country,
+can give you to Europe; still I am truly overjoyed to see you. But
+where have you all come from?"
+
+"From New Switzerland," replied Jack.
+
+"But how?"
+
+"By sea."
+
+"That, of course; and I presume another ship anchored in Safety Bay?"
+
+"No, captain. Seeing you did not return to us, we embarked in the
+pinnace and came in search of you."
+
+"Your pinnace was but indifferently calculated to weather a gale,
+keeping out of view the other dangers incidental to such a voyage."
+
+"True, captain; but my brother and I, with Willis for a pilot and
+Providence for a guardian, ventured to brave these perils; and here we
+are, as you see."
+
+"And your mother consented to such a dangerous proceeding, did she?"
+
+"It was for her, and yet against her will, that we embarked on the
+voyage."
+
+"I do not understand."
+
+"For her, because, when we left, she was dying."
+
+"Dying, say you?"
+
+"Yes, and our object in coming to Europe was chiefly to obtain
+surgical aid."
+
+"And have you found a surgeon?"
+
+"Not yet, but we are in hopes of finding one."
+
+"If money is wanted, besides the value of the cargo I landed for you
+at the Cape, you may command my purse."
+
+"A thousand thanks, captain, but the merchandise we have here is
+likely to be sufficient for our purpose. Unfortunately, gold is not
+the only thing that is requisite."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"In the first place, a disinterested love of humanity is needful;
+there are few men of science and skill who would not risk more than
+they would gain by accepting any offer we can make. It is not easy to
+find the heart of a son in the body of a physician."
+
+"What, then, will you do, my poor friend?"
+
+"That is my secret, captain."
+
+During this conversation, the missionary had put a thousand questions
+to Willis and Fritz relative to his father, mother, and sisters, and a
+smile now and then lit up his features as Fritz related some of the
+family mishaps.
+
+"You must have undergone some hardships in your voyage from the
+antipodes to Havre de Grace," said Littlestone to Jack,
+"notwithstanding the skill of my friend the Pilot."
+
+"Yes, captain, a few," replied Jack. "I myself made a narrow escape
+from being killed and eaten by a couple of savages."
+
+"And how did you escape?"
+
+"Providence interfered at the critical moment."
+
+"Well, so I should imagine."
+
+"Our friend the Pilot was more fortunate; he was abducted by the
+natives of Hawaii; but, instead of converting him into mincemeat, they
+transformed him into a divinity, bore him along in triumph to a
+temple, where he was perfumed with incense, and had sacrifices offered
+up to him."
+
+"Willis must have felt himself highly honored," said the captain,
+smiling.
+
+"These fine things did not, however, last long, for next day they were
+wound up with a cloud of arrows."
+
+"And another interposition of Providence?"
+
+"Yes, none of the arrows were winged with death."
+
+"After that," remarked Willis, "we fell in with a Yankee cruiser, were
+taken on board, and carried into the latitude of the Bahamas, where we
+fell in with Old Flyblow, who, after a tough set-to, sent the Yankee a
+prize to Bermuda, and took us on board as passengers."
+
+"And," added Jack, "whilst we were under protection of the American
+flag, Willis fell in with a certain Bill Stubbs, who was shot in the
+fight and died of his wounds. This trifling accident did not, however,
+prevent Willis falling in with him alive in Havre."
+
+"You still seem to delight in paradoxes, Master Jack," said the
+captain.
+
+"The English cruiser," continued Jack, "was afterwards captured by a
+French corvette, on which it appears you were on board _incognito_."
+
+"What! I on board?"
+
+"Yes; ask Willis."
+
+"If you were not, captain, how could you come to my cabin every night
+and ask me questions?" inquired the latter.
+
+At this point, a shade of anxiety crossed Littlestone's features; he
+turned and looked at the missionary--the missionary looked at
+Fritz--Fritz stared at his brother--Jack gazed at Willis--and Willis,
+with a puzzled air, regarded everybody in turn.
+
+"At last," continued Jack, "after experiencing a variety of both good
+and bad fortune, sometimes vanquished and sometimes the victors, first
+wounded, then cured, we arrived here in Havre, where, for a time, we
+were plunged into the deepest poverty; we were blacksmiths and
+carpenters by turns, and thought ourselves fortunate when we had a
+chair to mend or a horse to shoe."
+
+"The workings of Providence," said the missionary, "are very
+mysterious, and, perhaps, you will allow me to illustrate this fact by
+drawing a comparison. A ship is at the mercy of the waves; it sways,
+like a drunken man, sometimes one way and sometimes another. All on
+board are in commotion, some are hurrying down the hatchways, and
+others are hurrying up. The sailors are twisting the sails about in
+every possible direction. Some of the men are closing up the
+port-holes, others are working at the pumps. The officers are issuing
+a multiplicity of orders at once, the boatswain is constantly sounding
+his whistle. There is no appearance of order, confusion seems to reign
+triumphant, and there is every reason to believe that the commands are
+issued at random."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Jack, "how so many directions issued on
+ship board in a gale at one and the same moment could possibly be
+obeyed."
+
+"Let us descend, however, to the captain's cabin," continued the
+missionary. "He is alone, collected, thoughtful, and tranquil, his eye
+fixed upon a chart. Now he observes the position of the sun, and marks
+the meridian; then he examines the compass, and notes the polary
+deviation. On all sides are sextants, quadrants, and chronometers. He
+quietly issues an order, which is echoed and repeated above, and thus
+augments the babel on deck."
+
+"A single order," remarked Willis, "often gives rise to changes in
+twenty different directions."
+
+"On deck," continued the missionary, "the crew appear completely
+disorganized. In the captain's cabin, you find that all this apparent
+confusion is the result of calculation, and is essential to the safety
+of the ship."
+
+"Still," said Jack, "it is difficult to see how this result is
+effected by disorder."
+
+"True; and, therefore, we must rely upon the skill of the captain; we
+behold nothing but uproar, but we know that all is governed by the
+most perfect discipline. So it is with the world; society is a ship,
+men and their passions are the mast, sails, rigging, the anchors,
+quadrants, and sextants of Providence. We understand nothing of the
+combined action of these instruments; we tremble at every shock, and
+fear that every whirlwind is destined to sweep us away. But let us
+penetrate into the chamber of the Great Ruler. He issues his commands
+tranquilly; we see that He is watching over our safety; and whatever
+happens, our hearts beat with confidence, and our minds are at rest."
+
+"Therefore," added Littlestone, "we are resigned to our fate as
+prisoners of war; but still we hope."
+
+"And not without good reason," said Willis; "for it will go hard with
+me if I do not realize your hopes, and that very shortly too."
+
+"I do not see very well how our hopes of liberty can be realized till
+peace is proclaimed."
+
+"Peace!" exclaimed Willis. "Yes, in another twenty years or so,
+perhaps; to wail for such an unlikely event will never do; my young
+friend, Master Jack Becker, is in a hurry, and we must all leave this
+place within a month at latest."
+
+"You mean us, then, to make our escape, Willis; but that is
+impossible."
+
+"I have an idea that it is not impossible, captain; the cargo Masters
+Fritz and Jack have here will realize a large sum; the pearls,
+saffron, and cochineal, are bringing their weight in gold. I shall be
+able to charter or buy a ship with the proceeds, and some dark night
+we shall all embark; and if a surgeon is not willing to come of his
+own accord, I shall press the best one in the place: it won't be the
+first time I have done such a thing, with much less excuse."
+
+"One will be willing," said Jack; "so you need not introduce One-eyed
+Dick's schooner here, Willis."
+
+"So far so good, then; it only remains for us to smuggle the captain,
+the missionary, and the crew of the _Nelson_ on board."
+
+"But we are prisoners," said Littlestone.
+
+"I know that well enough; if you were not prisoners, of course there
+would be no difficulty."
+
+"Recollect, Willis, we are not only prisoners, but we are on parole."
+
+"True," said Willis, scratching his ear, "I did not think of that."
+
+"The situation," remarked Jack, "is something like that of Louis XIV.
+at the famous passage of the Rhine, of whom Boileau said: 'His
+grandeur tied him to the banks.' Had you been only a common sailor,
+captain, a parole would not have stood in the way of your escape."
+
+"But," said Willis, "the parole can be given up, can it not?"
+
+"Not without a reasonable excuse," replied the captain.
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "you can go with the minister to the
+Maritime Prefect, and say: 'Sir, you know that everyone's country is
+dear to one's heart, and you will not be astonished to hear that
+myself and friend have an ardent desire to return to ours. This desire
+on our part is so great, that some day we may be tempted to fly, and,
+consequently, forfeit our honor; for, after all, there are only a few
+miles of sea between us and our homes. We ought not to trust to our
+strength when we know we are weak. Do us, therefore, the favor to
+withdraw our parole; we prefer to take up our abode in a prison, so
+that, if we can escape, we may do so with our honor intact."
+
+"And suppose this favor granted, we shall be securely shut up in a
+dungeon. I scarcely think that would alter our position for the
+better, or render our escape practicable."
+
+"You will, at all events, be free to try, will you not?"
+
+"That is a self-evident proposition, Willis, and, so far as that goes,
+I have no objection to adopt the alternative of prison fare. What say
+you, minister?"
+
+"As for myself," replied the missionary, "a little additional hardship
+may do me good, for the Scriptures say: Suffering purifieth the soul."
+
+"We shall, therefore, resign our paroles, Willis; but bear in mind
+that it is much easier to get into prison than to get out."
+
+"Leave the getting out to me, captain; where there's a will there's
+always a way."
+
+"Do you think," whispered the captain to Fritz, "that Willis is all
+right in his upper story?"
+
+Fritz shook his head, which, in the ordinary acceptation of the sign,
+means, I really do not know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+WILLIS PROVES THAT THE ONLY WAY TO BE FREE IS TO GET SENT TO
+PRISON--AN ESCAPE--A DISCOVERY--PROMOTIONS--SOMNAMBULISM.
+
+
+Three weeks after the events narrated in the foregoing chapter, the
+thrice-rescued produce of Oceania had been converted into the current
+coin of the empire.
+
+The greater portion of the proceeds was placed at the disposal of
+Willis, to facilitate him in procuring the means of returning to New
+Switzerland. He--like connoisseurs who buy up seemingly worthless
+pictures, because they have detected, or fancy they have detected,
+some masterly touches rarely found on modern canvas--had bought, not a
+ship, but the remains of what had once been one. This he obtained for
+almost nothing, but he knew the value of his purchase. The carcass was
+refitted under his own eye, and, when it left the ship-yard, looked as
+if it had been launched for the first time. The timbers were old; but
+the cabins and all the internal fittings were new; a few sheets of
+copper and the paint-brush accomplished the rest. When the mast was
+fitted in, and the new sails bent, the little sloop looked as jaunty
+as a nautilus, and, according to Willis himself, was the smartest
+little craft that ever hoisted a union-jack.
+
+Whether the captain and the missionary still entertained the belief
+that the Pilot's wits had gone a wool-gathering or not, certain it is
+that they had followed his instructions, in so far as to relinquish
+their parole, and thus to lose their personal liberty. They were both
+securely locked up in one of the rooms or cells of the old palace or
+castle of Francois I., which was then, and perhaps is still, used as
+the state prison of Havre de Grace. This fortalice chiefly consists of
+a battlemented round tower, supported by strong bastions, and
+pierced, here and there, by small windows, strongly barred. The foot
+of the tower is bathed by the sea, which, as Willis afterwards
+remarked, was not only a favor granted to the tower, but likewise an
+obligation conferred upon themselves.
+
+When the Pilot's purchase had been completely refitted, stores
+shipped, papers obtained, and every requisite made for the outward
+voyage, the departure of the three adventurers was announced, and a
+crowd assembled on shore to see their ship leave the harbor. She was
+towed out to the roads, where she lay tranquilly mirrored in the sea,
+ready to start the moment her commander stepped on board. Neither
+Fritz nor Jack, however, had yet completed their preparations. For the
+moment, therefore, the vessel was left in charge of some French
+seamen, whom Willis, however, had taken care to engage only for a
+short period.
+
+Somewhere about a week after this, Fritz and Jack, in a small boat,
+painted perfectly black and manned by four stout rowers, with muffled
+oars, were lurking about the fortalice already mentioned. The night
+was pitch dark, and there was no moon. The waves beat sullenly on the
+foot of the tower and surged back upon themselves, like an enraged
+enemy making an abortive attempt to storm the walls of a town. Not a
+word was uttered, and the young men were intently listening, as if
+expecting to hear some preconcerted signal.
+
+Meanwhile, in one of the rooms or cells of the round tower, about
+sixty feet above the level of the sea, Captain Littlestone, the
+missionary, and the Pilot were engaged in a whispered conversation,
+through which might be detected the dull sound of an oiled file
+working against iron. The cell was ample in size, but the stone walls
+were without covering of any kind. It was lighted during the day by
+one of the apertures we have already described; the thickness of the
+walls did not permit the rays of the sun to penetrate to the interior,
+and at the time of which we speak the apartment was perfectly dark.
+
+"I should like to see the warder," whispered Willis, "when he comes,
+with his bundle of keys and his night-cap in his hand, to wish your
+honors good morning, but, in point of fact, to see whether your
+honors are in safe custody. How astonished the old rascal will be! Ho,
+ho, ho!"
+
+"My good fellow," said the missionary, "it is scarcely time to laugh
+yet. It is just possible we may escape; but vain boasting is in no
+case deserving of approbation. It is, indeed, scarcely consistent with
+the dignity of my cloth to be engaged in breaking out of a prison;
+still, I am a man of peace, and not a man of war."
+
+"No," said Willis, "you are not; but I wish to goodness you were a
+seventy-four--under the right colors, of course."
+
+"I was going to remark," continued the missionary, "that I am a man of
+peace, and, consequently, do not think that I am justly entitled to be
+treated as a prisoner of war. Under these circumstances, I am, no
+doubt, justified in shaking off my bonds in any way that is open to
+me; the more particularly as the apostle Paul was once rescued from
+bondage in a similar way."
+
+"He was let down from a window in a basket, was he not?"
+
+"Yes; whilst journeying in the city of Damascus, the governor, whose
+name was Avetas resolved to arrest him and accordingly placed sentries
+at all the gates. Paul, however was permitted to pass through a house,
+the windows of which overhung the walls of the town, whence, as you
+say, he was let down in a basket, and escaped."[J]
+
+"I trust your reverence will be in much the same position as the
+apostle, by-and-by--only you will have to dispense with the basket,"
+said Willis.
+
+"I have no wish to remain in bondage longer than is absolutely
+necessary," said the minister; "but there still seem difficulties in
+the way."
+
+"Yes," said Willis, plying the file with redoubled energy, "this iron
+gives me more bother than I anticipated; but it is the nature of iron
+to be hard; however, it will not be long before we are all out of
+bondage, as your reverence calls it."
+
+"May not the warder discover our escape, and raise an alarm in time
+to retake us?" inquired the missionary.
+
+"No, I think not," replied the captain; "thanks to our habit of
+sleeping with our faces to the wall, he will be deceived by the
+dummies we have placed in the beds, for he always approaches on
+tip-toe not to awake us."
+
+"That may be for the first round; but the second will assuredly
+disclose our absence."
+
+"Very likely," remarked Willis; "he will then go right up to the beds,
+and shake the dummies by the shoulders, and say, Does your honor not
+know that it is ten o'clock, and that your breakfast is cooling? The
+dummies will, of course, not condescend to reply, and then--but what
+matters? By that time we shall have shaken out our top-sail, and
+pursuit will be out of the question. I should like to see the craft
+that will overtake us when once we are a couple of miles ahead."
+
+"Poor man!" said the missionary, sighing; "our escape may, perhaps,
+cost him his place."
+
+"No fear of that," said Willis; "perhaps, at first, he will make an
+attempt to tear his hair, but, as he wears a wig, that will not do
+much mischief."
+
+"I shall, however, leave my purse on the table," said the missionary;
+"as it is tolerably well filled, that may afford the poor fellow some
+consolation."
+
+"And I shall do the same," said the captain.
+
+"If that does not console him for being deprived of the pleasure of
+our society, I do not know what will," observed Willis.
+
+"It is now two o'clock," said the captain, feeling his watch, "and the
+warder goes his first rounds at three; we have therefore just one hour
+for our preparations."
+
+"I have severed one bar," said Willis, "and the other is nearly
+through at one end, so keep your minds perfectly at ease."
+
+"Your patience and equanimity, Willis, does you infinite credit," said
+the missionary. "Minister of the Gospel though I be, I fear that I do
+not possess these qualities to the same extent, for, to confess the
+truth, I feel an inward yearning to be free, and yet am restless and
+anxious."
+
+"There is no great use in being in a hurry," said the Pilot; "the
+more haste the less speed, you know."
+
+"True; but might not these bars have been sawn through before? If this
+had been done, our flight would have been, at least, less
+precipitate."
+
+"You forget, Mr. Wolston," said the captain, "that we did not know
+till nine o'clock the affair was to come off to-night."
+
+"And I could not come any sooner to tell you," remarked the Pilot; "I
+had the greatest difficulty in the world to get in here; the maritime
+commissary would not take me into custody."
+
+"I forgot to ask you how you contrived to get incarcerated," observed
+the captain; "you were not a prisoner, and could not plead your
+parole."
+
+"No; and consequently I had to plead something else."
+
+"Willis," said the missionary, "the work you are engaged in must be
+very fatiguing, let me exercise my strength upon the bars for a short
+time."
+
+"If you like, minister, but keep the file well oiled."
+
+"What, motive, then, did you urge, Willis?" inquired Captain
+Littlestone.
+
+"'Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'one of your frigates captured the English
+cutter _Nelson_ some time ago, but the capture was not complete.'
+
+"'How so?' inquired the commissary.
+
+"'Because, Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'you did not capture the
+boatswain, and a British ship without a boatswain is no good; it is
+like a body without a soul.'
+
+"'Is that all you have to tell me?' said the commissary, looking glum.
+
+"'No,' said I, 'to make the capture complete, you have still to arrest
+the boatswain, and here he is standing before you--I am the man; but
+having been detained by family affairs in the Pacific Ocean, I could
+not surrender myself any sooner.'
+
+"'And what do you want me to do with you?' said he.
+
+"'Why, what you would have done with me had I been on board the
+_Nelson_, to be sure.'
+
+"'What! take you prisoner?'
+
+"'Yes, commissary.'
+
+"'You wish me to do so?'
+
+"'Yes, certainly,'
+
+"'Is it possible?'
+
+"'Then you refuse to take me into custody, Mr. Commissary?' said I.
+
+"'Yes, positively,' said he; 'we take prisoners, but we do not accept
+them when offered.'
+
+"'Then you will not allow me to join my captain in his adversity?'
+
+"'Your captain is as great a fool as yourself,' said he; 'he need not
+have gone to prison unless he liked.'
+
+"'That was a matter of taste on his part, Mr. Commissary, but is a
+matter of duty on mine,'"
+
+"This bar is nearly through," whispered the missionary.
+
+"There is no time to be lost," said the captain; "the warder will be
+round in a quarter of an hour."
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "the commissary began to get angry, he rose
+up, and was about to leave the room, when I placed myself resolutely
+before him.
+
+"'Sir,' said I, 'one word more--you know the French laws; be good
+enough to tell me what crime will most surely and most promptly send
+me to prison.'
+
+"'Oh, there are plenty of them,' said he, laughing.
+
+"'Well, commissary,' says I, 'suppose I knock you down here on the
+spot, will that do?"
+
+"Was that not going a little too far, Willis?"
+
+"What could I do? The ship was all ready, everybody on board but
+yourselves, circumstances were pressing, and you know I would have
+floored him as gently as possible."
+
+At this moment the bar yielded. To the end of a piece of twine, which
+Willis had rolled round his body, a piece of stone was attached; this
+he let down till it touched the water, and then the caw of a crow rang
+through the air.
+
+"That was a very good imitation, Willis," said the captain. "You did
+not break any of the commissary's bones, did you?"
+
+"No; the threat was quite sufficient; he would not yield to my
+prayers, but he yielded to my impudence, and ordered me into custody.
+At first, however, I was thrust into an underground cell; but I
+obtained, or rather my louis obtained for me, permission to chum with
+you; and, by the way, what a frightful staircase I had to mount! that
+more than any thing else, obliges us to get down by the window."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Willis, who continued to hold one end of the cord, at the sound of a
+whistle drew it up, and found attached to the other end a stout rope
+ladder. This he made fast to the bars of the window that still
+remained intact. At the request of the minister, all three then fell
+upon their knees and uttered a short prayer. Immediately after,
+Wolston went out of the window and began to descend, the captain
+followed, and Willis brought up the rear. All three were cautiously
+progressing downwards, when the missionary called out he had forgotten
+to _forget_ his purse.
+
+"I have made the same omission," said the captain; "hand yours up,
+Wolston."
+
+The missionary accordingly held up his with one hand whilst he held on
+the ladder with the other. The captain bent down to take it, but found
+he could not reach it without endangering his equilibrium. They both
+made some desperate efforts to accomplish the feat, but the thing was
+impossible.
+
+"I see no help for it," said the missionary, "but to ascend all three
+again."
+
+"That is awkward," said the captain.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Willis, "three o'clock is striking on the prison
+clock; the warder will be round in two minutes."
+
+"God sometimes permits good actions to go _unrewarded_," said the
+missionary; "but he never _punishes_ them."
+
+"Let us re-ascend, then," said the captain.
+
+"So be it," said Willis, going upwards.
+
+They had scarcely time to re-enter the cell before they heard the
+sound of steps and the clank of keys in the corridor. The steps
+discontinued at their door, and a key was thrust into the lock.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried the captain from his bed, as the gaoler
+thrust his head inside the door.
+
+"Why," said the warder, "I heard a noise, and thought that your honor
+might be ill."
+
+"Thank you for your attention, Ambroise," replied the captain, in a
+half sleepy tone; "but you have been deceived, we are all quite well."
+
+"Entirely so," added the missionary.
+
+"All right old fellow!" cried Willis, with a yawn.
+
+This triple affirmation, which assured him, not only of the health,
+but also of the custody of his prisoners, seemed satisfactory to the
+gaoler.
+
+"I am sorry to have awoke your honors," said he, as he withdrew his
+head and relocked the door; "it must have been in the room overhead."
+
+"Good?" said Willis, "the old rascal expects nothing."
+
+Two well-lined purses were laid on the table, and in a few minutes
+more the three men resumed their position on the ladder in the same
+order as before. They arrived safely in the boat, where they were
+cordially welcomed by Fritz and Jack. The men were then ordered to
+pull for their lives to the ship, which they did with a hearty will.
+The instant they stepped on board the anchor was weighed, and when
+morning broke not a vestige of the old tower of Havre de Grace was
+anywhere to be seen.
+
+"Why," exclaimed the captain, looking about him with an air of
+astonishment, "this is my own vessel!"
+
+"Yes, captain," said Willis, touching his cap, "and I am its boatswain
+or pilot, whichever your honor chooses to call me."
+
+"But how did you obtain possession of her?"
+
+"By right of purchase she belongs to our friends, Masters Fritz and
+Jack, but they have agreed to waive their claim, providing you proceed
+with them to New Switzerland."
+
+"I agree most willingly to these conditions," said Captain
+Littlestone, addressing the two brothers, "the more so that my
+destination was Sydney when the _Nelson_ was captured."
+
+"In the meantime, captain," said Fritz, "my brother and I have to
+request that you will resume the command, and treat us as passengers."
+
+"Thank you, my friends, thank you. Willis, are all the old crew on
+board?"
+
+"All that were in Havre, your honor; I commissioned Bill Stubbs to
+pick them up, and he managed to smuggle them all on board."
+
+"Then pipe all hands on deck."
+
+"Aye, aye, captain," said Willis, sounding his whistle.
+
+When the men were mustered, Littlestone made a short speech to them,
+told them that they would receive pay for the time they had been in
+the enemy's power, and inquired whether they were all willing to
+continue the voyage under his command. This question was responded to
+by a general assent.
+
+"Then," he continued, turning to Willis, "the share you have had in
+the rescue of the _Nelson_ and its crew, conjointly with my interest
+at the Admiralty, will, I have not the slightest doubt, obtain for you
+the well-merited rank of lieutenant of his Majesty's navy. I have,
+therefore, to request that you will assume that position on board
+during the voyage, until confirmed by the arrival of your commission."
+
+"Thank your honor," said Willis, bowing.
+
+"And now, lieutenant, you will be kind enough to rate William Stubbs
+on the books as boatswain."
+
+"Aye, aye, captain," said Willis, handing his whistle to Bill.
+
+"Pipe to breakfast," said the captain.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied the new boatswain, sounding the whistle.
+
+"By the way," said Littlestone, turning to Jack, "I do not see the
+surgeon you spoke of on board. How is this?"
+
+"He is on board for all that," said Jack, drawing an official looking
+document out of his pocket; "be kind enough to read that."
+
+The captain accordingly read as follows:--
+
+    "_Havre, 15th October, 1812._
+
+    "This is to certify that Mr. Jack Becker has, for some time, been
+    a student in the hospitals of this town, and that he has
+    successfully passed through a stringent examination as to his
+    acquaintance with the diagnosis and cure of various diseases; as
+    also as to his knowledge of the practice of physic and surgery
+    generally.
+
+    "He has specially directed his attention to the treatment of
+    cancer, and has performed several operations for the eradication
+    of that malady to the satisfaction of the surgeon in chief and my
+    own.
+
+    (Signed) "GARAY DE NEVRES, M.D., Inspector of the Hospitals".
+
+This document was countersigned, sealed, and stamped by the mayor, the
+prefect, and other authorities of the department.
+
+"How have you contrived to obtain so satisfactory a certificate in so
+short a period?" inquired the captain.
+
+"I was introduced to the chief surgeon by the medical man on board the
+_Boudeuse_. I stated my position to him, and, probably, he threw
+facilities in my way of obtaining the object I had in view that were,
+perhaps, rarely accorded to others. All the cases of cancer, for
+example, were placed under my care; I had, therefore, an opportunity
+of observing a great many phases and varieties of that disease."
+
+"Are you determined to follow up the profession of surgery, then?"
+
+"Yes, captain; I have shipped a medicine chest on board, a complete
+assortment of instruments, and a collection of English, French, and
+German medical works. It is my intention to make myself thoroughly
+familiar with the theory of the science, and trust to chance for
+practice."
+
+"Then allow me, Mr. Becker, to rate you as surgeon of the _Nelson_ for
+the outward voyage. Will you accept the office?"
+
+"With pleasure, Captain; but, at the same time, I trust there will be
+no occasion to exercise my skill."
+
+"No one can say what may happen; disease turns up where it is least
+expected. Lieutenant," he added, turning to Willis, "be kind enough to
+rate Mr. Becker on the ship's books as surgeon."
+
+"Aye, Aye, sir."
+
+Meantime the _Nelson_ was making her way rapidly along the French
+coast, and had already crossed the Bay of Biscay. The _Nelson_ behaved
+herself admirably, and took to her new gear with excellent grace. All
+was going merrily as a marriage bell. They did not now run very much
+risk of cruisers, as Fritz had French papers perfectly _en regle_, and
+Captain Littlestone would have had little difficulty to prove his
+identity; besides, the speed of the _Nelson_ was sufficient to secure
+their safety in cases where danger was to be apprehended.
+
+One night, about four bells (ten o'clock), when Willis was lazily
+lolling in his hammock, doubtless ruminating on his newly-acquired
+dignity, his cabin-door gradually opened, and the captain entered.
+Willis stared at first, thinking he might have something important to
+communicate, but he only muttered something about a cloud gathering in
+the west. This was too much for Willis; it resembled his former
+meditations so vividly, that he leaped out of his hammock, seized
+Littlestone by the collar, and called loudly for Fritz and Jack.
+
+"It is not very respectfull, captain, to handle you in this way; but
+the case is urgent, and I should like to have the mystery cleared up."
+
+The two brothers, when they entered the cabin, beheld Willis holding
+the captain tightly in his arms.
+
+"I have caught him at last, you see," said the Pilot.
+
+"So it would appear," observed Jack; "but are you not aware the
+captain is asleep?"
+
+And so it was Littlestone had walked from his own cabin to that of
+Willis in a state of somnambulism.
+
+"What is the matter?" inquired the latter, when he became conscious of
+his position.
+
+"Nothing is the matter, captain," replied Jack, "only you have been
+walking in your sleep."
+
+"Ah--yes--it must be so!" exclaimed Littlestone; gazing about him with
+a troubled air. "Have I not paid you a visit of this kind before,
+Willis?"
+
+"Yes, often."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On board the _Boudeuse_."
+
+"That must have been the craft I was transferred to, then, after the
+capture of the _Nelson_. Just call Mr. Wolston, and let us have the
+matter explained."
+
+On comparing notes, it appeared that the captain and the missionary
+had been on board the _Boudeuse_. Both had been ill, and both had been
+closely confined to their cabin during the entire voyage, partly on
+account of their being prisoners of war, and partly on account of
+their illness. On one occasion, but on one only, the captain had
+escaped from his cabin during the night. Willis might, therefore, have
+seen him once, but that he had seen him oftener was only a dream.
+
+"It appears, then," said Littlestone, "that my illness has left this
+unfortunate tendency to sleep-walking. I shall, therefore, place
+myself in your hands, Master Jack; perhaps you may be able to chase it
+away."
+
+"I will do my best, captain; and I think I may venture to promise a
+cure."
+
+Willis was sorry for the captain's sleeplessness, but he was glad that
+the mystery hanging over them both had been so far cleared up. His
+visions and dreams had been a source of constant annoyance to him; but
+now that their origin had been discovered, he felt that henceforward
+he might sleep in peace.
+
+After a rapid run, the sloop cast anchor off the Cape. Here Captain
+Littlestone reported himself to the commander on the station, and
+received fresh papers. He also sent off a despatch to the Lords of the
+Admiralty, in which he reported the capture and rescue of his ship. He
+informed them that his own escape and that of the crew was entirely
+owing to the tact and daring of Willis, the boatswain, whom, in
+consequence, he had nominated his second in command, _vice_ Lieutenant
+Dunsford, deceased; the appointment subject, of course, to their
+lordship's approval.
+
+Willis wrote a long letter to his wife, informing her of his expected
+promotion, adding that, in a year or so after the receipt of his
+commission, he should retire on half-pay, and then emigrate to a
+delightful country, where he had been promised a vast estate. He said
+that, probably, he should have an entire island to himself, and
+possibly have the command of the fleet; but he thought it as well to
+say nothing about tigers, sharks, and chimpanzees.
+
+The missionary also wrote to England, relinquishing his charge in
+South Africa, and requesting a mission amongst the benighted
+inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, where he stated he was desirous of
+settling for family reasons, and where besides, he said, he would have
+a wider and equally interesting field for his labors.
+
+The two brothers found at the Cape a large sum of money at their
+disposal; this, however, they had now no immediate use for; they,
+consequently, left it to await the arrival of Frank and Ernest, who,
+in all probability, would return with the _Nelson_.
+
+The arrangements made, the _Nelson_ was fully armed and manned, an
+ample supply of stores and ammunition was shipped, the mails in Sydney
+were taken on board, and the sloop resumed her voyage.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[J] 2nd Cor., xi., 32.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+Three months after leaving the Cape, the coast of New Switzerland was
+telegraphed from the mast head by Bill Stubbs. A gun was immediately
+fired, and towards evening the _Nelson_ entered Safety Bay. Fritz,
+Jack, Captain Littlestone, the missionary, and Willis, were all
+standing on deck, eagerly scanning the shore.
+
+"There is father!" cried Jack, "armed with a telescope; and now I see
+Frank and Mrs. Wolston."
+
+"There comes Mr. Wolston and Master Ernest," cried Willis, "as usual,
+a little behind."
+
+"But I see nothing of my mother and the young ladies!" said Fritz.
+
+"Very odd," said Captain Littlestone, sweeping the horizon with his
+glass "I can see nothing of them either."
+
+A horrible apprehension here glided into the hearts of the young men.
+They knew well that, had their mother been able, she would have been
+the first to welcome them home. Perhaps, under the inspiration of
+despair, their lips were opening to deny the mercy of that Providence
+which had hitherto so remarkably befriended them, when at a great
+distance, and scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, they descried
+three figures advancing slowly towards the shore.
+
+One of these forms was Mrs. Becker, who was leaning upon the arms of
+Mary and Sophia Wolston.
+
+"God be thanked, we are still in time," cried Fritz and Jack.
+
+A loud cheer, led by Willis, then rent the air. Half an hour after,
+the two young men leaped on shore; they did not stay to shake hands
+with their father and brothers, but ran on to where their mother
+stood. It was a long time before they could utter a syllable; the
+greeting of the mother and her children was too affectionate to be
+expressed in words.
+
+Next morning, at daybreak, preparations for a serious operation were
+made in Mrs. Becker's room. The entire colony was in a state of
+intense excitement, and an air of anxiety was imprinted on every
+countenance. In the room itself the wing of a fly could have been
+heard, so breathless was the silence that prevailed. The patient's
+eyes had been bandaged, under pretext of concealing from her sight the
+surgical instruments and preparations for the operation. The real
+design, however, was to hide the operator, whom Mrs. Becker supposed
+to be an expert practitioner from Europe; for it was not thought
+advisable that a mother's anxieties should be superadded to the
+patient's sufferings.
+
+At the moment of trial the few persons present had sunk on their
+knees; Jack alone remained standing at the bedside of his mother. The
+Jack of the past had entirely disappeared; he was somewhat pale, very
+grave, but collected, firm, and resolute. It was, perhaps, the first
+instance on record of a son being called upon to lacerate the body of
+his mother. But the moment that God imposed such a task upon one of
+His creatures, it is God himself that becomes the operator.
+
+When, some days after, Mrs. Becker--calm, radiant, and
+saved--requested to see and thank her deliverer, it was Jack who
+presented himself. If she had known this sooner, it would, most
+undoubtedly, have augmented her terror, and increased the fever. As it
+was, it redoubled her thankfulness, and hastened her recovery.
+
+Frank and Ernest embarked on board the _Nelson_ when she returned to
+New Switzerland on her way to Europe. Two years afterwards, the former
+returned in the capacity of a minister of the Church of England,
+bringing with him a sufficient number of men, women, and children to
+furnish a respectable congregation; and it was rumored, though with
+what degree of truth I will not venture to say, that one of the young
+lady passengers in the ship was his destined bride. Ernest remained
+some years in Europe, partly to consolidate relations between the
+colony and the mother country, and partly with a view to realize his
+pet project of establishing an observatory in New Switzerland.
+
+Willis, instead of being suspended at the yard-arm as he had insisted
+on prognosticating, received his lieutenancy in due course,
+accompanied by a highly flattering letter from the Lords of the
+Admiralty, thanking him, in the name of the captain and crew of the
+_Nelson_, for his exertions in their behalf. As soon, however, as
+peace was proclaimed, he retired on half-pay, and, with his wife and
+daughter, emigrated to Oceania. He assumed his old post of admiral on
+Shark's Island, where a commodious house had been erected. We must
+premise, at the same time, that to his honorary duties as admiral,
+conjoined the humbler, but not less useful, offices of lighthouse
+keeper, manager of the fisheries, and harbor-master.
+
+As a country grows rich, and advances in prosperity, it rarely, if
+ever, happens that the sum of human life becomes happier or better. It
+is, therefore, not without regret we learn that gold has been
+discovered in a land so highly favored by nature in other respects;
+for, if such be the case, then adieu to the peace and tranquillity its
+inhabitants have hitherto enjoyed. The colony will soon be overrun
+with Chinamen, American adventurers, and ticket-of-leave convicts.
+Farewell to the kindliness and hospitality of the community, for they
+will inevitably be deluged with the refuse of the old, and also, alas!
+of the new world.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Willis the Pilot, by Johanna Spyri
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Willis the Pilot, by Johanna Spyri
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Willis the Pilot
+
+Author: Johanna Spyri
+
+Translator: Henry Frith
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2004 [EBook #14172]
+[Most recently updated Februar 8, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIS THE PILOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Karen Dalrymple and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WILLIS THE PILOT,
+
+A Sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson:
+
+OR,
+
+ADVENTURES OF AN EMIGRANT FAMILY
+WRECKED ON AN UNKNOWN COAST OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
+
+INTERSPERSED WITH
+
+TALES, INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL, AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF
+NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+BOSTON:
+LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
+NEW YORK:
+LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM.
+1875.
+
+
+LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY
+At the Office of the American Stereotype Company,
+PHOENIX BUILDING, BOSTON.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY KILBURN & MALLORY
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The love of adventure that characterises the youth of the present day,
+and the growing tendency of the surplus European population to seek
+abroad the comforts that are often denied at home, gives absorbing
+interest to the narratives of old colonists and settlers in the
+wonderful regions of the New World. Accordingly, the work known as the
+_Swiss Family Robinson_ has long enjoyed a well-merited popularity,
+and has been perused by a multitude of readers, young and old, with
+profit as well as pleasure.
+
+A Swiss clergyman resolved to better his fortune by emigration. In
+furtherance of this resolution, he embarked with his wife and four
+sons--the latter ranging from eight to fifteen years of age--for one
+of the newly-discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean. As far as the
+coast of New Guinea the voyage had been favorable, but here a violent
+storm arose, which drove the ill-fated vessel out of its course, and
+finally cast it a wreck upon an unknown coast. The family succeeded in
+extricating themselves from the stranded ship, and landed safely on
+shore; but the remaining passengers and crew all perished. For many
+years these six individuals struggled alone against a variety of
+trials and privations, till at length another storm brought the
+English despatch-boat _Nelson_ within reach of their signals. Such is
+a brief outline of the events recorded in the _Swiss Family Robinson_.
+
+The present volume is virtually a continuation of this narrative. The
+careers of the four sons--Frank, Ernest, Fritz, and Jack--are taken up
+where the preceding chronicler left them off. The subsequent
+adventures of these four young men, by flood and field, are faithfully
+detailed. With these particulars are mingled the experiences of
+another interesting family that afterwards became dwellers in the same
+territory; as are also the sayings and doings of a weather-beaten
+sailor--Willis the Pilot.
+
+The scene is laid chiefly in the South Seas, and the narrative
+illustrates the geography and ethnology of that section of the
+Far-West. The difficulties, dangers, and hardships to be encountered
+in founding a new colony are truthfully set forth, whilst it is shown
+how readily these are overcome by perseverance and intelligent labor.
+It will be seen that a liberal education has its uses, even under
+circumstances the least likely to foster the social amenities, and
+that, too, not only as regards the mental well-being of its
+possessors, but also as regards augmenting their material comforts.
+
+In the _Swiss Family Robinson_ the resources of Natural History have
+been largely, and perhaps somewhat freely, drawn upon. This branch of
+knowledge has, therefore, been left throughout the present volume
+comparatively untouched. Nevertheless, as it is the aim of the
+narrator to combine instruction with amusement, the more elementary
+phenomena of the Physical Sciences have been blended with the current
+of the story--thus garnishing, as it were, the dry, hard facts of
+Owen, Liebig, and Arago, with the more attractive, groupings of life
+and action.
+
+The reader has, consequently, in hand a _melange_ of the useful and
+agreeable--a little for the grave and a little for the gay--so that,
+should our endeavors to impart instruction prove unavailing, _en
+revanche_ we may, perhaps, be more successful in our efforts to amuse.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Colony--Reflections on the Past--Ideas of Willis the Pilot--Sophia
+Wolston
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+To what extent Willis the Pilot had Ideas on certain Subjects--The
+Knights of the Ocean
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Wherein Willis the Pilot proves "Irrefragably" that Ephemerides die of
+Consumption and Home-Sickness--The Canoe and its Young ones--The
+Search after the Sloop--Found--The Sword-Fish--Floating Atoms--Admiral
+Socrates
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A Landscape--Sad Houses and Smiling Houses--Politeness in China--Eight
+Soups at Dessert--Wind Merchants--Another Idea of the Pilot's--Susan,
+vice Sophia
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Allotment of Quarters--A Horse Marine--Travelling Plants--Change of
+Dynasty in England--A Woman's Kingdom--Sheep converted into
+Chops--Resurrection of the Fried Fish--A Secret
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The Queen's Doll--Rockhouse to Falcon's Nest--The
+Wind--Grasses--Admiral Homer--The Three Frogs--Oat Jelly--Esquimaux
+Astronomy--An Unknown
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The Search for the Unknown--Three Fleets on Dry Land--The
+Indiscretions of a Sugar Cane--Larboard and Starboard--The supposed
+Sensibility of Plants--The Fly-trap--Vendetta--Root and Germ--Mine and
+Countermine--The Polypi--Oviparous and Viviparous--A Quid pro Quo
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Inhabitant of the Moon, Anthropophagian or Hobgoblin?--The Lacedemonian
+Stew of Madame Dacier--Utile Dulci--Tete-a-tete between Willis and
+his Pipe--Tobacco versus Birch--Is it for Eating?--Mosquitoes--The
+Alarm--Toby--The Nocturnal Expedition--We've got him
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Chimpanzee--Imperfect Negro, or Perfect Ape--The Harmonies of
+Nature--A Handful of Paws--A Stone Skin--Seventeen Spectacles on one
+Nose--Animalculae--Pelion on Ossa--Ptolemy--Copernicus to
+Galileo--Metaphysics and Cosmogonies--A live Tiger
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The Pioneers--Excursion to Coromandel--Hindoo Fancies--A Caged
+Hunter--Louis XI and Cardinal Balue--A Furlong of News--Carnage--The
+Baronet and his seventeen Tigers--Fifty-four feet of Celebrity--Sterne's
+Window--Promenade of the Consciences--Emulation and Vanity
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+On the Watch--Fecundity of Plants and Animals--Latest News from the
+Moon--A Death-Knell every Second--The Inconveniences of being too near
+the Sun--Narcotics--Willis contralto--Hunting turned upside
+down--Electric Clouds--Partialities of Lightning--Bells and
+Bellringers--Conducting Rods--The Return--The Two Sisters--Toby
+becomes a Dragoman
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Man proposes, but God disposes--The Choice of a
+Profession--Conqueror--Orator--Astronomer--Composer--Painter--Poet--Village
+Curate--The Kafirs--Occupations of Women--The Alpha and Omega of the
+Sea
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Herbert and Cecilia--The little Angels--A Catastrophe--The
+Departure--Marriage of the Doge with the Adriatic--Sovereigns of the
+Sea--Dante and Beatrix--Eleonora and Tasso--Laura and Petrarch--The
+Return--Surprises--What one finds in Turbots--A Horror--The
+Price of Crime--Ballooning--Philipson and the Cholera--A
+Metamorphosis--Adventure of the Chimpanzee--Are you Rich?
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The Tears of Childhood and Rain of the Tropics--Charles'
+Wain--Voluntary Enlistment--A Likeness Guaranteed--The World at
+Peace--Alas, poor Mary!--The same Breath for two Beings--The first
+Pillow--The Logic of the Heart--How Fritz supported Grief--A Grain of
+Sand and the Himalaya
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+God's Government--King Stanislaus--The Dauphin son of Louis XV.--The
+shortest Road--New Year's Day--A Miracle--Clever Animals--The
+Calendar--Mr. Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII.--How the day after
+the 4th of October was the 15th--Olympiads--Lustres--The Hegira--A
+Horse made Consul--Jack's Dream
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Separation--Guelphs and Ghibelines--Montagues and
+Capulets--Sadness--The Reunion--Jocko and his Education--The
+Entertainments of a King--The Mules of Nero and the Asses of
+Poppaea--Hercules and Achilles--Liberty and Equality--Semiramis and
+Elizabeth--Christianity and the Religion of Zoroaster--The Willisonian
+Method--Moral Discipline versus Birch
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Where there's a Will there's a Way--Mucius Scaevola--What's to be
+done?--Brutus Torquatus and Peter the Great--Australia, Botany Bay,
+and the Flying Dutchman--New Guinea and the Buccaneer--Vancouver's
+Island--White Skins--Danger of Landing on a Wave--Hanged or
+Drowned--Route to Happiness--Omens
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Bacon and Biscuit--Let Sleeping Dogs Lie--The Paternal Benediction--An
+Apparition--A Mother not easily deceived--The Adieu--The Emperor
+Constantine--hoc signo vinces--The Sailor's Postscript--Caesar and his
+Fortunes--Recollections--Mrs. Becker plucks Stockings and Knits
+Ortolans--How delightful it is to be Scolded--The Bodies vanish, but
+the Souls remain
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Eighteen Hundred and Twelve--The _Mary_--Count Ugolino--The Sources of
+Rivers--The Alps demolished--No more Pyrenees--The First Ship--Admiral
+Noah--Fleets of the Israelites--The Compass--Printing--Gunpowder--Actium
+and Salamis--Dido and AEolus--Steam--Don Garay and Roger Bacon--Melchthal,
+Furst, and William Tell--Going a-pleasuring--Upset versus blown up--A
+Dead Calm--The Log--Willis's Archipelago--The Island of Sophia--The Bread
+Fruit-tree--Natives of Polynesia--Striped Trowsers--Abduction of
+Willis--Is he to be Roasted or Boiled?--When the Wine is poured out,
+we must Drink it
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Jupiter Tonans--The Thunders of the Pilot--Worshippers of the
+Far West--A late Breakfast--Rono the Great--A Polynesian
+Legend--Manners and Customs of Oceanica Mr. and Mrs. Tamaidi--Regal
+Pomp--Elbow Room--Katzenmusik--Queen Tonico and the Shaving
+Glass--Consequences of a Pinch of Snuff--Disgrace of the Great
+Rono--Marins--Coriolanus--Hannibal--Alcibiades--Cimon--Aristides--A
+Sop for the Thirsty--Air something else besides Oxygen and
+Hydrogen--Maryland and Whitechapel--Half-way up the Cordilleras--Human
+Machines--Star of the Sea, pray for us!
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+Lying-to--Heart and Instinct--Sparrows viewed as
+Consumers--Migrations--Posting a Letter in the
+Pacific--Cannibals--Adventures of a Locket
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+The Utility of Adversity--An Encounter--The _Hoboken_--Bill alias Bob
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+In which Willis shows, that the term Press-gang means something else
+besides the Gentlemen of the Press
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+Another Idea of the Pilot's--The _Boudeuse_
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+Delhi--William of Normandy and King John--Isabella of Bavaria and Joan
+of Arc--Poitier and Bovines--History of a Ghost, a Gridiron, and a
+Chest of Guineas
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Willis falls in with the Sloop on terra firma, instead of at the
+bottom of the Sea, as might have been expected--Admiral Cicero--The
+Defunct not yet Dead
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Captain Littlestone is found, and the Rev. Mr. Wolston is seen for the
+first time
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+Willis proves that the only way to be free is to get sent to
+Prison--An Escape--A Discovery--Promotions--Somnambulism
+
+
+Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE COLONY--REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST--IDEAS OF WILLIS THE PILOT--SOPHIA
+WOLSTON.
+
+
+The early adventures of the Swiss family, who were wrecked on an
+unknown coast in the Pacific Ocean, have already been given to the
+world. There are, however, many interesting details in their
+subsequent career which have not been made public. These, and the
+conversations with which they enlivened the long, dreary days of the
+rainy season, we are now about to lay before our readers.
+
+Becker, his wife, and their four sons had been fifteen years on this
+uninhabited coast, when a storm drove the English despatch sloop
+_Nelson_ to the same spot. Before this event occurred, the family had
+cleared and enclosed a large extent of country; but, whether the
+territory was part of an island or part of a continent, they had not
+yet ascertained. The land was naturally fertile; and, amongst other
+things that had been obtained from the wreck of their ship, were
+sundry packages of European seeds: the produce of these, together with
+that of two or three heads of cattle they had likewise rescued from
+the wreck, supplied them abundantly with the necessaries of life. They
+had erected dwellings here and there, but chiefly lived in a cave near
+the shore, over the entrance to which they had built a sort of
+gallery. This structure, conjointly with the cave, formed a commodious
+habitation, to which they had given the name of _Rockhouse_. In the
+vicinity, a stream flowed tranquilly into the sea; this stream they
+were accustomed to call _Jackal River_, because, a few days after
+their landing, they had encountered some of these animals on its
+banks. Fronting Rockhouse the coast curved inwards, the headlands on
+either side enclosing a portion of the ocean; to this inlet they had
+given the name of _Safety Bay_, because it was here they first felt
+themselves secure after having escaped the dangers of the storm. In
+the centre of the bay there was a small island which they called
+_Shark's Island_, to commemorate the capture of one of those monsters
+of the deep. Safely Bay, had, a second time, acquired a legitimate
+title to its name, for in it Providence had brought the _Nelson_
+safely to anchor.
+
+By unwearying perseverance, indefatigable industry, and an untiring
+reliance on the goodness of God, Becker and his family had surrounded
+themselves with abundance. There was only one thing left for them to
+desire, and that was the means of communicating with their kindred;
+and now this one wish of their hearts was gratified by the unexpected
+appearance of the _Nelson_ on their shore. The fifteen years of exile
+they had so patiently endured was at once forgotten. Every bosom was
+filled with boundless joy; so true it is, that man only requires a ray
+of sunshine to change his most poignant griefs into smiles and
+gladness.
+
+The first impressions of their deliverance awakened in the minds of
+the young people a flood of projects. The mute whisperings that
+murmured within them had divulged to their understandings that they
+were created for a wider sphere than that in which they had hitherto
+been confined. Europe and its wonders--society, with its endearing
+interchanges of affection--that vast panorama of the arts and of
+civilization, of the trivial and the sublime, of the beautiful and
+terrible, that is called the world--came vividly into their thoughts.
+They felt as a man would feel when dazzled all at once by a spectacle,
+the splendor of which the eyes and the mind can only withstand by
+degrees. They had spelt life in the horn-book of true and simple
+nature--they were now about to read it fluently in the gilded volume
+of a nature false and vitiated, perhaps to regret their former
+tranquil ignorance.
+
+Becker himself had, for an instant, given way to the general
+enthusiasm, but reflection soon regained her sway; he asked himself
+whether he had solid reasons for wishing to return to Europe, whether
+it would be advisable to relinquish a certain livelihood, and abandon
+a spot that God appeared to bless beyond all others, to run after the
+doubtful advantages of civilized society.
+
+His wife desired nothing better than to end her days there, under the
+beautiful sky, where, from the bosom of the tempest, they had been
+guided by the merciful will of Him who is the source of all things.
+Still the solitude frightened her for her children. "Might it not,"
+she asked herself, "be egotism to imprison their young lives in the
+narrow limits of maternal affection?" It occurred to her that the
+dangers to which they were constantly exposed might remove them from
+her; to-day this one, to-morrow another; what, then, would be her own
+desolation, when there remained to her no bosom on which to rest her
+head--no heart to beat in unison with her own--no kindly hand to
+grasp--and no friendly voice to pray at her pillow, when she was
+called away in her turn!
+
+At length, after mature deliberation, it was resolved that Becker
+himself, his wife, Fritz and Jack, two of their sons, should remain
+where they were, whilst the two other young men should return to
+Europe with a cargo of cochineal, pearls, coral, nutmegs, and other
+articles that the country produced of value in a commercial point of
+view. It was, however, understood that one of the two should return
+again as soon as possible, and bring back with him any of his
+countrymen who might be induced to become settlers in this land of
+promise, Becker hoping, by this means, to found a new colony which
+might afterwards flourish under the name of _New Switzerland_. The
+mission to Europe was formally confided to Frank and Ernest, the two
+most sedate of the family.
+
+Besides the captain and crew, there was on board the ship now riding
+at anchor in the bay a passenger, named Wolston, with his wife and two
+daughters. This gentleman was on his way to join his son at the Cape
+of Good Hope, but had been taken seriously ill previous to the
+_Nelsons_ arrival on the coast. He and his family were invited on
+shore by Becker, and had taken up their quarters at Rockhouse.
+Wolston was an engineer by profession, but his wife belonged to a
+highly aristocratic family of the West of England; she had been
+brought up in a state of ease and refinement, was possessed of all the
+accomplishments required in fashionable society, but she was at the
+same time gifted with strong good sense, and could readily accommodate
+herself to the circumstances in which she was now placed. Her two
+daughters, Sophia the youngest, a lively child of thirteen, and Mary
+the eldest, a demure girl of sixteen, had been likewise carefully, but
+somewhat elaborately, educated. Attracted no less by the hearty and
+warm reception of the Swiss family, than determined by the state of
+his health and the pure air of the country, Wolston resolved to await
+there the return of the sloop, the official destination of which was
+the Cape of Good Hope, where it had to land despatches from Sidney.
+
+Captain Littlestone, of H.B.M.'s sloop _Nelson_, had kindly consented
+to all these arrangements; he agreed to convey Ernest and Frank Becker
+and their cargo to the Cape, to aid them there with his experience,
+and, finally, to recommend them to some trustworthy correspondents he
+had at Liverpool. He likewise promised to bring back young Wolston
+with him on his return voyage.
+
+Everything being prepared, the departure was fixed for the next day:
+the sloop, with the blue Peter at the fore, was ready, as soon as the
+anchor was weighed, to continue her voyage. The cargo had been stowed
+under hatches. Becker had just given the farewell dinner to Captain
+Littlestone and Lieutenant Dunsley, his second in command. These two
+gentlemen had discreetly taken their leave, not to interrupt by their
+presence the final embraces of the family, the ties of which, after so
+many long years of labor and hardship, were for the first time to be
+broken asunder.
+
+During the voyage, Wolston had formed an intimacy with the boatswain
+of the _Nelson_, named Willis, and he, on his side, held Wolston and
+his family in high esteem. Willis was likewise a great favorite with
+his captain--they had served in the same ship together when boys;
+Willis was known to be a first-rate seaman; so great, indeed, was his
+skill in steering amongst reefs and shoals, that he was familiarly
+styled the "Pilot," by which cognomen he was better known on board
+than any other. At the particular request of Wolston, who had some
+communications to make to him respecting his son, Willis remained on
+shore, the captain promising to send his gig for him and his two
+passengers the following morning.
+
+Whilst Wolston was busy charging the pilot with a multitude of
+messages for his son, Mrs. Becker was invoking the blessings of Heaven
+upon the heads of her two boys; praying that the hour might be
+deferred that was to separate her from these idols of her soul. Becker
+himself, upon whom his position, as head of the family, imposed the
+obligation of exhibiting, at least outwardly, more courage, instilled
+into their minds such principles of truth and rules of conduct as the
+solemnity of the moment was calculated to engrave on their hearts.
+
+The dial now marked three o'clock, tropical time. Willis, wiping, with
+the cuff of his jacket, a drop that trickled from the corner of his
+eye, laid hold of his seal-skin sou'-wester as a signal of immediate
+departure. Ernest and Frank were bending their heads to receive the
+parting benediction of their parents, when suddenly a fierce torrent
+of wind shook the gallery of Rockhouse to its foundation, and uprooted
+some of the bamboo columns by which it was supported.
+
+"Only a squall," said Willis quietly.
+
+"A squall!" exclaimed Becker, "what do you call a hurricane then?"
+
+"Oh, a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
+close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this
+begins to look very like the real article."
+
+Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful than
+its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
+dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
+against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
+lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain,
+but veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what
+the cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are
+to the gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river
+had converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and
+buildings appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse
+nearly impossible.
+
+However much of a colorist Willis might be, he could not have painted
+a storm with the eloquence of the elements that had cut short his
+observation.
+
+"You will not attempt to embark in weather like this?" inquired Mrs.
+Becker anxiously.
+
+"My duty it is to be on board," replied the Pilot.
+
+"The craft that ventures to take you there will get swamped twenty
+times on the way," observed Becker.
+
+"The worst of it is, the wind is from the east, and evidently carries
+waterspouts with it. These waterspouts strike a ship without the
+slightest warning, play amongst the rigging, whirl the sails about
+like feathers--sometimes carry them off bodily, or, if they do not do
+that, tear them to shreds and shiver the masts. In either case, the
+consequences are disagreeable."
+
+"A reason for you to be thankful you are safe on shore with us!"
+remarked Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"It is all very well for you, Mrs. Wolston, and you, Mrs. Becker, to
+talk in that way; your business in life is that of wives and mothers.
+But what will the Lords of the Admiralty say, when they hear that the
+sloop _Nelson_ was wrecked whilst Master Willis, the boatswain, was
+skulking on shore like a land-rat?"
+
+"Oh, they would only say there was one useful man more, and a victim
+the less," replied Fritz.
+
+"Why, not exactly, Master Fritz; they would say that Willis was a
+poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely
+condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation
+when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I
+want is the use of your canoe."
+
+"What! brave this storm in a wretched seal-skin cockle-shell like
+that?"
+
+"Would it not be offending Providence," hazarded Mary Wolston, "for
+one of God's creatures to abandon himself to certain death?"
+
+"It would, indeed," added Mrs. Wolston; "true courage consists in
+facing danger when it is inevitable, but not in uselessly imperiling
+one's life; there stops courage, and temerity begins."
+
+"If it is not pride or folly. I do not mean that with reference to
+you, Willis," hastily added Wolston; "I know that you are open as day,
+and that all your impulses arise from the heart."
+
+"That is all very fine--but I must act; let me have the canoe. I want
+the canoe: that is my idea."
+
+"Having lived fifteen years cut off from society," gravely observed
+Becker, "it may be that I have forgotten some of the laws it imposes;
+nevertheless, I declare upon my honor and conscience--"
+
+"Let me have the canoe, otherwise I must swim to the ship."
+
+"I declare," continued Becker, "that Willis exaggerates the
+requirements of his duty. There are stronger forces to which the human
+will must yield. It is one thing to desert one's post in the hour of
+danger, and another to have come on shore at the express desire of a
+superior officer, when the weather was fine, and nothing presaged a
+storm."
+
+"If there is danger," continued the obstinate sailor, whom the united
+strength of the four men could scarcely restrain, "I ought to share
+it; that is my duty and I must."
+
+"But," said Wolston, "all the boatswains and pilots in the world can
+do nothing against hurricanes and waterspouts; their duty consists in
+steering the ship clear of reefs and quicksands, and not in fighting
+with the elements."
+
+"There is one thing you forget, Mr. Wolston."
+
+"And what is that, Willis?"
+
+"It is to be side by side with your comrades in the hour of calamity,
+to aid them if you can, and to perish with them if such be the will of
+Fate. At this moment, poor Littlestone may be on the point of taking
+up his winter quarters in the body of a shark. But there, if the
+sloop is lost while I am here on shore, I will not survive her; all
+that you can say or do will not prevent me doing myself justice."
+
+At this moment Jack, who had disappeared during this discussion,
+unobserved, came in saturated to the skin with water, and in a state
+difficult to describe. Like the boots of Panurge, his feet were
+floating in the water that flowed from the rim of his cap.
+
+"What is this?" exclaimed his mother. "You wilful boy, may I ask
+where, in all the world, you have been?"
+
+"I have just come from the bay. O father and mother! O Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston! O Master Willis! if you had only seen! The sea is furious;
+sometimes the waves rise to the skies and mingle with the clouds, so
+that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends.
+It is frightful, but it is magnificent!"
+
+"And the sloop?" demanded Willis.
+
+"She is not to be seen; she is no longer at anchor in the bay."
+
+"Gone to the open sea, to avoid being driven ashore," said Wolston.
+"Captain Littlestone is not the man to remain in a perilous position
+whilst there remained a means of escape; besides, nothing that
+science, united with courage and presence of mind, could do, would
+have been neglected by him to save his ship."
+
+"In addition to which," observed Becker, "if he had found himself in
+positive danger, he would have fired a gun; and in that case, though
+we are not pilots, every one of us would have hastened to his
+assistance."
+
+"You see, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "God comes to ease your mind;
+were we to allow you to go to the sloop now, the thing is simply
+impossible."
+
+"I have my own idea about that," insisted Willis, whilst he kept
+beating a tatoo on the isinglass window panes.
+
+Whilst thus chafing like a caged lion, Wolston's youngest daughter
+went towards him, and gently putting her hand in his, said,
+"Sweetheart" (for so she had been accustomed to address him), "do you
+remember when, during the voyage, you used to look at me very closely,
+and that one evening I went boldly up to you and asked you why you
+did so?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Sophia, I recollect."
+
+"Do you remember the answer you gave me?"
+
+"Yes, I told you that I had left in England, on her mother's bosom, a
+little girl who would now be about your own age, and that I could not
+observe the wind play amongst the curls of your fair hair without
+thinking of her, and that it sometimes made my breast swell like the
+mizen-top-sail before the breeze."
+
+"Yes, and when I promised to keep out of your sight, not to reawaken
+your grief, you told me it was a kind of grief that did you more good
+than harm, and that the more it made you grieve, the happier you would
+be."
+
+"All true:" replied the sailor, whose excitement was melting away
+before the soft tones of the child like hoar frost in the sunshine.
+
+"Then I promised to come and talk to you about your Susan every day;
+and did I not keep my word?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Sophia; and it is only bare justice to say that you
+gracefully yielded to all my fatherly whims, and even went so far as
+to wear a brown dress oftener than another, because I said that my
+little Susan wore that color the last time I kissed her."
+
+"Oh, but that is a secret, Willis."
+
+"Yes, but I am going to tell all our secrets--that is an idea of mine.
+You then went and learned Susan's mother's favorite song, with which
+you would sometimes sing me to sleep, like a great baby that I am, and
+make me fancy that I was surrounded by my wife and daughter, and was
+comfortably smoking my pipe in my own cottage, with a glass of grog at
+my elbow."
+
+Willis said this so earnestly, that the smile called forth by the
+oddness of the remark scarcely dared to show itself on the lips of the
+listeners.
+
+"Very well," resumed the little damsel, "if you are not more
+reasonable, and if you keep talking of throwing your life away, I will
+never again place my hand in yours as now; I shall not love you any
+more, and shall find means of letting Susan's mother know that you
+went away and killed yourself, and made her a widow."
+
+Men can only speak coldly and appeal to reason--logic is their panacea
+in argument. Women alone possess those inspirations, those simple
+words without emphasis, that find their way directly to the heart, and
+for which purpose God has doubtless endowed them with those soft, mild
+tones, whose melodies cause our most cherished resolutions to vanish
+in the air; like those massive stone gates we have seen in some of the
+old castles in Germany, that resist the most powerful effort to push
+them open, but which a spring of the simplest construction causes to
+move gently on their formidable hinges.
+
+Willis was silent; but no openly-expressed submission could have been
+more eloquent than this mute acquiescence.
+
+In the meantime the tempest raged with increased fury, the winds
+howled, and the water splashed; it appeared at each shock as if the
+elements had reached the utmost limit of the terrific; that the sea,
+as the poet says, had lashed itself into exhaustion! But, anon, there
+came another outburst more terrible still, to declare that, in his
+anger as in his blessings, the All-Powerful has no other limit than
+the infinite.
+
+"If it is not in the power of human beings to aid the crew of the
+_Nelson_," said Mrs. Becker kneeling, "there are other means more
+efficacious which we are guilty in not having sought before."
+
+Every one followed this example, and it was a touching scene to behold
+the rough sailor yield submissively to the gentle violence of the
+child's hand, and bend his bronzed and swarthy visage humbly beside
+her cherub head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+TO WHAT EXTENT WILLIS THE PILOT HAD IDEAS ON CERTAIN SUBJECTS--THE
+KNIGHTS OF THE OCEAN.
+
+
+The storm continued to rage without intermission for three entire
+days. During this interval, not only was it impossible to send the
+canoe or pinnace to sea, but even to venture a step beyond the
+threshold, so completely had the tempest broken up the burning soil,
+the thirst of which the great Disposer of all things had proportioned
+to the deluges that were destined to assuage it.
+
+All had at length yielded to bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, for
+the seeming eternity of these three days and three nights had been
+passed in prayer, and in the most fearful apprehensions as to the fate
+of the _Nelson_ and her crew.
+
+Nothing in the horizon as yet indicated that the thunders were tired
+of roaring, the clouds of rending themselves asunder, the winds of
+howling, or the waves of frantically beating on the cliffs.
+
+Towards evening the ladies had retired to the sick-room with a view of
+seeking some repose. Becker, Willis, and the young men bivouacked in
+the hall, where some mattresses and bear-skins had been laid down.
+Here it was arranged that, for the common safety, each during the
+night should watch in turn. But about two in the morning, Ernest had
+no sooner relieved Fritz than, fatigue overcoming his sense of duty,
+the poor fellow fell comfortably asleep, and he was soon perfectly
+unconscious of all that was passing around him.
+
+Becker awoke first--it was broad daylight. "Where is Willis?" he
+cried, on getting up.
+
+"Holloa!" exclaimed Fritz, running towards the magazine, "the canoe
+has disappeared!"
+
+In an instant all were on their feet.
+
+"Some one of you has fallen asleep then," said Becker to his children;
+"for when the pilot watched I watched with him, and never lost sight
+of him for a moment."
+
+"I am the culprit," said Ernest; "and if any mischief arises out of
+this imprudence, I shall never forgive myself. But who could have
+dreamt of any one being foolhardy enough to attempt the rescue of a
+ship in a nutshell that scarcely holds two persons?"
+
+"I pray Heaven that your sleepy-headedness may not result in the loss
+of human life! You see, my son, that there is no amount of duty, be it
+ever so trifling in importance, that can be neglected with impunity.
+It is the concurrent devotion of each, and the sacrifices of one for
+another, that constitutes and secures the mutual security. Society on
+a small, as on a large scale, is a chain of which each individual is a
+link, and when one fails the whole is broken."
+
+"I will go after him," said Ernest.
+
+"Fritz and I will go with you," added Frank.
+
+"No," said Ernest; "I alone am guilty, and I wish alone to remedy my
+fault--that is, as far as possible."
+
+"I could not hide the canoe," observed Fritz, "but I hid the oars, and
+I find them in their place."
+
+"That, perhaps, will have prevented him embarking," remarked one of
+the boys.
+
+"A man like Willis," replied Becker, "is not prevented carrying out
+his intentions by such obstacles; he will have taken the first thing
+that came to hand; but let us go."
+
+"What, father, am I not then to go alone, and so bear the penalty of
+my own fault?"
+
+"No, Ernest, that would be to inflict two evils upon us instead of
+one; it is sufficient that you have shown your willingness to do so.
+Besides, three will not be over many _to convince_ Willis, even if yet
+in time."
+
+"And mother? and the ladies?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"I shall leave Frank and Jack to see to them; a mere obstinate freak,
+or a catastrophe, it will be time enough, when over, to inform them of
+this new idea of the Pilot's."
+
+"It is something more than an idea this time," remarked Jack.
+
+Just as Becker and his two sons were issuing from the grotto, the
+report of a cannon-shot resounded through the air.
+
+Awoke and startled by the explosion, Becker's wife and Mrs. Wolston
+came running towards them. As for the girls, their guardian angel had
+too closely enveloped them in its wings to admit of their sleep being
+disturbed.
+
+"The sloop on the coast!" said Frank; "for the sound is too distinct
+to come from a distance."
+
+"Unless Willis has got upon Shark's Island," objected Fritz, running
+towards the terrace, armed with a telescope. "Just so; he is there, I
+see him distinctly; he is recharging our four-pounder."
+
+"God be praised! you relieve my conscience of a great burden," said
+Ernest, placing his hand on his breast.
+
+"He is going to discharge it," cried Fritz--boom. Then a second shot
+reverberated in the air.
+
+"If Captain Littlestone be within hearing of that signal, he will be
+sure to reply to it." said Becker. "Listen!"
+
+They hushed themselves in silence, each retaining his respiration, as
+if their object had been to hear the sound of a fly's wing rather than
+the report of a cannon.
+
+"Nothing!" said Becker sadly, at the expiration of a few minutes.
+
+"Nothing!" reiterated successively all the voices.
+
+"How in all the world did Willis contrive to get transported to
+Shark's Island?" inquired Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Simply, wife, by watching when asleep, whilst one of our gentlemen
+slept when he watched."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Ernest, "and if you would not have me blush before
+Mrs. Wolston, you will not insist upon an explanation of the mystery."
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," she replied, "is not so exacting as you seem to think,
+Master Ernest--the only difference that her presence here should make
+amongst you is that you have two mothers instead of one."
+
+"That is," said Mrs. Wolston smiling, "if Mrs. Becker has no
+objections to dividing the office with me."
+
+"Shall I not have compensation in your daughters?" said Mrs. Becker,
+taking her by the hand.
+
+"Still," interrupted Fritz, "I cannot yet conceive how Willis managed
+to reach Shark's Island in a wretched canoe, without oars, through
+waves that ought to have swallowed him up over and over again."
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Jack; "what use has a pilot for oars?"
+
+"There is a question! You, who modestly call yourself the best
+horseman on the island, how would you do, if you had nothing to ride
+upon?"
+
+"I could at least fall back upon broomsticks," retorted the
+imperturbable Jack. "Besides, in Willis's case, the canoe was the
+steed, the oars the saddle--nothing more."
+
+"We shall not stay here to solve the riddle," said Becker; "the storm
+seems disposed to abate; and the more that it was unreasonable to face
+certain destruction in a vain endeavor to assist a problematical
+shipwreck, the more it is incumbent upon us now to go in quest of the
+_Nelson_."
+
+"But the sea will still be very terrible!" quickly added Mrs. Becker.
+
+"If all danger were over, wife, the enterprise would do us little
+credit. It is our duty to do the best we can, according to the
+strength and means at our command. Fritz, Ernest, and Jack, go and put
+on your life-preservers--we shall take up Willis in passing."
+
+"I must not insist," said Mrs. Becker; "the sacrifice would, indeed,
+be no sacrifice, if it could be easily borne; and yet--"
+
+"Remember the time, wife, when I was obliged, in order to secure the
+precious remains of our ship, to venture with our eldest sons on a
+float of tubs, leaving you exposed, alone with a child of seven, to
+the chance of eternal isolation!"
+
+"That is very true, husband: I am unjust towards Providence, which has
+never ceased blessing us; but I am only a weak woman, and my heart
+often gets the better of my head."
+
+"To-day I leave Frank with you; but, instead of your being his
+protector, as was the case fifteen years ago, he will be yours. Then
+there is Mrs. Wolston, her daughters, and husband, quite a new world
+of sympathies and consolations, by which our island has been so
+miraculously peopled."
+
+"Go then, husband, and may God bring back in safety both the pinnace
+and the _Nelson_!"
+
+"By the way, Mrs. Wolston, how does our worthy invalid get on? We live
+in such a turmoil of events and consternations, that I must beg a
+thousand pardons for not having asked after him before."
+
+"His sleep appears untroubled; and, notwithstanding all the terrors of
+the last few days, I entertain sanguine hopes of his immediate
+recovery."
+
+"You will at least return before night?" said Mrs. Becker to her
+husband.
+
+"Rely upon my not prolonging my stay beyond what the exigencies of the
+expedition imperiously require."
+
+"Good gracious! what are these?" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston as the three
+brothers entered, equipped in seal-gut trowsers, floating stays of the
+same material, and Greenland caps.
+
+"The Knights of the Ocean," replied Jack gravely, "who, like the
+heroes of Cervantes, go forth to redress the wrongs done by the
+tempest, and to break lances--oars, I mean--in favor of persecuted
+sloops."
+
+Mrs. Becker herself could scarcely refrain from smiling.
+
+Such is the power of the smile that, in season or out of season, it
+often finds its way to the most pallid lips, in the midst of the
+greatest disasters and the deepest grief. It appears as if always
+listening at the door ready to take its place on the slightest notice.
+This diversion had the good effect of mixing a little honey with--if
+the expression may be used--the bitterness of the parting adieus.
+Becker took the lead in hiding his sorrow; the three young
+Greenlanders tore themselves from the maternal embrace, and
+affectionately kissed the hand held out to them by Mrs. Wolston.
+
+Then, between those that departed and those that remained behind,
+there was nothing more than the ties of recollection, the common
+sadness, and the endless links of mutual affection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES "IRREFRAGABLY" THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OF
+CONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS--THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES--THE
+SEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP--FOUND--THE SWORD-FISH--FLOATING ATOMS--ADMIRAL
+SOCRATES.
+
+
+When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought he
+saw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.
+
+"A sea monster!" he cried, levelling his musket; "I discovered it, and
+have the right to the first shot."
+
+"No, sir," said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotive
+telescope, "I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or wound
+my canoe."
+
+"Nonsense, it moves."
+
+"Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you not
+observe this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?"
+
+"Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has been
+hatching," and Jack again levelled his rifle.
+
+"Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he could
+dispense with the canoe?"
+
+"Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord,
+which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."
+
+"The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite
+of surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."
+
+"Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "what
+does a pilot care about surf and breakers?"
+
+Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a
+bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no
+way suffered from the storm.
+
+The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making
+the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet
+by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately,
+"starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had
+not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.
+
+At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a
+quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and
+cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a
+steam engine.
+
+Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of
+the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was
+soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she
+pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. He
+headed along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had first
+observed the _Nelson_ was fairly doubled; some days before this point
+was called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire the
+term of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designation
+was in embryo.
+
+Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat
+rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last
+leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other
+circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the
+direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and
+covered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profound
+desolation.
+
+"Willis! Willis!" cried Jack, "I shall tell Sophia."
+
+But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, nor
+the sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Willis
+continued immovable.
+
+Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm the
+more they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted to
+wear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to his
+own reflections.
+
+The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but the
+sun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, and
+the air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.
+
+"I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is the
+direction the storm must have driven the sloop."
+
+"The sea is very capricious," suggested Fritz.
+
+"True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind."
+
+"Unfortunately," said Jack, "it is not on sea as on land, where the
+slightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; a
+word dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, but
+here it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the _Nelson_ pass this
+way?'"
+
+"Fire a shot," said Ernest; "it may perhaps be heard, now that the air
+is less humid."
+
+The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fire
+to a strip of mimosa bark, with which he touched the piece, and the
+report boomed across the waters.
+
+Willis raised his head and listened anxiously, but soon dropped it
+again, and resumed his former attitude of hopeless despair.
+
+"It may be," said Ernest, "that the _Nelson_ hears our signal, though
+we do not hear hers."
+
+"How can that be?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Why, very easily. Sound increases or diminishes in intensity
+according as the wind carries it on or retards it."
+
+"What, then, is sound, that the wind can blow it about, most learned
+brother?"
+
+"It is a result of the compression of the air, that from its
+elasticity extends and expands, and which causes a sort of trembling
+or undulation, similar to that which is observed in water when a stone
+is thrown into it."
+
+"And you may add," said Becker, "that bodies striking the air excite
+sonorous vibrations in this fluid; thus it rings under the lash that
+strikes it with violence, and whistles under the rapid impulsion of a
+switch: it likewise becomes sonorous when it strikes itself with force
+against any solid body, as the wind when it blows against the cordage
+of ships, houses, trees, and generally every object with which it
+comes in contact."
+
+"I can understand," replied Jack, "how this sonorous effect is
+produced on the particles of air in immediate contact with the object
+struck; but how this sound is propagated, I do not see."
+
+"Very likely; but still it travels from particle to particle, in a
+circle, at the rate of three hundred and forty yards in a second."
+
+"Three hundred and forty yards in a second!" said Willis, who was
+beginning by degrees to recover his self-possession. "Well, that is
+what I should call going a-head."
+
+"And by what sort of compasses has this speed been measured, Master
+Ernest?"
+
+"The first accurate measurement, Master Jack, was made at Paris in
+1738. There are there two tolerably elevated points, namely,
+Montmartre and Montlhery--the distance between these, in a direct
+line, is 14,636 _toises_. Cannons were fired during the night, and the
+engineers on one of the elevations observed that an interval of
+eighty-six seconds and a half elapsed between the flash and the report
+of a cannon fired on the other."
+
+"That half-second is very amusing," said Jack laughing; "if there had
+been only eighty or eighty-six net, one might still be permitted to
+entertain some doubts; but eighty-six and a half admits nothing of the
+kind. But why not three-quarters or six-eighths, they would do as
+well?"
+
+"What is more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirous
+of obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of no
+value? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of no
+signification to you?"
+
+"Your brother is perfectly right, Jack; you are not always successful
+in your jokes."
+
+"Other experiments have been made since then," continued Ernest, "and
+the results have always been the same, making allowances for the wind,
+and a slight variation that is ascribed to temperature."
+
+"To confirm the accuracy of this statement, the speed of light would
+have to be taken into consideration."
+
+"True; but the velocity of light is so great, that the instant a
+cannon is fired the flash is seen."
+
+"Whatever the distance?"
+
+"Yes, whatever the distance. Bear in mind that the rays of the sun
+only require eight minutes to traverse the thirty-four millions of
+leagues that extend between us and that body. Hence it follows that
+the time light takes to travel from one point to another on the earth
+may be regarded as _nil_."
+
+"That is something like distance and speed," remarked Willis, "and may
+be all right as regards the sun, but I should not be disposed to admit
+that there are any other instances of the same kind."
+
+"Very good, Master Willis; and yet the sun is only a step from us in
+comparison to the distance of some stars that we see very distinctly,
+but which are, nevertheless, so remote, that their rays, travelling at
+the same rate as those of the sun, are several years in reaching us."
+
+Willis rose abruptly, whistling "the Mariner's March," and went to
+join Fritz, who was steering the pinnace.
+
+At this _naive_ mark of disapprobation on the part of the Pilot,
+Becker, Ernest, and Jack burst involuntarily into a violent peal of
+laughter.
+
+"Laugh away, laugh away." said Willis; "I will not admit your
+calculations for all that."
+
+The sky had now assumed an opal or azure tint, the wind had gradually
+died away into a gentle breeze, the waves were now swelling gently and
+regularly, like the movements of the infant's cradle that is being
+rocked asleep. Never had a day, opening in the convulsions of a
+tempest, more suddenly lapsed into sunshine and smiles: it was like
+the fairies of Perrault's Tales, who, at first wrapped in sorry rags,
+begging and borne down with age, throw off their chrysalis and appear
+sparkling with youth, gaiety, and beauty, their wallet converted into
+a basket of flowers, and their crutch to a magic wand.
+
+"Father" inquired Fritz, "shall we go any farther?"
+
+Since the weather had calmed down, and there was no longer any
+necessity for exertion, the expedition had lost its charm for the
+young man.
+
+"I think it is useless; what say you, Willis?"
+
+"Ah," said the latter, taking Becker by the hand, "in consideration of
+the eight days' friendship that connects you even more intimately with
+Captain Littlestone than my affection for him of twenty years'
+standing, keep still a few miles to the east."
+
+"If the sloop has been driven to a distance by the storm, and is
+returning towards us, which is very likely, I do not see that we can
+be of much use."
+
+"But if dismasted and leaky?"
+
+"That would alter the case, only I am afraid the ladies will be uneasy
+about us."
+
+"But they were half prepared, father."
+
+"Jack is right," added Fritz, whose energies were again called into
+play by the thought of the _Nelson_ in distress; "let us go on."
+
+"Besides, on the word of a pilot, the sea will be very calm and gentle
+for some time to come: there is not the slightest danger."
+
+"And what if there were?" replied Fritz.
+
+"Well, Willis, I shall give up the pinnace to you till dark," said
+Becker, "and may God guide us; we shall return to-night, so as to
+arrive at Rockhouse early in the morning."
+
+"Hurrah for the captain!" cried Willis, throwing a cap into the air.
+
+The evolutions of a cap, thrown up towards the sky or down upon the
+ground, were very usual modes with Willis of expressing his joy or
+sorrow.
+
+This homage rendered to Becker, he hastened to let a reef out of the
+sheet, and the pinnace, for a moment at rest, redoubled its speed,
+like post-horses starting from the inn-door under the combined
+influence of a cheer from the postillion and a flourish of the whip.
+
+"There is a cockle-shell that skips along pretty fairly," said Willis;
+"but it wants two very important things."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"A caboose and a nigger."
+
+"A caboose and a nigger?"
+
+"Yes, I mean a pantry and a cook; a gale for breakfast is all very
+well, one gets used to it, it is light and easily digested; but the
+same for dinner is rather too much of a good thing in one day."
+
+"I observed your thoughtful mother hang a sack on one of your
+shoulders, which appeared tolerably well filled--where is it?"
+
+"Here it is," said Jack, issuing from the hatchway; "here are our
+stores: a ham, two Dutch cheeses, two callabashes full of Rockhouse
+malaga, and there is plenty of fresh water in the gourds; with these,
+we have wherewithal to defy hunger till to-morrow."
+
+"Capital!" said Willis.
+
+This time, however, a cap did not appear in the air, as the last one
+had not been seen since the former ovation.
+
+"Let us lay the table," said Jack, arranging the coils of rope that
+crowded the deck. "Well, you see, Willis, we want for nothing on board
+the pinnace, not even a what-do-you-call-it?"
+
+"A caboose, Master Jack."
+
+"Well, not even a caboose."
+
+"Quite true; and if the _Nelson_ were in the offing, I would not
+exchange my pilot's badge for the epaulettes of a commodore; but,
+alas! she is not there."
+
+"Cheer up, Willis, cheer up; one is either a man or one is not. What
+is the good of useless regrets?"
+
+"Very little, but it is hard to be yard-armed while absent at my time
+of life--and afterwards--your health, Mr. Becker."
+
+"That would be hard at any age, Willis; but I rather think it has not
+come to that yet."
+
+"When it has come to it, there will be very little time left to talk
+it over."
+
+"Did you not say, brother, that the _Nelson_ might hear our signals
+without our hearing hers? If so, there is a chance for Willis yet."
+
+"Certainly, Jack, because she has the wind in her favor to act as a
+speaking-trumpet, whilst we had it against us acting as a deafener."
+
+"Is there any other influence that affects sound besides the wind?"
+
+"Yes, I have already mentioned that temperature has something to do
+with it. Sound varies in intensity according to the state of the
+atmosphere. If, for example, we ring a small bell in a closed vessel
+filled with air, it has been observed that, as the air is withdrawn by
+the pump, the sound gradually grows less and less distinct."
+
+"And if a vacuum be formed?"
+
+"Then the sound is totally extinguished."
+
+"So, then," objected Willis, "if two persons were to talk in what you
+call a vacuum, they would not hear each other?"
+
+"Two persons could not talk in a vacuum," replied Ernest.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because they would die as soon as they opened their mouths."
+
+"Ah, that alters the case."
+
+"If, on the contrary, a quantity of air or gas were compressed into a
+space beyond what it habitually held, then the sound," continued
+Ernest, "would be more intense than if the air were free."
+
+"In that case a whisper would be equal to a howl!"
+
+"You think I am joking, Willis; but on the tops of high mountains,
+such as the Himalaya and Mont Blanc, where the air is much rarified,
+voices are not heard at the distance of two paces."
+
+"Awkward for deaf people!"
+
+"Whilst, on the icy plains of the frozen regions, where the air is
+condensed by the severe cold, a conversation, held in the ordinary
+tone, may be easily carried on at the distance of half a league."
+
+"Awkward for secrets!"
+
+"And how does sound operate with regard to solid bodies?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"According to the degree of elasticity possessed by their veins or
+fibres."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"That is, solid bodies, whose structure is such that the vibration
+communicated to some of their atoms circulates through the mass, are
+susceptible of conveying sound."
+
+"Give us an instance."
+
+"Apply your ear to one end of a long beam, and you will hear
+distinctly the stroke of a pin's head on the other; whilst the same
+stroke will scarcely be heard through the breadth of the wood."
+
+"So that, in the first case, the sound runs along the longitudinal
+fibres where the contiguity of parts is closer, than when the body is
+taken transversely?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"And across water?"
+
+"It is heard, but more feebly."
+
+For some time Fritz had been closely observing with the telescope a
+particular part of the horizon, when all at once he cried, "This time
+I see him distinctly; he is bearing down upon us."
+
+"Who? the sloop?" cried Willis, starting up and letting fall the glass
+he had in his hand.
+
+"What an extraordinary pace! he bounds into the air, then plumps into
+the water, then leaps up again, just like an India-rubber ball, that
+touches the ground only to take a fresh spring!"
+
+"Impossible, Master Fritz; the _Nelson_ tops the waves honestly and
+gallantly; but as to leaping into the air, she is a little too bulky
+for that."
+
+"Ah, poor Willis, it is not the _Nelson_ that is under my glass at
+present, but an enormous fish, ten or twelve feet in length."
+
+"Oh, how you startled me!"
+
+"Father! Ernest! prepare to fire! Jack, the harpoon! he is coming this
+way."
+
+Fritz stood at the stern of the pinnace, his rifle levelled, following
+with his eyes the movements of the monster; when within reach, he
+fired with so much success and address that he hit the creature on the
+head. It then changed its course, leaving behind a train of blood.
+
+"Let us after him, Willis; quick!"
+
+The Pilot turned the head of the pinnace, and Jack immediately threw
+his harpoon.
+
+"Struck!" cried he joyfully.
+
+By the hissing of the line, and then the rapid impulsion of the
+pinnace, it was felt that the monster had more strength than the craft
+and its crew together.
+
+Ernest and his father fired at the same time; the ball of the former
+was lost in the animal's flesh, that of the latter rebounded off a
+horny protuberance that armed the monster's upper lip.
+
+Fritz had time to recharge his rifle; he levelled it a second time,
+and the ball went to join the former; but, for all that, the pinnace
+continued to cleave the water at a furious rate.
+
+Becker seized an axe and cut the rope.
+
+"Oh, father, what a pity! such a splendid capture for our museum of
+natural history!"
+
+"It is a sword-fish, children; a monster of a dangerous species, and
+of extreme voracity. If, by way of reciprocity, the fish have a museum
+at the bottom of the sea, they will have some fine specimens of the
+human race that have become the prey of this creature; and it may be
+that we were on the way to join the collection."
+
+"Did you observe the formidable dentilated horn?"
+
+"It is by means of this horn or sword, from which it takes its name,
+that it wages a continual war with the whale, whose only mode of
+escape is by flourishing its enormous tail; but the sword-fish, being
+very agile, easily avoids this, bounds into the air as Fritz saw it
+doing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierces
+him with its sword."
+
+"By the way, talking about the whale," said Jack, "all naturalists
+seem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation,
+that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs,
+or very small fishes--what, in that case, becomes of the history of
+Jonah?"
+
+"It is rather unfortunate," replied Becker, "that the whale has been
+associated with this miracle. There is now no possibility of
+separating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in the
+Greek translation of the Chaldean text, there is _Ketos_--in the
+Latin, there is _Cete_--and both these words were understood by the
+ancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale in
+particular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even a
+horse, without mangling it."
+
+"I have heard," said Jack, "of navigators who have landed on the back
+of a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island."
+
+"There is nothing impossible about that," observed Willis.
+
+"One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monster
+who has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming to
+be in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed to
+move all the quicker for the dose."
+
+"Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. The
+carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a
+whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the
+way to shorten the period."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train of
+waggons, "these fellows have no cares."
+
+"And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do you
+suppose that it dies of grief?"
+
+"Who knows, Master Jack?"
+
+"The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think," said Becker;
+"it commences by living three years under water in the form of a
+maggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a horny
+covering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, four
+or five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the month
+of August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw off
+a jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns,
+and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect;
+then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe,
+it dies--hence it is called the day-fly, its existence being
+terminated by the shades of night."
+
+"I was certain of it," said Willis.
+
+"Certain of what?"
+
+"That it died of grief at being on land. When one has been accustomed
+to the water, you see, under such circumstances life is not worth the
+having."
+
+"The day-fly," continued Becker, "is an epitome of those men who
+spend a life-time hunting after wealth and glory, and who perish
+themselves at the moment they reach the pinnacle of their ambitious
+desires. Whence I conclude, my dear children, that there are nothing
+but beginnings and endings of unhappiness in this world, and that true
+felicity is only to be hoped for in another sphere."
+
+"What a curious series of transformations! First an aquatic insect,
+next amphibious, then throwing away the organs for which it has no
+further use, and becoming provided with those suited to its new
+state!"
+
+"Yes, my dear Fritz; and yet those complicated and beautiful
+operations of Nature have not prevented philosophers from asserting
+that the world resulted from _floating atoms_, which, by force of
+combination, and after an infinity of blind movements, conglomerate
+into plants, animals, men, heaven, and earth."
+
+"I am only a plain sailor," said Willis "yet the eye of a worm teaches
+me more than these philosophers seem to have imagined in their
+philosophy."
+
+"Such a system could only have originated in Bedlam or Charenton."
+
+"No, Ernest, it is the system of Epicurus and Lucretius. Without going
+so far back, there are a thousand others quite as ridiculous, with
+which it is unnecessary to charge your young heads."
+
+"All madmen are not in confinement, and it may be that Epicurus and
+Lucretius had arrived at those limits of human reason, where genius
+begins in some and folly in others."
+
+"It is not that, Fritz; but if men, says Malebranche somewhere,[A] are
+interested in having the sides of an equilateral triangle unequal, and
+that false geometry was as agreeable to them as false philosophy, they
+would make the problems equally false in geometry as in morality, for
+this simple reason, that their errors afford them gratification,
+whilst truth would only hurt and annoy them."
+
+"Very good," observed Willis; "this Malebranche, as you call him, must
+have been an admiral?"
+
+"No, Willis, nothing more than a simple philosopher, but one of good
+faith, like Socrates, who admitted that what he knew best was, that he
+knew nothing."
+
+The sun had gradually disappeared in the midst of purple tinged
+clouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then a
+simple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays,
+sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,[B] like the adieu we
+receive at the turning of a road from a friend who is leaving us.
+
+There was a festival in the sky that night; the firmament brought out,
+one by one, her circlet of diamonds, till the whole were sparkling
+like a blaze of light; the pinnace also left a fiery train in her
+wake, caused partly by electricity and partly by the phosphorescent
+animalculae that people the ocean.
+
+"Willis," said Becker, "I leave it entirely to you to decide the
+instant of our return."
+
+The Pilot changed at once the course of the boat, without attempting
+to utter a word, so heavy was his heart at this unsuccessful
+termination of the expedition.
+
+"It will be curious," observed Fritz, "if we find the _Nelson_, on our
+return, snugly at anchor in Safety Bay."
+
+"I have a presentiment," said Jack; "and you will see that we have
+been playing at hide-and-seek with the _Nelson_."
+
+Willis shook his head.
+
+"Are there not a thousand accidents to cause a ship to deviate from
+her route?"
+
+"Yes, Master Ernest, there are typhoons, and the waterspouts of which
+I spoke to you before. In such cases, ships often deviate from their
+route, but generally by going to the bottom."
+
+Willis concluded this sentence with a gesture that defies description,
+implying annihilation.
+
+"Remember Admiral Socrates, Willis," said Jack; "_what I know best is,
+that I know nothing_, and avow that God has other means of
+accomplishing his decrees besides typhoons and waterspouts."
+
+"My excellent young friends, I know you want to inspire me with hope,
+as they give a toy to a child to keep it from crying, and I thank you
+for your good intentions. Now, for three days you have, so to speak,
+had no rest, and I insist on your profiting by this night to take some
+repose; and you also, Mr. Becker; I am quite able to manage the
+pinnace alone."
+
+"Yes providing you do not play us some trick, like that of this
+morning, for instance."
+
+"All stratagems are justifiable in war. Master Ernest had fair warning
+that I had an idea to work out. Besides, a prisoner, when under
+hatches, has the right to escape if he can: under parole, the case is
+quite different."
+
+"Well, Willis, if you give me your simple promise to steer straight
+for New Switzerland, and awake me in two hours to take the bearings--"
+
+"I give it, Mr. Becker."
+
+The three Greenlanders then descended into the hold, for tropical
+nights are as chilly as the days are hot, and Becker, rolling himself
+up in a sail, lay on deck.
+
+In less than five minutes they were all fast asleep, and Willis paced
+the deck, his arms crossed, and mechanically gazing upon a star that
+was mirrored in the water.
+
+"Several years to come to us, and that at the rate of seventy thousand
+leagues a second--that is _a little_ too much."
+
+Then he went to the rudder, his head leaning upon his breast, and
+glancing now and then with distracted eye at the course of the boat,
+buried in a world of thought, sad and confused, doubtless beholding in
+succession visions of the _Nelson_, of Susan, and of Scotland.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] "Search after Truth," book ix.
+
+[B] The twilight is entirely owing to this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A LANDSCAPE--SAD HOUSES AND SMILING HOUSES--POLITENESS IN CHINA--EIGHT
+SOUPS AT DESSERT--WIND MERCHANTS--ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S--SUSAN,
+VICE SOPHIA.
+
+
+Towards five o'clock next morning everything about Rockhouse was
+beginning to assume life and motion--within, all its inhabitants were
+already astir--without, little remained of the recent storm and
+inundation except that refreshing coolness, which, conjointly with the
+purified air, infuses fresh vigor, not only into men, but also into
+every living thing. The citrous, the aloes, and the Spanish jasmines
+perfumed the landscape. The flexible palms, the tall bananas, with
+their unbrageous canopy, the broad, pendant-leaved mangoes, and all
+the rank but luxuriant vegetation that clothed the land to the water's
+edge, waved majestically under the gentle breeze that blew from the
+sea. The Jackal River unfolded its silvery band through the roses,
+bamboos, and cactii that lined its banks. The sun--for that luminary
+plays an important part in all Nature's festivals--darted its rays on
+the soil still charged with vapor. Diamond drops sparkled in the cups
+of the flowers and on the points of the leaves. In the distance,
+pines, cedars, and richly-laden cocoa-nut trees filled up the
+background with their dark foliage. The swans displayed their
+brilliant plumage on the lake, the boughs of the trees were alive with
+parroquets and other winged creatures of the tropics. Add to the
+charms of this scene, Mrs. Becker returning from the prairie with a
+jar of warm, frothy milk--Mrs. Wolston and Mary busied in a
+multiplicity of household occupations, to which their white hands and
+ringing voices gave elegance and grace--Sophia tying a rose to the
+neck of a blue antelope which she had adopted as a companion--Frank
+distributing food to the ostriches and large animals, and admit, if
+there is a paradise on earth, it was this spot.
+
+Compare this scene with that presented by any of our large cities at
+the same hour in the morning. In London or Paris, our dominion rarely
+extends over two or three dreary-looking rooms--a geranium, perhaps,
+at one of the windows to represent the fields and green lanes of the
+country; above, a forest of smoking chimneys vary the monotony of the
+zig-zag roofs; below, a thousand confused noises of waggons, cabs, and
+the hoarse voices of the street criers; probably the lamps are just
+being extinguished, and the dust heaps carted away, filling our rooms,
+and perhaps our eyes, with ashes; the chalk-milk, the air, and the
+odors are scarcely required to fill up the picture.
+
+Breakfast was spread a few paces from Mr. Wolston's bed, whom the two
+young girls were tending with anxious solicitude, and whose sickness
+was almost enviable, so many were the cares lavished upon him.
+
+"You are wrong, Mrs. Becker," said Mrs. Wolston, "to make yourself
+uneasy, the sea has become as smooth as a mirror since their
+departure."
+
+"Ah, yes, I know that, my dear Mrs. Wolston, but when one has already
+undergone the perils of shipwreck, the impression always remains, and
+makes us see storms in a glass of water."
+
+"I am certain," remarked Mr. Wolston, "the cause of their delay is a
+concession made to Willis."
+
+"Very likely he would not consent to return, unless they went as far
+as possible."
+
+"By the way, madam," said Mary, "now that you have got two great girls
+added to your establishment, I hope you are going to make them useful
+in some way--we can sew, knit, and spin."
+
+"And know how to make preserves," added Sophia.
+
+"Yes, and to eat them too," said her mother.
+
+"If you can spin, my dears, we shall find plenty of work for you; we
+have here the Nankin cotton plant, and I intend to dress the whole
+colony with it."
+
+"Delightful!" exclaimed Sophia, clapping her hands; "Nankin dresses
+just as at the boarding-school, with a straw hat and a green veil."
+
+"To be sure, it must be woven first," reflected Mrs. Becker; "but I
+dare say we shall be able to manage that."
+
+"By the way, girls," said Mrs. Wolston, "have you forgotten your
+lessons in tapestry?"
+
+"Not at all, mamma; and now that we think of it, we shall handsomely
+furnish a drawing-room for you."
+
+"But where are the tables and chairs to come from?" inquired Mrs.
+Becker.
+
+"Oh, the gentlemen will see to them."
+
+"And the room, where is that to be?"
+
+"There is the gallery, is there not?"
+
+"And the wool for the carpet?"
+
+"Have you not sheep?"
+
+"That is true, children; you speak as if we had only to go and sit
+down in it."
+
+"The piano, however, I fear will be wanting, unless we can pick up an
+Erard in the neighboring forest."
+
+"True, mamma, all the overtures that we have had so much trouble in
+learning will have to go for nothing."
+
+"But," said Mrs. Becker, "by way of compensation, there is the
+vegetable and fruit garden, the pantry, the kitchen, the dairy, and
+the poultry yard; these are all my charges, and you may have some of
+them if you like."
+
+"Excellent, each shall have her own kingdom and subjects."
+
+"It being understood," suggested Mrs. Wolston, "that you are not to
+eat everything up, should the fruit garden or pantry come under your
+charge."
+
+"That is not fair, mamma; you are making us out to be a couple of
+cannibals."
+
+"You see," continued Mrs. Wolston, "these young people have not the
+slightest objection to my parading their accomplishments, but the
+moment I touch their faults they feel aggrieved."
+
+"I am persuaded," rejoined Mrs. Becker laughing, "that there are no
+calumniators in the world like mothers."
+
+"Therefore, mamma, to punish you we shall come and kiss you."
+
+And accordingly Mrs. Wolston was half stifled under the embraces of
+her two daughters.
+
+"I am certainly not the offender," said Mrs. Becker, "but I should not
+object to receive a portion of the punishment; these great
+boys--pointing to Frank--are too heavy to hang on my neck now; you
+will replace them, my dears, will you not?"
+
+"Most willingly, madam; but not to deprive them of their places in
+your affection."
+
+"In case you should lose that, Master Frank," said Mrs. Wolston, "you
+must have recourse to mine."
+
+"But now, my friends, what do you say to going down to the shore to
+meet the pinnace, and perhaps the _Nelson_?" said Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Sophia; "and I will stay at home to wait upon father."
+
+"No," said Mary; "I am the eldest--that is my right."
+
+"Well, my children, do not quarrel about that," said Wolston; "I feel
+rather better; and I dare say a walk will do me good. Perhaps, when I
+get tired, Frank will lend me his arm."
+
+"Better than that," hastily added Frank; "I shall saddle Blinky; and
+lead him gently, and you will be as comfortable as in an arm-chair."
+
+"What is that you call Blinky?"
+
+"Oh, one of our donkeys."
+
+"Ah, very good; I was afraid you meant one of your ostriches, and I
+candidly admit that my experiences in equitation do not extend to
+riding a winged horse."
+
+"In that case," said Mrs. Becker, "to keep Blinky's brother from being
+jealous, I, shall charge him with a basket of provisions; and we shall
+lay a cloth under the mangoes, so that our ocean knights, as Jack will
+have it, may have something to refresh themselves withal as soon as
+they dismount."
+
+The little caravan was soon on the march; the two dogs cleared the
+way, leaping, bounding, and scampering on before, sniffing the bushes
+with their intelligent noses; then, returning to their master, they
+read in his face what was next to be done. Mary walked by the side of
+Blinky, amusing her father with her prattle. Sophia, with her
+antelope, was gambolling around them, the one rivalling the other in
+the grace of their movements, not only without knowing it, but rather
+because they did not know it. The two mothers were keeping an eye on
+the donkey; whilst Frank, with his rifle charged, was ready to bring
+down a quail or encounter a hyena.
+
+Some hours after the pinnace hove in sight, the voyagers landed, and
+received the warm congratulations of those on shore. When Willis had
+secured the boat, he took a final survey of the coast, penetrating
+with his eyes every creek and crevice.
+
+"Is there no trace of the _Nelson_?" inquired Wolston.
+
+"None!"
+
+"Well, I had all along thought you would find it so; the wind for four
+days has been blowing that it would drive the _Nelson_ to her
+destination. Captain Littlestone, being charged with important
+despatches, having already lost a fortnight here, has, no doubt, taken
+advantage of the gale, and made sail for the Cape, trusting to find us
+all alive here on his return voyage."
+
+"Yes," said the Pilot, "I know very well that you have all good
+hearts, and that you are desirous of giving me all the consolation you
+can."
+
+"Would you not have acted, under similar circumstances, precisely as
+we suppose Captain Littlestone to have done?"
+
+"I admit that the thing, is not only possible, but also that, if
+alive, it is just what he would have done. I trust, if it be so, that
+when he gets into port he will report me keel-hauled?"
+
+"Keel-hauled?"
+
+"Yes, I mean dead. It is a thousand times better to pass for a dead
+man than a deserter."
+
+"The wisest course he could pursue, it appears to me, would be to hold
+his tongue--probably you will not be missed."
+
+"Ah! you think that her Majesty's blue jackets can disappear in that
+way, like musk-rats? But no such thing. When the captain in command at
+the station hails on board, every man and boy of the crew, from the
+powder-monkey to the first-lieutenant, are mustered in pipe-clay on
+the quarter-deck, and there, with the ship's commission in his hand,
+every one must report himself as he calls over the names.
+
+"Then the captain will tell the simple truth."
+
+"Well, you see, truth has nothing at all to do with the rules of the
+service, the questions printed in the orderly-book only will be asked,
+and he may not have an opportunity of stating the facts of the case;
+besides, discipline on board a ship in commission could not be
+maintained if irregularities could be patched up by a few words from
+the captain. When it is found that I had been left on shore, the
+questions will be, 'Was the _Nelson_ in want of repairs?' 'No.' 'Did
+she require water?' 'No.' 'Provisions?' 'No.' 'Then Willis has
+deserted?' 'Yes.' And his condemnation will follow as a matter of
+course."
+
+"In that case, the Captain would be more to blame than you are."
+
+"So he would, and it is for that reason I hope he will be able to show
+by the log that I was seized with cholera, tied up in a sack, and duly
+thrown overboard with a four-pound shot for ballast."
+
+"I cannot conceive," said Becker, "that the discipline of any service
+can be so cruelly unreasonable as you would have us believe."
+
+"No, perhaps you think that just before the anchor is heaved, and the
+ship about to start on a long voyage, the cabin boys are asked whether
+they have the colic--that lubbers, who wish to back out have only to
+say the word, and they are free--that the pilot may go a-hunting if he
+likes, and that the officers may stay on shore and amuse themselves in
+defiance of the rules of the service? In that case the navy would be
+rather jolly, but not much worth."
+
+When Willis was once fairly started there was no stopping him.
+
+"Dead," he continued; "that is to say, without a berth, pay, or even a
+name, nothing! My wife will have the right to marry again, my little
+Susan will have another father, and I shall only be able to breathe by
+stealth, and to consider that as more than I deserve. You must admit
+that all this is rather a poor look-out a-head."
+
+"Really, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "you seem to take a pride in
+making things worse than they are, conjuring up phantoms that have no
+existence."
+
+"It is true, madam. I may be going upon a wrong tack. Judging from all
+appearances, the sloop, instead of being on her way to the Cape, is
+tranquilly reposing at the bottom of the sea. But it is only death for
+death; hanged by a court-martial or drowned with the sloop, it comes,
+in the end, to the same thing."
+
+"I dare say, Willis, had there really been an accident, and you had
+been on board, you would not have felt yourself entitled to escape?"
+
+"Certainly not, madam; unless the crew could be saved, it would look
+anything but well for the pilot to escape alone."
+
+Willis, however, to do him justice, seemed trying to smother his
+grief; and, in the meanwhile, the two girls had been spreading a pure
+white cloth on a neighboring rock, cutting fruit plates out of the
+thick mangoe leaves, cooling the Rockhouse malaga in the brook, and
+giving to the repast an air of elegance and refinement which had the
+effect of augmenting the appetite of the company. The viands were not
+better than they had been on many similar occasions, but they were now
+more artistically displayed, and consequently more inviting.
+
+Who has not remarked, in passing through a street of dingy-looking
+houses, one of them distinguished from the others by its fresh and
+cheerful aspect, the windows garnished with a luxuriant screen of
+flowers, with curtains on either side of snowy whiteness and elaborate
+workmanship? Very likely the passer-by has asked himself, Why is this
+house not as neglected, tattered, and dirty as its wretched neighbors?
+The answer is simple; there dwells in this house a young girl, blithe,
+frolicsome, and joyous, singing with the lark, and, like a butterfly,
+floating from her book to her work-box--from her mother's cheek to her
+father's, leaving an impress of her youthfulness and purity on
+whatever she touches.
+
+For a like reason the _al fresco_ dinner of this day had a charm that
+no such feast had been observed to possess before.
+
+"We are not presentable," said Fritz, referring to his seal-gut
+uniform.
+
+"Ah," replied Mrs. Wolston, "it is your costume of war, brave knights;
+and, for my part, I admire you more in it than in the livery of Hyde
+Park or Bond Street."
+
+"In that case," said Ernest, "we shall do as they do in China."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Well, the most profound remark of respect a host can pay to his
+guests, is to go and dress after dinner."
+
+"Just when they are about to leave?"
+
+"Exactly so, madam."
+
+"That is very decidedly a Chinese observance. Are they not somewhat
+behind in cookery?"
+
+"By no means, madam; on the contrary, they have attained a very high
+degree of perfection in that branch of the arts. It is customary, at
+every ceremonious dinner, to serve up fifty-two distinct dishes. And
+when that course is cleared off, what do you think is produced next?"
+
+"The dessert, I suppose."
+
+"Eight kinds of soup, never either one more or one less. If the number
+were deficient, the guests would consider themselves grossly insulted,
+the number of dishes denoting the degree of respect entertained by the
+host for his guests."
+
+"I beg, Mrs. Wolston," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "that you will not
+estimate our esteem for you by the dinner we offer you."
+
+"Well," replied Mrs. Wolston in the same tone, "let me see; to be
+treated as we ought to be, there are fifty-seven dishes wanting,
+therefore we must go and dine at home. John, call my carriage."
+
+At this sally they all laughed heartily, and even Willis chimed in
+with the general hilarity.
+
+"Then, after the soups," continued Ernest, "comes the tea, and with
+that the dessert, as also sixty square pieces of silver paper to wipe
+the mouth. It is then that the host vanishes, to reappear in a
+brilliant robe of gold brocade and a vest of satin."
+
+"These people ought all to perish of indigestion."
+
+"No; they are moderate eaters, their dishes consist of small saucers,
+each containing only a few mouthfuls of meat, and, as for Europeans,
+the want of forks and spoons--"
+
+"What! have they no forks?"
+
+"Not at table--nor knives either; but, on the other hand, they are
+exceedingly expert in the use of two slender sticks of ivory, which
+they hold in the first three fingers of the right hand, and with which
+they manage to convey solids, and even liquids, to their mouths."
+
+"Ah! I see," said Jack; "the Europeans would be obliged, like Mrs.
+Wolston, to call their carriage, in spite of the fifty-two saucers of
+meat: it puts me in mind of the stork inviting the fox to dine with
+her out of a long-necked jar."
+
+"We are apt to judge the Chinese by the pictures seen of them on their
+own porcelain, and copied upon our pottery," said Becker; "but this
+conveys only a ludicrous idea of them. They are the most industrious,
+but at the same time the vainest, most stupid, and most credulous
+people in the world; they worship the moon, fire, fortune, and a
+thousand other things; people go about amongst them selling wind,
+which they dispose of in vials of various sizes."
+
+"That is a trade that will not require an extraordinary amount of
+capital."
+
+"True; and besides, as they carry on their trade in the open air, they
+have no rent to pay."
+
+"Their bonzes or priests," continued Becker, "to excite charity,
+perambulate the streets in chains, sometimes with some inflammable
+matter burning on their heads, whilst, instead of attempting to purify
+the souls of dying sinners, they put rice and gold in their mouths
+when the vital spark has fled. They have a very cruel mode of
+punishing renegade Lamas: these are pierced through the neck with a
+red-hot iron."
+
+"What is a Lama, father?"
+
+"It is a designation of the Tartar priests."
+
+For some time Willis had been closely examining a particular point in
+the bay with increasing anxiety; at last he ran towards the shore and
+leapt into the sea. Becker and his four sons were on the point of
+starting off in pursuit of him.
+
+"Stop," said Wolston, "I have been watching Willis's movements for the
+last ten minutes, and I guess his purpose--let him alone."
+
+Willis swam to some object that was floating on the water, and
+returned in about a quarter of an hour, bringing with him a plank.
+
+"Well," he inquired, on landing, "was I wrong?"
+
+"Wrong about what?" inquired Wolston.
+
+"The _Nelson_ is gone."
+
+"The proof, Willis."
+
+"That plank."
+
+"Well, what about the plank?"
+
+"I recognise it."
+
+"How, Willis?"
+
+"How! Well," replied the obstinate pilot, "fish don't breed planks,
+and--and--I scarcely think this one could escape from a dockyard, and
+float here of its own accord."
+
+"Then, Willis, according to you, there are no ships but the _Nelson_,
+no ships wrecked but the _Nelson_, and no planks but the _Nelson's_.
+Willis, you are a fool."
+
+"Every one has his own ideas, Mr. Wolston."
+
+Towards evening, when they were on their way back to Rockhouse, Sophia
+confidentially called Willis aside, and he cheerfully obeyed the
+summons.
+
+"Pilot," said she, "I have made up my mind about one thing."
+
+"And what is that, Miss Sophia?"
+
+"Why, this--in future, when we are alone, as just now, you must call
+me Susan, as you used to call your own little girl when at home, not
+Miss Susan."
+
+"Oh, I cannot do that, Miss Sophia."
+
+"But I insist upon it."
+
+"Well, Miss Sophia, I will try."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Miss Sus--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Susan, I mean."
+
+"There now, that will do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ALLOTMENT OF QUARTERS--A HORSE MARINE--TRAVELLING PLANTS--CHANGE OF
+DYNASTY IN ENGLAND--A WOMAN'S KINGDOM--SHEEP CONVERTED INTO
+CHOPS--RESURRECTION OF THE FRIED FISH--A SECRET.
+
+
+After some days more of anxious but fruitless expectation, it was
+finally concluded that either the _Nelson_ had sailed for the Cape,
+or, as Willis would have it, she had gone to that unexplored and dread
+land where there were neither poles nor equator, and whence no mariner
+was ever known to return. It was necessary, therefore, to make
+arrangements for the surplus population of the colony--whether for a
+time or for ever, it was then impossible to say. At first sight, it
+might appear easy enough to provide accommodation for the eleven
+individuals that constituted the colony of New Switzerland. It is true
+that land might have been marked off, and each person made sovereign
+over a territory as large as some European kingdoms; but these
+sovereignties would have resembled the republic of St. Martin--there
+would have been no subjects. What, then, would they have governed? it
+may be asked. Themselves, might be answered; and it is said to be a
+far more difficult task to govern ourselves than to rule others.
+
+Though space was ample enough as regards the colony in general, it was
+somewhat limited as regards detail. To live _pele-mele_ in Rockhouse
+was entirely out of the question. Independently of accommodation, a
+thousand reasons of propriety opposed such an arrangement. Whether or
+not there might be another cave in the neighborhood, hollowed out by
+Nature, was not known; if there were, it had still to be discovered.
+Chance would not be chance, if it were undeviating and certain in its
+operations. To consign the Wolstons to Falcon's Nest or Prospect
+Hill, and leave them there alone, even though under the protection of
+Willis, could not be thought of; they knew nothing of the dangers that
+would surround them, and as yet they were ignorant of the topography
+of the island. It was, therefore, requisite that both families should
+continue in proximity, so as to aid each other in moments of peril,
+but without, at the same time, outraging propriety, or shackling
+individual freedom of action. Under ordinary circumstances, these
+difficulties might have been solved by taking apartments on the
+opposite side of the street, or renting a house next door. But, alas!
+the blessings of landlords and poor-rates had not yet been bestowed on
+the island.
+
+One day after dinner, when these points were under consideration,
+Willis, who was accustomed to disappear after each meal, no one knew
+why or whereto, came and took his place amongst them under the
+gallery.
+
+"As for myself," said the Pilot, "I do not wish to live anywhere.
+Since I am in your house, Mr. Becker, and cannot get away honestly for
+a quarter of an hour, I must of course remain; but as for becoming a
+mere dependant on your bounty, that I will not suffer."
+
+"What you say there is not very complimentary to me," said Mr.
+Wolston.
+
+"Your position, Mr. Wolston, is a very different thing: besides, you
+are an invalid and require attention, whilst I am strong and healthy,
+for which I ought to be thankful."
+
+"You are not in my house," replied Becker "any more than I am in
+yours; the place we are in is a shelter provided by Providence for us
+all, and I venture to suppose that such a host is rich enough to
+supply all our wants. I am only the humble instrument distributing the
+gifts that have been so lavishly bestowed on this island."
+
+"What you say is very kind and very generous," added Willis, "but I
+mean to provide for myself--that is my idea."
+
+"And not a bad one either," continued Becker; "but how? You are
+welcome here to do the work for four--if you like; and then, supposing
+you eat for two, I will be your debtor, not you mine."
+
+"Work! and at what? walking about with a rifle on my shoulder; airing
+myself, as I am doing now under your gallery, in the midst of flowers,
+on the banks of a river: or opening my mouth for quails to jump down
+my throat ready roasted--would you call that work?"
+
+"Look there, Willis--what do you see?"
+
+"A bear-skin."
+
+"Well, suppose, by way of a beginning, I were to introduce you to a
+fine live bear, with claws and tusks to match, ready to spring on you,
+having as much right to your skin as you have to his--now, were I to
+say to you, I want that animal's skin, to make a soft couch similar to
+the one you see yonder, would you call that work?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Very good, then; it is in the midst of such labors that we pass our
+lives. Before we fell comfortably asleep on feather beds, those
+formidable bones which you see in our museum were flying in the air;
+the cup which I now hold in my hand was a portion of the clay on which
+you sit; the canoe with which you ran away the other day was a live
+seal; the hats that we wear, were running about the fields in the form
+of angola rabbits. So with everything you see about you; for fifteen
+years, excepting the Sabbath, which is our day of rest and recreation
+as well as prayer, we have never relapsed from labor, and you are at
+liberty to adopt a similar course, if you feel so disposed."
+
+"No want of variety," said Jack; "if you do not like the saw-pit, you
+can have the tannery."
+
+"Neither are very much in my line," replied Willis.
+
+"What then do you say to pottery?"
+
+"I have broken a good deal in my day."
+
+"Yes, but there is a difference between breaking it and making it."
+
+"What appears most needful," remarked Fritz, "is, three or four acres
+of fresh land, to double our agricultural produce."
+
+"Is land dear in these parts?" inquired Mrs. Wolston, smiling.
+
+"It is not to be had for nothing, madam; there is the trouble of
+selecting it."
+
+"And the labor of rendering it productive," added Ernest.
+
+"But how do you manage for a lawyer to convey it?"
+
+"I was advising Ernest to adopt that profession," said Mrs. Becker;
+"wills and contracts would be in harmony with his studious
+temperament."
+
+"At present, the question before us," said Becker, "is the allotment
+of quarters; in the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, with the young
+ladies, will continue to occupy our room."
+
+"No, no," said Wolston "that would be downright expropriation."
+
+"In that case the matter comes within the sphere of our lawyer, and I
+therefore request his advice."
+
+To this Ernest replied, by slowly examining his pockets; after this
+operation was deliberately performed, he said, in a _nisi prius_ tone,
+"That he had forgotten his spectacles, and consequently that it was
+impossible for him to look into the case in the way its importance
+demanded, otherwise he was quite of the same opinion as his learned
+brother--his father, he meant."
+
+"And what if we refuse?" said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"If you refuse, Mrs. Wolston, there is only one other course to
+adopt."
+
+"And what is that, Master Frank?"
+
+"Why, simply this," and rising, he cried out lustily, "John, call Mrs.
+Wolston's carriage."
+
+"Ah, to such an argument as that, there can be no reply; so I see you
+must be permitted to do what you like with us."
+
+"Very good," continued Becker; "then there is one point decided: my
+wife and I will occupy the children's apartment."
+
+"And the children," said Jack, "will occupy the open air. For my own
+part, I have no objection: that is a bedroom exactly to my taste."
+
+"Spacious," remarked Ernest.
+
+"Well-aired," suggested Fritz.
+
+"Hangings of blue, inlaid with stars of gold," observed Frank.
+
+"Any thing else?" inquired Becker.
+
+"No, father, I believe the extent of accommodation does not go beyond
+that."
+
+"Therefore I have decided upon something less vast, but more
+comfortable for you; you will go every night to our _villa_ of
+Falcon's Nest."
+
+"On foot?"
+
+"On horseback, if you like and under the direction of Willis, whom I
+name commander-in-chief of the cavalry."
+
+"Of the cavalry!" cried the sailor; "what! a pilot on horseback?"
+
+"Do not be uneasy, Willis," replied Jack, "we have no horses."
+
+"Ah, well, that alters the case."
+
+"But then we have zebras and ostriches."
+
+"Ostriches! worse and worse."
+
+"Say not so, good Willis; when once you have tried Lightfoot or
+Flyaway, you would never wish to travel otherwise: they run so fast
+that the wind is fairly distanced, and scarcely give us time to
+breathe--it is delightful."
+
+"Thank you, but I would rather try and get the canoe to travel on
+land."
+
+"Ah, Willis," said Fritz, "that would be an achievement that would do
+you infinite credit--if you only succeed."
+
+"Will you allow me to make a request, Mrs. Becker?"
+
+"Listen to Willis," said Jack, "he has an idea."
+
+"The request I have to urge is, that you will permit me to encamp on
+Shark's Island, and there establish a lighthouse for the guidance of
+the _Nelson_, in case she should return."
+
+"What! the commander-in-chief of cavalry on an island?"
+
+"No, not of the cavalry, but of the fleet; it is only necessary for
+Mr. Becker to change my position into that of an admiral, which will
+not give him much extra trouble."
+
+"I shall do so with pleasure, Willis."
+
+"In that case, since I am an admiral, the first thing I shall do, is
+to pardon myself for the faults I committed whilst I was a pilot."
+
+"Capital!" said Ernest, "that puts me in mind of Louis XII., who, on
+ascending the throne, said that it was not for the King of France to
+revenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans."
+
+"What, then, is to become of the boys? I intended to make you their
+compass--on land, of course."
+
+"The boys," cried the latter, "are willing to enlist as seamen, and
+accompany the admiral on his cruise."
+
+"You will spin yarns for us, Willis, will you not?"
+
+"Well, my lads, if you want a sleeping dose, I will undertake to do
+that."
+
+"But there are objections to this arrangement," Mrs. Becker hastily
+added.
+
+"What are they, mother?"
+
+"In the first place, a storm might arise some fine night--one of those
+dreadful hurricanes that continue several days, like the one that
+terrified us so much lately--and then all communication would be cut
+off between us."
+
+"You could always see one another."
+
+"How so, Willis?"
+
+"From a distance--with the telescope."
+
+"Then," continued Mrs. Becker, "you would be a prey to famine, for
+though the telescope, good Master Willis, might enable you to see our
+dinner--from a distance--I doubt whether that would prevent you dying
+of starvation."
+
+"We might easily guard against that, by taking over a sufficient
+quantity of provisions with us every night, and bringing them back
+next morning."
+
+"But could you carry over my kisses, Willis, and distribute them
+amongst my children every morning and evening, like rations of rice?"
+
+"If the arrangement will really make you uneasy, Mrs. Becker, I give
+it up," said Willis, polishing with his arm the surface of his
+oil-skin sou'-wester.
+
+"Not at all, Willis. It is for me to give up my objections. Besides, I
+observe Miss Sophia staring at me with her great eyes; she will never
+forgive me for tormenting her sweetheart."
+
+"Ah! since I have been staring at you, I have only now to eat you up
+like the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood," and in a moment her slender
+arms were clasped round Mrs. Becker's neck.
+
+"Good," said Becker, "there is another point settled--temporarily."
+
+"In Europe," observed Wolston, "there is nothing so durable as the
+temporary."
+
+"In Europe, yes, but not here. To-morrow morning we shall select a
+tree near Falcon's Nest, and in eight days you shall be permanently
+housed in an aerial tenement close to ours, so that we may chat to
+each other from our respective balconies."
+
+"That will be a castle in the air a little more real than those I have
+built in Spain."
+
+"Then you have been in Spain, papa?"
+
+"Every one has been less or more in the Spain I refer to. Sophy--it is
+the land of dreams."
+
+"And of castanets," remarked Jack.
+
+"Then my sweetheart will be alone on his island, like an exile?"
+
+"No, Miss Sophia, we are incapable of such ingratitude. After enjoying
+the hospitality of Willis in Shark's Island, he will surely deign to
+accept ours at Falcon's Nest; so, whether here or there, he shall
+always have four devoted followers to keep him company."
+
+The Pilot shook Fritz by the hand, at the same time nearly dislocating
+his arm.
+
+"I wonder why God, who is so good, has not made houses grow of
+themselves, like pumpkins and melons?" said Ernest.
+
+"Rather a lazy idea that," said his father; "our great Parent has
+clearly designed that we should do something for ourselves; he has
+given us the acorn whence we may obtain the oak."
+
+"Nevertheless, there are uninhabited countries which are gorged with
+vegetation--the territory we are in, for example."
+
+"True; but still no plant has ever sprung up anywhere without a seed
+has been planted, either by the will of God or by the hands of man.
+With regard, however, to the distribution of vegetation in a natural
+state, that depends more upon the soil and climate than anything else;
+wherever there is a fertile soil and moist air, there seeds will find
+their way."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"The seeds of a great many plants are furnished with downy filaments,
+which act as wings; these are taken up by the wind and carried immense
+distances; others are inclosed in an elastic shell, from which, when
+ripe, they are ejected with considerable force."
+
+"The propagation of plants that have wings or elastic shells may, in
+that way, be accounted for; but there are some seeds that fall, by
+their own weight, exactly at the foot of the vegetable kingdom that
+produces them."
+
+"It is often these that make the longest voyages."
+
+"By what conveyance, then?"
+
+"Well, my son, for a philosopher, I cannot say that your knowledge is
+very profound; seeds that have no wings borrow them."
+
+"Not from the ant, I presume?"
+
+"No, not exactly; but from the quail, the woodcock, the swallow, and a
+thousand others, that are apparently more generous than the poor ant,
+to which AEsop has given a reputation for avarice that it will have
+some trouble to shake off. The birds swallow the seeds, many of which
+are covered with a hard, horny skin, that often resists digestion;
+these are carried by the inhabitants of the air across rivers, seas,
+and lakes, and are deposited by them in the neighborhood of their
+nests--it may be on the top of a mountain, or in the crevice of a
+rock."
+
+"True, I never thought of that."
+
+"There are a great many philosophers who know more about the motions
+of stars than these humbler operations of Nature."
+
+"You are caught there," said Jack.
+
+"There are philosophers, too, who can do nothing but ridicule the
+knowledge of others."
+
+"Caught you there," retaliated Ernest.
+
+"It was in this way that a bird of the Moluccas has restored the clove
+tree to the islands of this archipelago, in spite of the Dutch, who
+destroyed them everywhere, in order that they might enjoy the monopoly
+of the trade."
+
+"Still, I must fall back upon my original idea; by sowing a brick, we
+ought to reap a wall."
+
+"And if a wall, a house," suggested another of the young men.
+
+"Or if a turret, a castle," proposed a third.
+
+"Or a hall to produce a palace," remarked the fourth.
+
+"There are four wishes worthy of the four heads that produced them!
+What do you think of those four great boys, Mrs. Wolston?"
+
+"Well, madam, as they are wishing, at any rate they may as well wish
+that chinchillas and marmots wore their fur in the form of boas and
+muffs, that turkeys produced perigord pies, and that the fish were
+drawn out of the sea ready roasted or boiled."
+
+"Or that the sheep walked about in the form of nicely grilled chops,"
+suggested Becker.
+
+"And you, young ladies, what would you wish?"
+
+Mary, who was now beyond the age of dolls, and was fast approaching
+the period of young womanhood, felt that it was a duty incumbent upon
+her to be more reserved than her sister, and rarely took part in the
+conversation, unless she was directly addressed, ceased plying her
+needle, and replied, smiling,
+
+"I wish I could make some potent elixir in the same way as gooseberry
+wine, that would restore sick people to health, then I would give a
+few drops to my father, and make him strong and well, as he used to
+be."
+
+"Thank you for the intention, my dear child."
+
+"And you, Miss Sophia? It is your turn."
+
+"I wish that all the little children were collected together, and that
+every papa and mamma could pick out their own from amongst them."
+
+Here Willis took out his pocket-handkerchief and appeared to be
+blowing his nose, it being an idea of his that a sailor ought not to
+be caught with a tear in his eye.
+
+"Now then, Willis, we must have a wish from you."
+
+"I wish three things: that there had not been a hurricane lately, that
+canoes could be converted into three masters, and that Miss Sophia may
+be Queen of England."
+
+"Granted," cried Jack.
+
+And laying hold of a wreath of violets that the young girl had been
+braiding, he solemnly placed it on her head.
+
+"You will make her too vain," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Ah mamma, do not scold," and gracefully taking the crown from her own
+fair curls, she placed it on the silvery locks of her mother; "I
+abdicate in your favor, and, sweetheart, I thank you for placing our
+dynasty on the throne. Mary, you are a princess."
+
+"Yes," she replied, "and here is my sceptre," holding up her spindle.
+
+"Well answered, my daughter, that is a woman's best sceptre, and her
+kingdom is her house."
+
+"Our conversation," said Becker, "is like those small threads of water
+which, flowing humbly from the hollow of a rock, swell into brooks,
+then become rivers, and, finally, lose themselves in the ocean."
+
+"It was Ernest that led us on."
+
+"Well, it is time now to get back to your starting-point again. God
+has said that we shall earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, and
+consequently that our enjoyments should be the result of our own
+industry; that is the reason that venison is given to us in the form
+of the swift stag, and palaces in the form of clay; man is endowed
+with reason, and may, by labor, convert all these blessings to his
+use."
+
+"Your notion," said Mr. Wolston, "of drawing the fish out of the sea
+ready cooked, puts me in mind of an incident of college life which,
+with your permission, I will relate."
+
+"Oh yes, papa, a story!"
+
+"There was at Cambridge, when I was there, a young man, who, instead
+of study and sleep, spent his days and nights in pistol practice and
+playing on the French horn, much to the annoyance of an elderly maiden
+lady, who occupied the apartments that were immediately under his
+own."
+
+"These are inconveniences that need not be dreaded here."
+
+"Our police are too strict."
+
+"And our young men too well-bred," added Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Not only that," continued Mr. Wolston, "this young student, who never
+thought of study, had a huge, shaggy Newfoundland dog, and the old
+lady possessed a chubby little pug, which she was intensely fond of;
+now, when these two brutes happened to meet on the stairs, the large
+one, by some accident or other, invariably sent the little one rolling
+head over heels to the bottom; and, much to the horror of the old
+lady, her favorite, that commenced its journey down stairs with four
+legs, had sometimes to make its way up again with three."
+
+"I always understood that dogs were generous animals, and would not
+take advantage of an animal weaker than themselves; our dogs would not
+have acted so."
+
+"Well, perhaps the dog was not quite so much to blame in these affairs
+as its master; besides, in making advances to its little friend, it
+might not have calculated its own force."
+
+"Yes, and perhaps might have been sorry afterwards for the mischief it
+had done."
+
+"Very likely; still the point was never clearly explained, and,
+whether or no, the elderly lady could not put up with this sort of
+thing any longer; she complained so often and so vigorously, that her
+troublesome neighbor was served in due form with a notice to quit. The
+young scapegrace was determined to be revenged in some way on the
+party who was the cause of his being so summarily ejected from his
+quarters. Now, right under his window there was a globe belonging to
+the old lady, well filled with good-sized gold fish. His eye by chance
+having fallen upon this, and spying at the same time his fishing-rod
+in a corner, the coincidence of vision was fatal to the gold-fish;
+they were very soon hooked up, rolled in flour, fried, and gently let
+down again one by one into the globe."
+
+"I should like to have seen the old lady when she first became aware
+of this transformation!"
+
+"Well, one of the fish had escaped, and was floating about, evidently
+lamenting the fate of its finny companions."
+
+"It was very cruel," observed Mary.
+
+"Elderly ladies who have no family and live alone are very apt to
+bestow upon animals the love and affection that is inherent in us
+all."
+
+"Which is very much to be deprecated."
+
+"Why so, Master Frank?"
+
+"Are there not always plenty of poor and helpless human beings upon
+whom to bestow their love? are there not orphans and homeless
+creatures whom they might adopt?"
+
+"There are; but it requires wealth for such benevolences, and the
+goddess Fortune is very capricious; whilst one must be very poor
+indeed that cannot spare a few crumbs of bread once a day. Besides,
+admitting that this mania is blamable when carried to excess, still it
+must be respected, for it behoves us to reverence age even in its
+foibles."
+
+Frank, whose nature was so very susceptible, that a single grain of
+good seed soon ripened into a complete virtue, bent his head in token
+of acquiescence.
+
+"Now the old lady loved these gold-fish as the apples of her eyes, and
+her astonishment and grief, in beholding the state they were in, was
+indescribable."
+
+"And yet it was a loss that might have been easily repaired."
+
+"Ah, you think so, Jack, do you? If you were to lose Knips, would the
+first monkey that came in your way replace him in your affections?"
+
+"That is a very different thing--I brought Knips up."
+
+"No; it is precisely the same thing. She had the fish when they were
+very small, had seen them grow, spoke to them, gave each of them a
+name, and believed them to be endowed with a supernatural
+intelligence."
+
+"Therefore, I contend the student was a savage."
+
+"Not he, my friend, he was one of the best-hearted fellows in the
+world: hasty, ardent, inconsiderate, he resisted commands and threats,
+but yielded readily to a tear or a prayer. As soon as he saw the
+sorrowful look of the old woman, he regretted what he had done, and
+undertook to restore the inhabitants of the globe to life."
+
+"With what sort of magic wand did he propose to do that?"
+
+"All the inhabitants of the house had collected round the old lady and
+her globe, endeavoring to console her, and at the same time trying to
+account for the phenomenon; some ascribed the transformation to
+lightning, others went so far as to suggest witchcraft. Our scapegrace
+now joined the throng, took the globe in his hands, gravely examined
+his victims, and declared, with the utmost coolness that they were not
+dead. 'Not dead, sir! are you sure?' 'Confident, madam; it is only a
+lethargy, a kind of coma or temporary transformation, that will be
+gradually shaken off; I have seen many cases of the same kind, and, if
+proper care be taken as to air, repose, and diet, particularly as
+regards the latter, your fish will be quite well again to-morrow.'"
+
+"Did she believe that?"
+
+"One readily believes what one wishes to be true; besides, in
+twenty-four hours, all doubt on the subject would be at an end; added
+to which, the young man was ostensibly a student of medicine, and had
+the credit in the house of having cured the washerwoman's canary of a
+sore throat."
+
+"Well, how did he manage about the fish?"
+
+"Very simply; he went and bought some exactly the same size that were
+not in a lethargy; he then, at the risk of breaking his neck or being
+taken for a burglar, scaled the balcony, and substituted them for the
+defunct. Next morning, when he called to inquire after his patients,
+he found the old lady quite joyful."
+
+"Had she no doubts as to their identity?"
+
+"Well, one was a little paler and another was a trifle thinner, but
+she was easily persuaded that this difference might arise from their
+convalescence. The young man immediately became a great favorite; and
+the old lady would rather have shared her own apartments with him,
+than allow him to quit the house; he consequently remained."
+
+"What, then, became of the pistols and the French horn?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"From that time on there sprung up a close friendship between the two;
+he was induced by her to convert his weapons of war into
+pharmacopoeas. Always, when she made some nice compound of jelly and
+cream, he had a share of it; he, on his side, scarcely ever passed her
+door without softening his tread; and both himself and his dog
+managed, eventually, to acquire the favor of the old lady's pug."
+
+"He appears to have been one of those medical gentlemen WHO profess to
+cure every conceivable disease by one kind of medicine."
+
+"And who generally contrive to remove both the disease and the patient
+at the same time."
+
+"You mistake the individual altogether; he is now one of the most
+esteemed physicians in London, remarkable alike for his skill and
+benevolence. It is even strongly suspected by his friends that he is
+not a little indebted for his present eminent position to his first
+patients--the canary and the gold-fish."
+
+It was now the usual hour for retiring to rest. After the evening
+prayer, which Mary and Sophia said alternately aloud, Willis and the
+four brothers prepared to start for Shark's Island, to pass their
+first night in the store-room and cattle-shed that had been erected
+there. Of course they could not expect to be so comfortable in such
+quarters as at Rockhouse or Falcon's Nest; but then novelty is to
+young people what ease is to the aged. Black bread appears delicious
+to those who habitually eat white; and we ourselves have seen
+high-bred ladies delighted when they found themselves compelled to
+dine in a wretched hovel of the Tyrol--true, they were certain of a
+luxurious supper at Inspruck. So grief breaks the monotony of joy,
+just as a rock gives repose to level plain.
+
+Whilst the pinnace was gradually leaving the shore, loaded with
+mattresses and other movables adapted for a temporary encampment,
+Jack signalled a parting adieu to Sophia, and, putting his fingers to
+his lips, seemed to enjoin silence.
+
+"All right, Master Jack," cried she.
+
+"What is all this signalling about?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"A secret," said the young girl, leaping with joy; "I have a secret!"
+
+"And with a young man? that is very naughty, miss."
+
+"Oh, mamma, you will know it to-morrow."
+
+"What if I wanted to know it to-night?"
+
+"Then, mamma, if you insisted--that is--absolutely--"
+
+"No, no, child, I shall wait till to-morrow; keep it till then--if you
+can."
+
+"Sophia dear," said Mary to her sister, when their two heads,
+enveloped in snowy caps with an embroidered fringe, were reclining
+together on the same pillow, "you know I have always shared my
+_bon-bons_ with you."
+
+"Yes, sister."
+
+"In that case, make me a partner in your secret."
+
+"Will you promise not to speak of it?"
+
+"Yes, I promise."
+
+"To no one?"
+
+"To no one."
+
+"Not even to the paroquette Fritz gave you?"
+
+"No, not even to my paroquette."
+
+"Well, it is very likely I shall speak about it in my dreams--you
+listen and find it out."
+
+"Slyboots!"
+
+"Curiosity!"
+
+Like those delicate flowers that shrink when they are touched, each
+then turned to her own side; but it would have cost both too much not
+to have fallen asleep as usual, with their arms round each other's
+necks;--consequently this tiff soon blew over, and, after a prolonged
+chat, their lips finally joined in the concluding "Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE QUEEN'S DOLL--ROCKHOUSE TO FALCON'S NEST--THE
+WIND--GLASSES--ADMIRAL HOMER--THE THREE FROGS--OAT JELLY--ESQUIMAUX
+ASTRONOMY--AN UNKNOWN.
+
+
+Next morning, Sophia came running in with a sealed letter in her hand,
+which she opened and read as follows:--
+
+    "HEAD QUARTERS, SAFETY BAY, DAYBREAK.
+
+    "The Admiral commanding the Fleet stationed in Safety Bay to her
+    Most gracious Majesty Sophia, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
+
+    "May it please your Majesty,
+
+    "The crews of your Majesty's yachts, the _Elizabeth_ and the
+    _Morse_, are quite entire and in perfect health. The enemy having
+    kept at a respectful distance, we have not had as yet an
+    opportunity of proving our courage and devotion. Mr. Midshipman
+    Jack fell asleep on the carriage of a four-pounder, like Marshal
+    Turenne before his first battle; but, in all other respects, the
+    conduct of the officers has been most exemplary, and merits the
+    utmost commendation.
+
+    "It is the admiral's intention to push out a reconnaissance
+    towards the east, in the direction of Pearl Bay, which he has not
+    yet explored. If, however, your Majesty should regard this
+    expedition as likely to interfere with the good understanding that
+    subsists between that government and your own, it will be only
+    necessary to fire a gun, in which case we shall return to port.
+    Under other circumstances, the squadron will proceed with the
+    enterprise, and endeavor to obtain a collar for your Majesty's
+    doll."
+
+"For my doll!" exclaimed Sophia angrily; "when did Jack find out that
+I had a doll?"
+
+"Is that, then, your secret?" inquired her mother.
+
+"Yes, mamma, Master Jack took a pigeon with him for the express
+purpose of playing me this trick."
+
+"And what is worse, included yourself in the conspiracy. Dreadful!"
+
+"Is it not--to speak of a young person of thirteen's doll?"
+
+"Say nearer fourteen, my dear."
+
+"Therefore, to punish your confederates, I shall fire a gun, and put a
+stop to their excursion," said Becker, turning to one of the
+six-pounders that flanked Rockhouse in the direction of the river.
+
+"Clemency being one of the dearest rights of the royal prerogative,"
+replied Sophia, "I shall pardon them, and I pray you not; to throw any
+obstacle in the way of their expedition."
+
+"Very good, your Majesty; but there are state reasons which should be
+allowed to overrule the impulses of your heart; those gentlemen have
+forgotten that we were to go and lay the first stone, or rather to
+cut, to-day, the first branch of your aerial residence at Falcon's
+Nest."
+
+Admiral Willis and his officers having obeyed the preconcerted signal,
+the whole party started on their land enterprise. One of the young men
+was harnessed to a sledge, containing saws, hatchets, a bamboo ladder
+that had formerly done duty as a staircase to the Nest, and everything
+else requisite for the contemplated project.
+
+Jack had already started when Sophia called him back, and he hastily
+obeyed the summons.
+
+"What are your Majesty's commands?"
+
+"Oh, nothing particular, only should you meet my doll in company with
+your go-cart, be pleased to pay my respects to them." Saying this, she
+made a low curtsy, and turned her back upon him.
+
+"Your Majesty's behests shall be obeyed," said Jack, and he ran off to
+rejoin the caravan.
+
+The sad ravages of the tempest presented themselves as they proceeded;
+tall chestnuts lay stretched on the ground, and seemed, by their
+appearance, to have struggled hard with the storm.
+
+"After all," inquired Frank, "what is the wind?"
+
+"Wind is nothing more than air rushing in masses from one point to
+another."
+
+"And what causes this commotion in the elements?"
+
+"The equilibrium of the atmosphere is disturbed by a variety of
+actions;--the diurnal motion of the sun, whose rays penetrate the air
+at various points; absorption and radiation, which varies according to
+the nature of the soil and the hour of the day; the inequality of the
+solar heat, according to seasons and latitude; the formation and
+condensation of vapor, that absorbs caloric in its formation, and
+disengages it when being resolved into liquid."
+
+"I never thought," remarked Willis, "that there were so many mysteries
+in a sou'-easter. Does it blow? is it on the starboard or larboard?
+was all, in fact, that I cared about knowing."
+
+"In a word, the various circumstances that change the actual density
+of the air, making it more rarefied at one point than another, produce
+currents, the force and direction of which depend upon the relative
+position of hot and cold atmospheric beds. Again, the winds acquire
+the temperature and characteristics of the regions they traverse."
+
+"That," observed Frank, "is like human beings; you may generally
+judge, by the language and manners of a man, the places that he is
+accustomed to frequent."
+
+"There are hot and cold winds, wet and dry; then there are the trade
+winds."
+
+"Ah, yes," cried Willis, "these are the winds to talk of, especially
+when sailing with them--that is, from east to west; but when your
+course is different, they are rather awkward affairs to get ahead of.
+The way to catch them is to sail from Peru to the Philippines."
+
+"Or from Mexico to China."
+
+"Yes, either will do; then there is no necessity for tacking, you have
+only to rig your sails and smoke your pipe, or go to sleep; you may,
+in that way, run four thousand leagues in three months."
+
+"Stiff sailing that, Willis."
+
+"Yes, Master Ernest, but it does not come up to your yarn about the
+stars, you recollect, ever so many millions of miles in a second!"
+
+"The trade winds, I was going to observe," continued Becker, "that
+blow from the west coast of Africa, carry with them a stifling heat."
+
+"That might be expected," remarked Frank, "since they pass over the
+hot sands of the desert."
+
+"Well, can you tell me why the same wind is cooler on the east coast
+of America?"
+
+"Because it has been refreshed on crossing the ocean that separates
+the two continents?"
+
+"By taking a glass of grog on the way," suggested Willis.
+
+"Yes; and so in Europe the north wind is cold because it carries, or
+rather consists of, air from the polar regions; and the same effect is
+produced by the south wind in the other hemisphere."
+
+"It is for a like reason," suggested Ernest, "that the south wind in
+Europe, and particularly the south-west wind, is humid, and generally
+brings rain, because it is charged with vapor from the Atlantic
+Ocean."
+
+"How is it, father, that the almanac makers can predict changes in the
+weather?"
+
+"The almanac makers can only foresee one thing with absolute
+certainty, and that is, that there are always fools to believe what
+they say. A few meteorological phenomena may be predicted with
+tolerable accuracy; but these are few in number, and range within very
+narrow limits."
+
+"Their predictions, nevertheless, sometimes turn out correct."
+
+"Yes, when they predict by chance a hard frost on a particular day in
+January, it is just possible the prediction may be verified; out of a
+multitude of such prognostications a few may be successful, but the
+greater part of them fail. Their few successes, however, have the
+effect with weak minds of inspiring confidence, in defiance of the
+failures which they do not take the trouble to observe."
+
+"At what rate does the wind travel?"
+
+"The speed of the wind is very variable; when it is scarcely felt, the
+velocity does not exceed a foot a second; but it is far otherwise in
+the cases of hurricanes and tornados, that sweep away trees and
+houses.
+
+"And sink his Majesty's ships," observed Willis.
+
+"In those cases the wind sometimes reaches the velocity of forty-five
+yards in a second, or about forty leagues in an hour."
+
+"Therefore," remarked Jack, "the wind is a blessing that could very
+well be dispensed with."
+
+"Your conclusions, Jack, do not always do credit to your
+understanding. The wind re-establishes the equilibrium of the
+temperature, and purifies the air by dispersing in the mass
+exhalations that would be pernicious if they remained in one spot; it
+clears away miasma, it dissipates the smoke of towns, it waters some
+countries by driving clouds to them, it condenses vapor on the frozen
+summits of mountains, and converts it into rivers that cover the land
+with fruitfulness."
+
+"It likewise fills the sails of ships and creates pilots," observed
+Willis.
+
+"And brings about shipwrecks," remarked Jack.
+
+"It conveys the pollen of flowers, and, as I had occasion to state the
+other day, sows the seeds of Nature's fields and forests. It is
+likewise made available by man in some classes of manufactures--mills,
+for example."
+
+"And it causes the simoon," persisted Jack, "that lifts the sand of
+the desert and overwhelms entire caravans; how can you justify such
+ravages?"
+
+"I do not intend to plead the cause of either hurricanes or simoons;
+but I contend that, if the wind sometimes terrifies us by disasters,
+we have, on the other hand, to be grateful for the infinite good it
+does. In it, as in all other phenomena of the elements, the evils are
+rare and special, whilst the good is universal and constant."
+
+Fritz, as usual, with the dogs and his rifle charged, acted as pioneer
+for the caravan, now and then bringing down a bird, sometimes adding a
+plant to their collection, and occasionally giving them some
+information as to the state of the surrounding country.
+
+"Father," said he, "I chased this quail into our corn-field; the grain
+is lying on the ground as if it had been passed over by a roller, but
+I am happy to say that it is neither broken nor uprooted."
+
+"Now, Jack, do you see how gallantly the wind behaves, prostrating the
+strong and sparing the weak? If you had been charged with the safety
+of the grain, no doubt you would have placed it in the tops of the
+highest trees."
+
+"Very likely; and, until taught by experience, everybody else would
+have done precisely the same thing."
+
+"True; therefore in this, as in all other things, we should admire the
+wisdom of Providence, and mistrust our own."
+
+"Whoever would have thought of trusting the staff of human life to
+such slender support as stalks of straw?"
+
+"If grain had been produced by forests, these, when destroyed by war,
+burned down by imprudence, uprooted by hurricanes, or washed away by
+inundations, we should have required ages to replace."
+
+"Very true."
+
+"The fruits of trees are, besides, more liable to rot than those of
+grain; the latter have their flowers in the form of spikes, often
+bearded with prickly fibres, which not only protect them from
+marauders, but likewise serve as little roofs to shelter them from the
+rain; and besides, as Fritz has just told us, owing to the pliancy of
+their stalks, strengthened at intervals by hard knots and the
+spear-shaped form of their leaves, these plants escape the fury of the
+winds."
+
+"That," said Willis, "is like a wretched cock-boat, which often
+contrives to get out of a scrape when all the others are swamped."
+
+"Therefore," continued Becker, "their weakness is of more service to
+them than the strength of the noblest trees, and they are spread and
+multiplied by the same tempests that devastate the forests. Added to
+this, the species to which this class of plants belong--the
+grasses--are remarkably varied in their characteristics, and better
+suited than any other for universal propagation."
+
+"Which was remarked by Homer," observed Ernest "who usually
+distinguishes a country by its peculiar fruit, but speaks of the
+earth generally as _zeidoros_, or grain-bearing."
+
+"There, Willis," exclaimed Jack, "is another great admiral for you."
+
+"An admiral, Jack?"
+
+"It was he who led the combined fleets of Agamemnon, Diomedes, and
+others, to the city of Troy."
+
+"Not in our time, I suppose?"
+
+"How old are you, Willis?"
+
+"Forty-seven."
+
+"In that case it was before you entered the navy."
+
+"I know that there is a Troy in the United States, but I did not know
+it was a sea-port."
+
+"There is another in France, Willis; but the Troy I mean is, or rather
+was, in Asia Minor, capital of Lesser Phrygia, sometimes called Ilion,
+its citadel bearing the name of Pergamos."
+
+"Never heard of it," said Willis.
+
+"To return to grain," continued Becker, laughing. "Nature has rendered
+it capable of growing in all climates, from the line to the pole.
+There is a variety for the humid soils of hot countries, as the rice
+of Asia; immense quantities of which are produced in the basin of the
+Ganges. There is another variety for marshy and cold climates--as a
+kind of oat that grows wild on the banks of the North American lakes,
+and of which the natives gather abundant harvests."
+
+"God has amply provided for us all," said Frank.
+
+"Other varieties grow best in hot, dry soils, as the millet in Africa,
+and maize or Indian corn in Brazil. In Europe, wheat is cultivated
+universally, but prefers rich lands, whilst rye takes more readily to
+a sandy soil; buckwheat is most luxuriant where most exposed to rain;
+oats prefer humid soils, and barley comes to perfection on rocky,
+exposed lands, growing well on the cold, bleak plains of the north.
+And, observe, that the grasses suffice for all the wants of man."
+
+"Yes," observed Ernest, "with the straw are fed his sheep, his cows,
+his oxen, and his horses; with the seeds, he prepares his food and
+his drinks. In the north, grain is converted into excellent beer and
+ale, and spirits are extracted from it as strong as brandy."
+
+"The Chinese obtain from rice a liquor that they prefer to the finest
+wines of Spain."
+
+"That is because they have not yet tasted our Rockhouse malaga."
+
+"Then of roasted oats, perfumed with vanilla, an excellent jelly may
+be made."
+
+"Ah! we must get mamma to try that--it will delight the young ladies."
+
+"And, no doubt, you will profit by the occasion to partake thereof
+yourself, Master Jack."
+
+"Certainly; but I would not, for all that, seek to gratify my own
+appetite under pretence of paying a compliment to our friends."
+
+"I know an animal," said Willis, "that, for general usefulness, beats
+grain all to pieces."
+
+"Good! let us hear what it is, Willis."
+
+"It is the seal of the Esquimaux; they live upon its flesh, and they
+drink its blood."
+
+"I scarcely think," said Jack, "that I should often feel thirsty under
+such circumstances."
+
+"The skin furnishes them with clothes, tents, and boats."
+
+"Of which our canoe and life-preservers are a fair sample," said
+Fritz.
+
+"The fat furnishes them with fire and candle, the muscles with thread
+and rope, the gut with windows and curtains, the bones with arrow
+heads and harness; in short, with everything they require."
+
+"True, Willis, in so far as regards their degree of civilization,
+which is not very great, when we consider that they bury their sick
+whilst alive, because they are afraid of corpses; that they believe
+the sun, moon, and stars to be dead Esquimaux, who have been
+translated from earth to heaven."
+
+Whilst chatting in this way, the party had imperceptibly arrived at
+Falcon's Nest, wherein they had not set foot for a fortnight
+previously.
+
+Fritz went up first, and before the others had ascended, came running
+down again as fast as his legs would carry him.
+
+"Father," he cried, in an accent of alarm, "there is a fresh litter of
+leaves up stairs, which has been recently slept upon, and I miss a
+knife that I left the last time we were here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SEARCH FOR THE UNKNOWN--THREE FLEETS ON DRY LAND--THE
+INDISCRETIONS OF A SUGAR CANE--LARBOARD AND STARBOARD--THE SUPPOSED
+SENSIBILITY OF PLANTS--THE FLY-TRAP--VENDETTA--ROOT AND GERM--MINE AND
+COUNTERMINE--THE POLYPI--OVIPAROUS AND VIVIPAROUS--A QUID PRO QUO.
+
+
+"Have any of you been at Falcon's Nest lately?" inquired Becker, when
+he had verified the truth of Fritz's intelligence.
+
+"None of us," unanimously replied all the boys.
+
+"You will understand that the question I put to you is, under the
+circumstances in which we are placed, one of the greatest moment. If,
+therefore, there is any unseemly joking, any trick, or secret project
+in contemplation, with which this affair is connected, do not conceal
+it any longer."
+
+All the boys again reiterated their innocence of the matter in
+question.
+
+Becker then called to mind the mysterious disappearance of Willis,
+and, although they were too short in duration to admit of his having
+been at Falcon's Nest, still he deemed it advisable to put the
+question to him individually.
+
+Willis declared that the present was the first time he had been in the
+vicinity of the Nest, and his word was known to be sacred.
+
+"There can be no mistake then," said Becker; "the traces are
+self-evident. This is altogether a circumstance calculated to give us
+serious uneasiness. Nevertheless, we must view the matter calmly, and
+consider what steps we should take to unravel the mystery."
+
+"Let us instantly beat up the island," suggested Fritz.
+
+"It appears to me," remarked Willis, "that the _Nelson_ has been
+wrecked after all, and that one of the men has escaped."
+
+"That," replied Ernest, "is very unlikely. All the crew knew that the
+island was inhabited, and consequently, had any one of them been
+thrown on shore, he would have come at once to Rockhouse, and not
+stopped here."
+
+"As regards the Captain or Lieutenant Dunsley," said Willis, "who were
+on shore, and could easily find their way, what you say is quite true;
+but the men were kept on board; and if we suppose that a sailor had
+been thrown on the opposite coast, he would not be able to determine
+his position in fifteen days."
+
+"Much less could he expect to find a villa in a fig-tree."
+
+"To say nothing of the light that has been kept burning recently on
+Shark's Island, nor of the buildings with which the land is strewn,
+nor the fields and plantations that are to be met with in all
+directions. For, although a swallow alone is sufficient to convey the
+seeds of a forest from one continent to another, still it requires the
+hand of man to arrange the trees in rows and furnish them with props."
+
+"Perhaps we may have crossed each other on the way; and the stranger,
+after passing the night here, has steered, by some circuitous route,
+in the direction of Safety Bay."
+
+"May it not have been a large monkey," suggested Jack, "who has
+resolved to play us a trick for having massacred its companions at
+Waldeck?"
+
+"Monkeys," replied Ernest, "do not generally open doors, and, seeing
+no bed prepared for them, go down stairs and collect material for a
+mattress. You may just as well fancy that the monkey, in this case,
+came to pass the night at Falcon's Nest with a cigar in its mouth."
+
+"Then he must have been dreadfully annoyed to find neither slippers
+nor a night-cap."
+
+"There is, unquestionably, a wide field of supposition open for us,"
+said Becker; "but that need not prevent us taking active measures to
+arrive at the truth. Our first duty is to care for the safety of the
+ladies; Mr. Wolston is still ailing and feeble, so that, if a stranger
+were suddenly to appear amongst them, they might be terribly
+alarmed."
+
+"There are six of us here," remarked Willis, "the cream of our sea and
+land forces; we could divide ourselves into three squadrons, one of
+which might sail for Rockhouse."
+
+"Just so; let Fritz and Frank start for Rockhouse."
+
+"And what shall we say to the ladies, father?" inquired the latter;
+"it does not seem to me necessary to alarm our mother, Mrs. Wolston,
+and the young ladies, until something more certain is ascertained."
+
+"Your idea is good, my son, and I thank you for bringing it forward;
+it is one of those that arise from the heart rather than the head."
+
+"We have, only to find a pretext for their sudden return," observed
+Ernest.
+
+"Very well," said Jack, "they have only to say it is too hot to work."
+
+"Just as if it were not quite as hot for us as for them. Your excuse,
+Jack, is not particularly artistic."
+
+"Might they not as well say they had forgotten a tool or a pocket
+handkerchief?"
+
+"Or, better still, that they had forgotten to shut the door when they
+left, and came back to repair the omission."
+
+"We shall say," replied Fritz, "that, finding there were twelve strong
+arms here to do what my father accomplished fifteen years ago by
+himself--for the assistance of us boys could not then be reckoned--we
+were ashamed of ourselves, and had returned to Rockhouse to make
+ourselves useful in repairing the damage to the gallery caused by the
+tempest."
+
+"Well, that excuse has, at least, the merit of being reasonable; and
+let it be so. Fritz and Frank will return to Rockhouse; Ernest and
+myself will continue the work in hand, and receive the friend or enemy
+which God has sent us, should he return to resume his quarters; Willis
+and Jack will investigate the neighborhood."
+
+"By land or water, Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"By land, Master Jack, for this cruise. I shall abandon the helm to
+you, for I know nothing of the shoals here-abouts."
+
+"If," continued Becker, "though highly improbable, any thing important
+should have happened, or should happen at Rockhouse, you will fire a
+cannon, and we will be with you immediately. Willis and Jack will
+discharge a rifle if threatened with danger; and we shall do the same
+on our side, if we require assistance."
+
+"It is a pity," remarked Jack, "that we had not two or three
+four-pounders amongst the provisions."
+
+"I scarcely regard this matter as altogether a subject for joking,"
+continued Becker, "and sincerely hope that all our precautions may
+prove useless. Take each of you a rifle and proceed with caution;
+above all, do not go far apart from each other; do not fire without
+taking good aim, and only in case of self-defence or absolute
+necessity; for this time it does not appear to be a question of bears
+and hyenas, but, as far as we are able to judge, one of our own
+species."
+
+Two of the squadrons then hauled off in different directions,
+carefully examining the ground as they went, beating up the thickets,
+and endeavoring to obtain some further trace of the stranger, in order
+to confirm those at Falcon's Nest.
+
+The squadron of observation, in the meanwhile set diligently to work.
+A tree having been selected at about fifteen paces from that already
+existing, it was necessary, as on the former occasion, to discharge an
+arrow carrying the end of a line, and in such a way that the cord
+might fall across some of the strongest branches; this done, the
+bamboo ladder was drawn up from the opposite side and held fast until
+Ernest had ascended and fastened it with nails to the top of the tree.
+
+Ernest then commenced lopping off the branches to the right and left,
+so as to form a space in the centre for their contemplated dwelling;
+whilst Becker himself below was making an entrance into the trunk,
+taking care to avoid an accident that formerly happened, by assuring
+himself that a colony of bees had not already taken possession of the
+ground. The gigantic fig-trees at Falcon's Nest being for the most
+part hollow, and supported in a great measure by the bark--like the
+willows in Europe when they reach a certain stage of their growth--it
+was easy to erect a staircase in the interior; still this was a work
+of time, and Becker had resolved in the meantime to give up the
+habitation already constructed to Wolston and his family, at least
+until such time as an entrance was attached to the new one that did
+not require any extraordinary amount of gymnastics.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A portion of the day had been occupied in these operations, when
+Willis and Jack returned to the camp.
+
+"We have seen no one," said the Pilot.
+
+"But," said Jack, "we are on the track of Fritz's knife."
+
+"Be good enough to explain yourself."
+
+"Well, father, at the entrance to the cocoa-nut tree wood we stumbled
+upon two sugar canes completely divested of their juice."
+
+"Which proves--" said Ernest; but his remark was cut short by Jack,
+who continued--
+
+"Not a bit of it; a philosopher would have passed these two worthless
+sugar canes just as a place-hunter passes an overthrown minister, that
+is, as unworthy of notice."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"Well, I, the headless, the thoughtless, the stupid--for these are the
+epithets I am usually favored with--I took them up, scrutinized them
+carefully, and discovered--"
+
+"That they were sugar canes."
+
+"In the first instance, yes."
+
+"Very clever, that!"
+
+"And then that they had not been torn up--_they had been cut_."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, most wise and learned brother, that is all; and I leave you to
+draw the inferences."
+
+"I may add," observed the sailor, "that, as we were steering for the
+plantation, myself on the starboard and Jack on the larboard--"
+
+"On the what?"
+
+"Master Jack on the left and myself on the right."
+
+"That I pitched right over these canes without ever noticing them."
+
+"Which is not much to be wondered at; Willis has been so long at sea
+that he has no confidence in the solidity of the land; during our
+cruise, he kept a look-out after the wind, expecting, I suppose, that
+it would perform some of the wonderful things you spoke of this
+morning."
+
+"After all," observed Becker, "this is another link in the chain of
+evidence, and I congratulate Jack on his sagacity in tracing it."
+
+"But the affair is as much a mystery as ever."
+
+"True; and the solution may probably be awaiting us at Rockhouse."
+
+The united squadrons then started on their homeward voyage, Jack
+thrusting his nose into every bush, and carefully scanning all the
+stray objects that seemed to be out of their normal position.
+
+"If these plants and bushes had tongues," said Jack, "they could
+probably give us the information we require."
+
+"Do you think," inquired Ernest, "that plants and bushes are utterly
+without sensation?"
+
+"Faith, I can't say," replied Jack; "perhaps they can speak if they
+liked--probably they have an idiom of their own. You, that know all
+languages, and a great many more besides, possibly can converse with
+them."
+
+"I should like to know," said Becker, "why you two gentlemen are
+always snarling at each other; it is neither amusing nor amiable."
+
+"Ernest is continually showing me up, father, and it is but fair that
+I should be allowed to retort now and then. But to return to plants,
+Ernest; you say they have nerves?"
+
+"If they have," said Willis, "they do not seem to possess the bottle
+of salts that most nervous ladies usually have."
+
+"No," replied Ernest, "they have no nerves, properly so called; but
+there are plants, and I may add many plants, which, by their
+qualities--I may almost say by their intelligence--seem to be placed
+much higher in the scale of creation than they really are. The
+sensitive plant, for example, shrinks when it is touched; tulips open
+their petals when the weather is fine, and shut them again at sunset
+or when it rains; wild barley, when placed on a table, often moves by
+itself, especially when it has been first warmed by the hand; the
+heliotrope always turns the face of its flowers to the sun."
+
+"A still more singular instance of this kind was recently discovered
+in Carolina," remarked Becker; "it is called the _fly-trap_. Its round
+leaves secrete a sugary fluid, and are covered with a number of ridges
+which are extremely irritable: whenever a fly touches the surface the
+leaf immediately folds inwards, contracts, and continues this process
+till its victim is either pierced with its spines or stifled by the
+pressure."
+
+"It is probably a Corsican plant," observed Jack, "whose ancestors
+have had a misunderstanding with the brotherhood of flies, and have
+left the _Vendetta_ as a legacy to their descendants."
+
+"There is nothing in Nature," continued Ernest, "so obstinate as a
+plant. Let us take one, for example, at its birth, that is, to-day, at
+the age when animals modify or acquire their instincts, and you will
+find that your own will must yield to that of the plant."
+
+"If you mean to say that the plant will refuse to play on the flute or
+learn to dance, were I to wish it to do so, I am entirely of your
+opinion."
+
+"No, but suppose you were to plant it upside down, with the plantule
+above and the radicle below; do you think it would grow that way?"
+
+"Plantule and radicle are ambitious words, my dear brother; recollect
+that you are speaking to simple mortals."
+
+"Well, I mean root uppermost."
+
+"Right; I prefer that, don't you, Willis?"
+
+"Yes, Master Jack."
+
+"At first the radicle or root would begin by growing upwards, and the
+plantule or germ would descend."
+
+"That is quite in accordance with my revolutionary idiosyncracies."
+
+"You accused me just now of using ambitious words."
+
+"Well, I understand a revolution to mean, placing those above who
+should be below."
+
+"Nature then," continued Ernest, "very soon begins to assert her
+rights; the bud gradually twists itself round and ascends, whilst the
+root obeys a similar impulse and descends--is not this a proof of
+discernment?"
+
+"I see nothing more in it than a proof of the wonderful mechanism God
+has allotted to the plant, and is analogous to the movements of a
+watch, the hands of which point out the hours, minutes, and seconds of
+time, and are yet not endowed with intelligence."
+
+"Very good, Jack," said Becker.
+
+"Suppose," continued Ernest, "that the ground in the neighborhood of
+your plant was of two very opposite qualities, that on the right, for
+example, damp, rich, and spongy; that on the left, dry, poor, and
+rocky; you would find that the roots, after growing for a time up or
+down, as the case might be, will very soon change their route, and
+take their course towards the rich and humid soil."
+
+"And quite right too," said Willis; "they prefer to go where they will
+be best fed."
+
+"If, then, these roots stretched out to points where they would
+withdraw the nourishment from other plants in the neighborhood--how
+could you prevent it?"
+
+"By digging a ditch between them and the plants they threaten to
+impoverish."
+
+"And do you suppose that would be sufficient?"
+
+"Yes, unless the plant you refer to was an engineer."
+
+"Therein lies the difficulty. Plants are engineers; they would send
+their roots along the bottom of the ditch, or they would creep under
+it--at all events, the roots would find their way to the coveted soil
+in spite of you; if you dug a mine, they would countermine it, and
+obtain supplies from the opposite territory, and revenge themselves
+there for the scurvy treatment to which they had been subjected. What
+could you do then?"
+
+"In that case, I should admit myself defeated."
+
+"If," continued Ernest, "we present a sponge saturated with water to
+the naked roots of a plant, they will slowly, but steadily, direct
+themselves towards it; and, turn the sponge whichever way you will,
+they will take the same direction."
+
+"It has been concluded," remarked Becker, "from these incontestable
+facts, that plants are not devoid of sensibility; and, in fact, when
+we behold them lying down at sunset as if dead, and come to life again
+next morning, we are forced to recognise a degree of irritability in
+the vegetable organs which very closely resemble those of the animal
+economy."
+
+"In future," said Jack, "I shall take care not to tread upon a weed,
+lost, being hurt, it should scream."
+
+"On the other hand, they have not been found to possess any other sign
+of this supposed sensibility. All their other functions seem perfectly
+mechanical."
+
+"Ah then, father," exclaimed Jack, "you are a believer in my system!"
+
+"We make them grow and destroy them, without observing anything
+analogous to the sensation we feel in rearing, wounding, or killing an
+animal."
+
+"But the fly-trap, father, what of that?"
+
+"It is no exception. The fly-trap seizes any small body that touches
+it, as well as an insect, and with the same tenacity; hence, we may
+readily conclude that these actions, so apparently spontaneous, are in
+reality nothing more than remarkable developments of the laws of
+irritability peculiar to plants."
+
+"It does not, then, spring from a family feud, as Jack supposed?"
+remarked Willis.
+
+"Besides," continued Becker, "if plants really existed, possessing
+what is understood by the term sensation, they would be animals."
+
+"For a like reason, animals without sensation would be plants."
+
+"Evidently. Moreover, the transition from vegetable to animal life is
+almost imperceptible, so much so, that polypi, such as corals and
+sponges, were for a long time supposed to be marine plants."
+
+"And what are they?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Insects that live in communities that form a multitude of contiguous
+cells; some of these are begun at the bottom of the sea and
+accumulated perpendicularly, one layer being continually deposited
+over another till the surface is reached."
+
+"Then the coral reefs, that render navigation so perilous in unknown
+seas, are the work of insects?"
+
+"Exactly so, Willis."
+
+"Might they not as well consist of multitudes of insects piled heaps
+upon heaps?"
+
+"It is in a great measure as you say, Willis."
+
+"Not I--I do not say it--quite the contrary."
+
+"Well, Willis, you are at liberty to believe it or not, as you think
+proper."
+
+"I hope so; we shall, therefore, put the polypi with Ernest's stars
+and Jack's admirals."
+
+"So be it, Willis; but to resume the subject. There is a remarkable
+analogy in many respects between the lower orders of animals and
+plants, the bulb is to the latter what the egg is to the former. The
+germ does not pierce the bulb till it attains a certain organization,
+and it remains attached by fibres to the parent substance, from which,
+for a time, it receives nourishment."
+
+"Not unlike the young of animals," remarked Willis.
+
+"When the germ has shot out roots and a leaf or two, it then, but not
+till then, relinquishes the parent bulb. The plant then grows by an
+extension and multiplication of its parts, and this extension is
+accompanied by an increasing induration of the fibres. The same
+phenomena are observed as regards animals."
+
+"Curious!" said Willis.
+
+"Animals, however, are sometimes oviparous."
+
+"Oviparous?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, that is, they lay eggs; others are viviparous, producing their
+young alive. A few are multiplied like plants by cuttings, as in the
+case of the polypi."
+
+"Bother the polypi," said Willis, laughing, "since we have to thank
+them for destroying some of his Majesty's ships."
+
+"Then again," continued Becker, "both plants and animals are subject
+to disease, decay, and death."
+
+"But, father, if the analogies are remarkable, the differences are not
+less marked."
+
+"Well, Ernest, I shall leave you to point them out."
+
+"Without reckoning the faculty of feeling, that cannot be denied to
+the one nor granted to the other, the most striking of these
+distinctions consists in the circumstance that animals can change
+place, whilst this faculty is absolutely refused to plants."
+
+"If we except those," remarked Jack, "that insist upon travelling to
+the succulent parts of the earth, and are as indefatigable in digging
+tunnels as the renowned Brunel."
+
+"Then plants are obliged to accept the nourishment that their fixed
+position furnishes to them; whilst animals, on the contrary, by means
+of their external organs, can range far and near in search of the
+aliments most congenial to their appetites."
+
+"Which is often very capricious," remarked Willis.
+
+"Then, considered with regard to magnitude, the two kingdoms present
+remarkable distinctions; the interval between a whale and a mite is
+greater than between the moss and the oak."
+
+"Ho!" cried Jack, "there is Miss Sophia coming to meet us, Willis."
+
+"Perhaps they have news at the grotto."
+
+"Well," inquired the child, "have you seen them?"
+
+"Good," thought Becker, "our chatterers have not been able to hold
+their tongues; I am surprised at that as regards Frank."
+
+"We expected to have found them at Rockhouse."
+
+"To have found whom?"
+
+"The sailors from the wreck."
+
+"What wreck?"
+
+"The _Nelson_."
+
+"I sincerely hope that the _Nelson_ has not been wrecked."
+
+"In that case, whom do you refer to yourself, Miss Sophia?"
+
+"To your go-cart and my doll, Master Jack."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HABITANT OF THE MOON, ANTHROPOPHAGIAN OR HOBGOBLIN?--THE LACEDEMONIAN
+STEW OF MADAME DACIER--UTILE DULCI--TETE-A-TETE BETWEEN WILLIS AND HIS
+PIPE--TOBACCO VERSUS BIRCH--IS IT FOR EATING?--MOSQUITOES--THE
+ALARM--TOBY--THE NOCTURNAL EXPEDITION--WE'VE GOT HIM.
+
+
+Some days passed without anything having occurred to ruffle the
+tranquil existence of the island families. Every morning the _elite_
+of the sea and land forces continued to divide themselves into three
+squadrons of observation; one of which remained at Rockhouse on some
+pretext or other, whilst the other two were occupied in exploring the
+country, or in carrying on the works at Falcon's Nest.
+
+The mysterious stranger, whether shipwrecked seaman, savage, or
+hobgoblin, who kept all the bearded inhabitants of Rockhouse on the
+alert, had reappeared in his old quarters, where another litter of
+leaves had been miraculously strewn exactly in the same place the
+former had occupied.
+
+Beyond this, however, and sundry gashes here and there--of which
+Fritz's knife was clearly guilty, but which could not have been
+perpetrated without an accomplice--nothing had transpired to enable
+them to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to who or what this
+personage could be.
+
+Though the hypothesis was highly improbable, still Willis persisted in
+his theory of the shipwreck; he only doubted whether the individual on
+shore was a marine or the cabin-boy, an officer or a foremast man,
+and, if the latter, whether it was Bill, Tom, Bob, or Ned.
+
+Ernest rather inclined to think that the invisible stranger was an
+inhabitant of the moon, who, in consequence of a false step, had
+tumbled from his own to our planet.
+
+The warlike Fritz was impatient and irritated. He would over and over
+again have preferred an immediate solution of the affair, even were it
+bathed in blood, rather than be kept any longer in suspense.
+
+Frank, on the contrary, took a metaphysical view of the case; and,
+believing that Providence had not entirely dispensed with miracles in
+dealing with the things of this world, came to the conclusion that it
+was no earthly visitor they had to deal with; and he even went so far
+as to hint that prayer was a more efficacious means of solving the
+mystery than the methods his brothers were pursuing.
+
+Jack, coinciding in some degree with Ernest, shifted his view from an
+ape to an anthropophagian, and blamed the latter for not coming
+earlier; when he and his brothers were younger, and consequently more
+tender, they would have made a better meal, and been more easily
+digested.
+
+As to what opinion Becker himself entertained, with regard to the
+occurrence at Falcon's Nest that kept his sons in a feverish state of
+anxiety, and had awakened all the fears of the Pilot for the safety of
+his friends on board the _Nelson_, nothing could be clearly
+ascertained; in so far as this matter was concerned he kept his own
+counsel; and, to use an expression of Madame de Sevigne, "had thrown
+his tongue to the dogs."
+
+The close of the day had, as usual, collected all the members of the
+family round the domestic hearth; and it may be stated here that Mrs.
+Wolston, Mary, and Mrs. Becker alternately undertook the preparations
+of the viands for the diurnal consumption of the community. By this
+means, uniformity, that palls the appetite, was entirely banished from
+their dishes. One day they would have the cooked, or rather
+half-cooked, British joints of Mrs. Wolston and her daughter, varied
+occasionally, to the great delight of Willis, with a tureen of
+hotch-potch or cocky-leekie. The next there would be a display of the
+cosmopolite and somewhat picturesque cookery of Mrs. Becker; there was
+her famous peccary pie, with ravansara sauce, followed by her
+delicious preserved mango and seaweed jelly. Nor did she hesitate to
+draw upon the raw material of the colony now and then for a new hash
+or soup, taking care, however, to keep in view the maxim that
+prudence is the mother of safety--an adage that was rather roughly
+handled by the renowned French linguist, Madame Dacier, who, on one
+occasion nearly poisoned her husband with a Lacedemonian stew, the
+receipt for which she had found in Xenophon.
+
+Luckily Becker's wife did not know Greek, consequently he ran no risk
+of being entertained with a classic dinner; but he was often reminded
+by his thoughtful partner of Meg Dod's celebrated receipt: before you
+cook your hare, first--catch it.
+
+Sophia desired earnestly to have a share in the culinary government;
+but having shown on her first trial, too decided a leaning towards
+puddings and pancakes, her second essay was put off till she became
+more thoroughly penetrated with the value of the eternal precept
+_utile dulci_, which signifies that, before dessert it is requisite to
+have something substantial.
+
+As soon as they had finished their afternoon meal, Willis departed on
+one of his customary mysterious excursions; and Jack, who, like the
+birds that no sooner hop upon one branch than they leap upon another,
+had also disappeared. It was not long, however, before he made his
+appearance again; he came running in almost out of breath, and cried
+at the top of his voice,
+
+"I have discovered him!"
+
+"Whom?" exclaimed half a dozen voices.
+
+"The inhabitant of the moon?" inquired Ernest.
+
+"No."
+
+"I know," said Sophia playfully, "your go-cart and my doll."
+
+"No, I have discovered Willis' secret."
+
+"If you have been watching him, it is very wrong."
+
+"No, father; seeing some thin columns of smoke rising out of a
+thicket, I thought a bush was on fire; but on going nearer, I saw that
+it was only a tobacco-pipe."
+
+"Was the pipe alone, brother?"
+
+"No, not exactly, it was in Willis' mouth; and there he sat, so
+completely immersed in ideas and smoke, that he neither heard nor saw
+me."
+
+"That he does not smoke here," remarked Becker, "I can easily
+understand; but why conceal it?"
+
+"Ah," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you do not know Willis yet;--beneath that
+rough exterior there are feelings that would grace a coronet: he is,
+no doubt, afraid of leading your sons into the habit."
+
+"That is very thoughtful and considerate on his part."
+
+"He was always smoking on board ship, and it must have been a great
+sacrifice for him to leave it off to the extent he has done lately."
+
+"Then we shall not allow him to punish himself any longer; and as for
+the danger of contagion from his smoking here, that evil may perhaps
+be avoided."
+
+"Do not be afraid, father; it will not be necessary to establish
+either a quarantine or a lazaretto on our account."
+
+"Besides, any of the boys," said Mrs. Becker, "that acquire the habit,
+will, by so doing, voluntarily banish themselves from my levees."
+
+"It is an extraordinary habit that, smoking," observed Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Yes," said Becker; "and what makes the habit more singular is, that
+it holds out no allurements to seduce its votaries. Generally, the
+path to vice, or to a bad habit, is strewn with roses that hide their
+thorns, but such is not the case with smoking; in order to acquire
+this habit, a variety of disagreeable difficulties have to be
+overcome, and a considerable amount of disgust and sickness must be
+borne before the stomach is tutored to withstand the nauseous fumes."
+
+"In point of fact," observed Wolston, "if, instead of being made part
+and parcel of the appliances of a fashionable man, cigars and
+meershaums were classed in the pharmacopoeia with emetics and
+cataplasms, there is not a human being but would bemoan his fate if
+compelled to undergo a dose."
+
+"Just so," added Becker; "the great and sole attraction of tobacco to
+young people consists in its being to them a forbidden thing; the
+apple of Eve is of all time--it hangs from every tree, and takes
+myriads of shapes. If I had the honor of being principal of a college
+I should no more think of forbidding the pupils to use tobacco than I
+should think of commanding them not to use the birch for purposes of
+self-chastisement."
+
+"Perhaps you would be quite right."
+
+"Instead of lecturing them on the pernicious effects of tobacco, I
+should hang up a pipe of punishment in the class-room, and oblige
+offending pupils to inhale a fixed number of whiffs proportionate to
+the gravity of their delinquency."
+
+"An excellent idea," observed Wolston; "for it is often only necessary
+to show some things in a different light in order to give them a new
+aspect and value. This puts me in mind of an illustration in point;
+these two girls, when children, were the parties concerned, and I will
+relate the circumstance to you."
+
+"In that case," said Mary, "I shall go and feed the fowls."
+
+"And I," said Sophia, "must go and water the flowers."
+
+"Oh, then," cried Jack laughing, "it is another doll story, is it?"
+
+"No, Master Jack, it is not a doll story; and, besides, we girls were
+no bigger at the time than that."
+
+On saying this Sophia placed her two hands about a foot and a half
+from the floor and then the two girls vanished.
+
+"When Mary was about six years old," began Wolston, "a slight rash
+threatened to develope itself, and the doctor ordered a small blister
+to be applied to one of her arms. Now, there was likely to be some
+difficulty about getting her to submit quietly to this operation, so,
+after an instant's reflection, I called both her and her sister, and
+told them that the most diligent of the two should have a vesicatory
+put on her arm at night. 'Oh,' cried both the girls quite delighted,
+'it will be me, papa, I shall be so good. Mamma, mamma--such a
+treat--papa has promised us a vesicatory for to-night!'"
+
+"That was simplicity itself," said Mrs. Becker, laughing till the
+tears came into her eyes.
+
+"The day passed, the one endeavoring to excel the other in the
+quantity of leaves they turned over; and, from time to time, I heard
+the one asking the other in a low voice, 'Have you ever seen a
+vesicatory? What is it made of? Is it for eating? And each in turn
+regarded her arms, to judge in advance the effect of the marvellous
+ornament."
+
+"I should like much to have seen them."
+
+"Night came, and I declared gravely that the eldest was fairly
+entitled to the prize. The latter jumped about with joy, and Sophia
+began to cry. 'Don't cry,' said Mary, 'if you are good, papa will,
+perhaps, give you one to-morrow, too,' Then the joyful patient,
+turning to me, said, 'On which arm, papa?' and I told her that the
+ceremony of placing it on must take place when she was in bed. To bed
+accordingly she went, the ornament was applied, she looked at it, was
+pleased with it, thanked me for it, and fell asleep as happy as a
+queen. But, alas! like that of many queens, the felicity did not last
+long; before morning, I heard her saying to her sister, in a doleful
+tone, 'Soffy, will you have my vesicatory?' 'Oh, yes, just lend it to
+me for a tiny moment.' At this I hurried to the spot, and, as you may
+readily suppose, opposed the transfer."
+
+"Poor Sophia!"
+
+"Yes; she was quite heart-broken, and said, sobbing, 'It is always
+Mary that gets everything, nobody ever gives anything to me.'"
+
+Next day, Willis laid hold of his sou'-wester, and was starting off on
+his customary pilgrimage, when Becker stopped him.
+
+"Willis," said he, "have you any objections to state what the
+engagements are, that require you to leave us at pretty much the same
+hour every day?"
+
+"I merely go for a walk, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You see I require to take a turn just after dinner for the sake of my
+health."
+
+"A habit that you contracted on board ship; eh, Willis?"
+
+"On board ship; yes Mr. Becker, that is to say--"
+
+"Just so," observed Mrs. Wolston; "and by the way, Willis, I regret
+that you do not smoke now; they say there is plenty of tobacco on the
+island."
+
+"Smoke!" cried Willis, raising his ears like a war-horse at the sound
+of the trumpet, "why so, Mrs. Wolston?"
+
+"Because we are dreadfully tormented with those horrid mosquitoes, and
+you might help us to get rid of them. You smoked at sea, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, madam; but then my constitution--"
+
+"Bah!" said Wolston, "I thought you were as strong as a horse,
+Willis."
+
+"Well, I have no cause to complain neither; but then they say tobacco
+would kill even a horse."
+
+"Of course, Willis, your health is a most necessary consideration."
+
+"Still for all that, if the mosquitoes really do annoy Mrs. Wolston, I
+should have no objection to take a whiff now and then."
+
+"You must not put yourself about though, on our account, Willis."
+
+"About; no, it would not put me about."
+
+"Very good; then it only remains to be seen whether there is a pipe in
+the colony."
+
+"Ah," said Willis, feeling his pockets, "yes, exactly--here is one."
+
+"Curious how things do turn up, isn't it, Willis?" said Becker; "but
+the mosquitoes would not be frightened away by the smoke, if applied
+at long intervals, so you will have to repeat the dose at least two or
+three times every day, always supposing it does not affect your
+constitution."
+
+"Sailors, you see," replied Willis, "are like chimneys, they always
+smoke when you want them, and sometimes a great deal more than you
+want them," And on turning round, he beheld Sophia holding a light,
+and a good-sized case of Maryland, which had been preserved from the
+wreck.
+
+Ever after that time the mosquitoes had a most persevering enemy in
+Willis; and, notwithstanding his health, his daily walks entirely
+ceased.
+
+For some time the Pilot and the four young men passed the night in a
+tent erected about midway between Rockhouse and the Jackal River. The
+apparent reason for this modification of their plans was the greater
+facility it afforded for their all meeting at daybreak, breakfasting
+together, and setting out for Falcon's Nest before the temperature
+reached ninety degrees in the shade, which junction could not be so
+easily effected with one party encamped at Rockhouse and the other
+bivouacked on Shark's Island, with an arm of the sea between them.
+
+The real motive, however, was that all might be within hail of each
+other, and prepared for every emergency, in the event of the stranger
+appearing in a more palpable shape, and assuming a hostile attitude.
+We say the stranger, because, judging from the indications, there was
+only one--still that did not prove that there might not be several.
+
+One night, as Fritz was lying with one eye open, he observed Mary's
+little black terrier suddenly prick up the fragments of its ears, and
+begin sniffing at the edge of the tent. This shaggy little cur was
+called Toby; it had accompanied the Wolstons on their voyage, and was
+Mary's exclusive property; but Fritz had found the way to the animal's
+heart as usual through its stomach, and Mary was in no way jealous of
+his attentions to her favorite, but rather the reverse.
+
+Fritz, feeling convinced by the actions of the dog, which was of the
+true Scotch breed, that something extraordinary was passing outside
+the tent, seized his rifle, hastened out, and was just in time to
+distinguish a human figure on the opposite bank of the Jackal River,
+which, on seeing him, took to its heels and disappeared in the forest.
+
+He was soon joined by the Pilot and his brothers; the dogs leaped
+about them, and the alarm became general throughout the encampment.
+Fritz re-established order, enjoined silence, and said,
+
+"I am determined this time to follow the affair up; who will accompany
+me?"
+
+"I will!" said all the four voices at once.
+
+"Scouting parties ought not to be numerous," said Fritz; "I will,
+therefore, take Willis, in case this mystification has anything to do
+with the _Nelson_."
+
+"And me," said Jack, "to serve as a dessert, in case the individual
+should turn out to be an anthropophagian."
+
+"Be it so; but no more. Frank and Ernest will remain to tranquilize
+our parents, in case we should not return before they are up."
+
+"And if so, what shall we say?"
+
+"Tell them the truth. We shall proceed direct to Falcon's Nest; and if
+the stranger--confiding in our habit of sleeping during the night--be
+there as usual, we shall do ourselves the honor of helping him to get
+up."
+
+"Providing he does not nightly change his quarters like Oliver
+Cromwell--not so much to avoid enemies, as to calm his uneasy
+conscience."
+
+"Well, we shall be no worse than before; we shall have tried to
+restore our wonted quietude, and, if we fail, we can say, like Francis
+I. at Pavia, '_All is lost except our honor_.'"
+
+Some minutes after this conversation, three shadows might have been
+seen stealing through the glades in the direction of Falcon's Nest.
+Nothing was to be heard but the rustling of the leaves--the deafened
+beating of the sea upon the rocks--and, to use the words of Lamartine,
+"those unknown tongues that night and the wind whisper in the air."
+The trees were mirrored in the rays of the moon, and the ground, at
+intervals, seemed strewn with monstrous giants; their hearts beat, not
+with fear, but with that feverish impatience that anticipates decisive
+results.
+
+When they arrived at the foot of the tree on which the aerial dwelling
+was situated, Fritz opened the door, and resolutely, but stealthily,
+ascended.
+
+Willis and Jack followed him with military precision.
+
+They reached the top of the staircase, and held the latch of the door
+that opened into the apartment.
+
+A train of mice, in the strictest incognito, could not have performed
+these operations with a greater amount of secretiveness. On opening
+the door they stood and listened.
+
+Not a sound. Jack fired off a pistol, and the fraudulent occupier of
+the room instantly started up on his feet. Fritz rushed forward, and
+clasped him tightly round the body.
+
+"Ho, ho, comrade," said he, "this time you do not get off so easily!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CHIMPANZEE--IMPERFECT NEGRO, OR PERFECT APE--THE HARMONIES OF
+NATURE--A HANDFUL OF PAWS--A STONE SKIN--SEVENTEEN THOUSAND SPECTACLES
+ON ONE NOSE--ANIMALCULAE--PELION ON OSSA--PTOLEMY--COPERNICUS TO
+GALILEO--METAPHYSICS AND COSMOGONIES--ISAIAH--A LIVE TIGER.
+
+
+"The chimpanze or chimpanzee," says Buffon, the French naturalist, "is
+much more sagacious than the _ourang outang_, with which it has been
+inaccurately confounded; it likewise bears a more marked resemblance
+to the human being; the height is the same, and it has the same
+aspect, members, and strength; it always walks on two feet, with the
+head erect, has no tail, has calves to its legs, hair on its head, a
+beard on its chin, a face that Grimaldi would have envied, hands and
+nails like those of men, whose manners and habits it is susceptible of
+acquiring."
+
+Buffon knew an individual of the species that sat demurely at table,
+taking his place with the other guests; like them he would spread out
+his napkin, and stick one corner of it into his button-hole just as
+they did, and he was exceedingly dexterous in the use of his knife,
+fork, and spoon. Spectators were not a little surprised to see him go
+to a bed made for him, tie up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, place
+it sideways on a pillow, tuck himself carefully in the bed-clothes,
+pretend to be sick, stretch out his pulse to be felt, and affect to
+undergo the process of being bled.
+
+The naturalist adds that he is very easily taught, and may be made a
+useful domestic servant, at least as regards the humbler operations of
+the kitchen; he promptly obeys signs and the voice, whilst other
+species of apes only obey the stick; he will rinse glasses, serve at
+table, turn the spit, grind coffee, or carry water. Add to his virtues
+as a domestic, that he is not much addicted to chattering about the
+family affairs, has no followers, and is very accommodating in the
+matter of wages.
+
+It was neither more nor less than a chimpanzee that Fritz had caught
+in the dark at Falcon's Nest.
+
+"Now then, old fellow," said he, "you will help us to clear up this
+mysterious affair."
+
+The caged stranger made no reply to this observation; Willis and Jack
+then questioned him, the one in English and the other in French.
+
+Still no reply.
+
+He did not submit, however, to be interrogated quietly; on the
+contrary, his struggles to get away were most vigorous, so much so
+that Fritz adopted the precaution of binding him.
+
+"If it had been one of our sailors," said Willis, "he would have
+recognized my voice long ago."
+
+"Who are you?" asked one.
+
+"Where do you come from?" inquired another.
+
+"Do not attempt to escape," said a third.
+
+"We mean you no harm; on the contrary, we are friends, disposed to do
+you good if we can."
+
+"If all his brothers and sisters are as talkative as himself,"
+remarked Jack, "they must be a very amusing sort of people."
+
+"He can walk at all events," said Fritz giving him a smart push.
+
+The chimpanzee fell flat on the floor.
+
+"It appears, sir, that you are determined to have your own way, we
+must therefore wait till daylight."
+
+An hour passed in polyglot expostulations with the stranger on the
+score of his obstinacy, but all to no purpose; to use a popular
+expression, he was as dumb as the Doges. He deigned, however, to empty
+at a single draught a calabash of Malaga that Willis gave him, but
+there his condescension stopped.
+
+The Pilot, who now encountered mosquitoes in all directions, made
+preparations for smoking; the light he struck, however, instead of
+clearing up the mystery, only perplexed them more and more; there lay
+their new companion, stretched on the ground, staring at them with a
+ludicrous grin.
+
+If, on the one hand, it occurred to them this man was an animal, on
+the other the animal was a man, and Buffon did not happen to be there
+at the time to assign him officially a place in the former kingdom.
+
+The next difficulty that presented itself was, how they were to get
+him along; when they broke in the onagra, they ran a prong through his
+ear; in reducing the buffalo to subjection, they did not feel the
+slightest compunction in thrusting a pin through the cartilage of his
+nose; then, in order to give elasticity to the legs of the ostrich,
+they yoked him to two or three other animals, and, willing or
+unwilling, he was compelled ultimately to yield obedience to the lords
+of creation. But whether the creature before them was a lower order of
+negro or a higher order of ape, there was too great a resemblance
+between the captured and the capturers to admit of any of these
+methods of impulsion being adopted. It was, therefore, stretched on a
+plank, like a nabob in his palanquin, that the chimpanzee made his
+first appearance at Rockhouse.
+
+When the cavalcade arrived there, all the family, with the exception
+of Ernest and Frank, were still asleep. The first thing they did was
+to clothe the creature they had captured in a sailor's pantaloons and
+jacket, with which he seemed rather pleased, and the result of this
+operation was, that he began to assume a less ferocious aspect, and
+behave more respectfully towards his captors. All the family had sat
+down to breakfast, when Fritz and Jack, taking him by the hands, led
+him gravely into the gallery. A cord was attached to his legs,
+allowing him to walk, but was so arranged that he could not run.
+
+On his appearance the young girls fled at once; and, more accustomed
+to drawing-rooms than the rude realities of savage life, Mrs.
+Wolston's first impulse was to do the same.
+
+"Goodness gracious!" she cried with an air of alarm, "what horror is
+that?"
+
+"That, madam, is precisely what we have been anxious for the last two
+or three hours to find out," replied Fritz.
+
+"Does the creature speak?"
+
+"Up till now, madam," replied Willis, "he has only opened his mouth to
+swallow my calabash of Malaga; beyond that, he has kept as close as a
+purser's locker."
+
+When the first shock had passed, and the company had regained their
+self-possession, Jack related, with his customary originality, the
+incidents of the nocturnal expedition, of which Fritz was the
+originator, leader, and hero. The ladies then, for the first time,
+were made acquainted with the doubts, fears, perplexities, and
+battues, which, out of gallantry, they had hitherto been kept in
+ignorance of. Becker then, having carefully investigated the creature,
+pronounced it to be (as we already know) a full-grown specimen of a
+kind of ape, called by the Africans "the wild man of the woods," and
+by naturalists the _jocko_ or chimpanzee.
+
+"It is naturally very savage," added Becker; "but this individual
+seems already to have received some degree of education."
+
+As a proof of this, the chimpanzee seated himself amongst them very
+much at his ease; he scanned the faces surrounding him with an air of
+curiosity, and seemed to search for a particular countenance that it
+annoyed him not to find. Some fruit and nuts that were given him put
+him in excellent humor.
+
+"He has, without doubt, been on board some ship, wrecked on the
+coast," said Wolston, "for I recollect having read that his kindred
+are only found in Western Africa and the adjacent islands; do you not
+recognize him, Willis, to belong to the _Nelson_, like the plank of
+the other day?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"So much the better."
+
+"We do not ship such cattle on board his Majesty's ships," added the
+Pilot.
+
+The girls, ashamed of their fear, now came peeping in at the door,
+and, seeing that nobody had been devoured, took refuge by the side of
+their mother.
+
+"Look here, father," said Ernest, feeling the creature's crania,
+after having facetiously begged pardon for the liberty, "its head is
+precisely like our own; that is very humiliating."
+
+"Yes, my son, but his tongue and other organs are also exactly like
+ours, yet he cannot utter a word. His head is of the same form and
+proportion, but he does not for all that possess human intelligence.
+Is this not a very striking proof that mere matter, though perfectly
+organized, neither produces words nor thought; and that it requires a
+special manifestation of the Divine will to call these attributes into
+existence?"
+
+"True; but, father, some writers say that apes have been observed to
+profit by fires lighted in the forest, and have gone and warmed
+themselves when the travellers left."
+
+"That, my son, is instinct, nothing more; the operation of keeping up
+a fire, by throwing a few branches upon it, is exceedingly simple, but
+their instinct has never been known to rise to that amount of
+intelligence."
+
+"You recollect, father, that heathcock we saw some years ago
+displaying his glossy plumage to the dazzled hens; is that not a
+well-marked proof of coquetry? and is not this coquetry an indication
+of something more than mere instinct?"
+
+"You will permit me to believe, my son, at least till the contrary has
+been proved, that these actions to which you refer have nothing at all
+to do with coquetry. Those brilliant colors are designed for a purpose
+other than that which you suppose; they serve as signals to keep the
+community together, or, in other words, they are a common centre round
+which the hens may revolve."
+
+"The transition from apes to heathcocks," remarked Jack, "appears to
+me somewhat abrupt."
+
+"Not so abrupt as you think, Master Jack," said Wolston; "those who
+take the trouble to study Nature, observe an admirable gradation and
+easy progression from a simple to a complex organization. There is no
+race or species that is not connected by a perceptible link with that
+which precedes and that which follows."
+
+"What relation is there, for example," inquired Jack, "between an
+oyster and a horse?"
+
+"No immediate relation certainly, but there are intermediate links by
+which the two are brought together: they may be regarded, however, as
+the opposite extremes of the brotherhood--the two poles in the chain
+of existence. A horse bears even less resemblance to a turnip than to
+an oyster; a relationship may, nevertheless, be traced, step by step,
+between them, dissimilar as they are. There is the polypus, that
+singular product of Nature, which, regarded in one light, performs all
+the functions of animal life, whilst, when regarded in another, it has
+the ordinary attributes of a plant; does this not clearly and
+distinctly mark the transition from the vegetable to the animal
+kingdom? Again, certain species of worms blend the animal with the
+insect tribe, those which are covered with a horny substance unite
+them with the crustaceae. These approach fish on the one hand, and
+reptiles on the other, whilst reptiles in some species become
+moluscs."
+
+"And what is a molusc?" inquired Willis.
+
+"The term _molusc_ is applied by naturalists to creatures which have
+no vertebrae, as for example, the cuttle fish and the oyster."
+
+"I believe _you_, Mr. Wolston; but if I had asked Ernest or Jack, they
+would have told me that it was a commodore or an admiral."
+
+"Reptiles, I was going to say, are connected at one end of the chain
+with moluscs by the slug, and at the other with fish by the eel. From
+flying-fish to birds the transition is by no means abrupt. The
+ostrich, whose legs are like goat's, and runs rather than flies,
+connects birds with quadrupeds; these again return to fish through the
+cetacea."
+
+"Yes, but the interval between such creatures and man is still great."
+
+"True; to connect the two would be a process replete with
+insurmountable difficulties, and only possible to creative power. The
+projecting snout would have to be flattened, and the features of
+humanity imprinted upon it--that head bent upon the ground would have
+to be directed upwards--that narrow breast would have to be flattened
+out--those legs would have to be converted into flexible arms, and
+those horny hoofs into nimble fingers."
+
+"To accomplish which," remarked Frank, "God had only to say, 'Let it
+be so.'"
+
+"Assuredly; and as there is nothing incongruous in Nature, as
+everything is admirably adapted for its purpose, as unity of design is
+perceptible in all things, as every effect proceeds from a cause, and
+becomes a cause in its turn of succeeding effects, so God has willed
+that there should be a chain of resemblance running through all his
+works, and the link that connects man with the animal kingdom--the
+highest type of the mammiferous race, and the nearest approach to
+humanity amongst the brutes--is the creature before you."
+
+As if to illustrate this position, and prove his title to the place
+awarded him, the chimpanzee quietly laid hold of Mr. Wolston's straw
+hat and stuck it on his crispy head.
+
+"He is, perhaps, afraid of catching cold," said Jack, thrusting a mat
+under his feet.
+
+"Compare birds with quadrupeds," continued Mr. Wolston, "and you will
+find analogies at every step. Does the powerful and kingly eagle not
+resemble the noble and generous lion?--the cruel vulture, the
+ferocious tiger?--the kite, buzzard, and crow preying upon carrion,
+hyenas, jackals, and wolves? Are not falcons, hawks, and other birds
+used in the chase, types of foxes and dogs? Is the owl, which prowls
+about only at night, not a type of the cat? The cormorants and herons,
+that live upon fish, are they not the otters and beavers of the air?
+Do not peacocks, turkeys, and the common barn-door fowl bear a
+striking affinity to oxen, cows, sheep, and other ruminating animals?"
+
+During these remarks, Jack's monkey, Knips, had found its way into the
+gallery, and, observing the newcomer, went forward to accost him as if
+an old friend; the latter, however, uttered a menacing cry, and was
+about to seize Knips with evidently no amiable design, but was
+prevented by the cords that bound his legs. Knips leaped upon the back
+of one of the boys, and there, as if on the tower of an impregnable
+fortress, commenced making a series of grimaces at the chimpanzee,
+these being the only missiles within reach that he could launch at his
+relation. The enemy retorted, and kept up a smart fire of like
+ammunition.
+
+"It appears," remarked Mrs Wolston, "that apes are something like men:
+the great and the little do not readily amalgamate."
+
+"We must make them amalgamate," said Jack, taking one of Knips's paws,
+whilst Ernest held that of the chimpanzee; thus they compelled them to
+shake hands, but with what degree of cordiality we are unable to
+state.
+
+"You ought to oblige them now to take an oath of fealty," said Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"Chimpanzee," said Jack, speaking for Knips, "I promise always to
+treat you in future with smiles, delicacies, and respect."
+
+"Knips," replied the wild man of the woods, through the organs of
+Ernest, "I promise to have for you only the most generous intentions;
+to share with you the nuts I may have occasion to crack, that is, by
+giving you the shells and keeping the kernel; I promise, moreover, not
+to immolate you at the altar of my just rage, unless it is impossible
+for me to avoid an outburst of temper."
+
+"Now the embrace of peace."
+
+"Ah, madam," said Jack, "you must excuse that ceremony, their
+friendship is too new for such intimacy, and Knips don't much like
+being bitten."
+
+"Need we other proofs," remarked Becker, when the scene between the
+monkeys was concluded, "that everything has been premeditated,
+weighed, and calculated? It was necessary for that most arid country,
+Arabia, that we should have a sober animal, susceptible of existing a
+long time without water, and capable of treading the hot sands of the
+desert. God has accordingly given us the camel."
+
+"And the dromedary," remarked Ernest.
+
+"So everywhere," continued Becker; "and add to these evidences of
+Divine wisdom the brilliant colors, the silken furs, the golden
+plumage, and the ever-varying forms, yet, in all this diversity,
+there is unison--a harmony. Like the various objects which a clever
+artist introduces into his sketch, they are placed without uniformity,
+but still with reference to their effect upon each other, and so to
+the unity of the general design."
+
+"Therefore," remarked Ernest, "we have an animal whose skin is of
+stone, which it throws off annually to assume a new one--whose flesh
+is its tail and in its feet--whose hair is found inside in its
+breast--whose stomach is in its head, which, like the skin, is renewed
+every year, the first function of the new being to digest the old
+one."
+
+Here the Pilot manifested some symptoms of incredulity.
+
+"That is not all, Willis," continued Ernest, "the animal of which I
+speak carries its eggs in the interior of its body till they are
+hatched, and then transfers them to its tail. It has pebbles in its
+stomach, can throw off its limbs when they incommode it, and replace
+them with others more to its fancy. To finish the portrait, its eyes
+are placed at the tip of long flexible horns."
+
+"Do you really mean me to believe that yarn?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, Willis, unless you intend to deny the existence of lobsters."
+
+"Lobsters! Ah! you are talking of them, are you!"
+
+"Have not," continued Ernest, "six thousand three hundred and
+sixty-two eyes been counted in one beetle? sixteen thousand in a fly?
+and as many as thirty-four thousand six hundred in a butterfly? Of
+course, facets understood."
+
+"Supposing these facets myope or presbyte," observed Jack, "that gives
+seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty-five pairs of spectacles
+on one nose!"
+
+"How wonderfully varied are the forms of Nature. If, from the mastodon
+and the fossil mammoth, to which Buffon attributes five or six times
+the bulk and size of the elephant, we descend to those animalculae, of
+which Leuwenhoek estimates that a thousand millions of them would not
+occupy the place of an ordinary grain of sand."
+
+Here Willis lost all patience and left the gallery, whistling as
+usual, under such circumstances, the "Mariner's March."
+
+"Malesieu has detected animals by the microscope twenty-seven times
+smaller than a mite. A single drop of water under this instrument
+assumes the aspect of a lake, peopled by an infinite multitude of
+living creatures."
+
+"Therefore," observed Wolston, "it is not the great works of Nature,
+or those of which the organization is most perfect, that alone
+presents to the mind of man the unfathomable mysteries of creation;
+atoms become to him problems, that utterly defy the utmost efforts of
+his intelligence."
+
+"Which," suggested Becker, "does not prevent us believing ourselves a
+well of science, nor hinder us from piling Pelion on Ossa to scale the
+skies."
+
+"What becomes, in the presence of these facts, of the metaphysics and
+cosmogonies that have succeeded each other for two thousand years?
+What of all the theories, from Ptolemy to Copernicus, from Copernicus
+to Galileo, Descartes and his zones, Leibnitz and his monads, Wolf and
+his fire forces, Maupertuis and his intelligent elements, Broussais,
+who, in his anatomical lectures, has oftener than once shown to his
+pupils, on the point of his scalpel, the source of thought; what, I
+say, becomes of all these?"
+
+"There is less wisdom in such vain speculation than in these simple
+words: '_I believe in God the Father, the Creator of all things_.'"
+
+"Worlds," says Isaiah, "are, before Him, like the dew-drops on a blade
+of grass."
+
+"We are now, however, getting into the clouds," remarked Wolston; "let
+us return to the earth by the shortest route. What do you mean to do
+with the chimpanzee?"
+
+"Why, we must cage him in some way," replied Becker; "to let him loose
+again would be to create fresh uneasiness for ourselves. To kill him
+would be almost a kind of homicide."
+
+"Can I come in now?" inquired Willis, thrusting his head into the
+gallery.
+
+"Yes, with perfect safety."
+
+"You see, when Master Ernest begins to spin, he gets into the chapter
+of miracles, and forgets that we have ears."
+
+"I cannot help seeing them sometimes though, Willis; when they are a
+little longer than usual, it is difficult to hide them altogether."
+
+"Well," replied Willis, "I confess I am a bit of a fool, and as you
+are at a loss what to do with our friend here, I shall take him over
+with me to Shark's Island: there will be a pair of us there then."
+
+"If you will undertake to be his guide and instructor, he is yours,
+Willis."
+
+"What shall I call him?"
+
+"Jocko."
+
+"It shall go hard with me if I do not make a gentleman of him in a
+month's time."
+
+"I should like," said Frank, "if you could convert him into a tiger."
+
+"A tiger?"
+
+"Yes, we want a footman in livery to fetch Mrs. Wolston's carriage
+next time she calls for it."
+
+"I feel highly flattered by the compliment," said Mrs. Wolston, "but
+fear you will not be able to turn him out entire."
+
+"Why so, madam?"
+
+"Where are the top boots to come from?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PIONEERS--EXCURSION TO COROMANDEL--HINDOO FANCIES--A CAGED
+HUNTER--LOUIS XI. AND CARDINAL BALUE--A FURLONG OF NEWS--CARNAGE--THE
+BARONET AND HIS SEVENTEEN TIGERS--FIFTY-FOUR FEET OF CELEBRITY--STERNE'S
+WINDOW--PROMENADE OF THE CONSCIENCES--EMULATION AND VANITY.
+
+
+When a country is released from the presence of an enemy that annoyed
+and harassed them, the people feel as if a weight had been taken off
+their shoulders; so the inhabitants of New Switzerland had breathed
+more freely since the capture of the chimpanzee.
+
+The works at Falcon's Nest were completed, and the two families had
+taken possession of their aerial dwellings, where they were perched
+like a pair of rookeries within call of each other.
+
+The confined air of towns has a tendency to plunge men into lethargy
+and indolence, and to precipitate the decadence of a constitution in
+which the seeds of disease have been sown; whilst, on the other hand,
+the pure air of the country braces the nerves, excites a healthy
+action in the system, and invigorates a shattered frame; so it was
+with Mr. Wolston--under the benign influences of the genial climate
+and the refreshing sea breeze, he gradually, but steadily, recovered
+health and strength.
+
+A larger breadth of land had been cleared and fitted for receiving
+grain, which it was susceptible of reproducing a hundred-fold. Such is
+the sublime contract God has made with man, that, in exchange for his
+labor and skill, a single grain of wheat will produce seven or eight
+stalks, each bearing an ear containing fifty grains; a single grain
+has been known to yield twenty-eight ears, and Pliny states that Nero
+received a grain bearing the enormous number of three hundred and
+sixty ears. Strange that such a singular instance of fecundity should
+present itself during the domination of a man, or rather monster, who
+dared to wish that the Roman people had only one head, so that he
+might cut it off at a single blow!
+
+Willis and the Wolstons were as yet ignorant of the extent and limits
+of the colony; there were two inclosed and cultivated sections, named
+respectively Waldeck and Prospect Hill, which they had not yet
+inspected. With a view to enable them to form a more accurate
+conception of the boundaries of the territory they inhabited, a grand
+excursion was decided upon that would enable them leisurely to
+investigate every nook and cranny of the settlement.
+
+The storehouse was accordingly overhauled, and the ladies called in to
+prepare viands for the journey; they were likewise invited to furnish
+a supply of certain enchanted travelling bags, in which the gentlemen
+were often astonished to find, during their distant expeditions, a
+thousand and one useful things that they would never have dreamt of
+bringing with them of their own accord.
+
+Becker, Wolston, Ernest, and Frank set about the construction of a
+vehicle on four wheels for the luggage and the ladies; they did not
+contemplate erecting a machine with elastic springs and gilded panels,
+like the Lord Mayor's state coach--their object was to produce a
+machine that would ease, without dislocating, the limbs of the
+travellers, and that would move at least more gently than a gardener's
+cart, loaded with hampers of greens for Covent Garden Market. It may
+readily be supposed that Ernest's Latin was not of much service in
+these operations, for even Wolston's mechanical skill was sorely tried
+in elaborating the design.
+
+Fritz, Willis, and Jack had already started as pioneers of the
+expedition to examine the buildings, and to see that no more apes or
+other piratical marauders had established themselves on their
+premises; and, in compliance with a request made by Willis, who
+strongly objected to becoming a bushranger, they had gone by water. It
+was further arranged that, on their return, all should start
+together--the entire community in one cavalcade, like an army on the
+march.
+
+The young ladies were as much pleased in anticipation with this
+journey as if the destination of the travellers had been Brighton or
+Ramsgate. To children of their age, change is always pleasing. Often,
+in consequence of a death, the collapse of a bank, the loss of a
+law-suit, or some dire disaster of that sort, parents have seen
+themselves compelled to abandon the home of their fathers, endeared to
+them by many gentle recollections, perhaps to embark for some far
+distant land; they stifle their sighs, and bid a mute farewell to each
+stone and each tree, familiar to them as household words; they depart
+with reluctance, and often turn to cast a lingering look behind at
+objects so dear to their memory. Not so the children; they issue from
+the door like a flock of caged pigeons just let loose; they sing and
+leap and laugh with glee; the old house has no charms for them, they
+are as glad to depart as their elders are wishful to stay; the trunk
+desires to multiply its roots on the soil, but the buds prefer to blow
+elsewhere--for the latter life resolves itself into the word FUTURE,
+and for the former into the word PAST.
+
+Leaving Wolston, Becker, and his two sons hard at work on the
+carriage, let us turn to the pinnace which was now making its way
+along the shore under the guidance of the Pilot.
+
+"I should like much," said Fritz, "to present Mr. and Mrs. Wolston
+with a couple of bear, leopard, or tiger skins."
+
+"So should I," said Jack.
+
+"I wish you could think of some other sort of gift," suggested Willis;
+"what do you say to a couple of seal or shark skins?"
+
+"Won't do," replied both Fritz and Jack in one voice. "What objections
+have you to the others?"
+
+"Well, you are in some sort consigned to my care; I should like you to
+return to your parents with your own skins entire."
+
+"Then you think it is a terrific affair to kill a tiger or two? You
+have been accustomed to the sea, and fancy landsmen are good for
+nothing but shooting crows and wild-cats; that is a mistake, however;
+we are familiar with larger game."
+
+"Shiver my timbers! do you call bears and tigers game?"
+
+"I am afraid, Willis, you are a bit of a milksop."
+
+"Avast heaving there, Master Fritz! as it is, I am a half-hanged man
+already, so death has now no terrors Dov me; it is the first pang that
+is most felt."
+
+"Yes; but in the case of tigers, they never give you time to feel a
+second pang; miss your aim, and it is all over with you."
+
+"True; and therefore I wish you would give up the project. As for
+myself, I would face anything with a four-pounder, but rifle practice
+on board ship is mostly confined to the marines; it is not that,
+however, I am troubled about; I am certain your worthy father would
+never forgive me if I countenance this project."
+
+"You need not tell him anything about it."
+
+"Where, then, are the skins to come from? Can you say you bought them
+at the furrier's? You must really hit upon some other fancy."
+
+"But it is not a fancy, Willis, it is a necessity; it is not our own
+amusement we are consulting. Just imagine yourself what will happen
+during the excursion now being arranged. Our parents will, of course,
+offer their bear skins to Mr. and Mrs. Wolston; there will be refusals
+on the one side and entreaties on the other."
+
+"And, as is usual in these sort of discussions," added Jack, "Mrs.
+Wolston will call her carriage."
+
+"Yes," continued Fritz, "and my mother will most certainly deprive
+herself of a covering that is absolutely indispensable during the cold
+nights of this climate."
+
+"There is reason in what you say," observed Willis, scratching his
+ear.
+
+"You see, Willis, the thing ought and must be done."
+
+"As you put it, yes; but it will take time to prepare the skins."
+
+"They will not be ready in time for this expedition certainly, and my
+mother must do without her skin this journey; but it is our duty to
+prevent anything of the sort happening in future."
+
+"Were I to consent to this project," said Willis, "there is still
+something more required."
+
+"What, Willis?"
+
+"Why, the tigers and what's-a-names; it is necessary to find the brute
+before you can get its skin."
+
+"Granted; there would be a difficulty in the case had we not here
+quite handy a magnificent covering of wild animals, all ready to kill
+or to be killed. Just steer a point to the east, Willis; there, that
+will do. Just beyond that bluff you see yonder, there is a low flat
+plain covered with brushwood and tufted with trees; on the left, this
+prairie is bounded by a chain of low hills, and on the right a broad
+river, which last we have named the St. John, because it bears some
+resemblance to a stream of that name in Florida; beyond this plain
+there is a swamp."
+
+"And," added Jack, "behind this swamp there is a magnificent forest of
+cedars, peopled with the finest furs imaginable, but garnished,
+however, with formidable claws and rows of teeth."
+
+"I was not aware," said Willis, "that we were within reach of such
+amiable neighbors."
+
+"Oh, they cannot reach us; thanks to the conformation of that chain of
+hills you see yonder, there is only one pass that opens into our
+settlement, and that we have taken care to shut up and fortify."
+
+"It appears then," said Willis, "that there will be no difficulty in
+finding the animals, but--"
+
+"Come, Willis, no more buts; you hunt in your own way from morning
+till night, let us for once hunt in ours."
+
+"I go a-hunting?"
+
+"Yes, there you are, charging your piece just now."
+
+"Oh, my pipe you mean; but look at the difference; mosquitoes bite
+human beings, they don't eat them!"
+
+"And, you may add, their skins don't make bed-clothes. Besides, if my
+mother takes rheumatism or the ague, it will be you that is to blame."
+
+"I would rather face all the tigers in Bengal and all the lions in
+Africa than incur such a responsibility. I will, therefore, take a
+part in your cruise, and if any accident happens to either of you, I
+shall stay in the forest till nothing is left of me but my cap and my
+bones. In this way I will escape all reproach in this world, and I may
+as well, after all, rejoin my old commander, Captain Littlestone, by
+this road as by any other."
+
+In the meantime, they had reached the coast of Waldeck, and having
+landed, they found the outhouses and sheds that had been erected there
+in satisfactory order; the apes had not forgotten a battue that had
+once been got up for their special behoof, as not an individual was to
+be seen in the neighborhood. A morass of the district that had been
+converted into a rice plantation, promised an abundant crop; and the
+cotton plants, that Frank had once mistaken for flakes of snow, reared
+their woolly blossoms, looking for all the world like the powdered
+heads of our ancestors. After a slight repast, the pinnace was once
+more in motion, and the party steering for Prospect Hill.
+
+"Ah," sighed Willis, "I wish we had only Sir Marmaduke Travers' cage
+here."
+
+"Cage!" cried Fritz, laughing, "what, to shut up the game first and
+shoot it afterwards?" "No, quite the reverse: to shut up the hunters."
+
+"Ah, you would serve us in the same way as Louis XI. served Cardinal
+Balue."
+
+"I know nothing of either Louis XI. or Cardinal Balue; but the cage I
+speak of was an excellent invention, for all that."
+
+"Which you would like to prove to us by caging ourselves, eh?"
+
+"Sir Marmaduke Travers," continued Willis, "was an English gentleman,
+and he was travelling in Coromandel, no one knew why or for what
+purpose."
+
+"For the fun of the thing, probably," suggested Jack; the English are
+said to be great oddities."
+
+"At that time there happened to be a Hindoo widow somewhere in those
+parts. This lady was very rich, very young, very beautiful, and very
+fond of tormenting her admirers. And, as fate would have it, the
+travelling Englishman was completely taken captive by this dark
+beauty; and taking advantage of the hold she had obtained upon his
+heart, she amused herself by making him do all sorts of out of the way
+things. Sometimes she would bid him let his moustache grow, then she
+would order him to cut it off; he had to worship Brahma, adopt the
+fashion of the Hindoos, and had even to undergo the indignity of
+having his head tied up in a dirty pocket-handkerchief."
+
+"That is to say," remarked Jack, "that the lady, not having a pug or a
+monkey, made Sir Marmaduke a substitute for both."
+
+"Very likely, but still Sir Marmaduke was no fool; he was, on the
+contrary, a gentleman and a philosopher."
+
+"I doubt that," said Jack.
+
+"You are wrong, then. You have been brought up in an out of the way
+part of the world, and are not familiar with the usages of civilized
+society. When once a man has allowed the tender passion to take root
+in his breast, it cannot afterwards be extinguished at will; it grows
+and grows like an oil spot, so that what might easily have been
+mastered at first, makes us in time its devoted slave."
+
+"I cannot admit," said Fritz, "that any sensible man would allow
+himself to be treated in the way you state."
+
+"The wisest and bravest have often, for all that, been obliged to bend
+their heads to such circumstances; in fact, those only escape whose
+hearts have been steeled by time or adversity. Well, nothing would
+please the lady in one of her caprices short of Sir Marmaduke's going
+alone to the jungle and killing a tiger or two for her. This caused
+him some little uneasiness."
+
+"I should think so," remarked Jack, "unless he had been accustomed to
+face the animals."
+
+"However, the widow's hand was to be the reward of the achievement,
+and the thing must consequently be done. Being, however, as I have
+said, a bit of a philosopher, he considered with himself that if, by
+chance, he should perish in the attempt he would lose the widow all
+the same, and that he could not think of with any thing like
+equanimity. To extricate himself from this dilemma he sent a despatch
+to an enterprising friend of his, then stationed with his regiment at
+Calcutta, requesting his advice."
+
+"And this friend, no doubt, sent him a couple of tigers all ready
+trussed?"
+
+"No, better than that; he sent him a strong iron cage fifteen feet
+square, very solid. This was shipped on board a cutter commanded by
+Captain Littlestone, and I was entrusted with the task of erecting it
+on shore, whilst an express was sent off to Sir Marmaduke."
+
+"Ah!" said Jack, "I begin to understand now."
+
+"Well, he rigged himself in tiger-hunting costume, went and bade the
+lady good-bye, who coolly wished him good sport, mounted a horse, and
+rode off to conquer a lady who, as a proof of her affection, had so
+cavalierly consigned him to the tender mercies of the wild beasts."
+
+"Why, it was dooming him to certain destruction," said Fritz.
+
+"In the meantime the cage had been conveyed to a valley surrounded
+with mountains, the caves of which were known to shelter entire
+colonies of tigers. Here also came Sir Marmaduke. The cage was firmly
+embedded in the soil, the exterior was thickly studded over with sharp
+spikes screwed into the bars; inside were placed a table and a sofa,
+with crimson velvet cushions."
+
+"A lady's boudoir in the wilderness," said Jack.
+
+"In one corner there was a case containing a dozen bottles of pale
+ale, and as many of champagne; in another was a second case containing
+curry pies and a variety of preserved meats; in a third case were five
+and twenty loaded rifles, together with a complete magazine in
+miniature of powder and shot. On the table were sundry cases of
+havannahs, a box of _allumettes_, the last number of the _Edinburgh
+Review_, and a copy of the _Times_."
+
+"What is the _Times_?" inquired Jack.
+
+"It is a furlong of paper, folded up and covered with news,
+advertisements, and letters from the oldest inhabitant of everywhere.
+Leaving, then, Sir Marmaduke seated in the centre of his cage, we
+towards night returned to the cutter, first scattering two or three
+quarters of fresh beef in the vicinity of the cage."
+
+"That should have assembled all the tigers in Coromandel," said
+Fritz.
+
+"Anyhow, it brought enough. Towards midnight Sir Marmaduke could count
+thirty noble brutes capering in the moonlight and feasting upon the
+beef that had been provided for them."
+
+"What did the Englishman do then?"
+
+"He took aim at the most magnificent specimen of the herd and fired.
+No sooner had he done this than the whole pack came scampering towards
+the cage, thinking, doubtless, they had nothing to do but scrunch the
+bones of the solitary hunter. This was the signal for a regular
+slaughter. Sir Marmaduke discharged his rifles point blank in the
+noses of the animals that environed him on all sides; those who were
+not wounded by the balls were severely injured by the spikes of the
+cage in their furious efforts to seize their enemy. The howling,
+yelling, and fury was quite a new sensation for Sir Marmaduke; he
+rather enjoyed the thing whilst the excitement lasted. However, all
+things must have an end; when the sun appeared on the horizon the
+wounded retired, leaving the dead masters of the situation."
+
+"I suppose, in the meantime," remarked Fritz, "that the amiable Hindoo
+was considering whether or not, under the circumstances, she should
+wear mourning for her defunct cavalier."
+
+"Be that as it may, the defunct made his appearance, safe and sound,
+that same day, whilst the cutter stood out to sea with every vestige
+of the cage except the dead tigers. Shortly after, the widow was
+astonished to see an army of coolies marching in procession towards
+her door, all, like the slaves of Aladdin, heavily laden; and she was
+not awakened from her surprise till the master of the ceremonies had
+placed the following letter in her hands:
+
+"Madam,--With this you will receive seventeen fall-grown tigers, which
+I have had the honour of shooting for you.
+
+"Marmaduke Travers."
+
+"That was a choice bijou for a lady," said Jack.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Yes," added Fritz; "and if the ladies of Coromandel have stands in
+their drawing-rooms, to display the tributes to their charms, Sir
+Marmaduke's present afforded abundant material for adorning those of
+the widow."
+
+"Well, the consequence was, that Sir Marmaduke's name rung from one
+end of India to the other. The feat of killing, single-handed,
+seventeen tigers, converted him into a hero of the first magnitude. No
+festival was complete without him, he was courted by the fashionables
+and worshipped by the mob; some enthusiasts even proposed to erect a
+tomb for him, that being the way they honor their great men in eastern
+nations."
+
+"Every country," remarked Fritz, "has its own peculiarities in this
+respect. The memory of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome was
+perpetuated in the intrinsic merit of the works of art erected in
+their names. In England quantity takes the place of quality; there is
+said to be in London a statue of a hero disguised as Achilles, six
+yards in height, and perched upon a pedestal twelve yards high."
+
+"Making in all," remarked Jack, "exactly eighteen yards of fame."
+
+"The handsome Hindoo," continued Willis, "was proud of the feat her
+charms had inspired. She gloried in showing off the redoubtable
+tiger-slayer at her _reunions_, and ended in being completely
+fascinated herself with her former slave. The match that she had
+formerly sneezed at she now earnestly desired, and, as Sir Marmaduke
+did not declare himself so speedily as she desired, she determined to
+give him a little encouragement by sending one of the most inviting
+and most odoriferous of notes."
+
+"Sir Marmaduke must then have considered himself one of the happiest
+of men," said Fritz.
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "neither man nor woman can, in affairs of
+this kind, depend upon themselves for two consecutive hours. The
+aspirations of a whole life-time may be dispelled in five minutes, and
+the wishes of to-day may become the detestations of to-morrow. The new
+sensations awakened in Sir Marmaduke by the affair of the cage--his
+recollection of the ferocious brutes as they clung with expiring
+energy to the bars of the cage, their streaked skins streaming with
+blood, the fearful howling and terrific death yells, the formidable
+claws that were often within an inch of his face--had, somehow or
+other, chased the passion he had felt for the widow completely out of
+his breast."
+
+"Oh, the scamp of a Travers!" said Jack, energetically.
+
+"He began to ask himself coolly what a lady, who had made such
+extraordinary demands upon him before marriage, might not require him
+to do after; and the result of his cogitations is expressed in the
+following reply that he sent to the now smiling widow:--
+
+"'Sir Marmaduke Travers is highly flattered by the charming note of
+the adorable daughter of Brahma; he shall gladly continue to bask in
+the sunshine of her smiles, out his ambition desires and will accept
+nothing more.'"
+
+"Flowery and laconic," said Fritz.
+
+"Well," inquired Willis, "was I not right in wishing to have the cage
+of Sir Marmaduke here?"
+
+"Yes, but we cannot get it. We have no ingenious trend at Calcutta to
+send us such a machine, and furnish it with crimson-cushioned sofas
+and pale ale, so we shall have to rest satisfied with our own
+ingenuity, tact, and agility."
+
+Fritz and Jack were justified in relying upon their own resources.
+They had been often sorely tried, and never had been found wanting in
+cases of emergency. Since the arrival of the Wolstons their courage
+had become almost temerity; previous to that event, they had been
+content to meet danger bravely when it was inevitable, and never went
+deliberately in search of it. Now, however, if we apply the glass of
+which Sterne speaks to their breasts and spy what is passing therein,
+we shall fad that an imperious desire to become heroes had taken
+possession of their inward souls--a determination to make themselves
+conspicuous at all hazards was burning within them; that, in fact,
+they were courting the admiration of the new audience that Providence
+had sent to the colony, the praise of which found more favor in their
+hearts than the paternal admonitions.
+
+This was far from being commendable; but, although emulation and
+vanity have some features in common, still they must not be
+confounded: the former consists in generous efforts to equal or
+surpass some one in something praiseworthy; the second is a kind of
+self-love, that seeks to purchase respect or flattery at no matter
+what cost;--the one is a vice, the other a virtue.
+
+Fritz and Jack were not actuated by vanity; they were urged on by
+their impulses, without weighing the circumstances that gave them
+rise; and indeed they were not even conscious of being more desirous
+of renown now than they had been hitherto.
+
+The temperament of Ernest and Frank was of another kind. Their natures
+were much less excitable, and it did not appear that the recent
+arrivals had altered their outward demeanor in the slightest degree;
+they continued calm, staid, and reflective, as they had ever been.
+
+All four were a singular mixture of the child and the man--knowing
+many things that young people are ignorant of, they were yet almost
+totally unacquainted with the ordinary attributes of social
+life--unsophisticated and naive to an extreme degree, they would have
+appeared in a fashionable drawing-room downright fools. On the other
+hand, they possessed great clearness of perception, presence of mind
+in danger, promptitude in action, and the utmost coolness in the face
+of apparently insurmountable obstacles--qualities that would have
+utterly confounded the young men who shine in the saloons of Europe,
+whose chief merit often consists in their being familiar with the
+unmeaning conventionalisms of fashionable life.
+
+At Prospect Hill they found the outhouses and plantations in much the
+same position as at Waldeck. Here the crimson flowers of the caper
+plant, the white flowers of the tea plant, and the rich blossoms of
+the clove tree, perfumed the air and promised a fragrant harvest. This
+was a charming caravansary, all ready with its smiles to welcome the
+illustrious colonists as soon as they presented themselves.
+
+These points being settled to the satisfaction of the three pioneers,
+a sheep was taken on board the pinnace at the request of Willis--who
+seemed to have taken a violent fancy for mutton chops--and they set
+sail towards the east.
+
+In the first instance they made for a projecting head-land that seemed
+to bar their progress in that direction, and, much to the astonishment
+of the Pilot, they entered a cavern that formed the entrance to a
+natural tunnel. This, besides being an interesting feature in the
+coast scenery, was one of the treasures of the colony, for it
+contained vast quantities of edible birds' nests, so much prized by
+the Chinese. The voyagers did not, however, tarry here; these were not
+the objects they were now in search of. Nautilus Bay and the Bay of
+Pearls were likewise traversed unheeded, nor could the attractive
+banks of the St. John, fringed with verdant foliage, divert them from
+the project they had in contemplation.
+
+Wise men, when they indulge in folly, are often more foolish than real
+fools; so it was with Willis: now that he had joined in the scheme, he
+evinced more ardor in its execution than the young men themselves. He
+said that it would not be enough to capture skins for Mr. and Mrs.
+Wolston, they must also capture one a-piece for Mary and Sophia
+likewise, and talked as if the adventure of Sir Marmaduke and his
+seventeen tigers had been a bagatelle.
+
+Some hours before dark they landed at a spot well known to both Fritz
+and Jack; it was a place where Becker and his sons had some time
+before been engaged in deadly conflict with a herd of lions, and where
+one of their dogs had fallen a victim to the enraged monarchs of the
+forest.
+
+"My plan," said Willis, "is to kill the sheep and place the quarters
+on the shore, just as bait is thrown into the water to bring the fish
+within the net."
+
+"A reminiscence of Sir Marmaduke," said Jack.
+
+"Then," continued Willis, "we shall light a fire to take the place of
+the sun, who is about to retire for the night. This done, I propose
+that we should return to the pinnace, keep the mutton within rifle
+range, and riddle the skins that come to feast upon it."
+
+After some opposition on the part of Fritz and Jack, who preferred to
+encounter their antagonists on more equal terms, the proposal of
+Willis was ultimately agreed to.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ON THE WATCH--FECUNDITY OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS--LATEST NEWS FROM THE
+MOON--A DEATH-KNELL EVERY SECOND--THE INCONVENIENCES OF BEING TOO NEAR
+THE SUN--NARCOTICS--WILLIS CONTRALTO--HUNTING TURNED UPSIDE
+DOWN--ELECTRIC CLOUDS--PARTIALITIES OF LIGHTNING--BELLS AND
+BELL-RINGERS--CONDUCTING RODS--THE RETURN--THE TWO SISTERS--TOBY
+BECOMES A DRAGOMAN.
+
+
+As is usual in tropical climates, a blazing hot day was succeeded by
+an intensely dark night. The fire that the hunters had made on shore
+cast a lurid glare on the prominent objects round about. The flames,
+as they fitfully lit up the landscape into that dim distinctness
+termed by artists the _chiar oscuro_, made the bushes and trunks of
+trees appear like monsters issuing stealthily from the forest that
+lined the background. There seemed to be some attraction, however,
+elsewhere for the real monsters, not a single wild beast having as yet
+appeared on the scene.
+
+The two young men were eagerly straining their eyes from the stern of
+the pinnace, whilst the dogs kept diligently wagging their tails in
+expectation of a signal for the onset. The position of Willis could be
+ascertained now and then by an eye of fire, which opened and shut as
+he inhaled or exhaled the fumes of his Maryland. The ripple beat
+gently on the sea-line of the boat, which oscillated with the
+regularity and softness of a cradle.
+
+"It is always so," said Jack, impatiently; "if we don't want wild
+beasts, there are shoals of them to be seen; but if we do want them,
+then they are all off to their dens."
+
+"Perhaps, there are none now," suggested Willis.
+
+"Say rather," observed Fritz, "that there ought to be thousands; for
+on the one hand they multiply rapidly, and on the other there is no
+one to destroy them. Spaniards once left a few cattle on St. Domingo,
+and they increased at such a rate, that the island very soon would not
+have been able to support them, had they not been kept down by
+constant slaughter."
+
+"Besides," remarked Jack, "the bovine race reproduce themselves more
+slowly than other animals; a single sow, according to a calculation
+made by Vauban, if allowed to live eleven years, would produce six
+millions of pigs."
+
+"What a cargo of legs of pork and sides of bacon!" exclaimed Willis,
+laughing.
+
+"Then fish; there are more than a hundred and sixty thousand eggs in a
+single carp. A sturgeon contains a million four hundred and
+sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty, whilst in some codfish
+the number exceeds nine millions."
+
+"Oh, you need not favor us with the 'Mariner's March,' Willis; what my
+brother says is perfectly correct."
+
+"What, then, do these shoals of creatures live upon?"
+
+"The big ones upon the little ones; fish devour each other."
+
+"A beautiful harmony of Nature," remarked Fritz drily.
+
+"Then plants," continued Jack, "are still more prolific than animals.
+Some trees can produce as many of their kind as they have branches, or
+even leaves. An elm tree, twelve years old, yields sometimes five
+hundred thousand pods; and, by the way, Willis, to encourage you in
+carrying on the war against the mosquitoes, a single stalk of tobacco
+produces four thousand seeds."
+
+"The leaves, however, are of more use to me than the seeds," replied
+Willis.
+
+"This admirable proportion between the productiveness of the two
+kingdoms demonstrates the far-seeing wisdom of Providence. If the
+power of multiplication in vegetables had been less considerable, the
+fields, gardens, and prairies would have been deserts, with only a
+plant here and there to hide the nakedness of the land. Had God
+permitted animals to multiply in excess of plants, the entire
+vegetation would soon have been devoured, and then the animals
+themselves would of necessity have ceased to exist."
+
+"How is it, then," inquired Willis, "with this continual
+multiplication always going on, the inhabitants of land and sea do not
+get over-crowded?"
+
+"Why, as regards man, for example, if thirteen or fourteen human
+beings are born within a given period, death removes ten or eleven
+others; but though this leaves a regular increase, still the
+population of the globe always continues about the same."
+
+"It may be so, Master Jack, but when I was a little boy at school, I
+generally came in for a whipping, if I made out two and two to be
+anything else than four."
+
+"And served you right too, Willis; but if the human family did not
+continually increase, if the number of deaths exceeded continually
+that of the births, at the end of a few centuries the world would be
+unpeopled."
+
+"Very good; but if, on the other hand, there is a continual increase,
+how can the population continue the same?"
+
+"Because the increase supposes a normal state; that is to say, the
+births are only estimated as compared with deaths from disease or old
+age. But then there are shipwrecks, inundations, plagues, and war,
+which sometimes exterminate entire communities at one fell swoop. Then
+whole nations die out and give place to the redundant populations of
+others; phenomena now observed in the cases of the aborigines of
+Australia and America."
+
+"Very true."
+
+"No signs of furs yet," cried Fritz, who was every now and then
+levelling his rifle at the phantoms on shore.
+
+"We need not dread," continued Jack, "ever being hustled or jostled on
+the earth; life will fail us before space. There are now eight hundred
+millions of human beings in existence, and, according to the most
+moderate computation, room enough for twice that number. As it is, the
+most fertile sections of the earth are not the most populous; there
+are four hundred millions in Asia, sixty millions in Africa, forty in
+America, two hundred and thirty in Europe, and only seventy millions
+in the islands and continent of Oceanica!"
+
+"To which," remarked Fritz, "you may add the eleven inhabitants of New
+Switzerland."
+
+"Assuming, then, this calculation to be nearly accurate, though
+authorities vary materially in their computations of the earth's
+inhabitants, and regarding it in connexion with the average duration
+of human life, a thousand millions of mortals must perish in
+thirty-three years; to descend to detail, thirty millions every year,
+three thousand four hundred every hour, sixty every minute, or ONE
+EVERY SECOND."
+
+"Aye," remarked Willis, "we are here to-day and gone to-morrow."
+
+"Suppose, then, that the population of the earth were twice as great,
+cultivation would be extended, territories that are now lying waste
+would be teeming with life and covered with fertile fields, but the
+same beautiful equilibrium would be maintained."
+
+"And the inhabitants of the planets," said Fritz, "what are they
+about?"
+
+"What planets do you mean?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Well, all in general; the moon, for example, in particular."
+
+"The moon," replied Jack, "has, in the first place, no atmosphere.
+This we know, because the rays of the stars passing behind her are
+not, in the slightest degree, refracted; and this proves that neither
+men, nor animals, nor vegetables of any kind, are to be found in that
+planet, for they could not exist without air."
+
+"That should settle the question," remarked Willis.
+
+"Yes," remarked Fritz; "but some theorists, nevertheless, insist that
+there may be living creatures in the moon, for all that--of course,
+differently constituted from the inhabitants of our earth, and
+susceptible of existing without air. There is, however, no evidence of
+any kind to support such a theory; it is a mere fancy, the dream of an
+imaginative brain. Upon the same grounds, it may be argued, that the
+interior of the earth is inhabited, and that elves and gnomes are
+possible beings. Besides, the telescope has been brought to so high a
+degree of perfection, that objects the size of a house can now be
+detected in the moon."
+
+"It seems, I am afraid," remarked Jack, who, like his brother, was
+getting annoyed by the phantasmagoria on shore, "that we were about
+as well supplied with wild beasts here as they are with men in the
+planets."
+
+"In speaking of the moon, however," continued Fritz, "I do not imply
+all the planets; for, certain as we are that the moon has no
+atmosphere, so we are equally certain that some of the planets possess
+that attribute. Still there are other circumstances that render the
+notion of their being inhabited by beings like ourselves exceedingly
+improbable. Mercury, for example, is so embarrassed by the solar rays,
+that lead must always be in a state of fusion, and water, if not
+reduced to a state of vapor, will be hot enough to boil the fish that
+are in it. Uranus, at the other extremity of the system, receives four
+hundred times less heat and light than we do, consequently neither
+water nor any thing else can exist there in a liquid state; what is
+fluid on our earth must be frozen up into a solid mass. Good, I
+declare my brother has fallen asleep!"
+
+"It is very--interesting--however," said Willis, making ineffectual
+efforts to smother a yawn.
+
+"The same difficulty with comets; there must have been some very
+urgent necessity for human beings in order to have peopled them. When
+they pass the perihelion--"
+
+"The what?" inquired Willis.
+
+"The point where they approach nearest the sun--when they pass the
+perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific;
+when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the
+cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five
+thousand _myriametres_ of the sun."
+
+"Friends coming within that distance of each other should at least
+shake hands," said Willis.
+
+"Still, even at that distance, the heat, according to Newton, must be
+like red-hot iron, and if constituted like our earth, when heated to
+that degree, must take fifty thousand years to cool."
+
+"Fifty thousand years!" said Willis, yawning from ear to ear.
+
+"The central position between these extremes, which would either
+congeal our earth into a mass of ice or burn it up into a heap of
+cinders, is therefore the most congenial to such beings as ourselves.
+Whence I conclude--"
+
+Here the crimson flashes of Willis's pipe, which had been gradually
+diminishing in brilliance suddenly ceased; _contralto_ notes issued
+from the profundities of his breast, and it became evident to the
+orator that all his audience were sound asleep.
+
+"Whence I conclude," said Fritz, addressing himself, "that my orations
+must be somewhat soporiferous."
+
+Being thus left alone to keep a look-out on shore, his thoughts
+gradually receded within his own breast, where all was rose-colored
+and smiling, for at his age rust has not had time to corrupt, nor
+moths to eat away. And it was not long before he himself, like his two
+companions, was fast locked in the arms of sleep.
+
+How long this state of things lasted the chronicle saith not; but the
+three sleepers were eventually awakened by a simultaneous howl of the
+dogs. They were instantly on their feet, with their rifles levelled.
+
+It was too late; day had broken, and there was light enough to
+convince them that nothing was to be seen. The sheep's quarters had,
+however, entirely disappeared, and they had the satisfaction of
+knowing that they had politely given the denizens of the forest a
+feast gratis.
+
+"Ah, they shall pay us for it yet," said Jack.
+
+"This is a case of the hunters being caught instead of the game,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"The poor sheep! If Ernest had been here, he would have erected a
+monument to its memory."
+
+"I doubt that; epitaphs are generally made rather to please the living
+than to compliment the defunct. But, Willis, we must deprive you of
+your office of huntsman in chief--I shall go into the forest and
+revenge this insult."
+
+"I have no objection to abdicate the office of huntsman, but must
+retain that of admiral, in which capacity I announce to you that there
+will be a storm presently, and that we shall just have time to make
+Rockhouse before it overtakes us."
+
+"That is rather a reason for our remaining where we are."
+
+"We have come for skins, and skins we must have."
+
+"Besides, we are two to one, and in all constitutional governments the
+majority rules."
+
+"Have you both made up your minds?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes, we are quite decided."
+
+"In that case," said Willis, "let us hoist the anchor and be off
+home."
+
+"Home! but we are determined to have the skins first."
+
+"No, you are not," said Willis; "I know you better than you know
+yourselves. You are both brave fellows, but I know you would not, for
+all the skins in the world, have your good mother suppose that you
+were buffeted about by the waves in a storm."
+
+"True; up with the anchor, Willis," said Fritz.
+
+"Be it so," said Jack, shaking his fist menacingly at the silent
+forest, "but we shall lose nothing by waiting."
+
+The sailor had not erred in his calculations, for they had scarcely
+unfurled the sail before they heard the distant rumbling of the storm.
+As soon as the first flash of lightning shot across the sky, Jack put
+his forefinger of one hand on the wrist of the other, and began
+counting one--two--three.
+
+"Do you feel feverish?" inquired Willis.
+
+"No, not personally," replied Jack; "I am feeling the pulse of the
+storm--twenty-four--twenty-five--twenty-six--it is a mile off."
+
+"Aye! how do you make that out?"
+
+"Very easily; you recollect Ernest telling us that light travelled so
+rapidly, that the time it occupied in passing from one point to
+another of the earth's surface was scarcely perceptible to our
+senses?"
+
+"Yes, but I thought he was spinning a yarn at the time."
+
+"You were wrong, Willis; he likewise told us that sound travels at the
+rate of four hundred yards in a second."
+
+"Well, but--"
+
+"Have patience, Willis! When the lightning flashes, the electric spark
+is discharged, is it not?"
+
+"Well, I was never high enough aloft to see."
+
+"But others have been; Newton and Franklin have seen it. Now, if the
+sound reaches our ears a second after the flash, it has travelled four
+hundred yards. If we hear it twelve or thirteen seconds after, it has
+travelled twelve or thirteen times four hundred yards, or about half a
+mile, and so on."
+
+"But what has that to do with your pulse?"
+
+"In the first place, I am in perfect health, am I not?"
+
+"I hope so, Master Jack."
+
+"Then when our systems are in good order, the pulse, keeping fractions
+out of view, beats once in every second; and consequently, though we
+do not always carry a watch, we always have our arteries about us, and
+may therefore always reckon time."
+
+"Now I understand."
+
+"Ah! then we are to escape this time without the 'Mariner's March.'"
+
+"It appears, Master Jack, that you have turned philosopher as well as
+your brothers. Can you tell me what causes lightning?"
+
+"Yes, I can, Willis. You must know, in the first place, that all the
+layers of the atmosphere are, more or less, charged with electricity."
+
+"Ask him how," said Fritz drily.
+
+"Ah, you hope to puzzle me," replied Jack, "but thanks to Mr. Wolston,
+I am too well up in physics to be easily driven off my perch, and
+therefore may safely take my turn in philosophising."
+
+"Well, we are listening."
+
+"The air, by means of the vapor it contains, absorbs electricity from
+terrestrial bodies, and so becomes a sort of reservoir of this
+invisible fluid. All chemical combinations evolve electricity, the air
+collects it and stores it up in the clouds. There, worshipful brother,
+your question is answered."
+
+"Good, go on."
+
+"Well, Willis, you must know, in the second place, the clouds are very
+good fellows, and share with each other the good things they possess.
+When one cloud meets another, the one over-supplied with this fluid
+and the other in its normal state, there is an immediate interchange
+of courtesies, the negative electricity of the one is exchanged for
+the positive of the other."
+
+"There does not appear, however, to be much generosity in this
+transaction, since the surcharged cloud does not cede its superfluous
+abundance without a consideration."
+
+"It is very rarely that philanthropy amongst us goes much further,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"No, everybody is not like Willis," rejoined Jack, "who acts like a
+prince, and gives legs of mutton gratis to hyenas and tigers. The
+discharges of electricity from one cloud to another are the flashes of
+lightning, and it is to be observed that the thunder is nothing more
+than the noise made by the fluid rushing through the air."
+
+"What, then, is the thunderbolt?"
+
+"There is no such thing as what is popularly understood by the term
+thunderbolt. The lightning itself, however, often does mischief. This
+happens when the discharge, instead of being between two clouds in the
+air, takes place between a cloud and the ground--a cloud surcharged
+with electricity understood. Then all intervening objects are struck
+by the fluid."
+
+"There, however, you are wrong," said Fritz. "All objects are not
+struck; on the contrary, the fluid avoids some things and searches out
+others, even moving in a zig-zag direction to manifest these caprices;
+it often discharges itself on or into hard substances, and passes by
+those which are soft or feeble."
+
+"I might say this arose from a sentiment of generosity," added Jack,
+"but I have other reasons to assign."
+
+"So much the better," said Fritz, "as I should scarcely be satisfied
+with the first."
+
+"Well," continued Jack, "lightning has its likings and dislikings."
+
+"Like men and women," suggested Willis.
+
+"It has a partiality for metal."
+
+"An affection that is not returned, however," observed Fritz.
+
+"If the fluid enters a room, for example, it runs along the bell
+wires, inspects the works of the clock, and sometimes has the audacity
+to pounce upon the money in your purse, even though a policeman should
+happen to be in the kitchen at the time."
+
+"Perhaps," remarked Willis, "it is Socialist or Red Republican in its
+notions."
+
+"It does not, however, patronise war," replied Jack; "I once heard of
+it having melted a sword and left the scabbard intact."
+
+"That, to say the least of it, is improbable," remarked Fritz. "The
+hilt, or even the point, might have been fused; but even supposing the
+electric fluid to have been capable of such flagrant preference, the
+scabbard could not have held molten metal without being itself
+consumed."
+
+"Aye," remarked Willis, "there are plenty of non-sensical stories of
+that kind in circulation, because nobody takes the trouble to test
+their truth. Still, according to your own account, a man or woman runs
+no danger from the lightning."
+
+"I beg your pardon there, Willis; the electric fluid does not go out
+of its way to attack a human being, but if one should-happen to be in
+its way, it does not take time to request that individual to stand
+aside, it simply passes through him, and leaves him or her, as the
+case may be, a coagulated mass of inanimate tissues."
+
+"What a variety of ways there are of getting out of the world!" said
+Willis lugubriously.
+
+"Again," continued Jack, "anything that happens to be in the vicinity
+of the clouds when this interchange of courtesies is going on, is apt
+to draw the storm upon itself, hence the continual war that is carried
+on between the lightning and the steeples."
+
+"Something like an individual coming within range of a cloud of
+mosquitoes," suggested Willis.
+
+"A learned German--one of us," said the scapegrace, laughing,
+"calculated, in 1783, that in the space of thirty-three years there
+had been, to his own knowledge, three hundred and eighty-six spires
+struck, and a hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed by lightning,
+without reckoning a much larger number wounded."
+
+"And yet," remarked Willis, "I never heard of an insurance against
+accidents by lightning."
+
+"There are plenty of them, however, in Roman Catholic countries," said
+Fritz. "Every village has one, and the charge is almost nominal."
+
+"How, then, do these companies make it pay?"
+
+"They find it answer somehow, and they never collapse."
+
+"Then everybody ought to insure."
+
+"Yes, but there are some obstinate people who do not see the good of
+it."
+
+"If my life had not already been forfeited, I should insure it. But
+how is it done?"
+
+"Well, you have only to go into a church, fall down on your knees
+before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the
+cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind,
+you are perfectly safe."
+
+"Ah! that is the way you insure your lives, is it, trusting to the
+priests rather than to Providence? For my own part, I should prefer a
+policy of insurance--that is to say, if my life were of any value."
+
+"Next to steeples," continued Jack, "come tall trees, such as poplars
+and pines. Should you ever be caught by a storm in the open country,
+Willis, never take shelter under a tree; face the storm bravely, and
+submit to be deluged by the rain. Dread even bushes, if they are
+isolated. An entire forest is less dangerous than a single reed when
+it stands alone."
+
+"But you forget, brother, that when a man stands alone he is quite as
+prominent an object as the trunk of a tree four or five feet high,
+particularly in an open plain."
+
+"Quite so. It is therefore advisable, when severe storms are close
+upon us, to lie down flat on the ground."
+
+"Suppose," remarked Fritz, smiling, "a brigade of soldiers on the
+march suddenly to collapse in this way, as if before a discharge of
+grape."
+
+"And why not? If it is done in the case of grape-shot, why may it not
+be done when the artillery is a thousand times more effective?"
+
+"Well, I suspect it would rather astonish the commanding officer,
+that is all."
+
+"Then, Willis," continued Jack, "you must not run during a storm,
+because the air you put in motion by so doing may draw the electricity
+into the current."
+
+"Do the conductors not prevent the lightning from doing harm?"
+
+"Yes, but you cannot carry one of them on your hat. These rods are
+only useful in protecting buildings, and then to nothing more than
+double the area of their length; it is for this last reason that roofs
+of public buildings have them projecting in all directions."
+
+"They are a sort of trap set for the lightning, are they not?"
+
+"Yes, and into which it is pretty sure to fall. Franklin, of whom I
+spoke just now, was the first to suggest that bars of steel would draw
+lightning out of a cloud surcharged with electricity."
+
+"What becomes of it when it is caught?"
+
+"Keeping in view its partiality for bell-pulls, a wire is attached to
+the rod down which the unconscious fluid glides."
+
+"Like a powder-monkey from the main-top."
+
+"Exactly; till it enters a well, and there it is left at the bottom in
+company with Truth."
+
+A practical storm had begun to mix itself up with the theory as
+developed by Jack, but not before they had very nearly reached their
+destination, where they were waited for with the greatest anxiety.
+
+No sooner had they landed than Sophia ran to meet Willis, who was
+advancing with Jack.
+
+"Ah, sweetheart," she said, "Susan has been so uneasy about you."
+
+"You are a good girl, Miss Soph--Susan."
+
+"Oh, if you only knew how frightened we have been!"
+
+"What, do you admit fear to be one of your accomplishments, Miss
+Sophia?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Certainly, when others are concerned, Master Jack. But, by the way,
+do you recollect the chimpanzee?"
+
+"Yes, what about the rascal?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Oh, I must not tell you, mamma would call me a chatterbox; you will
+know by-and-by."
+
+In the meanwhile Mary, on her side, was congratulating Toby, who kept
+scampering between herself and Fritz, at one moment receiving the
+caresses of the one and at the next of the other, with every
+demonstration of joy. This had become an established mode of
+communication between the young people when Fritz arrived from a
+lengthened ramble; the intelligent, brute, in point of fact, had
+assumed the office of dragoman.
+
+"Ah, ah, Becker, glad to see you again," said Willis. "Your sons are
+fountains of knowledge, whilst I am--"
+
+"A very worthy fellow, Willis, and I know it," replied Becker, shaking
+him heartily by the hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES--THE CHOICE OF A
+PROFESSION--CONQUEROR--ORATOR--ASTRONOMER--COMPOSER--PAINTER--POET--VILLAGE
+CURATE--THE KAFIRS--OCCUPATIONS OF WOMEN--THE ALPHA AND OMEGA OF THE
+SEA.
+
+
+To the storm succeeded one of those diluvian showers that have already
+been described. Rain being merely a result of evaporation, it was
+evident that sea and land in those climates must perspire at an
+enormous rate to effect such cataclysms. In consequence of this
+deluge, the proposed excursion was indefinitely postponed. The
+provisions, the marvellous kits, the waggon, were all ready; but
+Nature, as often happens under such circumstances, had assumed a
+menacing attitude, and for the present forbade the execution of the
+project.
+
+A sort of vague sadness, that generally accompanies a gloomy
+atmosphere, weighed upon the spirits of the colonists. Recollections
+of the _Nelson_ and her sudden disappearance thrust themselves more
+vividly than ever upon their memory; and Willis was observed to throw
+his sou'-wester unconsciously on the ground--a proof that remembrances
+of the past occupied his thoughts.
+
+One of the ladies was occupied in the needful domestic operations of
+the household, whilst the other sat with a stocking on her left arm,
+busily occupied in repairing the ravages of tear and wear upon that
+useful though humble garment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do
+the great ladies of the court of King Alfred, and as Hercules himself
+is said to have done when he changed his club and lion's skin for a
+spindle and distaff with the Queen of Lybia; Jack was apparently
+sketching, Fritz had a collection of hunting apparatus before him, and
+the other two young men, each with a book, were deeply immersed in
+study.
+
+This state of things was by no means cheerful, and Wolston determined
+to break up the monotony by introducing a subject of conversation
+likely to interest them all, the old as well as the young.
+
+"By the way, gentlemen," said he, "it occurs to me that you have not
+yet thought of selecting a profession; your future career seems at
+present somewhat obscure."
+
+"What would you have?" inquired Jack; "there is no use for lawyers and
+judges in our colony, except to try plundering monkeys or protect
+jackal orphans."
+
+"True; but suppose you were to find yourselves, by some chance, again
+in the great world, there it is necessary to possess a qualification
+of some kind; a blacksmith or a carpenter, expert in his handicraft,
+has a better chance of acquiring wealth and position than a man
+without a profession, however great his talents may be; an idler is a
+mere clog in the social machine, and is often thrust aside to browse
+in a corner with monks and donkeys."
+
+"But to acquire a profession, is not instruction and practice
+necessary?"
+
+"Certainly; it is impossible to become a proficient in any art or
+science by mere study alone; but before sowing a field, what is done?"
+
+"It is ploughed and manured."
+
+"And should there be only a few seeds?"
+
+"We can sow what we have, and reserve the harvest till next season. By
+economising each crop in this way, we shall soon have seeds enough to
+cover any extent of land."
+
+"May I request you, Master Ernest, to draw a conclusion from that as
+regards sowing the seeds of a future career?"
+
+"I would infer, from your suggestion, that we might adapt ourselves
+for such and such a profession by preparing our minds to receive
+instruction in it, and we might also avail ourselves in the meantime
+of such sources of information regarding it as are at present open to
+us. The physician in prospective, for example, might make himself
+familiar with the medical properties of such plants as are within his
+reach; he might likewise examine the bones of an ape, and thus, by
+analogy, become acquainted with the framework of the human body. The
+would-be lawyer might, in the same way, avail himself of the library
+to obtain an insight into those social mysteries that bind men in
+communities and necessitate human laws for the preservation of peace
+and order. Thus, by directing our thoughts into one line of study, we
+may form a basis upon which the superstructure may be easily erected,
+and the necessary academical degrees or sanction of the university
+obtained."
+
+"And, when you see this, why not adopt so commendable a course?"
+
+"Because we may probably be destined to remain here, where, according
+to Jack, the learned professions, at least, are not likely to be much
+in demand."
+
+"The study of a particular science or art has charms in itself, which
+amply compensate the student for his labor. But, even admitting you do
+not return to the Old World, you forget that it is your intention to
+colonise this territory."
+
+"It seems, however, that God has willed it otherwise."
+
+"What God does not will in one way, he may bring about in another.
+What reason have you for supposing that the _Nelson_ may not return
+with colonists?"
+
+"It will be from the other world then," said Willis.
+
+"Yes, from the other world," replied Jack, "but not in the sense you
+imply."
+
+"Besides, should the _Nelson_ not reappear, that is no reason why
+another accident may not drive another ship upon the coast that will
+be more fortunate; what has happened to-day may surely happen again
+to-morrow. And in the event of colonists arriving, will there not be
+sick to cure, boundaries to determine, differences of opinion to
+decide, and opposing claims to adjudge."
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Wolston."
+
+"Well, admitting these necessities, what profession will each of you
+select? Let us begin with you, Master Fritz."
+
+"The career," replied Fritz, "that would be most congenial to my
+taste is that of a conqueror."
+
+"A conqueror!"
+
+"Yes; Alexander, Scipio, Timour the Tartar, and Gengis Khan are the
+sort of men I should like to resemble. They have made a tolerable
+figure in the world, and I should have no objection to follow in their
+footsteps."
+
+"But you forget that their footsteps are marked with tears, disasters,
+terror, and bloodshed."
+
+"These are indispensable."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Once, when a great commander was asked the same question, he replied,
+that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs."
+
+"Yes," remarked Becker, "but if you had read the anecdote entire, you
+would have seen that he was asked in return, 'What use there was for
+so many omelets.'"
+
+"Added to which," continued Wolston, "that is not a normal career;
+there is no diploma required for it; it is an accident arising out of
+adventitious circumstances, sometimes fostered by ambition, but no
+course of study can produce a conqueror."
+
+"What, then, is the use of military schools?"
+
+"They are, to the best of my knowledge, instituted for rearing
+defenders for one's country, and not with a view to the subjugation of
+another's."
+
+"My poor Fritz," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "I hope when you conquer
+half the world, you will find an occupation for your mother more in
+consonance with your dignity than mending your stockings."
+
+"Then, again," continued Wolston, "war cannot be waged by a single
+individual."
+
+"There must be an enemy somewhere," suggested Willis.
+
+"The difficulty does not, however, lie there," observed Jack; "for, if
+we have no enemies, it is easy enough to make them."
+
+"There must, at all events, be armies, magazines, and a treasury--or
+eggs, as the great commander in question hinted."
+
+"True," replied Fritz; "but there is the same difficulty as regards
+all professions; there can be no barristers without briefs, no
+physicians without patients."
+
+"You will admit, however, that clients and patients are not so rare as
+hundreds of thousands of armed men and millions of money."
+
+"Brother," said Jack, "your cavalry are routed and your infantry
+outflanked."
+
+"If you are determined to be a conqueror, let it be by the pen rather
+than by the sword--or, what do you say to oratory? It is not easier,
+perhaps, but, at all events, eloquence is not denied to ordinary
+mortals. You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Hannibals, the
+Tamerlanes, or the Caesars; but you may attain a place with
+Demosthenes, who was more dreaded by Philip of Macedon than an army of
+soldiers."
+
+"Or Cicero," remarked Becker, "who preserved his country from the
+rapacity of Cataline."
+
+"Or Peter the Hermit," remarked Frank, "who by his eloquence roused
+Europe against the Saracens."
+
+"Or Bossuet," added Wolston, "and then you may venture to assert in
+the face of kings that _God alone is Great_, should they, like Louis
+XIV., assume the sun as an emblem, and adopt such a silly scroll as
+'_Nec pluribus impar_.'"
+
+"Bossuet, Peter the Hermit, Cicero, and Demosthenes, are not so bad,
+after all, as a last resource," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and I would
+recommend you to enrol yourself in that list of conquerors, Master
+Fritz."
+
+"The more especially," observed Jack, "as you have no impediment in
+your voice, and would not have to undergo a course of pebbles like
+Demosthenes."
+
+"So far as that goes, Jack," replied Fritz, "you would possess a like
+advantage for the profession as myself; but I will take time to
+reflect." Then, turning towards his mother, he said, "Conqueror or
+Jack Pudding, mother, you shall always find me a dutiful son."
+
+His mother was more gratified by this expression of attachment than
+she would have been had he laid at her feet the four thousand golden
+spurs found, in 1302, on the field of Courtray.
+
+"And now, Ernest, what profession do you intend to adopt? what is
+your dream of the future?"
+
+"I, Mr. Wolston! Well, having no taste for artillery, brilliant
+charges, blood-stained ruins, and the other _agremens_ of war, I
+cannot be a hero. Do you know when I feel most happy?"
+
+"No, let us hear."
+
+"It is towards evening, when I am reposing tranquilly on the banks of
+the Jackal."
+
+"Ah, I thought so," cried Jack; "no position so congenial to the true
+philosopher as the horizontal."
+
+"When the sun," continued Ernest, gravely, "is retiring behind the
+forest of cedars that bounds the horizon; when the palms, the mangoes,
+and gum trees, mass their verdure in distinct and isolated groups;
+when nature is making herself heard in a thousand melodious voices;
+when the hum of the insect is ringing in my ears, and the breeze is
+gently murmuring through the foliage; when thousands of birds are
+fluttering from grove to grove, sometimes breaking with their wings
+the smooth surface of the river; when the fish, leaping out of their
+own element, reflect for an instant from their silvery scales the
+departing rays of the sun; when the sea, stretching away like a vast
+plain of boundless space, loses itself in the distance, then my eyes
+and thoughts are sometimes turned upwards towards the azure of the
+firmament, and sometimes towards the objects around me, and I feel as
+if my mind were in search of something which has hitherto eluded its
+grasp, but which it is sure of eventually finding. Under these
+circumstances, I assure you, I would not exchange the moss on which I
+sat for the greatest throne in Christendom."
+
+"But surely you do not call such a poetical exordium a profession?"
+remarked Becker.
+
+"It must be admitted," said Wolston, "that the sun and trees have
+their uses, especially when the one protects us from the other; the
+sun, for example, dries up the moisture that falls from the trees, and
+the trees shelter us from the burning rays of the sun. Still, I am at
+a loss myself to connect these things with a profession in a social
+point of view."
+
+"What would you have thought," inquired Ernest, "if you had seen
+Newton and Kepler gazing at the sky, before the one had determined the
+movements of the celestial bodies, and the other the laws of
+gravitation? What would you have thought of Parmentier passing hours
+and days in manipulating a rough-looking bulb, that possessed no kind
+of value in the eyes of the vulgar, but which afterwards, as the
+potato, became the chief food of two-thirds of the population of
+Europe? What would you think of Jenner, with his finger on his brow,
+searching for a means of preserving humanity from the scourge of the
+small-pox?"
+
+"But these men had an object in view."
+
+"Jenner, yes; but not the other two. They thought, studied,
+contemplated, and reflected, satisfied that one day their thoughts,
+calculations, and reflections would aid in disclosing some mystery of
+Nature; but it would have perplexed them sorely to have named
+beforehand the nature and scope of their discoveries."
+
+"According to you, then," said Jack, "there could not be a more
+dignified profession than that of the scarecrow. The greatest
+dunderhead in Christendom might simply, by going a star-gazing, pass
+himself off as an adept in the occult sciences, and claim the right of
+being a benefactor of mankind in embryo."
+
+"At all events," replied Ernest, "you will admit that, so long as I am
+ready to bear my share of the common burdens, and take my part in
+providing for the common wants, and in warding of the common dangers,
+it is immaterial whether I occupy my leisure hours in reflection or in
+rifle practice."
+
+"Well," said Jack, "when you have made some discovery that will enrol
+your name with Descartes, Huygens, Cassini, and such gentlemen, you
+will do us the honor of letting us know."
+
+"With the greatest pleasure."
+
+"It is a pity that Herschell has invented the telescope: he might have
+left you a chance for the glory of that invention."
+
+"If I have not discovered a new star, brother, I discovered long ago
+that you would never be one."
+
+"Well, I hope not; their temperature is too unequal for me--they are
+either freezing or boiling: at least, so said Fritz the other day,
+whilst we were--all, what were we doing, Willis?"
+
+"We were supposed to be hunting."
+
+"Ah, so we were."
+
+"Now, Master Jack, it is your turn to enlighten us as to your future
+career."
+
+"It is quite clear, Mr. Wolston, that, since my brothers are to be so
+illustrious, I cannot be an ordinary mortal; the honor of the family
+is concerned, and must be consulted. I am, therefore, resolved to
+become either a great composer, like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; a
+renowned painter, like Titian, Carrache, or Veronese; or a great poet,
+like Homer, Virgil, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton, Goethe, and Racine."
+
+"That is to say," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that you are resolved to be
+a great something or other."
+
+"Decidedly, madam; on reflection, however, as I value my eyesight, I
+must except Homer and Milton."
+
+"But have you not determined to which of the muses you will throw the
+handkerchief?"
+
+"I thought of music at first. It must be a grand thing, said I to
+myself, that can charm, delight, and draw tears from the eyes of the
+multitude--that can inspire faith, courage, patriotism, devotion and
+energy, and that, too, by means of little black dots with tails,
+interspersed with quavers, crotchets, sharps and flats."
+
+"Have you composed a sonata yet?"
+
+"No, madam; I was going to do so, but it occurred to me that I should
+require an orchestra to play it."
+
+"And not having that, you abandoned the idea?"
+
+"Exactly, madam. I then turned to poetry. That is an art fit for the
+gods; it puts you on a level with kings, and makes you in history even
+more illustrious than them. You ascend the capitol, and there you are
+crowned with laurel, like the hero of a hundred fights."
+
+"What is the subject of your principal work in this line?"
+
+"Well, madam, I once finished a verse, and was going on with a second,
+but, somehow or other, I could not get the words to rhyme."
+
+"Then it occurred to you that you had neither a printer nor readers,
+and you broke your lyre?"
+
+"I was about to reproach you, Master Jack," said Wolston, "for
+undertaking too many things at once; but I see the ranks are beginning
+to thin."
+
+"Beautiful as poetry may be," continued Jack, one gets tired of
+reading and re-reading one's own effusions."
+
+"It is even often intensely insipid the very first time," remarked
+Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"There still remains painting," continued Jack. "Painting is vastly
+superior to either music or poetry. In the first place, it requires no
+interpreter between itself and the public;--what, for example, remains
+of a melody after a concert? nothing but the recollection. Poesy may
+excite admiration in the retirement of one's chamber; your nostrils
+are, as it were, reposing on the bouquet, though often you have still
+a difficulty in smelling anything. But if once you give life to
+canvas, it is eternal."
+
+"Eternal is scarcely the proper word," remarked Wolston: "the
+celebrated fresco of Leonardo da Vinci, in the refectory of the
+Dominicans at Milan, is nothing but a confused mass of colors and
+figures."
+
+"I answer that by saying that the painting in question is only a
+fresco. Besides, I use the word eternal in a modified or relative
+sense. A painting is preserved from generation to generation, whilst
+its successive races of admirers are mingled with the dust. Then
+suppose a painter in his studio; he cannot look around him without
+awakening some memory of the past. He can associate with those he
+loves when they are absent, nay, even when they are dead, and they
+always remain young and beautiful as when he first delineated them."
+
+"Take care," cried Ernest, pushing back his seat, "if you go on at
+that rate you will take fire."
+
+"No fear of that, brother, unless you have a star or a comet in your
+pocket, in which case you are not far enough away yet."
+
+These occasional bickerings between Ernest and Jack were always given
+and taken in good part, and had only the effect of raising a
+good-humored laugh.
+
+"Let the painter," he continued, "fall in with a spot that pleases
+him, he can take it with him and have it always before his eyes. The
+hand of God or of man may alter the original, the forest may lose its
+trees, the old castle may be destroyed by fire or time, the green
+meadow may be converted into a dismal swamp, but to him the landscape
+always retains its pristine freshness, the same butterfly still
+flutters about the same bush, the same bee still sucks at the same
+flower."
+
+"Really," said Mrs. Wolston, "it is a pity, after all, that you did
+not achieve your second verse."
+
+"And yet," continued Jack, "that is only a copy. How much more sublime
+when we regard the painter as a creator! If there is in the past or
+present a heroic deed--if there is in the infinity of his life one
+moment more blessed than another, like Pygmalion he breathes into it
+the breath of life, and it becomes imperishable. Who would think a
+century or two hence of the victories of Fritz, unless the skill of
+the painter be called in to immortalize them!"
+
+"I agree with you in thinking that the arts you name are the source of
+beautiful and legitimate emotions. But generally it is better to view
+them as a recreation or pastime, rather than a profession. They have
+doubtless made a few men live in posterity, but, on the other hand,
+they have embittered and shortened the lives of thousands."
+
+"You will never guess what led me to adopt this art in preference to
+the two others. It was the discovery, that we made some years ago, of
+a gum tree, the name of which I do not recollect."
+
+"The myrica cerifera," said Ernest.
+
+"From the gum of this tree the varnish may be made. Now, like my
+brother, who, when he sees the sun overhead, considers he ought to
+profit by the circumstance and become a discoverer, so I said to
+myself: You have varnish, all you want, therefore, to produce a
+magnificent painting is canvas, colors, and talent; consequently, you
+must not allow such an opportunity to pass--it would be unpardonable.
+Accordingly, I set to work with an energy never before equalled; and,"
+added he, showing the design he had just finished, "here are two eyes
+and a nose, that I do not think want expression."
+
+"Capital!" said Mrs. Wolston; "your painting will be in admirable
+keeping with the hangings my daughters have promised to work for your
+mamma."
+
+"Nobody can deny," continued Jack, laughing, "that the colony is
+advancing in civilization; it already possesses a conqueror, a member
+of the Royal Society minus the diploma, and an Apelles in embryo."
+
+"It is now your turn, Frank."
+
+"I," replied Frank, in his mild but penetrating voice, "if I may be
+allowed to liken the flowers of the garden to the occupations of human
+life, I should prefer the part of the violet."
+
+"It hides itself," said Mrs. Wolston, "but its presence is not the
+less felt."
+
+"When I have allowed myself to indulge in dreams of the future, I have
+pictured myself dwelling in a modest cottage, partially shrouded in
+ivy, not very far from the village church. My coat is a little
+threadbare."
+
+"Why threadbare?" inquired Sophia.
+
+"Because there are a number of very poor people all round me, and I
+cannot make up my mind to lay out money on myself when it is wanted by
+them."
+
+"Such a coat would be sacred in our eyes," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"In the morning I take a walk in my little garden; I inspect the
+flowers one after the other; chide my dog, who is not much of a
+florist; then, perhaps, I retire to my study, where I am always ready
+to receive those who may require my aid, my advice, or my personal
+services."
+
+Here Mrs. Wolston shook Frank very warmly by the hand.
+
+"Sometimes I go amongst the laborers in the fields, talk to them of
+the rain, of the fine weather, and of HIM who gives both. I enter the
+home of the artizan, cheer him in his labors, and interest myself in
+the affairs of his family; I call the children by their names, caress
+them, and make them my friends. I talk to them of our Redeemer, and
+thus, in familiarly conversing with the young, I find means of
+instructing the old. They, perhaps, tell me of a sick neighbor; I
+direct my steps there, and endeavor to mitigate the pangs of disease
+by words of consolation and hope; I strive to pour balm on the wounded
+spirit, and, if the mind has been led away by the temptations of the
+world, I urge repentance as a means of grace. If death should step in,
+then I kneel with those around, and join them in soliciting a place
+amongst the blessed for the departed soul."
+
+"We shall all gladly aid you in such labors of love," said Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"When death has deprived a family of its chief support, then I appeal
+to those whom God has blessed with the things of this world for the
+means of assisting the widow and the fatherless. To one I say, 'You
+regret having no children, or bemoan those you have lost; here are
+some that God has sent you.' I say to another, 'You have only one
+child, whilst you have the means of supporting ten; you can at least
+charge yourself with two.' Thus I excite the charity of some and the
+pity of others, till the bereaved family is provided for. I obtain
+work for those that are desirous of earning an honest living, I bring
+back to the fold the sheep that are straying, and rescue those that
+are tottering on the brink of infidelity."
+
+Here the girls came forward and volunteered to assist Frank in such
+works of mercy.
+
+"I accept your proffered aid, my dear girls, but, as yet, I am only
+picturing a future career for myself. After a day devoted to such
+labors as these, I return to my home, perhaps to be welcomed by a
+little circle of my own, for I hope to be received as a minister of
+the Protestant Church, and, as such, may look forward to a partner in
+my joys and troubles. Should Providence, however, shape my destiny
+otherwise, I shall have the poor and afflicted--always a numerous
+family--to bestow my affections upon. But, whilst much of my time is
+thus passed amongst the sorrowing and the sick, still there are hours
+of gaiety amongst the gloom--there are weddings, christenings, and
+merrymakings--there are happy faces to greet me as well as sad
+ones--and I am no ascetic. I take part in all the innocent amusements
+that are not inconsistent with my years or the gravity of my
+profession--but you seem sad, Mrs. Wolston."
+
+"Yes, Frank; you have recalled my absent son, Richard, so vividly to
+my memory, that I cannot help shedding a tear."
+
+"Is your son in orders then, madam?"
+
+"He is precisely what you have pictured yourself to be, a minister of
+the gospel, and a most exemplary young man."
+
+"If," remarked Becker, "we have hitherto refrained from inquiring
+after your son, madam, it was because we had no wish to recall to your
+mind the distance that separated you from him, and we should be glad
+to know his history."
+
+"There is little to relate; he is very young yet, and as soon as he
+had obtained his ordination, he was offered a mission to Oregon, which
+he accepted; but the ship having been detained at the Cape of Good
+Hope, he regarded the accident as a divine message, to convert the
+heathen of Kafraria, where he now is."
+
+"It is no sinecure to live amongst these copper-colored rascals," said
+Willis; "they are constantly stealing the cattle of the Dutch settlers
+in their neighborhood. About twelve years ago, our ship was stationed
+at the Cape, and I was sent with a party of blue jackets into the
+interior, as far as Fort Wiltshire, on the Krieskamma, the most remote
+point of the British possessions in South Africa. There we dispersed a
+cloud of them that had been for weeks living upon other people's
+property. They are tall, wiry fellows, as hardy as a pine tree, and as
+daring as buccaneers. The chief of the _kraals_, or huts, wear leopard
+or panther skins, and profess to have the power of causing rain to
+fall, besides an endless number of other miraculous attributes.
+Amongst them, a wife of the ordinary class costs eight head of cattle,
+but the price of a young lady of the higher ranks runs as high as
+twenty cows. When a Kafir is suspected of a crime, his tongue is
+touched seven times with hot iron, and if it is not burnt he is
+declared innocent."
+
+"I am afraid," said Jack, "if they were all subjected to that test,
+they would be found to be a very bad lot. But now, since we have all
+decided upon a profession, let us hear what the young ladies intend
+doing with themselves; let them consult their imagination for a
+beautiful future gilded with sunshine, and embroidered with gold."
+
+"There is only one occupation for women," said Mrs. Becker, "and that
+is too well defined to admit of speculation, and too important to
+admit of fanciful embellishments."
+
+"Well, then, mother, let us hear what it is."
+
+"It is to nurse you, and rear you, when you are unable to help
+yourselves; to guide your first steps, and teach you to lisp your
+first syllables. For this purpose, God has given her qualities that
+attract sympathy and engender love. She is so constituted as to impart
+a charm to your lives, to share in your labors, to soothe you when you
+are ruffled, to smooth your pillow when you are in pain, and to
+cherish you in old age; bestowing upon you, to your last hour, cares
+that no other love could yield. These, gentlemen, are the duties and
+occupations of women; and you must admit, that if it is not our
+province to command armies, or to add new planets to the galaxy of the
+firmament; that if we have not produced an Iliad or an AEnead, a
+Jerusalem Delivered, or a Paradise Lost, an Oratorio of the Creation,
+a Transfiguration, or a Laocoon, we have not the less our modest
+utility."
+
+"I should think so, mother," replied Jack; "it would take no end of
+philosophers to do the work of one of you."
+
+"It surprises me," said Willis, "that not one of you has selected the
+finest profession in the world--that of a sailor."
+
+"The finest profession of the sea, you mean, Willis. There is no doubt
+of its being the finest that can be exercised on the ocean, since it
+is the only one. If it is the best, Willis, it is also the worst."
+
+"It has also produced great men," continued Willis; "there are
+Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Captain Cook, to whom you are indebted
+for a new world."
+
+"No thanks to them for that," said Jack; "if they had not discovered a
+new world we should have been in an old one."
+
+"That does not follow," remarked Ernest; "the new world would have
+existed even if it had not been discovered, and you might have found
+your way there all the same."
+
+"Not very likely," replied Jack, "unless one of the stars you intend
+to discover had shown us the way; otherwise it would only have existed
+in conjecture; and as nobody under such circumstances would have
+dreamt of settling in it, they would not have been shipwrecked during
+the voyage."
+
+"Very true," remarked Fritz; "if we had not been here we should, very
+probably, have been somewhere else, and perhaps in a much worse
+plight. Let me ask if there is any one here who regrets his present
+position?"
+
+Willis was about to reply to this question, but Sophia observing that
+there was something wrong with the handkerchief that he wore round his
+neck, hastened towards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.
+
+The hour had now arrived when the families separated for the night.
+Mary was preparing as usual to recite the evening prayer, but before
+doing so she whispered a few words in her mother's ear.
+
+"Yes, my child;" and, turning to Frank, she added, "Since you are
+determined to adopt the ministry as a profession, it is but right that
+we should for the future entrust ourselves to your prayers."
+
+The two families were now located in their respective eyries; and
+Jack, whilst escorting the Wolstons to the foot of their tree, said to
+Sophia,
+
+"I thought the chimpanzee had been playing some prank."
+
+"So he has. Has nobody told you of it?"
+
+"No, not a soul."
+
+"Then I will be as discreet as my neighbors; good night, Master Jack."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HERBERT AND CECILIA--THE LITTLE ANGELS--A CATASTROPHE--THE
+DEPARTURE--MARRIAGE OF THE DOGE WITH THE ADRIATIC--SOVEREIGNS OF THE
+SEA--DANTE AND BEATRIX--ELEONORA AND TASSO--LAURA AND PETRARCH--THE
+RETURN--SURPRISES--WHAT ONE FINDS IN TURBOTS--A HORROR--THE
+PRICE OF CRIME--BALLOONING--PHILIPSON AND THE CHOLERA--A
+METAMORPHOSIS--ADVENTURE OF THE CHIMPANZEE--ARE YOU RICH?
+
+
+Next day the sky was shrouded in dense masses of cloud, some grey as
+lead, some livid as copper, and some black as ink. Towards evening the
+two families, as usual, resolved themselves into a talking party, and
+Wolston, requesting them to listen, began as follows:--
+
+"There were two rich merchants in Bristol, between whom a very close
+intimacy had for a long time existed. One of them, whom I shall call
+Henry Foster, had a daughter; and the other, Nicholas Philipson, had a
+son, and the two fathers had destined these children for one another.
+The boy was a little older than the girl, and their tastes, habits,
+and dispositions seemed to fit them admirably for each other, and so
+to ratify the decision of the parents. Little Herbert and Cecilia were
+almost constantly together. They had a purse in common, into which
+they put all the pieces of bright gold they received as presents on
+birthdays and other festive occasions. In summer, when the two
+families retired to a retreat that one of them had in the country, the
+children were permitted to visit the cottagers, and to assist the
+distressed, if they chose, out of their own funds--a permission which
+they availed themselves of so liberally that they were called by the
+country people the two little angels."
+
+"What a pity there are no poor people here!" said Sophia, dolefully.
+
+"Why?" inquired her mother.
+
+"Because we might assist them, mamma."
+
+"It is much better, however, as it is, my child; our assistance might
+mitigate the evils of poverty, but might not be sufficient to remove
+them."
+
+This reasoning did not seem conclusive to Sophia, who shook her head
+and commenced plying her wheel with redoubled energy.
+
+"When Herbert Philipson was twelve years of age he was sent off to
+school, and Cecilia was confided to the care of a governess, who,
+under the direction of Mrs. Foster, was to undertake her education.
+But neither music nor drawing, needlework, grammars nor exercises,
+could make little Cecilia forget her absent companion. Absence, that
+cools older friendships, had a contrary effect on her heart; the
+months, weeks, days, and hours that were to elapse before Herbert
+returned for the holidays, were counted and recounted. When that
+period--so anxiously desired--at length arrived, there was no end of
+rejoicing: she told Herbert of all the little boys and little girls
+she had clothed and fed, of the old people she had relieved, of the
+tears she had shed over tales of woe and misery, how she had carried
+every week a little basket covered with a white napkin to widow
+Robson, how often she had gone into the damp and dismal cottage of the
+dying miner, and how happy she always made his wife and their nine
+pitiful looking children."
+
+"That is a way of conquering human hearts," remarked Mrs. Becker,
+"often more effective than those referred to the other day."
+
+"Once, when Herbert was at home for the holidays, he accompanied
+Cecilia on her charitable visits, and was greatly surprised to find
+that blessings were showered upon his own head wherever they went;
+people, whom he had never seen before, insisted upon his being their
+benefactor. This he could not make out. At last, by an accident, he
+discovered the secret--Cecilia had been distributing her gifts in his
+name! He remonstrated warmly against this, declaring that he had no
+wish to be praised and blessed for doing things that he had no hand
+in. Finding that his protestations were of no avail, he determined,
+on the eve of his returning to school, to have his revenge."
+
+"He did not buy Cecilia a doll, did he?" inquired Jack.
+
+"No; he collected all the eatables, clothing, blankets, and money he
+could obtain; went amongst the poorest of the cottages, and
+distributed the whole in Cecilia's name."
+
+"Ah," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is a pity we could not all remain at
+the age of these children, with the same purity, the same innocence,
+and the same freshness of sensation; the world would then be a
+veritable Paradise."
+
+"For some years this state of things continued, the affection between
+the young people strengthened as they grew older, the occasional
+holiday time was always the happiest of their lives. Herbert, in due
+course, was transferred from school to college, where he obtained a
+degree, and rapidly verged into manhood. Cecilia from the girl at
+length bloomed into the young lady. A day was finally fixed when they
+were to be bound together by the holy ties of the church; everything
+was prepared for their union, when the commercial world was startled
+by the announcement that Philipson was a ruined man. A ship in which
+he had embarked a valuable freight had been wrecked, and an agent to
+whom he had entrusted a large sum of money had suddenly disappeared."
+
+"How deplorable!" cried Fritz.
+
+"Not so very unfortunate, after all," remarked Mary.
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Because nothing had occurred to interrupt the marriage; only one of
+the families was ruined, and there was still enough left for both."
+
+"But," said Fritz, "even admitting that the friendship between the two
+families continued uninterrupted, and that the father of Cecilia was
+willing to share his property with the father of Herbert, still the
+young man, in the parlance of society, was a beggar; and it is always
+hard for a man to owe his position to a woman, and to become, as it
+were, the _protege_ of her whom he ought rather to protect."
+
+"If that is the view you take, Master Fritz, then I agree with you
+that the misfortune was deplorable," said Mary, bending at the same
+time to hide her blushes, under pretence of mending a broken thread.
+
+"And what if Cecilia's father had been ruined instead of Herbert's?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"I should say," replied Sophia, "that we have as much right to be
+proud and dignified as you have."
+
+"The best way in such a case," observed Willis, laughing, "would be
+for both parties to get ruined together."
+
+"Herbert," continued Wolston, "was a youth of resolution and energy.
+He entertained the same opinion as Fritz; and instead of wasting his
+time in idle despondency, got together some articles of merchandise,
+and sailed for the Indian Archipelago, promising his friends that he
+would return to his native land in two years."
+
+"Two years is a long time," remarked Mary; "but sometimes it passes
+away very quickly."
+
+"Ah!" observed Sophia, Cecilia, in the meantime, would redouble her
+charities and her prayers."
+
+"The two years passed away, then a third, and then a fourth, but not a
+single word had either been heard of or from the absentee. Cecilia was
+rich, and her hand was sought by many wealthy suitors, but hitherto
+she had rejected them all."
+
+"The dear, good Cecilia," cried Sophia.
+
+"Up till this period the family had permitted her to have her own way.
+But as it is necessary for authority to prevent excesses of all kinds,
+they thought it time now to interfere; they could not allow her to
+sacrifice her whole life for a shadow. Her parents, therefore,
+insisted upon her making a choice of one or other of the suitors for
+her hand. She requested grace for one year more, which was granted."
+
+"Come back, truant, quick; come back, Master Herbert!" cried Sophia.
+
+"There now, Willis," cried Jack, "you see the effect of your new
+world; people go away there, and never come back again."
+
+"Oh, but you must bring him back in time, father; you must indeed,"
+urged Sophia.
+
+"If it were only a romance I were relating to you, Sophia, I could
+very easily bring him back; but the narrative I am giving you is a
+matter of fact, which I cannot alter at will. There would be no
+difficulty in bringing a richly-laden East Indiaman, commanded by
+Captain Philipson, into the Severn, and making Herbert and Cecilia
+conclude the story in each other's arms, but it would not be true."
+
+"Then if I had been Cecilia, I should have become a nun," said Mary,
+timidly.
+
+"Exaggeration, my daughter, is an enemy to truth. It is easy to say,
+'I would become a nun,' and in Roman Catholic countries it is quite as
+easy to become one; but, though it may be sublime to retire in this
+way from the world, it is frightful when a woman has afterwards to
+regret the inconsiderate step she has taken, and which is often the
+case with these poor creatures."
+
+"As you said of myself," remarked Willis, "it is a crime to go down
+with a sinking ship so long as there is a straw to cling to."
+
+"I presume," continued Wolston, "that during this year poor Cecilia
+prayed fervently for the return of her old playfellow; but her prayers
+were all in vain, the year expired, and still no news of the young
+man; at last she despaired of ever seeing him again, and, after a
+severe struggle with herself, she decided upon complying with the
+desire of her parents and her friends. A few months after the expiring
+of the year of grace, she was the affianced bride of a highly
+respectable, well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman. John Lindsey, her
+intended husband, could not boast of his good looks; he was little,
+rather stout, was deeply pitted in the face with the small-pox, and
+had a very red nose, but he was considered by the ladies of Bristol as
+a very good match for all that."
+
+"Oh, Cecilia, how ridiculous!" exclaimed Sophia.
+
+"Better, at all events, than turning nun," said Jack.
+
+"The family this season had gone to pass the summer at the sea-coast;
+and one day that Cecilia and her intended were taking their accustomed
+walk along the shore--"
+
+"Holloa!" cried Jack, "the truant is going to appear, after all."
+
+"John Lindsey, observing a ring of some value upon Cecilia's finger,
+politely asked her if she had any objections to tell him its history.
+She replied that she had none, and told him it was a gift of young
+Philipson's. 'I am well acquainted with your story,' said Lindsey,
+'and do not blame the constancy with which you have treasured the
+memory of that young man; on the contrary, I respect you for it--in
+fact, it was the knowledge of your self-sacrifice to this affection
+and all its attendant circumstances, that led me to solicit the honor
+of your hand; for, said I to myself, one who has evinced so much
+devotion for a mere sentiment, is never likely to prove unfaithful to
+sacred vows pledged at the altar,' 'Come what may, you may at least
+rely upon that, sir,' she answered. 'Then,' continued Lindsey, 'as an
+eternal barrier is about to be placed between yourself and your past
+affections, perhaps you will pardon my desire to separate you, as much
+as possible, from everything that is likely to recal them to your
+mind.' Saying that, he gently drew the ring from her finger, and threw
+it into the sea."
+
+It was strongly suspected that Mary shed a tear at this point of the
+recital.
+
+"It is all over with you now, Herbert," cried Fritz.
+
+"You had better make a bonfire of your ships, like Fernando Cortez in
+Mexico; or, if you are on your way home, better pray for a hurricane
+to swallow you up, than have all your bright hopes dashed to atoms,
+when you arrive in port."
+
+"I am only a little girl," said Sophia; "but I know what I should have
+said, if the gentleman had done the same thing to me."
+
+"And what would you have said, child?" inquired her mother.
+
+"I should have said, that I was not the Doge of Venice, and had no
+intention of marrying the British Channel."
+
+"Can you describe the ceremony to which you refer?"
+
+"Yes; but it would interrupt papa's story, and Jack would laugh at
+me."
+
+"Never mind my story," replied her father, "there is plenty of time
+to finish that."
+
+"And as for me," said Jack, "though I do not wear a cocked hat and
+knee breeches, and though, in other respects, my tailor has rather
+neglected my outward man, still I know what is due to a lady and a
+queen."
+
+"There, he begins already!" said Sophia.
+
+"Never mind him, child; go on with your account of the marriage."
+
+"Well," began Sophia, "for a long time, there had been disputes
+between the states of Bologna, Ancona, and Venice, as to which
+possessed the sovereignty of the Adriatic."
+
+"If it had been a dispute about the Sovereignty of the ocean in
+general," remarked Willis, "there would have been another competitor."
+
+"Venice," continued Sophia, "carried the day, and about 1275 or 76 she
+resolved to celebrate her victory by an annual ceremony. For this
+purpose, a magnificent galley was built, encrusted with gold, silver,
+and precious stones. This floating _bijou_ was called the
+_Bucentaure_, was guarded in the arsenal, whence it was removed on the
+eve of the Ascension. Next day the Doge, the patriarch, and the
+Council of Ten embarked, and the galley was towed out to the open sea,
+but not far from the shore. There, in the presence of the foreign
+ambassadors, whilst the clergy chanted the marriage service, the Doge
+advanced majestically to the front of the galley, and there formally
+wedded the sea."
+
+"He might have done worse," observed Willis.
+
+"The ceremony," continued Sophia, "consisted in the Doge throwing a
+ring into the sea, saying, 'We wed thee, O sea! to mark the real and
+perpetual dominion we possess over thee.'"
+
+"And it may be added," observed Becker, "that the history of Venice
+shows how religiously the spouses of the Adriatic kept their vows."
+
+"Now," said Sophia, "that I have told my tale, let us hear what became
+of Cecilia."
+
+"Well, the marriage took place the morning after Herbert's ring had
+been thrown to the fishes. Whilst the bride, bridegroom, and their
+friends were congratulating each other over the wedding breakfast, as
+is usual in England on such occasions, Cecilia's father was called out
+of the room."
+
+"Too late," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Herbert Philipson had arrived that same morning; but, as Fritz
+observes, he was just an hour too late. He had acquired a fortune, but
+his long-cherished hopes of happiness were completely blasted."
+
+"Why did he stay away five years without writing?" inquired Mrs.
+Wolston.
+
+"He had written several times, but at that time no regular post had
+been established, and his letters had never reached their
+destination."
+
+"When did he find out that Cecilia was married?"
+
+"Well, some people think it more humane to kill a man by inches rather
+than by a single blow of the axe. Not so with Herbert's friends; the
+first news that greeted him on landing were, that his ever-remembered
+Cecilia was probably at that moment before the altar pledging her vows
+to another."
+
+"I should rather have had a chimney-pot tumble on my head," remarked
+Willis.
+
+"Herbert was a man in every sense of the word--the mode of his
+departure proves that. On hearing this painful intelligence, he simply
+covered his face with his hands, and, after a moment's thought,
+resolved to see his lost bride at least once more."
+
+"Poor Herbert!" sighed Mary.
+
+"Foster was thunderstruck when the stranger declared himself to be the
+son of his old friend; and, after cordially bidding him welcome,
+sorrowfully asked him what he meant to do. 'I should wish to see Mrs.
+Lindsey in presence of her husband,' he replied, 'providing you have
+no objections to introduce me to the company.'"
+
+"Bravo!" ejaculated Willis.
+
+"Foster could not refuse this favor to an unfortunate, who had just
+been disinherited of his dearest hopes. He, therefore, took Herbert by
+the hand and led him into the room. Nobody recognized him. 'Ladies and
+gentlemen,' said he, 'permit me to introduce Mr. Herbert Philipson,
+who has just arrived from Sumatra.' You may readily conceive the
+dismay this unexpected announcement called up into the countenances of
+the guests. There was only one person in the room who was calm,
+tranquil, and unmoved--that person was Cecilia herself. She rose
+courteously, bade him welcome, hoped he was well, coolly asked him why
+he had not written to his friends, and politely asked him to take a
+seat beside herself and husband, just, for all the world, as if he had
+been some country cousin or poor relation to whom she wished to show a
+little attention."
+
+"I would rather have been at the bottom of the sea than in her place,
+for all that," said Mary.
+
+"Why? She had nothing to reproach herself with. Had she not waited
+long enough for him?"
+
+"Young heads," remarked Becker, "are not always stored with sense. A
+foolish pledge, given in a moment of thoughtlessness is often
+obstinately adhered to in spite of reason and argument. The young idea
+delights in miraculous instances of fidelity. What more charming to a
+young and ardent mind than the loves of Dante and Beatrix, of Eleonora
+and Tasso, of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, or of Dean
+Swift and Stella? Young people do not reflect that most of these
+stories are apocryphal, and that the men who figure in them sought to
+add to their renown the prestige of originality; they put on a passion
+as ordinary mortals put on a new dress, they yielded to imagination
+and not to the law of the heart, and almost all of them paid by a life
+of wretchedness the penalty of their dreams."
+
+"That is, I presume," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "you do not object to any
+reasonable amount of constancy, but you object to its being carried to
+an unwarrantable excess."
+
+"Exactly so, madam," replied Becker; "constancy, like every thing else
+when reasonable limits are exceeded, becomes a vice."
+
+"The merriments of the marriage breakfast," continued Wolston
+"slightly interrupted by the arrival of the new guest, were resumed.
+Fresh dishes were brought in, and, amongst others, a fine turbot was
+placed on the table. The gentleman who was engaged in carving the
+turbot struck the fish-knife against a hard substance."
+
+"I know what!" exclaimed two or three voices.
+
+"I rather think not," said Wolston, drily.
+
+"Oh, yes, the ring! the ring!"
+
+"No, it was merely the bone that runs from the head to the tail of the
+fish."
+
+"Oh, father," cried Sophia, "how can you tease us so?"
+
+"If they had found the ring," replied Wolston, laughing, "I should
+have no motive for concealing it. Fruit was afterwards placed before
+Herbert, and, when nobody was looking, he pulled a clasped dagger out
+of his pocket."
+
+Here Sophia pressed her hands closely on her ears, in order to avoid
+hearing what followed.
+
+"It was a very beautiful poignard," continued Wolston, "and rather a
+bijou than a weapon; and, as the servants had neglected to hand him a
+fruit-knife, he made use of it in paring an apple."
+
+"Is it all over?" inquired Sophia, removing a hand from one ear.
+
+"Alas! yes!" said Jack, lugubriously, "he has been and done it."
+
+"O the monster!"
+
+"Travelling carriages having arrived at the door for the bridal party,
+Herbert quietly departed."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Sophia, "did they not arrest and drag him to
+prison?"
+
+"Oh," replied Jack, "the crime was not so atrocious as it appears."
+
+"Not atrocious!"
+
+"No; you must bear in mind that young Philipson had passed the
+preceding five years of his life amongst demi-savages, whose manners
+and customs he had, to a certain extent, necessarily contracted. In
+some countries, what we call crimes are only regarded as peccadillos.
+In France, for example, till very lately, there existed what was
+called the law of _combette_, by right of which pardon might be
+obtained for any misdeed on payment of a certain sum of money. There
+was a fixed price for every imaginable crime. A man might
+consequently be a Blue Beard if he liked, it was only necessary to
+consult the tariff in the first instance, and see to what extent his
+means would enable him to indulge his fancy for horrors."
+
+"On quitting the house," continued Wolston, "Herbert Philipson bent
+his way to the shore, and shortly after was observed to plunge into
+the sea."
+
+"So much the better," exclaimed Sophia; "it saved his friends a more
+dreadful spectacle."
+
+"The weather being fine and the water warm, Herbert enjoyed his bath
+immensely; he then returned to his hotel, went early to bed, and slept
+soundly till next morning."
+
+"The wretch!" cried Sophia, "to sleep soundly after assassinating his
+old playfellow, who had suffered so much on his account."
+
+"It is pretty certain," continued Wolston, "that, if Philipson had
+been left entirely to himself, he would always have shown the same
+degree of moderation he had hitherto displayed."
+
+"Oh, yes, moderation!" said Sophia.
+
+"But his friends began to prate to him about the shameful way he had
+been jilted by Cecilia, and, by constantly reiterating the same thing,
+they at last succeeded in persuading him that he was an ill-used man.
+His self-esteem being roused by this silly chatter, he began to affect
+a ridiculous desolation, and to perpetrate all manner of outrageous
+extravagances."
+
+"Bad friends," remarked Willis, "are like sinking ships; they drag you
+down to their own level."
+
+"The first absurd thing he did was to purchase a yacht, and when a
+storm arose that forced the hardy fishermen to take shelter in port,
+he went out to sea, and it is quite a miracle that he escaped
+drowning. Then, if there were a doubtful scheme afloat, he was sure to
+take shares in it. Nothing delighted him more than to go up in a
+balloon; he would have gladly swung himself on the car outside if the
+proprietor had allowed him."
+
+"I have often seen balloons in the air," remarked Willis, "but I could
+never make out their dead reckoning."
+
+"A balloon," replied Ernest, "is nothing more than an artificial
+cloud, and its power of ascension depends upon the volume of air it
+displaces.
+
+"Very good, Master Ernest, so far as the balloon itself is concerned;
+but then there is the weight of the car, passengers, provisions, and
+apparatus to account for."
+
+"Hydrogen gas, used in the inflation of balloons, is forty times
+lighter than air. If a balloon is made large enough, the weight of the
+car and all that it contains, added to that of the gas, will fall
+considerably short of the weight of the air displaced by the machine."
+
+"I suppose it rises in the air just as an empty bottle well corked
+rises in the water?"
+
+"Very nearly. Air is lighter than water; consequently, any vessel
+filled with the one will rise to the surface of the other. So in the
+case of balloons. The gas, in the first place, must be inclosed in an
+envelope through which it cannot escape. Silk prepared with
+India-rubber is the material usually employed. As the balloon rises,
+the gas in the interior distends, because the air becomes lighter the
+less it is condensed by its superincumbent masses; hence it is
+requisite to leave a margin for this increase in the volume of the
+gas, otherwise the balloon would burst in the air."
+
+"If a balloon were allowed to ascend without hindrance where would it
+stop?"
+
+"It would continue ascending till it reached a layer of air as light
+as the gas; beyond that point it could not go."
+
+"And if the voyagers do not wish to go quite so far?"
+
+"Then there is a valve by which the gas may be allowed to escape, till
+the weight of the machine and its volume of air are equal, when it
+ceases to ascend. If a little more is permitted to escape, the balloon
+descends."
+
+"And should it land on the roof of a house or the top of a tree, the
+voyagers have their necks broken."
+
+"That can only happen to bunglers; there is not the least necessity
+for landing where danger is to be apprehended. When the aeronaut is
+near the ground, and sees that the spot is unfavorable for
+debarkation, he drops a little ballast, the balloon mounts, and he
+comes down again somewhere else."
+
+"The fellow that made the first voyage must have been very daring."
+
+"The first ascent was made by Montgolfier in 1782, and he was followed
+by Rosiers and d'Arlandes."
+
+"With your permission, father," said Ernest, "I will claim priority in
+aerial travelling for Icarus, Doedalus, and Phaeton."
+
+"Certainly; you are justified in doing so. Gay-Lussac, a philosophic
+Frenchman, rose, in 1804, to the height of seven thousand yards."
+
+"He must have felt a little giddy," remarked Jack.
+
+"Most of the functions of the body were affected, more or less, by the
+extreme rarity of the air at that height. Its dryness caused wet
+parchment to crisp. He observed that the action of the magnetic needle
+diminished as he ascended, sounds gradually ceased to reach his ear,
+and the wind itself ceased to be felt."
+
+"That, of course," remarked Ernest, "was when he was travelling in the
+same direction and at the same speed."
+
+"Well," said Jack, "we can find materials here for a balloon; the
+ladies have silk dresses, there is plenty of India-rubber--we used to
+make boots and shoes of it; hydrogen gas can be obtained from a
+variety of substances. What, then, is to prevent us paying a visit to
+some of Ernest's friends in the skies?"
+
+"Unfortunately for your project, Jack, no one has discovered the art
+of guiding a balloon; consequently, instead of finding yourself at
+_Cassiope_, you might land at _Sirius_, where your reception would be
+somewhat cool."
+
+"But what became of Herbert?" inquired one of the ladies.
+
+"Singularly enough, he escaped all the dangers he so recklessly
+braved, and all the bad speculations he embarked in turned out good.
+Somehow or other, the moment he took part in a desperate scheme it
+became profitable."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Sophia, "his victim, like a guardian angel, continued
+to watch over him."
+
+"When the cholera appeared in England, he was sure to be found where
+the cases were most numerous. He followed up the pest with so much
+pertinacity and publicity, that it was no unusual thing to find it
+announced in the newspapers that Philipson and the cholera had arrived
+in such and such a town."
+
+"The bane and the antidote," remarked Jack.
+
+"If Cecilia had been one of those women who delight in horse-racing,
+fox-hunting, opera-boxes, and public executions, she would have been
+highly amused to see her old friend's name constantly turning up under
+such extraordinary circumstances."
+
+"Is she not dead, then?" inquired Sophia, with astonishment,
+
+"It appears that her wounds were not mortal," quietly replied her
+mother.
+
+"Besides," observed Jack, "there are human frames so constituted that
+they can bear an immense amount of cutting and slashing. So in the
+case of animals; there, for instance, is the fresh-water polypus--if
+you cut this creature lengthwise straight through the middle, a right
+side will grow on the one half and a left side on the other, so that
+there will be two polypi instead of one. The same thing occurs if you
+cut one through the middle crosswise, a head grows on the one half and
+a tail on the other, so that you have two entire polypi either way."
+
+"And you may add," observed Ernest, "since so interesting a subject is
+on the _tapis_, that if two of these polypi happen to quarrel over
+their prey, the largest generally swallows the smallest, in order to
+get it out of the way; and the latter, with the exception of being a
+little cramped for space, is not in the slightest degree injured by
+the operation."
+
+"And does that state of matters continue any length of time?"
+
+"The polypus that is inside the other may probably get tired of
+confinement, in which case it makes its exit by the same route it
+entered; but, if too lazy to do that, it makes a hole in the body of
+its antagonist and gets out that way. But, what is most curious of
+all, these processes do not appear to put either of the creatures to
+the slightest inconvenience."
+
+"I am quite at a loss to make you all out," said Sophia.
+
+"Well, my child," replied her mother, "you should not close up your
+ears in the middle of a story."
+
+"Cecilia, or rather Mrs. Lindsey, however," continued Wolston, "was a
+pious, painstaking, simple-minded woman, who devoted her whole
+attention to her domestic duties. Notwithstanding her fortune, she did
+not neglect the humblest affairs of the household, and thought only of
+making her husband pleased with his home. When she was told of the
+vagaries of Philipson, she prayed in private that he might be led from
+his evil ways, and could not help thanking Providence that she was not
+the wife of such a dreadful scapegrace."
+
+"I should think so," remarked Mrs. Becker.
+
+"At last, Herbert Philipson astonished even his own companions by a
+crowning act of folly. There was then a young woman in Bristol, of
+good parentage, but an unmitigated virago; her family were thoroughly
+ashamed of her temper and her exploits. They allowed her to have her
+own way, simply for fear that, through contradiction, she might plunge
+herself into even worse courses than those she now habitually
+followed. In short, she was the talk and jest of the whole town."
+
+"What a charming creature!" remarked Mrs. Becker.
+
+"No servant of her own sex could put up with her for two days
+together; she styled everybody that came near her fools and asses, and
+did not hesitate to strike them if they ventured to contradict her.
+She got on, however, tolerably well with ostlers, stable-boys, cabmen,
+and such like, because they could treat her in her own style, and were
+not ruffled by her abuse."
+
+"How amiable!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Herbert heard of this young person, and, through a fast friend of his
+own, obtained an introduction to her, and on the very first interview
+he offered her his hand. He was known still to be a wealthy man, so
+neither the lady herself nor anybody connected with her made the
+slightest objection to the match, thinking probably that, if there
+were six of the one, there were at least half a dozen of the other."
+
+"They ought to have gone to Bedlam, instead of to church," said
+Willis; "that is my idea."
+
+"Nevertheless, they went to church; and, after the marriage, Cecilia
+sought and obtained an introduction to the lady, and, whether by
+entreaties or by her good example, I cannot say; be this as it may,
+the unpromising personage in question became one of the best wives and
+the best mothers that ever graced a domestic circle--in this respect
+even excelling the pattern Cecilia herself; and, what is still more to
+the purpose, she succeeded in completely reforming her husband. When I
+left England there was not a more prosperous merchant, nor a more
+estimable man in the whole city of Bristol, than Herbert Philipson."
+
+"From which we may conclude," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is always
+advisable to have angels for friends."
+
+"We may also conclude," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that when a stroke of
+adversity, or any other misfortune, overturns the edifice of happiness
+we had erected for the future, we may build a new structure with fresh
+material, which may prove more durable than the first."
+
+"Talking of having angels for friends," said Becker, "puts me in mind
+of the association of Saint Louis Gonzaga, at Rome. On the anniversary
+of this saint, the young and merry phalanx forming the association
+march in procession to one of the public gardens. In the centre of
+this garden a magnificent altar has been previously erected, on which
+is placed a chafing-dish filled with burning coals. The procession
+forms itself into an immense ring round the altar, broken here and
+there by a band of music. These bands play hymns in honor of the
+saints, and other _morceaux_ of a sacred character. Each member of the
+association holds a letter inclosed in an embossed and highly
+ornamented envelope, bound round with gay-colored ribbons and threads
+of gold. These letters are messages from the young correspondents to
+their friends in heaven, and are addressed to 'Il Santo Giovane Luigi
+Gonzaga, in Paradiso.' At a given signal, the letters, in the midst of
+profound silence, are placed on the chafing-dish. This done, the music
+resounds on all sides, and the assembly burst out into loud
+acclamations, during which the letters are supposed to be carried up
+into heaven by the angels."
+
+"A curious and interesting ceremony," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and one
+that may possibly do good, inasmuch as it may induce the young people
+composing the association to persevere in generous resolutions."
+
+The two families again separated for the night. And whilst the young
+men were escorting the Wolstons to their tree, Sophia went towards
+Jack. "Will you tell me," inquired she, "what happened whilst I had my
+ears closed up, Jack?"
+
+"Yes, with all my heart, if you will tell me first what the chimpanzee
+had been about during our absence."
+
+"Well, he got up into our tree when we were out of the way. After
+soaping his chin, he had taken one of papa's razors, and just as he
+was beginning to shave himself, some one entered and caught him."
+
+"Oh, is that all? What I have to tell you is a great deal more
+appalling than that."
+
+"Well, then, be quick."
+
+"But I am afraid you will be shocked."
+
+"Is it very dreadful?"
+
+"More so than you would imagine. If you dream about it during the
+night, you will not be angry with me for telling you?"
+
+"No, I will be courageous, and am prepared to hear the worst."
+
+"What was your father saying when you shut up your ears?"
+
+"Herbert had just pulled out a dagger."
+
+"And when you took your hands away?"
+
+"All was then over; Herbert had done some dreadful thing with the
+dagger, and I want to know what it was."
+
+"He pared an apple with it," replied Jack, bursting into a roar of
+laughter, and, running off, he left Sophia to her reflections.
+
+A few seconds after he returned. This time he had almost a solemn air,
+the laughter had vanished from his visage, like breath from polished
+steel.
+
+"Miss Sophia," inquired he gravely, "are you rich?"
+
+"I don't know, Master Jack; are you?"
+
+"Well, I have not the slightest idea either."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE TEARS OF CHILDHOOD AND RAIN OF THE TROPICS--CHARLES'S
+WAIN--VOLUNTARY ENLISTMENT--A LIKENESS GUARANTEED--THE WORLD AT
+PEACE--ALAS, POOR MARY!--THE SAME BREATH FOR TWO BEINGS--THE FIRST
+PILLOW--THE LOGIC OF THE HEART--HOW FRITZ SUPPORTED GRIEF--A GRAIN OF
+SAND AND THE HIMALAYA.
+
+
+At daybreak next morning, all the eyes in the colony were busily
+engaged in scrutinizing the sky. This time the operation seemed
+satisfactory, for immediately afterwards, all the hands were, with
+equal diligence, occupied in packing up and making other preparations
+for the meditated excursion to the remote dependencies of New
+Switzerland.
+
+The dense veil that the day before had shrouded them in gloom was now
+broken up into shreds. The azure depths beyond had assumed the
+appearance of a blue tunic bespattered with white, and the clouds
+suggested the idea of a celestial shepherd, driving myriads of sheep
+to the pasture. Children alone can dry up their tears with the
+rapidity of Nature in the tropics; perhaps we may have already made
+the remark, and must, therefore, beg pardon for repeating the simile a
+second time.
+
+In a short time, the two families were assembled on the lawn, in front
+of the domestic trees of Falcon's Nest, ready to start on their
+journey. The cow and the buffalo were yoked to the carriage, which was
+snugly covered over with a tarpauling, thrown across circular girds,
+like the old-fashioned waggons of country carriers. Frank mounted the
+box in front; Mrs. Becker, Wolston, and Sophia got inside; whilst
+Ernest and Jack, mounted on ostriches that had been trained and broken
+in as riding horses, took up a position on each side, where the doors
+of the vehicle ought to have been. These dispositions made, after a
+few lashes from the whip, this party started off at a brisk rate in
+the direction of Waldeck.
+
+It had been previously arranged that one half of the expedition should
+go by land, and the other half by water, and that on their return this
+order should be reversed, so that both the interior and the coast
+might be inspected at one and the same time. The only exception was
+made in favor of Willis, who was permitted both to go and return by
+sea.
+
+The second party, consisting of Mrs. Wolston, Becker, Mary, and Fritz,
+started on foot in the direction of the coast. They had not gone far
+before Becker observed a large broadside plastered on a tree.
+
+"What is that?" he inquired.
+
+Nobody could give a satisfactory reply.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Wolston, "paper grows ready made on the
+trees of this wonderful country."
+
+"They all approached, and, much to their astonishment, read as
+follows:--
+
+"TAKE NOTICE.
+
+"The renowned Professor Ernest Becker is about to enlighten the
+benighted inhabitants of this country, by giving a course of lectures
+on optics. The agonizing doubts that have hitherto enveloped
+astronomical science, particularly as regards the interiors of the
+moon and the stars, have arisen from the absurd practice of looking at
+them during the night. These doubts are about to be removed for ever
+by the aforesaid professor, as he intends to exhibit the luminaries in
+question in open day. He will also place Charles's Wain[C] at the
+disposal of any one who is desirous of taking a drive in the Milky
+Way. The learned professor will likewise stand for an indefinite
+period on his head; and whilst in this position will clearly
+demonstrate the rotundity of the earth, and the tendency of heavy
+bodies to the centre of gravity. In order that the prices of admission
+may be in accordance with the intrinsic value of the lectures, nothing
+will be charged for the boxes, the entrance to the pit will be gratis,
+and the gallery will be thrown open for the free entry of the people.
+The audience will be expected to assume a horizontal position. Persons
+given to snoring are invited to stay at home."
+
+"I rather think I should know that style," remarked Willis.
+
+"It is a pity Ernest is not with us," observed Fritz; "but the placard
+will keep for a day or two."
+
+"They say laughing is good for digestion," remarked Mrs. Wolston; "and
+if so, it must be confessed that Master Jack is a useful member of the
+colony in a sanitary point of view."
+
+The party had scarcely advanced a hundred paces farther, when Fritz
+called out,
+
+"Holloa! there is another broadside in sight."
+
+This one was headed by a smart conflict between two ferocious looking
+hussars, and was couched in the following terms:--
+
+"PROCLAMATION.
+
+"All the inhabitants of this colony capable of bearing arms, who are
+panting after glory, are invited to the Fig Tree, at Falcon's Nest,
+there to enrol themselves in the registry of Fritz Becker, who is
+about to undertake the conquest of the world. Nobody is compelled to
+volunteer, but those who hold back will be reckoned contumacious, and
+will be taken into custody, and kept on raw coffee till such time as
+they evince a serious desire to enlist. There will be no objection to
+recruits returning home at the end of the war, if they come out of it
+alive. Neither will there be any objections to the survivors bringing
+back a marshal's baton, if they can get one. The Commander-in-chief
+will charge himself with the fruits of the victory. Surgical
+operations will be performed at his cost, and cork legs will be served
+out with the rations. In the event of a profitable campaign, a
+monument will be erected to the memory of the defunct, by way of a
+reward for their heroism on the field of battle."
+
+"Well, Fritz," said Becker, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "you were
+sorry that Ernest was not present to hear the last placard read;
+fortunately, you are on the spot yourself this time."
+
+Fritz tried to look amused, but the attempt was a decided failure.
+
+When the party had gone a little farther, another announcement met
+their gaze; all were curious to know whose turn was come now; as they
+approached, the following interesting question, in large letters,
+stared them in the face:--
+
+"HAVE YOU HAD YOUR PORTRAIT TAKEN YET?
+
+"It has been reserved for the present age, and for this prolific
+territory, so exuberant in cabbages, turnips, and other potables, to
+produce the greatest of living artists--real genius--who is destined
+to outshine all the Michel Angelos and Rubenses of former ages. Not
+that these men were entirely devoid of talent, but because they could
+do nothing without their palette and their paint brushes. Now that
+illustrious _maestro_, Mr. Jack Becker, has both genius and ingenuity,
+for he has succeeded in dispensing with the aforementioned troublesome
+auxiliaries of his art. His plan which has the advantage of not being
+patented, consists in placing his subject before a mirror, where he is
+permitted to stay till the portrait takes root in the glass. By this
+novel method the original and the copy will be subject alike to the
+ravages of time, so that no one, on seeing a portrait, will be liable
+to mistake the grand-mother for the grand-daughter. Likenesses
+guaranteed. Payments, under all circumstances, to be made in advance.
+
+"Ah, well," said Becker, laughing, "it appears that the scapegrace has
+not spared himself."
+
+"I hope there is not a fourth proclamation," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"There are no more trees on our route, at all events," replied
+Becker.
+
+"Glad to hear that; Jack must respect the avocation chosen by Frank,
+since he sees nothing in it to ridicule."
+
+As they drew near the Jackal River, in which the pinnace was moored,
+Mary and Fritz were a little in advance of the party.
+
+"Are you really determined to turn the world upside down, Master
+Fritz?"
+
+"At present, Miss Wolston, I am myself the sum and substance of my
+army, in addition to which I have not yet quite made up my mind."
+
+"It is an odd fancy to entertain to say the least of it."
+
+"Does it displease you?"
+
+"In order that it could do that, I must first have the right to judge
+your projects."
+
+"And if I gave you that right?"
+
+"I should find the responsibility too great to accept it. Besides, a
+determination cannot be properly judged, without putting one's self in
+the position of the person that makes it. You imagine happiness
+consists in witnessing the shock of armies, whilst I fancy enjoyment
+to consist in the calm tranquility of one's home. You see our views of
+felicity are widely different."
+
+"Not so very widely different as you seem to think, Miss Wolston. As
+yet my victories are _nil_; I have not yet come to an issue with my
+allies; to put my troops on the peace establishment I have only to
+disembody myself, and I disembody myself accordingly."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "you are very easily turned from your purpose."
+
+"Easily! no, Miss Wolston, not easily; you cannot admit that an
+objection urged by yourself is a matter of no moment, or one that can
+be slighted with impunity."
+
+"Ah! here we are at the end of our journey."
+
+"Already! the road has never appeared so short to me before."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston, coming up to her daughter, "you appear
+very merry."
+
+"Well, not without reason, mamma; I have just restored peace to the
+world."
+
+The pinnace was soon launched, and, under the guidance of Willis, was
+making way in the direction of Waldeck. The sea had not yet recovered
+from the effects of the recent storm; it was still, to use an
+expression of Willis, "a trifle ugly." Occasionally the waves would
+catch the frail craft amidships, and make it lurch in an uncomfortable
+fashion, especially as regarded the ladies, which obliged Willis to
+keep closer in shore than was quite to his taste. The briny element
+still bore traces of its recent rage, just as anger lingers on the
+human face, even after it has quitted the heart.
+
+Whilst the pinnace was in the midst of a series of irregular
+gyrations, a shrill scream suddenly rent the air, and at the same
+instant Fritz and Willis leaped overboard.
+
+_Mary had fallen into the sea_.
+
+Becker strained every nerve to stay the boat. Mrs. Wolston fell on her
+knees with outstretched hands, but, though in the attitude of prayer,
+not a word escaped her pallid lips.
+
+The two men floated for a moment over the spot where the poor girl had
+sunk; suddenly Fritz disappeared, his keen eye had been of service
+here, for it enabled him to descry the object sought. In a few seconds
+he rose to the surface with Mary's inanimate body in his left arm.
+Willis hastened to assist him in bearing the precious burden to the
+boat, and Becker's powerful arms drew it on deck.
+
+The joy that all naturally would have felt when this was accomplished
+had no time to enter their breasts, for they saw that the body evinced
+no signs of life, and a fear that the vital spark had already fled
+caused every frame to shudder. They felt that not a moment was to be
+lost; the resources of the boat were hastily put in requisition;
+mattresses, sheets, blankets, and dry clothes were strewn upon the
+deck. Mrs. Wolston had altogether lost her presence of mind, and could
+do nothing but press the dripping form of her daughter to her bosom.
+
+"Friction must be tried instantly," cried Becker; "here, take this
+flannel and rub her body smartly with it--particularly her breast and
+back."
+
+Mrs. Wolston instinctively followed these directions.
+
+"It is of importance to warm her feet," continued Becker; "but,
+unfortunately, we have no means on board to make a fire."
+
+Mrs. Wolston, in her trepidation, began breathing upon them.
+
+"I have heard," said the Pilot, "that persons rescued from drowning
+are held up by the feet to allow the water to run out."
+
+"Nonsense, Willis; a sure means of killing them outright. It is not
+from water that any danger is to be apprehended, but from want of air,
+or, rather, the power of respiration. What we have to do is to try and
+revive this power by such means as are within our reach."
+
+The Pilot, meantime, endeavored to introduce a few drops of brandy
+between the lips of the patient. Fritz stood trembling like an aspen
+leaf and deadly pale; he regarded these operations as if his own life
+were at stake, and not the patient's.
+
+"There remains only one other course to adopt, Mrs. Wolston," said
+Becker, "you must endeavor to bring your daughter to life by means of
+your own breath."
+
+"Only tell me what to do, Mr. Becker, and, if every drop of blood in
+my body is wanted, all is at your disposal."
+
+"You must apply your mouth to that of your daughter, and, whilst her
+nostrils are compressed, breathe at intervals into her breast, and so
+imitate the act of natural respiration."
+
+Stronger lungs than those of a woman might have been urgent under such
+circumstances, but maternal love supplied what was wanting in physical
+strength.
+
+The Pilot had turned the prow of the pinnace towards home; he felt
+that, in the present case at least, the comforts of the land were
+preferable to the charms of the sea.
+
+"This time it is not my breath, but her own," said Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Her pulse beats," said Becker; "she lives."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Fritz and Willis in one voice.
+
+A quarter of an hour had scarcely yet elapsed since the patient's
+first immersion in the sea; but this brief interval had been an age of
+agony to them all. As yet, her head lay quiescent on her mother's
+bosom, that first pillow, common alike to rich and poor, at the
+threshold of life.
+
+The%signs of returning animation gradually became more and more
+evident; at length, the patient gently raised her head, and glanced
+vacantly from one object to another; then, her eyes were turned upon
+herself, and finally rested upon Fritz and Willis, who still bore
+obvious traces of their recent struggle with the waves. Here she
+seemed to become conscious, for her body trembled, as if some terrible
+thought had crossed her mind. After this paroxysm had passed, she
+feebly inclined her head, as if to say--"I understand--you have saved
+my life--I thank you." Then, like those jets of flame that are no
+sooner alight than they are extinguished, she again became insensible.
+
+As soon as they reached the shore, Fritz hastened to Rockhouse, and
+made up a sort of palanquin of such materials as were at hand, into
+which Mary was placed, and thus was conveyed, with all possible care
+and speed, on the shoulders of the men to Falcon's Nest. A few hours
+afterwards she returned to consciousness and found herself in a warm
+bed, surrounded with all the comforts that maternal anxiety and
+Becker's intelligent mind could suggest.
+
+Fritz was unceasing in his exertions; no amount of fatigue seemed to
+wear him out. As soon as he saw that everything had been done for the
+invalid that their united skill could accomplish, he bridled an
+untrained ostrich, and rode or rather flew off in search of the land
+portion of the expedition.
+
+"Mary is saved," he cried, as he came up with them.
+
+"From what?" inquired Wolston, anxiously.
+
+"From the sea, that was about to swallow her up."
+
+"And by whom?"
+
+"By Willis, myself, and us all."
+
+The same evening, the two families were again assembled at Falcon's
+Nest, and thus, for a second time, the long talked-of expedition was
+brought to an abrupt conclusion.
+
+"Ah," said Willis, "we must cast anchor for a bit; yesterday it was
+the sky, to-day it was the sea, to-morrow it will be the land,
+perhaps--the wind is clearly against us."
+
+How often does it not happen, in our pilgrimage through life, that we
+have the wind against us? We make a resolute determination, we set out
+on our journey, but the object we seek recedes as we advance; it is no
+use going any farther--the wind is against us. We re-commence ten,
+twenty, a hundred times, but the result is invariably the same. How is
+this? No one can tell. What are the obstacles? It is difficult to say.
+Perhaps, we meet with a friend who detains us; perhaps, a recollection
+that our memory has called, induces us to swerve from the path--the
+blind man that sung under our window may have something to do with
+it--perhaps, it was merely a fly, less than nothing.
+
+It is not our minor undertakings, but rather our most important
+enterprises, that are frustrated by such trifles as these; for it must
+be allowed that we strive less tenaciously against an obstacle that
+debars us from a pleasure, than against one that separates us from a
+duty--in the one case we have to stem the torrent, in the other we
+sail with the current.
+
+When we observe some deplorable instance of a wrecked career--when we
+see a man starting in life with the most brilliant prospects
+collapsing into a dead-weight on his fellows, we are apt to suppose
+that some insurmountable barrier must have crossed his path--some
+Himalaya, or formidable wall, like that which does not now separate
+China from Tartary; but no such thing. Trace the cause to its source,
+and what think you is invariably found? A grain of sand; the
+unfortunate wretch has had the wind against him--nothing more.
+
+Rescued from the sea, Mary Wolston was now a prey to a raging fever.
+Ill or well, at her age there is no medium, either exuberant health or
+complete prostration; the juices then are turbulent and the blood is
+ardent.
+
+Somehow or other, a good action attaches the doer to the recipient;
+so, in the case of Fritz, apart from the brotherly affection which he
+had vaguely vowed to entertain for the two young girls that had so
+unexpectedly appeared amongst them, he now regarded the life of Mary
+as identical with his own, and felt that her death would inevitably
+shorten his own existence; "for," said he to himself, "should she die,
+I was too late in drawing her out of the water." In his tribulation
+and irreflection, he drew no line between the present and the past,
+but simply concluded, that if he saved her too late, he did not save
+her at all. Hope, nevertheless, did not altogether abandon him. He
+would sometimes fancy her restored to her wonted health, abounding in
+life and vigour. Then the pleasing thought would cross his mind that,
+but for himself, that charming being, in all probability, would have
+been a tenant of the tomb. Would that those who do evil only knew the
+delight that sometimes wells up in the breasts of those who do good!
+
+The first day of Mary's illness, Fritz bore up manfully. On the
+second, he joined his father and brothers in their field labors; but,
+whilst driving some nails into a fence, he had so effectually fixed
+himself to a stake that it was only with some difficulty that he could
+be detached. The third day, at sunrise, he called Mary's dog,
+shouldered his rifle, and was about to quit the house.
+
+"Where are you going?" inquired Jack.
+
+"I don't know--anywhere."
+
+"Anywhere! Well, I am rather partial to that sort of place; I will go
+with you."
+
+"But I must do something that will divert my thoughts. There may be
+danger."
+
+"Well I can help you to look up a difficulty."
+
+Every day the two brothers departed at sunrise, and returned together
+again in the evening. Mrs. Becker felt acutely their sufferings. She
+watched anxiously for the return of the two wanderers, and generally
+went a little way to meet them when they appeared in the distance.
+
+"She does not run to meet us," said Fritz, one day; "that is a bad
+sign."
+
+"Not a bit of it," replied Jack. "If she had any bad news to give us,
+she would not come at all."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] The constellation known in astronomy as the _Great Bear_ is in,
+some parts of England termed the _Plough_, and in others _Charles's
+Wain_ or _Waggon_. It may be added, that the same constellation is
+popularly known in France as the _Chariot of David_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GOD'S GOVERNMENT--KING STANISLAUS--THE DAUPHIN SON OF LOUIS XV.--THE
+SHORTEST ROAD--NEW YEAR'S DAY--A MIRACLE--CLEVER ANIMALS--THE
+CALENDAR--MR. JULIUS CAESAR AND POPE GREGORY XIII.--HOW THE DAY AFTER
+THE 4TH OF OCTOBER WAS THE 15TH--OLYMPIAD--LUSTRES--THE HEGIRA--A
+HORSE MADE CONSUL--JACK'S DREAM.
+
+
+Some men, when they regard the sinister side of events, are apt to
+call in question the axiom, Nothing is accomplished without the will
+of God. Why, they ask, do the wicked triumph? Why are the just
+oppressed? Why this evil? What is the use of that disaster? Was it
+necessary that Mary Wolston should be thrown into the sea, and that
+she should afterwards die in consequence of the accident?
+
+To these questions we reply, that God does not interrupt the ordinary
+course of His works. Man is a free agent in so far as regards his own
+actions; were it otherwise, we should not be responsible for our own
+crimes. We might as well plunge into vice as adhere to virtue; for we
+could not be called upon to expiate the one, nor could we hope to be
+rewarded for the other. It is not to be expected that God is to
+perform miracles at every instant for our individual benefit. It is
+unreasonable in us to suppose that, in obedience to our wishes or
+desires, He will alter His immutable laws.
+
+A foot slips on the brink of a precipice, and we are dashed to atoms.
+Our boat is upset in a squall, and we are drowned. Like Stanislaus
+Leszinsky, King of Poland, we fall asleep in the corner of a chimney,
+our clothes take fire, and we are burned to death. We go a hunting; we
+mistake a grey overcoat for the fur of a deer, and we kill our friend
+or his gamekeeper, as once happened to the son of Louis XV., who in
+consequence almost died of grief, and renounced forever a sport of
+which he was passionately fond. Did Providence will, exact, or
+pre-ordain all these calamities? Certainly not; but our Creator has
+seen fit to tolerate and permit them, since he did not interpose to
+prevent them.
+
+The government of God is a conception so wonderful, so sublime, that
+none but Himself can fathom its depths. Human intelligence is too
+finite to penetrate or comprehend a system so complex, and yet so
+uniform. The mind of man can only form a just idea of a cause when the
+effect has been made manifest to his understanding. There might have
+been a reason for the death of Mary Wolston--who knows? But if it were
+so, that reason was beyond the pale of mortal ken.
+
+Let us not, however, anticipate. Mary Wolston is not yet dead. On the
+contrary, when the ninth day of her illness had passed, Fritz and Jack
+were returning from an expedition, the nature of which was only known
+to themselves, but which, to judge from the packs that they bore on
+their backs, had been tolerably productive. The two young men observed
+their mother advancing, as usual, to meet them, but this time _she
+ran_. They had no need to be told in words that Mary Wolston was now
+out of danger; the serenity of their mother's countenance was more
+eloquent than the most elaborate discourse that ever stirred human
+souls.
+
+Mrs. Becker herself felt that words were superfluous, so she quietly
+took her son's arm, and they walked gently homewards, whilst Jack
+strode on before. On turning a corner of the road, the latter stumbled
+upon Wolston and Ernest, who, in the exuberance of their joy, had also
+come out to meet the hunters. They were, however, a little behind; but
+that was nothing new. These two members of the colony had become quite
+remarkable for procrastination and absence of mind. When Wolston the
+mechanician, and Ernest the philosopher, travelled in company, it was
+rare that some pebble or plant, or question in physics, did not induce
+them to deviate from their route or tarry on their way. One day they
+both started for Rockhouse to fetch provisions for the family dinner,
+but instead of bringing back the needful supplies of beef and mutton,
+they returned in great glee with the solution of an intricate problem
+in geometry. All fared very indifferently on that occasion, and, in
+consequence, Wolston and Ernest were, from that time on, deprived of
+the office of purveyors.
+
+In the present instance, instead of running like Mrs. Becker, they had
+philosophically seated themselves on the trunk of a tree. At their
+feet was a diagram that Wolston had traced with the end of his stick;
+this was neither a tangent nor a triangle, as might have been
+expected, but a figure denoting how to carve one's way to a position,
+amidst the rugged defiles of life.
+
+"In all things," observed Wolston, "in morals as well as physics, the
+shortest road from one point to another, is the straight line."
+
+"Unless," objected Ernest, "the straight line were encumbered with
+obstacles, that would require more time to surmount than to go round.
+Two leagues of clear road would be better than one only a single
+league in length, if intersected by ditches and strewn with wild
+beasts."
+
+"Bah!" cried Jack, who had just come up out of breath, "you might leap
+the one and shoot the others."
+
+"Your argument," replied Wolston, "is that of the savage, who can
+imagine no obstacles that are not solid and tangible. The obstacles
+that retard our progress in life neither display yawning chasms nor
+rows of teeth; they dwell within our own minds--they are versatility,
+disgust, ennui, thirst after the unknown, and love of change. These
+lead us to take bye-paths and long turnings, and fritter away the
+strength that should be used in promoting a single aim. Hence arise a
+multiplicity of hermaphrodite avocations and desultory studies, that
+terminate in nothing but vexation of spirit. Let us suppose, for
+example, that Peter has made up his mind to be a lawyer."
+
+"I do not see any particular reason why Peter should not be a lawyer,"
+said Jack.
+
+"Nor I either; but unfortunately when Peter has pored a certain time
+over Coke upon Littleton, and other abstruse legal authorities, he
+accidentally witnesses a review; he throws down his books, and
+resolves to become a soldier."
+
+"After the manner and style of our Fritz," suggested Jack.
+
+"He changes the Pandects for Polybius, and Gray's Inn for a military
+school. All goes well for awhile; the idea of uniform helps him over
+the rudiments of fortification and the platoon exercise. He passes two
+examinations creditably, but breaks down at the third, in consequence
+of which he throws away his sword in disgust. He does not like now to
+rejoin his old companions in the Inn, who have been working steadily
+during the years he has lost. He therefore, perhaps, adopts a middle
+course, and gets himself enrolled in the society of solicitors, which
+does not exact a very elaborate diploma."
+
+"Well, after all, the difference between a barrister and a solicitor
+is not so great."
+
+"True; but the exercises to which he has been accustomed previously
+unfit him for the drudgeries of his new employment, and he soon
+abandons that, just as he abandoned the other two."
+
+"Your friend Peter is somewhat difficult to please," said Jack.
+
+"He then goes into business, a term which may mean a great deal or
+nothing at all; it admits of one's going about idle with the
+appearance of being fully occupied. Then a few unsuccessful
+speculations bring him back, at the end of his days, to the point
+whence he started--that is, zero."
+
+"Ah, yes, I see now," cried Jack, whilst he traced a diagram on the
+ground. "Poor Peter has always stopped in the middle of each
+profession and gone back to the starting point of another, thus
+passing his life in making zig-zags, and only moving from one zero to
+another."
+
+"Exactly," added Wolston: "whilst those who persevered in following up
+the profession they chose at first finally succeeded in attaining a
+position, and that simply by adhering to a straight line."
+
+Here Fritz and his mother arrived, arm in arm.
+
+"Ha! there you are," cried Ernest. "We were on our way to meet you."
+
+"You surely do not call sitting down there being on your way to meet
+us, do you?"
+
+"Well, yes, mother," suggested Jack, "on the principle that two bodies
+coming into contact meet each other."
+
+Like those flowers that droop during a storm, but recover their
+brilliancy with the first rays of the sun, so a few days more sufficed
+to restore Mary Wolston to better health than she had ever enjoyed in
+her life before. Some months now elapsed without giving rise to any
+event of note. All the men, women, and children in the colony had been
+busily employed from early morn to late at e'en. No sooner had one
+field been sown than there was another to plant; then came the grain
+harvest and its hard but healthy toil; next, much to the delight of
+Willis, herrings appeared on the coast, followed by their attendant
+demons, the sea-dogs; salmon-fishing, hunting ortolans, the foundries
+and manufactories, likewise exacted a portion of their time.
+Frequently parties were occupied for weeks together in the remote
+districts; so that, with the exception of one day each week--the
+Sabbath--the two families had of late been rarely assembled together
+in one spot.
+
+The hope of ever again beholding the _Nelson_ had gradually ceased to
+be entertained by anybody. Like an echo that resounds from rock to
+rock until it is lost in the distance, this hope had died away in
+their breasts. Willis nevertheless continued to keep the beacon on
+Shark's Island alight; but he regarded it more as a sepulchral lamp in
+commemoration of the dead, than as a signal for the living.
+
+One morning, the break of day was announced by a cannon-shot. All
+instantly started on their feet and gazed inquiringly in each other's
+faces. One thing forced itself upon all their thoughts--daybreak
+generally arrives without noise; it is not accustomed to announce
+itself with gunpowder; like real merit, it requires no flourish of
+trumpets to announce its advent.
+
+"Good," said Becker; "Fritz and Jack are not visible, therefore we may
+easily guess who fired that shot."
+
+"Particularly," added Wolston, "as this is the first of January. Last
+night I observed an unusual amount of going backwards and forwards,
+so, I suppose, nobody need be much at a loss to solve the mystery."
+
+"Aye," sighed Willis, "New Year's Day brings pleasing recollections to
+many, but sad ones to those who are far away from their own homes."
+
+Shortly after, the absentees arrived, each mounted on his favorite
+ostrich.
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, spreading out a fine leopard's skin, "be
+good enough to accept this, with the compliments of the season."
+
+"Mr. Wolston," said Jack, at the same time, "here is the outer
+covering of a panther, who, stifling with heat, commissioned me to
+present you with his overcoat."
+
+"I am very proud of your gift, Master Fritz," said Mrs. Wolston; "it
+is really very handsome."
+
+"It may, perhaps, be useful at all events, madam," said Fritz; "for,
+in the absence of universal pills and such things, it is a capital
+preventative of coughs and colds."
+
+"You have been over the way again, then?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Yes; but, as you see, we adopted a more efficacious mode of
+operations than the one you suggested."
+
+"Ah," replied Willis, drily, "you did not light a fire this time to
+frighten the brutes away, and go to sleep when it went out!"
+
+Sophia then presented Willis with a handsome tobacco pouch, on which
+the words, "From Susan," were embroidered.
+
+"Bless your dear little heart!" said the sailor, whilst a tear
+sparkled in the corner of his eye, "you make me almost think I am in
+Old England again."
+
+"What is the matter?" inquired Mrs. Wolston, as Mary came running in.
+
+"Oh, such a miracle, mamma! my parrot commenced talking this morning."
+
+"And what did it say, child?"
+
+Here Mary blushed and hesitated; Mrs. Wolston glanced at Fritz, and
+thought it might be as well not to inquire any further.
+
+"Perhaps somebody has changed it," suggested Jack.
+
+"Not very likely that a strange parrot could pronounce my own name."
+
+"Well, perhaps your own has been learning to spell for a long time,
+and has just succeeded in getting into words of two or more syllables.
+These creatures abound in sell-esteem; and yours, perhaps, would not
+speak till it could speak well."
+
+"Odd, that it should pitch upon New Year's morning to say all sorts of
+pretty things. They do not carry an almanack in their pockets, do
+they?"
+
+"Well," remarked Willis, "parrots do say and do odd things. I heard of
+one that once frightened away a burglar, by screaming out, 'The
+Campbells are coming;' so, Miss Wolston, perhaps yours does keep a
+log."
+
+"By counting its knuckles," suggested Jack.
+
+"Counting one's knuckles is an ingenious, but rather a clumsy
+substitute for the calendar," remarked Wolston.
+
+"And who invented the calendar?" inquired Willis.
+
+"I am not aware that the calendar was ever invented," replied Wolston.
+"Fruit commences by being a seed, the admiral springs from the
+cabin-boy, words and language succeed naturally the babble of the
+infant; so, I presume, the calendar has grown up spontaneously to its
+present degree of perfection."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Wolston, but some one must have laid the first plank."
+
+"The motions of the sun, moon, and stars would, in all probability,
+suggest to the early inhabitants of our globe a natural means of
+measuring time. God, in creating the heavenly bodies, seems to have
+reflected that man would require some index to regulate his labors and
+the acts of his civil life. The primary and most elementary
+subdivisions of time are day and night, and it demanded no great
+stretch of human ingenuity to divide the day into two sections, called
+forenoon and afternoon, or into twelve sections, called hours. Such
+subdivisions of time would probably suggest themselves simultaneously
+to all the nations of the earth. Necessity, who is the mother of all
+invention, doubtless called the germs of our calendar into existence."
+
+"Yes, so far as the days and hours are concerned. There are other
+divisions--weeks, for example."
+
+"The division of time into weeks is a matter that belongs entirely to
+revelation; the Jews keep the last day of every seven as a day of
+rest, in accordance with the law of Moses, and the Christians dedicate
+the first day of every seven to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
+
+"Then there are months."
+
+"The month is another natural division. The return of the moon in
+conjunction with the sun, was observed to occur at regular intervals
+of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and some minutes. This interval is
+called the _lunar month_, which for a long time was regarded as the
+radical unit in the admeasurement of time."
+
+"But the year is now the unit, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, in course of time the moon, in this respect, gave place to the
+sun. It was observed that the earth, in performing her revolution
+round the sun, always arrived at the same point of her orbit at the
+end of three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, fifty-eight
+minutes, and forty-five seconds."
+
+"Does the earth invariably pass the same point at that interval?"
+
+"Yes, invariably; and the interval in question is termed the solar
+year."
+
+"After all," remarked Jack, "the perseverance of the earth is very
+much to be admired. It goes on eternally, always performing the same
+journey, never deviates from its path, and is never a minute too
+late."
+
+"If the earth had performed her annual voyage in a certain number of
+entire days, the solar year would have been an exact unit of time; but
+the odd fraction defied all our systems of calculation. Originally, we
+reckoned the year to consist of three hundred and sixty-five days."
+
+"And left the fraction to shift for itself!"
+
+"Yes, but the consequence was, that the civil year was always nearly a
+quarter of a day behind; so that at the end of a hundred and
+twenty-one years the civil year had become an entire month behind. The
+first month of winter found itself in autumn, the first month of
+spring in the middle of winter, and so on.
+
+"Rather a lubberly sort of log, that," remarked Willis.
+
+"This confusion became, with time, more and more embarrassing. Another
+evil was, likewise, eventually to be apprehended, for it was seen
+that, on the expiring of fourteen hundred and sixty revolutions of the
+earth round the sun, fourteen hundred and sixty-one civil years would
+be counted."
+
+"But where would have been the evil?"
+
+"All relations between the dates and the seasons would have been
+obliterated, astronomical calculations would have become inaccurate,
+and the calendar virtually useless."
+
+"Well, Willis, you that are so fertile in ideas, what would you have
+done in such a case?" inquired Jack.
+
+"I! Why I scarcely know--perhaps run out a fresh cable and commenced a
+new log."
+
+"Your remedy," continued Wolston, "might, perhaps, have obviated the
+difficulty; but Julius Caesar thought of another that answered the
+purpose equally well. It was simply to add to every fourth civil year
+an additional day, making it to consist of three hundred and sixty-six
+instead of three hundred and sixty-five, This supplementary day was
+given to the month of February."
+
+"Why February?"
+
+"Because February, at that time, was reckoned the last month of the
+year. It was only in the reign of Charles IX. of France, or in the
+second half of the sixteenth century, that the civil year was made to
+begin on the 1st of January. As the end of February was five days
+before the 1st or kalends of March, the extra day was known by the
+phrase _bis sexto_ (_ante_) _calendus martii_. Hence the fourth year
+is termed in the calendar _bissextile_, but is more usually called by
+us in England _leap year_."
+
+"The remedy is certainly simple; but are your figures perfectly
+square? If you add a day every four years, do you not overleap the
+earth's fraction?"
+
+"Yes, from ten to eleven minutes."
+
+"And what becomes of these minutes? Are they allowed to run up another
+score?"
+
+"No, not exactly. In 1582, the civil year had got ten clear days the
+start of the solar year, and Pope Gregory XIII. resolved to cancel
+them, which he effected by calling the day after the 4th of October
+the 15th."
+
+"That manner of altering the rig and squaring the yards," said Willi
+laughing, "would make the people that lived then ten days older. If it
+had been ten years, the matter would have been serious. Had the Pope
+said to me privately, 'Willis, you are now only forty-seven, but
+to-morrow, my boy, you will fill your sails and steer right into
+fifty-seven,' I should have turned 'bout ship and cleared off. Few men
+care about being put upon a short allowance of life, any more than we
+sailors on short rations of rum."
+
+"But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your
+age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that."
+
+"Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a
+latitude than Mr. Julius Caesar--but what are you laughing at?"
+
+"Nothing; only Julius Caesar is not generally honored with the prefix
+_Mr_. It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of _Sir
+Newton_ and _Mr. William Shakespeare_; the latter, however, by way of
+amends, they sometimes style the _immortal Williams_.'"
+
+"Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed
+the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder. But who
+was Julius Caesar."
+
+"Julius Caesar," replied Jack, sententiously, "was first of all an
+author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin
+Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England,
+and gave _Mr._ Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia."
+
+"He must have been a clever fellow to do all that; still, my idea
+continues the same. When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to
+have finished the business in a workmanlike manner."
+
+"That, however," continued Wolston, "he left to Pope Gregory, who
+decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries.
+Thus, the years 1700 and 1800, which should have been leap years, did
+not reckon the extra day; so the years 2000 and 2400 will likewise be
+deprived of their supplementary four-and-twenty hours."
+
+"There is one difficulty about this mode of stowing away extra days;
+these leap years may be forgotten."
+
+"Not if you keep in mind that leap years alone admit of being divided
+by four."
+
+"Did the Pope manage to get entirely rid of the fraction?"
+
+"Not entirely; but the error does not exceed one day in four thousand
+years, and is so small that it is not likely to derange ordinary
+calculations; and so, Willis, you now know the origin of the calendar,
+and likewise how time came to be divided into weeks, months, and
+years."
+
+"You have only spoken of the Christian calendar," remarked Ernest.
+"There have been several other systems in use. Those curious people
+that call themselves the children of the sun and moon, possess a mode
+of reckoning that carries them back to a period anterior to the
+creation of the world. Then, the Greeks computed by Olympiads, or
+periods of four years. The Romans reckoned by lustri of five years,
+the first of which corresponds with the 117th year of the foundation
+of Rome."
+
+"And when does our calendar begin?"
+
+"It dates only from the birth of Christ, but may be carried back to
+the creation, which event, to the best of our knowledge, occurred four
+thousand and four years before the birth of our Savior. This period,
+added to the date of the present, or any future year, gives us, as
+nearly as we can ascertain, the interval that has elapsed since our
+first parents found themselves in the garden of Eden."
+
+"Our calendar," remarked Jack, "appears simple enough; it is to be
+regretted that there have been, and are, so many other modes of
+reckoning extant. What with the Greek Olympiads, the Roman lustres,
+the Mahometan hegira, and Chinese moonshine, there is nothing but
+perplexity and confusion."
+
+"It is possible, however," said Becker, "to accommodate all these
+systems with each other. Leaving the Chinese out of the question, we
+have only to bear in mind, that the Christian era begins on the first
+year of the 194th Olympiad, 753 years after the building of Rome, and
+622 years before the Mahometan hegira. These three figures will serve
+us as flambeaux to all the dates of both ancient and modern history."
+
+The discourse was here interrupted by Toby, who entered the room, and
+was gleefully frisking and bounding round Mary.
+
+"Really," observed Mrs. Becker, "Toby does seem to know that this is
+New Year's Day, he looks so lively and so smart."
+
+The animal, in point of fact, wore a new collar, and seemed conscious
+that he was more than usually attractive that particular morning. At a
+sign from Mary, the intelligent brute went and wagged his tail to
+Fritz. Hereupon the young man, observing the collar more closely,
+noticed the following words embroidered upon it: _I belong now
+entirely to Master Fritz, who rescued my mistress from the sea_.
+
+"Ah, Miss Wolston," said Fritz, "you forget I only did my duty; you
+must not allow your gratitude to over-estimate the service I rendered
+you."
+
+"Well, I declare," cried Mrs. Wolston, laughing "here is another
+animal that speaks."
+
+"The age of Aesop revived," suggested Mrs. Becker.
+
+"What do you say, Master Jack?" inquired Mrs. Wolston. "Do you suppose
+that Toby has learned embroidery in the same way that the parrot
+learned grammar?"
+
+"Oh, more astonishing things than that have happened! Mr. Wolston
+there will tell you that he has seen a wooden figure playing at chess;
+why, therefore, should the most sagacious of all the brutes not learn
+knitting?"
+
+"I fear, in speaking so highly of the dog," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you
+are doing injustice to other animals. Marvellous instances of
+sagacity, gratitude, and affection, have been shown by other brutes
+beside the dog. A horse of Caligula's was elevated to the dignified
+office of consul."
+
+"Yes, and talking of the affection of animals," observed Ernest, "puts
+me in mind of an anecdote related by Aulus Gellius. It seems that a
+little boy, the son of a fisher man, who had to go from Baiae to his
+school at Puzzoli, used to stop at the same hour each day on the brink
+of the Lucrine lake. Here he often threw a bit of his breakfast to a
+Dolphin that he called Simon, and if the creature was not waiting for
+him when he arrived, he had only to pronounce this name, and it
+instantly appeared."
+
+"Nothing very wonderful in that," said Jack; "the common gudgeon,
+which is the stupidest fish to be found in fresh water, would do that
+much."
+
+"Yes; but listen a moment. The dolphin, after having received his
+pittance, presented his back to the boy, after having tacked in all
+his spines and prickles as well as he could, and carried him right
+across the lake, thus saving the little fellow a long roundabout walk;
+and not only that, but after school hours it was waiting to carry him
+back again. This continued almost daily for a year or two; but at last
+the boy died, and the dolphin, after waiting day after day for his
+reappearance, pined away, and was found dead at the usual place of
+rendezvous. The affectionate creature was taken out of the lake, and
+buried beside its friend.[D]
+
+"And, on the other hand," added Jack, "if animals sometimes attach
+themselves to us, we attach ourselves to them. We are told that
+Crassus wore mourning for a dead ferret, the death of which grieved
+him as much as if it had been his own daughter.[E] Augustus crucified
+one of his slaves, who had roasted and eaten a quail, that had fought
+and conquered in the circus.[F] Antonia, daughter-in-law of Tiberius,
+fastened ear-rings to some lampreys that she was passionately fond
+of."[G]
+
+"That, at all events, was attachment in one sense of the word," said
+Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Without reference to the dog in particular," continued Jack, "proofs
+of sagacity in animals are very numerous. The nautilus, when he wants
+to take an airing, capsizes his shell, and converts it into a gondola;
+then he hoists a thin membrane that serves for a sail; two of his
+arms are resolved into oars, and his tail performs the functions of a
+rudder. There are insects ingenious enough to make dwellings for
+themselves in the body of a leaf as thin as paper. At the approach of
+a storm some spiders take in a reef or two of their webs, so as to be
+less at the mercy of the wind. Beavers will erect walls, and construct
+houses more skilfully than our ablest architects. Chimpanzees have
+been known spontaneously to sit themselves down, and perform the
+operation of shaving."
+
+"Stop, Jack," cried Mrs. Wolston; "I must yield to such a deluge of
+argument, and admit that Toby may have acquired the art of embroidery
+with or without a master, only I should like to see some other
+specimen of his skill."
+
+"Probably you will by-and-by," replied Jack, laughing, "if you keep
+your eyes open."
+
+Here Sophia came into the room leading her gazelle.
+
+"Ah, just in time," said Mrs. Wolston; "here is another animal that
+probably has something to say."
+
+"Wrong, mamma," replied Sophia; "my gazelle is as mute as a mermaid.
+Very provoking, is it not, when all the other animals in the house
+talk?"
+
+"You had better apply to Master Jack; he may, probably, be able to hit
+upon a plan to make your gazelle communicative."
+
+"Will you, Master Jack?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Sophia. The plan I would suggest is very simple. Feed
+him for a week or two with nouns, adjectives, and verbs."
+
+Here Sophia, addressing her gazelle, said, "Master Jack Becker is a
+goose."
+
+Meantime Fritz was leaning on the back of Mary's chair.
+
+"Miss Wolston," said he, "did you not tell me that you had brought
+Toby up, and that you were very fond of him?"
+
+"Yes, Fritz."
+
+"Then it would be unfair in me to withdraw his allegiance from you
+now, and, consequently, I must refuse your present"
+
+"But where would have been the merit of the gift if I did not hold
+him in some esteem? Besides, I thought you were fond of Toby."
+
+"So I am, Miss Wolston."
+
+"Then you will not be indebted to me for anything--I owe you much."
+
+"No such thing; you owe me nothing."
+
+"My life, then, is nothing?"
+
+"Oh, I did not mean that; I must beg your pardon."
+
+"Which I will only grant on condition you accept my gift."
+
+"Well, if you insist upon it, I will."
+
+"I can see him as before; the only difference will be that you are his
+master, in all other respects he will belong to us both."
+
+"May I know what your knight-errant is saying to you, Mary?" inquired
+Mrs. Becker.
+
+"Oh, I have been so angry with him; he was going to refuse my
+present."
+
+"That was very naughty of him, certainly."
+
+"He has, however, consented, like a dutiful squire, to obey my
+behests."
+
+"Yes, mother, Toby is henceforth to be divided between us."
+
+"Divided?"
+
+"Yes; that is, he is to be nominally mine, but virtually to belong to
+us both. Is it not so, Miss Wolston?"
+
+"Yes, Master Fritz."
+
+On his side, Jack had approached Miss Sophia.
+
+"So you won't give me your gazelle?" he whispered.
+
+"No, certainly not, Mr. Jack," replied Sophia; "if you had saved my
+life, as Fritz saved my sister's, I should then have had the right to
+make you a present. But you know it is not my fault."
+
+"Nor mine either," said Jack.
+
+"Perhaps not; but if I had fallen into the sea, you would have allowed
+the sharks to swallow me, would you not?"
+
+"I only wish we had been attacked by a hyena or a bear on our way to
+Waldeck."
+
+"God be thanked, that we were not!"
+
+"Well, but look here, Miss Sophia; let me paint the scene. You have
+fainted, as a matter of course, and fallen prostrate on the ground,
+insensible."
+
+"That is likely enough, if we had encountered one of the animals you
+mention."
+
+"Then I throw myself between you and the savage brute."
+
+"Supposing you were not half a mile off at the time."
+
+"No fear of that--he rises, on his hind legs, and glares."
+
+"Is it a hyena or a bear?"
+
+"Oh, whichever you like--he opens his jaws, and growls."
+
+"Like the wolf at Little Red Riding Hood."
+
+"I plunge my arm down his throat and choke him."
+
+"Clever, very; but are you not wounded?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, however; all my thoughts are centred in you--I
+think of nothing else."
+
+"I am insensible, am I not?"
+
+"Yes, more than ever--we all run towards you, and exert ourselves to
+bring you back to your senses."
+
+"Then I come to life again."
+
+"No, stop a bit."
+
+"But it is tiresome to be so long insensible."
+
+"My mother has luckily a bottle of salts, which she holds to your
+nose--I run off to the nearest brook, and return with water in the
+crown of my cap, with which I bathe your temples."
+
+"Oh, in that case, I should open one eye at least. Which eye is opened
+first after fainting?"
+
+"I really don't know."
+
+"In that case, to avoid mistakes, I should open both."
+
+"It is only then, when I find you are recovering, that I discover the
+brute has severely bitten my arm."
+
+"Then comes my turn to nurse you."
+
+"You express your thanks in your sweetest tones, and I forget my
+wounds."
+
+"Sweet tones do no harm, if they are accompanied with salves and
+ointment."
+
+"In short, I am obliged to carry my arm in a sling for three months
+after."
+
+"Is that not rather long?"
+
+"No; because your arm, in some sort, supplies, meantime, the place of
+mine."
+
+"Your picture has, at least, the merit of being poetic. Is it
+finished?"
+
+"Not till next New Year's Day, when you present me with an embroidered
+scarf, as the ladies of yore used to do to the knights that defended
+them from dragons and that sort of thing."
+
+"What a pity all this should be only a dream!"
+
+"Well, I am not particularly extravagant, at all events; others dream
+of fortune, honor, and glory."
+
+"Whilst you confine your aspirations to a bear, a bite, and a scarf."
+
+"You see nothing was wanted but the opportunity."
+
+"And foresight."
+
+"Foresight?"
+
+"Yes; if you had previously made arrangements with a bear, the whole
+scene might have been realized."
+
+"You are joking, whilst I am taking the matter _au serieux_."
+
+"That order is usually reversed; generally you are the quiz and I am
+the quizzee."
+
+"You will admit, at all events, that I would not have permitted the
+bear to eat you."
+
+Here Sophia burst into a peal of laughter, and vanished with her
+gazelle.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] Aulus Gellius, VII., 8.
+
+[E] Macrobius, _Saturn_, XL, 4.
+
+[F] Plutarch.
+
+[G] Pliny, IX., 53.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SEPARATION--GUELPHS AND GHIBELINES--MONTAGUES AND
+CAPULETS--SADNESS--THE REUNION--JOCKO AND HIS EDUCATION--THE
+ENTERTAINMENTS OF A KING--THE MULES OF NERO AND THE ASSES OF
+POPPAEA--HERCULES AND ACHILLES--LIBERTY AND EQUALITY--SEMIRAMIS AND
+ELIZABETH--CHRISTIANITY AND THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER--THE WILLISONIAN
+METHOD--MORAL DISCIPLINE VERSUS BIRCH.
+
+
+Winter was now drawing near, with its storms and deluges. Becker
+therefore felt that it was necessary to make some alterations in their
+domestic arrangements; and he saw that, for this season at all events,
+the two families must be separated--this was to create a desert within
+a desert; but propriety and convenience demanded the sacrifice.
+
+It was decided that Wolston and his family should be quartered at
+Rockhouse, whilst Becker and his family should pass the rainy season
+at Falcon's Nest, where, though these aerial dwellings were but
+indifferently adapted for winter habitations, they had passed the
+first year of their sojourn in the colony. The rains came and
+submerged the country between the two families, thus, for a time,
+cutting off all communication between them. The barriers that
+separated the Guelphs from the Ghibelines, the Montagues from the
+Capulets, the Burgundians from the Armagnacs, and the House of York
+from that of Lancaster, could not have been more impenetrable than
+that which now existed between the Wolstons and Beckers.
+
+Whenever a lull occurred in the storm, or a ray of sunshine shot
+through the murky clouds, all eyes were mechanically turned to the
+window, but only to turn them away again with a sigh; so completely
+had the waters invaded the land, that nothing short of the dove from
+Noah's Ark could have performed the journey between Rockhouse and
+Falcon's Nest.
+
+Dulness and dreariness reigned triumphant at both localities. The calm
+tranquility that Becker's family formerly enjoyed under similar
+circumstances had fled. They felt that happiness was no longer to be
+enjoyed within the limits of their own circle. Study and conversation
+lost their charms; and if they laughed now, the smile never extended
+beyond the tips of their lips. The young people often wished they
+possessed Fortunatus's cap, or Aladdin's wonderful lamp, to transport
+them from the one dwelling to the other; but as they could obtain no
+such occult mode of conveyance, there was no remedy for their miseries
+but patience. To the Wolstons this interval of compulsory separation
+was particularly irksome, as this was the first time in their lives
+that they had been entirely isolated for any length of time.
+
+At Falcon's Nest, Ernest was the most popular member of the domestic
+circle. His astronomical predilections made him the Sir Oracle of the
+storm, and he was constantly being asked for information relative to
+the progress and probable duration of the rains. Every morning he was
+called upon for a report as to the state of the weather; but, with all
+his skill, he could afford them very little consolation.
+
+But all things come to an end, as well as regards our troubles as our
+joys. One morning, Ernest reported that less rain had fallen during
+the preceding than any former night of the season; the next morning a
+still more favorable report was presented; and on the third morning
+the floods had subsided, but had left a substratum of mud that
+obliterated all traces of the roads. Notwithstanding this, and a smart
+shower that continued to fall, Fritz and Jack determined to force a
+passage to Rockhouse.
+
+Towards evening, the two young men returned, soaking with wet and
+covered with mud, but with light hearts, for they had found their
+companions in the enjoyment of perfect health and in the best spirits.
+They brought back with them a missive, couched in the following
+terms:--
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, greeting, desire the favor of Mr. and Mrs.
+Becker's company to dinner, together with their entire family, this
+day se'nnight, weather permitting."
+
+Ernest was hereupon consulted, and stated that, in so far as the rain
+was concerned, they should in eight days be able to undertake the
+journey to Rockhouse. This assurance was not, however, entirely relied
+upon, for between this and then many an anxious eye was turned
+skywards, as if in search of some more conclusive evidence. Those who
+possess a garden--and he who has not, were it only a box of
+mignionette at the window--will often have observed, in consequence of
+absence or forgetfulness, that their flowers have begun to droop; they
+hasten to sprinkle them with water, then watch anxiously for signs of
+their revival. So both families continued unceasingly during these
+eight days to note the ever-varying modifications of the clouds.
+
+At length the much wished-for day arrived; the morning broke with a
+blaze of sunshine, and though hidden with a dense mist, the ground was
+sufficiently hardened to bear their weight. Wolston awaited his guests
+at a bridge of planks that had been thrown across the Jackal River,
+where he and Willis had erected a sort of triumphal arch of mangoe
+leaves and palm branches. Here Becker and his family were welcomed, as
+if the one party had just arrived from Tobolsk, and the other from
+Chandernagor, after an absence of ten years.
+
+Another warm reception awaited them at Rockhouse, where an abundant
+repast was already spread in the gallery. Mrs. Becker had often
+intended to work herself a pair of gloves, but the increasing demand
+for stockings had hitherto prevented her. She was pleased, therefore,
+on sitting down to dinner, to discover a couple of pairs under her
+plate, with her own initials embroidered upon them.
+
+"Ah," said she, "I was almost afraid I had lost my daughters, but I
+have found them again."
+
+After dinner the girls showed her a quantity of cotton they had spun,
+which proved that, though they might have been dull, they had, at
+least, been industrious.
+
+"Mary span the most of it," said Sophia; "but you know, Mrs. Becker,
+she is the biggest."
+
+"Oh, then," said Jack, "the power of spinning depends upon the bulk
+of the spinner?"
+
+"Oh, Master Jack, I thought you had been ill, that you had not
+commenced quizzing us before."
+
+"Never mind him, Soffy," said her father; "to quote Hudibras,
+
+  "There's nothing on earth hath so perfect a phiz,
+  As not to give birth to a passable quiz."
+
+Here Willis led in the chimpanzee, who made a grimace to the assembled
+company.
+
+"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said Willis, "Jocko is about to show you
+the progress he has made in splicing and bracing."
+
+"Good!" said Becker, "you have been able to make something of him,
+then?"
+
+"You will see presently. Jocko, bring me a plate."
+
+Hereupon the chimpanzee seized a bottle of Rockhouse malaga, and
+filled a glass.
+
+"He has erred on the safe side there," said Jack, drily.
+
+"Well," added Willis, laughing, "we must let that pass. Jocko," said
+he, assuming a sententious tone, "I asked you for a plate."
+
+The chimpanzee looked at him, hesitated a moment, then seized the
+glass, and drank the contents off at a single draught. A box on the
+ears then sent him gibbering into a corner.
+
+"Your servant," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "has been taking lessons from
+Dean Swift as well as yourself, Willis."
+
+"I will serve him out for that, the swab; he does not play any of
+those tricks when we are alone. I must admit, however, that I am
+generally in the habit of helping myself."
+
+Here attention was called to the parrot, who was screaming out
+lustily, "I love Mary, I love Sophia."
+
+"Holloa," exclaimed Fritz, "Polly loves everybody now, does she?"
+
+"Well, you see," replied Sophia, "I grew tired of hearing him scream
+always that he loved my sister, so by means of a little coaxing, and a
+good deal of sugar, I got him to love me too."
+
+The poultry were next mustered for the inspection of their old
+masters. These did not consist of the ordinary domestic fowls alone;
+amongst them were a beautiful flamingo, some cranes, bustards, and a
+variety of tame tropical birds. With the fowls came the pigeons, which
+were perching about them in all directions.
+
+"We are now something like the court of France in the fourteenth
+century," said Wolston.
+
+"How so?" inquired Becker.
+
+"In the reign of Charles V., they were obliged to place a trellis at
+the windows of the Palace of St. Paul to prevent the poultry from
+invading the dining room."
+
+"Rural anyhow," observed Jack.
+
+"Of course, most other features of the palace were in unison with this
+primitive state of matters. The courtiers sat on stools. There was
+only one chair in the palace, that was the arm-chair of the king,
+which was covered with red leather, and ornamented with silk fringes."
+
+"So that we may console ourselves with the reflection, that we are as
+comfortable here as kings were at that epoch in Europe," remarked
+Ernest.
+
+"Yes; historians report, that when Alphonso V. of Portugal went to
+Paris to solicit the aid of Louis XI. against the King of Arragon, who
+had taken Castile from him, the French monarch received him with great
+honor, and endeavored to make his stay as agreeable as possible."
+
+"Reviews, I suppose, feasts, tournaments, spectacles, and so forth."
+
+"A residence was assigned him in the Rue de Prouvaires, at the house
+of one Laurent Herbelot, a grocer."
+
+"What! amongst dried peas and preserved plums?"
+
+"Precisely; but the house of Herbelot might then have been one of the
+most commodious buildings in all Paris. Alphonso was afterwards
+conducted to the palace, where he pleaded his cause before the king.
+Next day he was entertained at the archiepiscopal residence, where he
+witnessed the induction of a doctor in theology. The day after that a
+procession to the university was organized, which passed under the
+grocer's windows."
+
+"These were singular marvels to entertain a king withal," said Jack.
+
+"Such were the amusements peculiar to the epoch. It must be observed
+that the Louis in question was somewhat close-fisted, and rarely drew
+his purse-strings unless he was certain of a good interest for his
+money. But courts in those days were very simple and frugal. The
+sumptuary laws of Philip le Bel (1285) had fixed supper at three
+dishes and a lard soup. The king's own dinner was likewise limited to
+three dishes."
+
+"These three dishes might, however, have yielded a better repast than
+the fifty-two saucers of the Chinese," remarked Jack.
+
+"No one could obtain permission to give his wife four dresses a year,
+unless he had an income of six thousand francs."
+
+"What business had the laws to interfere with these things, I should
+like to know?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Those who possessed two thousand francs income were only allowed to
+wear one dress a year, the cloth for which was not permitted to exceed
+tenpence a yard; but ladies of rank could go as high as fifteen
+pence."
+
+"Philip le Bel must have been an old woman," insisted Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"No private citizen was permitted to use a carriage, and such persons
+were likewise interdicted the use of flambeaux."
+
+"They were permitted to break their necks at all events, that is
+something."
+
+"In England, the same primitive simplicity prevailed; Queen Elizabeth
+is said to have breakfasted on a gallon of ale, her dining-room floor
+was strewn every day with fresh straw or rushes, and she had only one
+pair of silk stockings in her entire wardrobe."
+
+"At the same time," observed Ernest, "these usages stand in singular
+contradiction to those that prevailed at an earlier age. The supper of
+Lucullus rarely cost him less than thirty thousand francs, and he
+could entertain five and twenty thousand guests. Six citizens of Rome
+possessed a great part of Africa. Domitius had an estate in France of
+eighty thousand acres."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+"When Nero went to Baize he was accompanied by a thousand chariots and
+two thousand mules caparisoned with silver. Poppaea followed him with
+five hundred she asses to furnish milk for her bath. Cicero purchased
+a dining-room table that cost him a million sesterces, or about two
+hundred thousand francs. I can understand the progress of
+civilization, and I can also understand civilization remaining
+stationary for a given period; but I cannot understand why a citizen
+of ancient Rome should be able to lodge twenty-five thousand men,
+whilst a king of France could scarcely keep the ducks from waddling
+about his apartments, and a queen of England could fare no better than
+a ploughman."
+
+"If," replied Frank, "there were no other criterion of civilization
+than luxury and riches, you would have good grounds for surprise; but
+such is not the case. Between ancient and modern times, Christianity
+arose, and that has tended in some degree to keep down the ostentation
+of the rich, and to augment, at the same time, the comforts of the
+poor. In place of the heroes, Hercules and Achilles, we have had the
+apostles Peter and Paul; so Luther and Calvin have been substituted
+for Semiramis and Nero. Pride has given place to charity, and
+corruption to virtue."
+
+"Would that it were so, Frank," continued Ernest. "Christianity has,
+doubtless, effected many beneficial changes, and produced many able
+men; but in this last respect antiquity has not been behind. It has
+also its sages: Thales, Socrates, and Pythagoras, for example."
+
+"True," replied Frank, "antiquity has produced some virtuous men, but
+their virtue was ideal, and their creed a dream."
+
+"And the Stoics?"
+
+"The Stoics despised suffering, and Christians resign themselves to
+its chastisements; this constitutes one of the lines of demarcation
+between ancient and modern theology."
+
+"But there were many signal instances of virtue manifested in ancient
+times."
+
+"Yes; but for the most part, it was either exaggerated or false;
+unyielding pride, obstinate courage, implacable resentment of
+injuries. Errors promenaded in robes under the porticos. Ambition was
+honored in Alexander, suicide in Cato, and assassination in Brutus."
+
+"But what say you to Plato?"
+
+"The immolation of ill-formed children, and of those born without the
+permission of the laws, prosecution of strangers and slavery; such
+were the basis of his boasted republic, and the gospel of his
+philosophy."
+
+"Why, then, are these men held up as models for our imitation?"
+
+"Because they are distant and dead; likewise, because they were, in
+many respects, great and wise, considering the paganism and darkness
+with which they were surrounded. Life was then only sacred to the few;
+the many were treated as beasts of burden. The Emperor Claudian even
+felt bound to issue an edict prohibiting slaves from being slain _when
+they were old and feeble_."
+
+"Which leaves a margin for us to suppose that they might be slain when
+they were young and strong," observed Jack.
+
+"By the constitution of Constantine certain cases were defined, where
+a master might suspend his slave by the feet, have him torn by wild
+beasts, or tortured by slow fire."
+
+"Does slavery and its horrors not still exist, for example, in Russia
+and the United States of America?"
+
+"Slavery does exist, to the great disgrace of modern civilization, in
+the countries you mention; but, so far as I am aware, its horrors are
+not recognized by the laws."
+
+"There, Mr. Frank," said Wolston, "I am very sorry to be under the
+necessity of contradicting you. I have visited the slave states of
+North America, and have witnessed atrocities perhaps less brutal, but
+not less heart-rending, than those you mention."
+
+"But do the laws recognize them?"
+
+"Yes, tacitly; the testimony of the slaves themselves is not received
+as evidence."
+
+"Why do a people that call their county a refuge for the down-trodden
+nations of Europe suffer such abominations?"
+
+"Well, according to themselves, it is entirely a question of the
+_almighty dollar_. If there were no slaves, the swamps and morasses of
+the south could not be cultivated. It has been found that the negro
+will dance, and sing, and starve, but he will not work in the fields
+when free. Besides, they assert, that the slaves are generally well
+cared for, and that it is only a few detestable masters that beat them
+cruelly."
+
+"Then, at all events, dollars are preferred to humanity by the United
+States men, in spite of their vaunted emblems--liberty and equality."
+
+"Quite so. In all matters of internal policy, the dollar reigns
+supreme."
+
+"Admitting," continued Frank, "that the evils of slavery may exist in
+a section of the American Union, and amongst the barbarous hordes of
+Russia, these evils are trifling in comparison with others that stain
+the annals of antiquity. We are told that a hundred and twenty persons
+applied to Otho to be rewarded for killing Galba. That so many men
+should contend for the honor of premeditated murder, is sufficiently
+characteristic of the epoch. There was then no corruption, no brutal
+passion, that had not its temple and its high priest. In the midst of
+all this wickedness and vice there appeared a man, poor and humble,
+who accomplished what no man ever did before, and what no man will
+ever do again--he founded a moral and eternal civilization. Judaism
+and the religion of Zoroaster were overthrown. The gods of Tyre and
+Carthage were destroyed. The beliefs of Miltiades and of Pericles, of
+Scipio and Seneca, were disavowed. The thousands that flocked annually
+to worship the Eleusinian Ceres ceased their pilgrimage. Odin and his
+disciples have all perished. The very language of Osiris, which was
+afterwards spoken by the Ptolemies, is no longer known to his
+descendants. The paganisms which still exist in the East are rapidly
+yielding to the march of western intelligence. Christianity alone,
+amidst all these ring and fallen fabrics, retains its original
+vitality, for, like its author, it is imperishable."
+
+"It is a curious thing what we call conversation," observed Mrs.
+Wolston. "No sooner is one subject broached than another is
+introduced; and we go on from one thing to another until the original
+idea is lost sight of. Leaving the palace of Charles V., to go with
+the King of Portugal to a grocer's shop in some street or other of
+Paris, we cross the Alps, the Himalaya, and the Atlantic. Lucullus,
+Nero, Achilles, Peter, Paul, Tyre and Sidon, Semiramis and
+Elizabeth--queens, saints, and philosophers, are all passed in review,
+and why? Because the pigeons put my husband in mind of the Palace of
+St. Paul!"
+
+"No wonder," observed Jack; "these pigeons are carriers, and naturally
+suggest wandering."
+
+Once more seated round the table, Fritz, observing that the
+misunderstanding between Willis and the chimpanzee still continued,
+thrust a plate into the hand of the latter, and pointed with his
+finger to Willis. This time Jocko obeyed, for the language was
+intelligible, and he went and placed the plate before his master.
+
+"Ho, ho!" cried Willis, "so you have come to your senses at last, have
+you? Well, that saves you an extra lesson to-morrow, you lubber you."
+
+"He takes rather long to obey your orders, though, Willis; it is
+rather awkward to wait an hour for anything you ask for. What system
+do you pursue in educating him--the Pestalozzian or the parochial?"
+
+"We follow the system in fashion aboard ship," replied Willis.
+
+"And what does that consist of?"
+
+"A rope's end."
+
+"Oh, then, you are an advocate for the birch, are you?" said Wolston;
+"it is, doubtless, a very good thing when moderately and judiciously
+administered. That puts me in mind of the missionary and the king of
+the Kuruman negroes."
+
+"A tribe of Southern Africa, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, the missionary and the king were great friends. The king not
+only permitted him to baptize his subjects, but offered to whip them
+all into Christianity in a week. This summary mode of proselytism did
+not, however, coincide with the Englishman's ideas, and he refused the
+offer, although the king insisted that it was the only kind of
+argument that could ever reach their understandings."
+
+The day at length drew to a close, and, though no one asked the time
+yet all felt that the moment of departure was approaching; whether
+they were willing to go was doubtful, but at they were loth to depart
+was certain.
+
+"It is time to return now," said Becker, rising.
+
+"Already!"
+
+"There are some clouds in the distance that bode no good."
+
+"Nothing more than a little rain at worst," said Jack.
+
+"And your mother?" inquired Decker.
+
+"Oh! we can make a palanquin for her."
+
+"Your plan, Jack, is not particularly bright; it puts me in mind of
+some genius or other that took shelter in the water to keep out of the
+wet."
+
+"Very odd," said Jack, "we are always wishing for rain, and when it
+comes, we do all we can to keep out of its way."
+
+"That is, because we are neither green pease nor gooseberries," said
+Ernest, drily.
+
+"True, brother; and as the rain is your affair, perhaps you will be
+good enough to delay it for an hour or so."
+
+"I am sorry on my own account, as well as yours, that I have not yet
+discovered the art of controlling the skies."
+
+Here Fritz whispered a few words in his mother's ear, that called up
+one of those ineffable smiles that the maternal heart alone can
+produce.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Becker, "if you think so, deliver the message
+yourself."
+
+"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, "I am charged to invite you and your
+family to Falcon's Nest this day week."
+
+"The invitation is accepted, unless my daughters have any objections
+to urge."
+
+"How can you fancy such a thing, mamma?" said both girls.
+
+"The fact is, that my daughters have got such a dread of cold water,
+that they dread to wet the soles of their shoes, unless one or other
+of you gentlemen is within hail."
+
+"Mamma does so love to tease us," said Mary; "we are afraid of nothing
+but putting you to inconvenience."
+
+"Well, in that case, we shall be at Falcon's Nest on the appointed
+day, unless the roads are positively submerged."
+
+"In that case," said Jack, "a line of canoes will be placed upon the
+highway, between the two localities."
+
+As the prospect of a prize incites the young scholar to increased
+exertion--as the prospect of worldly honors urges the ambitious man on
+in his career--as the oasis cheers the weary traveller on his journey
+through the desert, and makes him forget hunger and thirst--as the
+dreams of comfort and home warm the blood of a wayfarer amongst snow
+and ice--as hope smooths the ruggedness of poverty and softens the
+calamities of adversity, so the prospect of meeting again mitigates
+the regrets of parting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY--MUCIUS SCAEVOLA--WHAT'S TO BE
+DONE?--BRUTUS TORQUATUS AND PETER THE GREAT--AUSTRALIA, BOTANY BAY,
+AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN--NEW GUINEA AND THE BUCCANEER--VANCOUVER'S
+ISLAND--WHITE SKINS--DANGER OF LANDING ON A WAVE--HANGED OR
+DROWNED--ROUTE TO HAPPINESS--OMENS.
+
+
+The old saw, _Where there's a will there's a way_, means--if it means
+anything--that a great deal may be effected by energy. A man without
+energy is a helpless character, and invariably lags behind his fellow
+mortals in the stream of life; like a cork in an eddy, he is rebuffed
+here and jostled there, and goes on travelling in a circle to the end
+of the chapter. Not so the man of action; no jostling thwarts him, no
+rebuffs retard him; he breaks through all sorts of obstacles, and
+floats along with the current.
+
+Such a man was Becker. Though surrounded with dangers, and harassed by
+the elements, almost alone he had converted a wilderness into fertile
+fields; he pursued the track that his judgment suggested, and followed
+it up with invincible resolution; he manfully resisted the severest
+trials, and cheerfully bore the heaviest burdens; his reliance on
+Truth or Virtue and on God were unfaltering; but had he provided for
+every emergency? Is mortal power capable of overcoming every
+difficulty? We shall see.
+
+A day or two after the entertainment at Rockhouse, Becker whispered to
+the Pilot--
+
+"Willis, take a rifle, and come along with me; I have something to say
+to you."
+
+They walked a quarter of an hour or so without uttering a word, when
+Willis broke the silence.
+
+"You seem sad, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Yes, Willis, I am almost distracted."
+
+"Still, you seem well enough; you are as hale and hearty as if you
+had just been keel-hauled and got a new rig."
+
+"It is not my body that is suffering, Willis; it is my mind."
+
+"Whatever is the matter?"
+
+"Willis, _my wife is dying_."
+
+And so it was. For a long period Becker's wife had been a prey to
+racking pains, which, so to speak, she hid from herself, the better to
+conceal them from others, just as if suffering had been a crime. After
+having resisted for fourteen years the afflictions of exile, long and
+perilous expeditions, nights passed under tents, humid winters and
+fierce burning summers, her health had, at length, succumbed, not all
+at once, like fabrics sapped by gunpowder, but little by little, like
+those that are demolished piecemeal with the pickaxe of the workman.
+Day by day she grew more and more feeble, without those who were
+constantly by her side observing the insidious workings of disease.
+Like Mucius Scaevola, who held his hands in a burning brazier without
+uttering a word, she so effectually hid her griefs within the recesses
+of her own bosom, that no one even suspected her illness.
+
+"But, Mr. Becker," said Willis, "I saw your wife this morning, and she
+seemed as well as usual."
+
+"Yes, _seemed_, Willis, that is true enough; not to give us pain, she
+has concealed her illness from us all. It is only within the last
+twelve hours that I accidentally discovered that she has been long
+laboring under some fearful malady."
+
+"Do you know the nature of the disease?"
+
+"No, that I have no means of ascertaining; it may be a distinct form
+of disease, or it may be a complication of disorders, which I know
+not."
+
+"It would not signify about the name if we only knew a remedy."
+
+"True; but I dread some malady of a cancerous type, which could not be
+eradicated without surgical skill."
+
+"I wish I had been born a doctor instead of a pilot," sighed Willis.
+
+"I cannot see her perish before my eyes."
+
+"Certainly not, Mr. Becker; it would never do to allow a ship to sink
+if she can be saved."
+
+"Well, what is to be done?"
+
+"There lies the difficulty; had it been a question of anything that
+floats on the water, I might have suggested a remedy; but, in this
+case, I am fairly run aground."
+
+"I know too well what must be done, Willis. In cases of ordinary
+maladies, with care and due precaution, proper nourishment and time,
+Nature will generally effect a cure."
+
+"Nature has no diploma, but she accomplishes more cures than those
+that have."
+
+"Unfortunately this is not a malady that can be cured by such means;
+and, unless its progress be checked in time, it may ultimately assume
+a form that will render a cure impossible."
+
+"Is death, then, inevitable?"
+
+"A patient may retain a languishing life under such circumstances for
+some time; but if the disease be cancer, a cure is hopeless without
+instruments and scientific skill."
+
+"I thought I was the only wretched being in the colony," said Willis,
+sighing, "but I find I am not alone."
+
+"There are no hopes of the _Nelson_, are there?" inquired Becker.
+
+"None now; for some time Mr. Wolston and yourself almost persuaded me
+that she had escaped; but had she reached the Cape, we should have
+heard of her ere now."
+
+"The probabilities of another vessel touching here are small, are they
+not?"
+
+"We are not in the direct track to anywhere; therefore, unless a ship
+has been driven out of her course by a gale, there is not a chance."
+
+"Unfortunate that I am!" exclaimed Becker, covering his face with his
+hands. "Brutus, Manlius Torquatus, and Peter the Great, condemned
+their sons to death, but they were guilty; still the sacrifice must be
+made."
+
+Here Willis stared aghast, and began to fear Becker's intellect had
+been affected by his troubles.
+
+"I do not exactly understand you, Mr. Becker."
+
+"Two of my sons have gone on before us; they were to embark in the
+canoe for Shark's Island, and wait for us there. I must have courage,
+and you also, Willis."
+
+This exordium did not tend to alter the Pilot's impression. They
+walked on for some time in silence towards the coast.
+
+"Do you know the latitude and longitude of this coast, Willis?"
+
+"Good!" thought the Pilot, "he has changed the subject."
+
+"Yes; we are in the South Sea, and no great distance from the line."
+
+"What continent is nearest us?"
+
+"We cannot be very far off the south coast of New Holland, or, as it
+is named in some charts, Australia. You know that the _Nelson_ hailed
+from Botany Bay, or Sydney, as the convict colony which the English
+Government has just founded there is called."
+
+"How far do you suppose we are from Sydney?"
+
+"Well, I should say, with a fair wind and a smart craft, Sydney is not
+above two months' sail, if so much."
+
+"Is the coast inhabited?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What character do the inhabitants bear?"
+
+"According to the Dutch sailors, who have been on the coast, they are
+the most plundering and lubberly set of rascals to be met with
+anywhere."
+
+"They are not acquainted with the use of fire-arms, are they?"
+
+"No not of fire-arms; but they have a machine of their own that they
+call a waddy, or something of that sort, which they throw like a
+harpoon; but the thing takes a twist in the air, and strikes behind
+them."
+
+"Is the coast accessible?"
+
+"No; it is fringed with reefs, and, in some places, the surf runs for
+miles out to sea."
+
+"The navigation along shore, then, is extremely perilous?"
+
+"Whatever can he be driving at?" thought Willis.
+
+"Yes; such a lee shore in a gale would terrify the Flying Dutchman
+himself."
+
+Here Becker shook his head dolefully, and they walked on a little
+further in silence.
+
+"What islands do you suppose are nearest us, Willis?"
+
+"I should say we are in or near the group marked in the chart
+Papuasia; beyond them is the territory of New Guinea, and a point to
+nor'ard are a whole nest of islands discovered by the celebrated
+buccaneer, Dampiere."
+
+"And their inhabitants?"
+
+"Oh, some of them are pretty fair; but, taking them in the lump, they
+are a bad lot."
+
+"The islands to the west are those discovered by Cook, Vancouver, and
+Bougainville, are they not?"
+
+"They are marked Polynesia in the charts."
+
+"Do you know of any European settlements on these islands?"
+
+"Well, there is a fort of the Hudson's Bay Company on Vancouver's
+Island, but that is a long way north; and, I believe, a factory has
+recently been anchored in New Zealand, but that is a long way south."
+
+"And what are the principal islands between?"
+
+"There is New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the
+Societies' Islands, the Marquesas, Tahite, and the Pelew Islands; but
+each navigator gives them a new name, so that it is hard to say which
+is which; all you can do is to say that there is an island in latitude
+so and so and longitude so and so, but the name is almost out of the
+question."
+
+"And the natives?"
+
+"Some of them are remarkably tame, and trade freely with strangers;
+but others have strongly marked cannibal propensities, and dote upon a
+white-skin feast when they can get one."
+
+Here Becker shuddered, and uttered an exclamation of horror.
+
+"That would be a terrible fate, Willis."
+
+"Whatever can he mean?" thought the Pilot.
+
+"Willis, to reach Europe from here, what course do you think would be
+best?"
+
+"Now I think I shall fix him at last," said the Pilot, levelling his
+rifle at an imaginary bird.
+
+"You will only waste gunpowder," said Becker; "I see nothing."
+
+"You asked me just now what course I should steer for Europe, did you
+not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the most direct course would be to make the Straits of
+Macassar, and then steer for Java."
+
+"And when there?"
+
+"You would then be fifteen or sixteen hundred leagues from the Cape."
+
+"So much?"
+
+"Yes, that is about the distance in a straight line across the Indian
+Ocean. When at the Cape, another fifteen days' sail will bring you to
+the line; five or six weeks after that St. Helena will heave in sight;
+then you fall in with the Island of Ascension; leaving which a week or
+two will bring you to the Straits of Gibraltar, where you get the
+first glimpse of Europe. But if you are bound for England, your
+daughter may commence working a pair of slippers for you; they will be
+ready by the time you get there."
+
+They had now arrived at the point of the Jackal River where the
+pinnace was moored.
+
+"What do you think of this boat?" inquired Becker.
+
+"The pinnace is well enough for fair weather; but it is not the sort
+of craft I should like to command in a storm at sea."
+
+"So that to venture to sea in it would be to incur imminent danger?"
+
+"There is no denying that, Mr. Becker; if she shipped a moderately
+heavy sea, down she must go to the bottom, like a four and twenty
+pound shot; and if she should spring a leak, you cannot land to put
+her to rights; the waves are by no means solid."
+
+"Just as I thought!" exclaimed Becker; "I was right in judging that it
+would be a sacrifice. It is almost certain death; but they must go."
+
+"Where?" inquired Willis.
+
+"To Europe if need be, if God in his mercy spares the pinnace."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I have the means of purchasing surgical skill, and I must use all the
+sacrifices at my command to obtain it."
+
+"Avast heaving, Mr. Becker," cried Willis; "now I understand; the
+thing is as clear as the tackle of the best bower, and when a
+resolution is once formed, nothing like paying it out at the word of
+command. When shall we start?"
+
+"I am not talking of either you or myself, Willis."
+
+"Of whom then, may I ask?"
+
+"Fritz and Jack. Fritz knows something of navigation; and if they
+succeed, they will have saved their mother; if they perish, they will
+have died to save her."
+
+"Fritz, as you say, does know something of navigation, particularly as
+regards coasting; but here you have a pilot, accustomed to salt water,
+quite handy, why not engage him also?"
+
+"Willis, you have yourself said that the undertaking is perilous in
+the extreme, and your life is not bound up like theirs in that of
+their mother."
+
+"True; but do you not see that I am sick of dry land, and that I am
+getting rusty for the want of a little sea air?"
+
+"I felt ashamed to ask you to share in so desperate an enterprise,
+otherwise I would have proposed it to you, Willis."
+
+"But you might have seen that I was growing thin, absolutely pining
+away, and drying up on land. There are ducks that can live without
+water, but I am not one of them."
+
+"Am I, then, to understand that you offer to risk your life in this
+forlorn hope?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Becker; a man condemned to be hanged, running the risk
+of being drowned is no great sacrifice."
+
+"Willis, I accept your offer, to share in the dangers of this
+enterprise, most gratefully. I thank you in the name of my sons and of
+their mother, and trust that God may enable me to recompense you for
+your devotion to them and to myself."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You forget," added Willis, wiping a tear from the corner of his
+eye, that he ascribed to a grain of dust, "you forget that I was on
+the point of venturing out to sea in the canoe, had you yourself and
+Mr. Wolston not prevented me. There is work to be done, I admit; and
+it is not impossible to cross even the Indian Ocean in the pinnace.
+But we may find a doctor, perhaps, at some of the settlements--for
+instance, at Manilla, in the Philippines."
+
+"That is not to be hoped for, Willis; there is, probably, only one
+skilful medical man in each colony, and he will be prevented leaving
+by Government engagements."
+
+"True; then we had better hoist sail for Europe direct, and trust to
+falling in with a ship now and then."
+
+"Alas!" sighed Becker, "in a path so wide as the ocean, it would be
+unwise to trust to such chances; you will have to rely, I fear,
+entirely upon the resources of the pinnace alone."
+
+"Well, I dare say, though we may have to put up with half rations, we
+shall not starve on the voyage, at all events."
+
+They had unmoored the pinnace, and were on their way to Shark's
+Island.
+
+"You are about to announce to your sons their departure?" said Willis,
+inquiringly.
+
+"Yes; but my heart almost fails me."
+
+"The iron must be struck while it is hot. Will you commission me to
+whisper a few words in their ear?"
+
+"Thanks, Willis; but what right have I to expect courage from them, if
+I exhibit weakness myself? No, my friend, I may shed tears in your
+presence, but not before them."
+
+"A man ought never to allow his feelings to get the better of his
+courage," said Willis, in whose eyes, however, the dust was evidently
+playing sad havoc.
+
+"These boys have almost never been absent from me. I have watched them
+grow up from infancy to adolescence, and from adolescence to manhood;
+they have always been dutiful and obedient, and with gratitude I have
+blessed them every night of their lives. But stern are the decrees of
+Fate; I must command them to depart from me--perhaps for ever!"
+
+"There are evils that lead to good," said Willis, "even though these
+evils be the Straits of Magellan or the storms of the Indian Ocean."
+
+Here the pinnace reached the offing of Shark's Island, where Fritz and
+Jack, leaning on the battery, watched the progress of the boat.
+
+"Do you observe how downcast my father looks?" said Fritz.
+
+"Willis does not look much gayer," remarked Jack.
+
+"Do you believe in omens, Jack?"
+
+"Now and then."
+
+"Well, mark me, there is a screw loose somewhere, or I am no oracle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+BACON AND BISCUIT--LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE--THE PATERNAL BENEDICTION--AN
+APPARITION--A MOTHER NOT EASILY DECEIVED--THE ADIEU--THE EMPEROR
+CONSTANTINE--IN HOC SIGNO VINCES--THE SAILOR'S POSTSCRIPT--CAESAR AND
+HIS FORTUNES--RECOLLECTIONS--MRS. BECKER PLUCKS STOCKINGS AND KNITS
+ORTOLANS--HOW DELIGHTFUL IT IS TO BE SCOLDED--THE BODIES VANISH, BUT
+THE SOULS REMAIN.
+
+
+On their return from Shark's Island, Fritz and Jack were deeply
+affected, not by the dread of the perils they were destined to
+encounter--these never gave them a moment's uneasiness--but by the
+knowledge that a merciless vulture was preying upon the vitals of
+their beloved mother.
+
+Willis on the contrary, appeared as lively as if he had just received
+notice of promotion; but whether the idea of again dwelling on the
+open sea had really elevated his spirits, or whether this gaiety was
+only assumed to encourage Becker and his sons, was best known to
+himself.
+
+It was arranged amongst them that no one, under any circumstances,
+should be made acquainted with the design they had in contemplation.
+By this means all opposition would be vanquished, and the regrets of
+separation would, in some degree, be avoided. Besides, if the project
+were divulged, might not Frank and Ernest insist upon their right to
+share its dangers? This eventuality alone was sufficient to impress
+upon them all the urgency of secrecy. The really strong man knows his
+weakness, and therefore dislikes to run the risk of exposing it, so
+Becker dreaded the tears and entreaties that this desperate
+undertaking would inevitably exercise, were it generally known
+beforehand to the rest of the family; whereas, if once the pinnace
+were fairly at sea, it could not be recalled, and time would do the
+rest.
+
+Since, then, all the preparations had to be made in such a way as not
+to excite suspicion that any thing extraordinary was on foot, the
+progress was necessarily slow. Willis, under pretext of amusing
+himself, refitted the pinnace, and strengthened it so far as he could
+without impairing its sailing efficiency. He called to mind that, when
+Captain Cook reached Batavia, after his first voyage round the world,
+he observed with astonishment that a large portion of the sides of his
+famous ship the _Endeavor_ was, under the water line, no thicker than
+the sole of a shoe.
+
+As soon as the weather had settled, and the tropical heats set in, the
+Wolstons resumed their abode at Falcon's Nest; whilst, under some
+plausible pretext or other, Willis, Fritz, and Jack took up their
+quarters at Rockhouse. This arrangement gave the destined navigators
+the means of carrying on their operations unobserved, especially as
+regards salting provisions and baking for the voyage.
+
+Along with the stores, a portion of the valuables, that still remained
+in the magazines of Rockhouse, were placed on board the pinnace; for,
+though gold and precious stones were not of much value in New
+Switzerland, Becker had not forgotten that such was not the case in
+other portions of the world; he reflected that his sons must be
+furnished with the means of returning to the colony with comfort.
+There was also a man of science and education to be bought, and that,
+he knew, could not be done without as the French proverb has it,
+having some hay in one's boots.
+
+Storms are usually heralded by some premonitory symptoms: the
+atmosphere becomes oppressive, the clouds increase in density, the sky
+gradually becomes obscure and large drops of rain begin to fall, then
+follows the deluge, and the elements commence their strife. It is much
+the same with impending misfortunes: gloom gathers on the countenance,
+our movements become constrained, our thoughts wander, and a tear
+lingers in the corner of the eye. Fritz and Jack endeavored in vain to
+appear unconcerned, but, in spite of their efforts, it was painfully
+evident that their minds were burdened by some heavy weight. They
+were more tender and more affectionate, particularly towards their
+mother. Towards evening, when they quitted the family circle for
+Rockhouse, their adieus were so earnest, so warm, and so often
+repeated, that it almost appeared as if they were laying in a stock of
+them for their voyage, to store up and preserve with the bacon and
+biscuits. Even the animals came in for an extra share of caresses,
+and, if they were capable of reflection, it must have puzzled them
+sorely to account for all the endearments that were lavished upon them
+by the two brothers.
+
+Becker himself was no less affected than his sons; sometimes, when the
+latter were busily occupied with some preparation for the voyage, he
+would fix his eyes sadly upon them, just as if every trait of these
+cherished features had not already been deeply graven on his soul.
+
+During the preceding rainy season, the two young men felt the days
+long and tedious, and wished in their inmost hearts that they would
+pass away more swiftly; now, the hours seemed to fly with
+unaccountable rapidity, and they would gladly have lengthened them if
+they had had the power. But no one can arrest
+
+  Le temps, cette image mobile
+  De l'immobile eternite.
+
+And time is right in holding on the even tenor of its way; for if it
+once yielded to the desires of mortals, there would be no end of
+confusion and perplexity. It takes unto itself wings and flies away,
+say the fortunate; it lags at a snail's pace, say the unfortunate. The
+idler knows not how to pass it away. The man of action does not
+observe its progress. Those who are looking forward to some favorite
+amusement exclaim, "Would that it were to-morrow!" but how many there
+are that might well ejaculate, from the bottom of their souls, "Would
+that to-morrow may never arrive!" How, then, could such wishes be met
+in a way to satisfy all?
+
+A day at length arrived when everything was ready for departure, and
+when nothing was wanted to weigh anchor but courage on the part of
+the voyagers. The pinnace was laden to the gunwale, the compass was in
+its place, the casks were filled with fresh water from the Jackal
+River, and Willis reported that both wind and sea were propitious for
+a start.
+
+The morning of that day was lovely in the extreme. Willis, Fritz, and
+Jack were early at Falcon's Nest; the two families breakfasted
+together under the trees in the open air. After breakfast an
+adjournment to the umbrageous shade of the bananas was proposed and
+agreed to.
+
+"Mother," said Fritz, taking Mrs. Becker's arm, "I want you all to
+myself."
+
+"I object to that, if you please," cried Jack, taking her other arm.
+
+"Why, you boys seem extravagantly fond of your mother to-day," said
+Mrs. Becker, gaily.
+
+"Well, you see, mother, we have the right to have an idea now and
+then--Willis has one every week."
+
+"So long as your ideas are about myself, I have no reason to object to
+them," said Mrs. Becker, smiling.
+
+"We have always been dutiful sons, have we not, mother?" inquired
+Fritz.
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+"You are well pleased with us then?"
+
+"Yes, surely."
+
+"We have never caused you any uneasiness, have we?" inquired Jack.
+
+"That is to say, inadvertently," added Fritz; "designedly is out of
+the question."
+
+"No, not even inadvertently," replied their mother.
+
+"Were you very sorry when Frank and Ernest were going to leave us?"
+
+"Yes, my children, the tears still burn my cheek."
+
+"Nevertheless, you knew that it was for the common welfare, and you
+felt resigned to the separation."
+
+"But why do you ask such a question now?"
+
+"Well, _a propos de rien_, mother," replied Jack, "simply because we
+love you, and, like misers, we treasure your love."
+
+Towards the afternoon both families were again assembled under the
+trees at Falcon's Nest This time it was dinner that brought them
+together; the repast consisted of cold meats of various kinds, but the
+chief dish was a wonderful salad, the rich, fresh odor of which
+perfumed the air. Wolston, Frank, and Ernest kept up a lively
+conversation, yet, though all seemed happy and pleased, there were
+bursting hearts at the table that day."
+
+"I am going to take a turn in the pinnace to-morrow," said Willis,
+quietly; "who will go with me?"
+
+"I will!" cried all the four brothers.
+
+"I shall require you, Frank and Ernest, to take a look at the rice
+plantation to-morrow," said Becker, "so I wish you to put off the
+excursion till another time."
+
+"We are at your orders, father," replied the two young men.
+
+"Where are you going, Willis?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"Well, I am anxious to discover whether we inhabit an island or a
+continent, and may, consequently, extend the survey beyond the points
+already known; so you must not be disappointed should we not return
+the same night."
+
+"But what is the good of such an expedition?" inquired Mrs. Becker.
+
+"The country may be inhabited, or there may be inhabited islands in
+the vicinity," replied Willis.
+
+"If there be natives anywhere near," said Mrs. Becker, "they have left
+us at peace hitherto, and, in my opinion, since the dog sleeps, it
+will be prudent for us to let it lie."
+
+"It is not a question of creating any inconvenience," suggested
+Becker, "but only to ascertain more accurately our geographical
+position: such a knowledge can do us no possible harm, but, some day,
+it may be of immense service to us."
+
+"What if you should fall in with a ship?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.
+
+"In that case we shall give your compliments to the commander,"
+replied Jack.
+
+"You may do that if you like, but try and bring it back with you if
+you can."
+
+"Do you wish to leave us?"
+
+"I do not mean that," hastily added Mrs. Wolston, "but I am beginning
+to get anxious about my son, poor fellow. If the _Nelson_ has not
+arrived at the Cape, then he will suppose we are all drowned, and I
+should like to fall in with some means of assuring him of our safety."
+
+"Oh yes," cried the two girls, "do try and fall in with a ship; our
+poor brother will be so wretched."
+
+"You might say our brother as well," added the two young men.
+
+Here the two mothers interchanged a glance of intelligence, which
+might mean very little, but which likewise might signify a great deal.
+
+A moment of intense anxiety had now arrived for Becker and his two
+sons; they could scarcely refrain from shedding tears, but they felt
+that the slightest imprudence of that nature would divulge everything.
+
+"Come now, my lads, look alive," cried Willis, in a voice which he
+meant to be gruff; "if you intend to take a few hours' repose before
+we start in the morning, it is time to be off."
+
+Fritz and Jack, had it been to save their lives, could not now have
+helped throwing more than usual energy into their parting embraces
+that particular afternoon; but they passed through the ordeal with
+tolerable firmness, and then with heavy hearts turned towards the
+door.
+
+"I think I will walk with you as far as Rockhouse," said Becker.
+
+All four then departed; and when the party were about fifty yards from
+Falcon's Nest, Fritz and Jack turned round and waved a final adieu to
+those loved beings whom probably, they might never see again.
+
+"It is well," said Becker. "I am satisfied with your conduct
+throughout this trying interval."
+
+It was now an hour when there is something indescribably sombre about
+the country; day was declining, the outlines of the larger objects in
+the landscape were becoming less distinct, and the trees were assuming
+any sort of fantastical shape that the mind chose to assign to them.
+Here and there a bird rustled in the foliage, but otherwise the
+silence was only broken by footsteps of the four men.
+
+In ordinary life children quit the parental home by easy and almost
+imperceptible gradations. First, there is the school, then college;
+next, perhaps, the requirements of the profession they have adopted.
+Thus they readily abandon the domestic hearth; friends, intercourse,
+and society divide their affection, and the separation from home
+rarely, if ever, costs them a pang. Not so with Becker's two sons;
+their world was New Switzerland; therefore, like the rays of the sun
+absorbed by the mirror of Archimedes, all their affections were
+concentrated on one point.
+
+On the former occasion when the family ties were on the eve of being
+rent asunder, the case was very different. It is true, Frank and
+Ernest were about to leave for an indefinite period of time; but then,
+every comfort that the most fastidious voyager could desire was
+awaiting them on board the _Nelson_; for a well-appointed ship is like
+a well-appointed inn on shore, all your wants are ministered to with
+the utmost celerity. Besides, Captain Littlestone had taken the young
+men under his special protection, and had promised to see them
+properly introduced and cared for in Europe. How dissimilar was the
+position of Fritz and his brother; they were about to tumble into the
+old world should they be so fortunate as to reach it, much as if they
+had dropped from the skies, without a guide and without a friend. They
+were about to entrust themselves to the ocean, separated from its
+treacherous floods by a few wretched planks; to be exposed for months,
+almost unsheltered, to wind, rain, and the mercy of pitiless storms.
+
+"If God in His mercy preserves you, my sons," said Becker, breaking at
+last the silence, "you will find yourselves launched in an ocean still
+more turbulent than that you have escaped--an ocean where falsehood
+and cunning assume the names of policy and tact; where results always
+justify the means, whatever these may be; where everything is
+sacrificed to personal interest and ambition; where fortune is honored
+as a virtue that dispenses with all others, and where profligacies of
+the most odious kinds are decorated with gay and seductive colors. It
+is difficult for me to foresee the various circumstances amidst which
+you may be placed; but there are certain rules of conduct that
+provide for nearly every emergency. I have no need to urge loyalty or
+courage--these qualities are inseparable from your hearts. Strive only
+for what is just and honest. Submit to be cheated rather than be
+cheats yourselves; ill-gotten gains never made any one rich. Put your
+trust in Providence. Seek aid from on high, when you find yourselves
+surrounded with difficulties. Never forget that there is no corner on
+the earth's surface, however obscure, that the eyes of the Lord are
+not there to behold your actions. Act promptly and with energy. Bear
+in mind that every moment lost will be to your mother an age of
+suffering, and that her life is suspended on the fragile thread of
+your return."
+
+The party had now reached the banks of the Jackal River, where the
+pinnace was moored. Fritz and Jack were shedding tears unrestrainedly,
+and had dropped on their knees at their father's feet.
+
+"I call," said Becker, in a trembling voice, "the benediction of
+Heaven upon your heads, my sons."
+
+"Oh, but they must not go!" cried Mrs. Becker, rushing out from behind
+some tall brushwood that hid her from their view; "they shall not go!"
+
+Fritz and Jack were instantly inclosed within their mother's arms.
+
+"Ah!" cried she, pushing aside the hair from their brows, the better
+to observe their features, "you thought to deceive your mother, did
+you?"
+
+"Pardon!" exclaimed both the young men.
+
+Here Becker thought it necessary to interfere; and, summoning all the
+courage he could muster to the task, said--
+
+"Why should they not go? Is this the first expedition they have
+undertaken?"
+
+"No, it is not the first expedition they have undertaken, but it is
+the first time their eyes and their looks betokened an eternal adieu.
+It is the first time that I felt they were forsaking me for ever, and
+it is the first time you ever addressed them with the words you just
+now uttered."
+
+Becker saw that it was useless to attempt to carry deceit any
+further; he therefore withdrew his eyes from the piercing glance of
+his wife. Willis, caught in the act, as it were, was completely thrown
+off his guard, and had not a word to say for himself. Fritz and Jack
+had again fallen on their knees, this time at the feet of their
+mother.
+
+"Ah! I begin to understand," she screamed, as she glanced around on
+the scared group that surrounded her, like a wounded lioness whose
+cubs were being carried off; "now the bandage begins to drop from my
+eyes. A thousand inexplicable things dart into my mind. You are
+sending the boys on an impracticable voyage to secure the safety of
+their mother; but you did not think that in order to prolong my
+existence for a few years, you would kill me instantly with grief!
+What right have you to impose a remedy upon me that is a thousand
+times worse than the malady? Have I ever complained? May my sufferings
+not be agreeable to me? May I not like them? Is pain and suffering not
+our lot from the cradle to the tomb? But I am not ill, I was never
+better in my life than I am at this moment."
+
+Here she was seized with a paroxysm of nervous tremors that convulsed
+her frame most fearfully, and completely belied her words. Becker
+rushed forward and held her firmly in his arms.
+
+"God give me strength!" he murmured. "Go, my children, where your duty
+calls you; go, my friend, do not prolong this terrible scene an
+instant longer."
+
+Not another word was spoken, the pinnace was unmoored; Fritz, Jack,
+and Willis embarked. When at some little distance from the shore,
+there was just light enough for Fritz to notice that his father was
+directing the feeble steps of his mother in the direction of Falcon's
+Nest. In a few moments more all the objects on shore were one confused
+mass of unfathomable shadow. The pinnace dropped anchor at Shark's
+Island, where some few final preparations for the voyage had to be
+made. Fritz here took a pen and wrote:
+
+"We part. We are gone. When you read this letter, the sea, for some
+distance, will extend between us. We shall live and move elsewhere,
+but our hearts still with you. We wish that Ernest and Frank would
+erect a flagstaff on the spot where we last parted with our parents.
+It may be to us what the celestial standard bearing the scroll, _in
+hoc signo vinces_ was to the Emperor Constantine. The place is already
+sacred, and may be hallowed by your prayers for us. Our confidence in
+the divine mercy is boundless. Do not despair of seeing us again. We
+have no misgivings, not one of us but anticipates confidently the
+period when we shall return and bring with us health, happiness, and
+prosperity to you all.
+
+"Let me add a word," said Jack.
+
+"The sea is calm, our hearts are firm, our enterprise is under the
+protection of Heaven--there never was an undertaking commenced under
+more favorable auspices. Farewell then, once more, farewell. All our
+aspirations are for you.
+
+"FRITZ.
+
+"JACK.
+
+"P.S.--Willis was going to write a line or two when, lo and behold! a
+big tear rolled upon the paper. 'Ha!' said he, 'that is enough, I will
+not write a word, they will understand that, I think,' and he threw
+down the pen."
+
+"How is the letter to be sent on shore?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"There is a cage of pigeons on board the pinnace," replied Jack, "but
+I do not want them to know that, for, if they should expect to hear
+from us, and some accident happen to the pigeons, they might be
+dreadfully disappointed."
+
+"We can return on shore," observed Willis, "and place it on the spot,
+where we embarked; they are sure to be there to-morrow."
+
+This suggestion was incontinently adopted. The letter was attached to
+a small cross, and fixed in the ground. The voyagers had all
+re-embarked in the pinnace, which was destined to bear even more than
+Caesar and his fortunes. Willis had already loosened the warp, when, a
+thought crossed the mind of Fritz.
+
+"I must revisit Falcon's Nest once more," said he.
+
+"What!" cried Willis, "you are not going to get up such another scene
+as we witnessed an hour or two ago?"
+
+"No, Willis, I mean to go by stealth like the Indian trapper, so as to
+be seen by no mortal eye. I wish to take one more look at the old
+familiar trees, and endeavor to ascertain whether my mother has
+reached home in safety."
+
+"But the dogs?" objected Willis.
+
+"The dogs know me too well to give the slightest alarm at my approach.
+I shall not be long gone; but really I must go, the desire is too
+powerful within me to be resisted."
+
+"I will go with you," said Jack.
+
+Here Willis shook his head and reflected an instant.
+
+"You are not angry with us, Willis, are you?"
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "and I think the best thing I can do, under
+the circumstances, is to go too."
+
+"Very well, make fast that warp again, and come along."
+
+The party then disappeared amongst the brushwood.
+
+"Some time ago," remarked Fritz, "we followed this track about the
+same hour; there was danger to be apprehended, but the enterprise was
+bloodless, though successful."
+
+"You mean the chimpanzee affair," said Willis.
+
+"Yes; this time we have only an emotion to conquer, but I am afraid it
+is too strong for us."
+
+"These are the trees," said Jack, as they debouched upon the road,
+"that I stuck my proclamations upon. We had very little to think of in
+those days."
+
+As the party drew near Falcon's Nest, the dogs approached and welcomed
+them with the usual canine demonstrations of joy.
+
+"I have half a mind to carry off Toby," said Fritz; "but I fear Mary
+would miss him."
+
+Externally all appeared tranquil at Falcon's Nest; this satisfied the
+young men that their mother had succeeded in reaching home, at least,
+in safety; a light streaming through the window of Becker's dwelling,
+however, showed that the family had not yet retired for the night.
+
+"If they only knew we were so near them!" remarked Jack.
+
+The entire party then sat down upon a rustic bench, shrouded with
+flowering orchis and Spanish jasmine.
+
+"How often, on returning from the fields or the chase, we have seen
+our mother at work on this very seat," observed Fritz.
+
+"Aye," added Jack; "once I observed she had fallen asleep whilst
+knitting stockings. I advanced on tip-toe, removed gently her knitting
+apparatus, stockings, and all, and placed on her lap some ortolans
+that I had caught and strangled; but I first plucked one of them, and
+scattered the feathers all about, and then retreated into a thicket to
+watch the _denouement_ of my scheme. She awoke, put down her hand to
+take up a stocking, and laid hold of a bird. She stared, rubbed her
+eyes, stared again, looked about, and could find nothing but the
+ortolan feathers. I then ran forward and embraced her, looking as if I
+had just come from unearthing turnips. 'Well, I declare,' she said
+with a bewildered air, 'I could have sworn that I was knitting just
+now, and here I find myself plucking ortolans; and what is more, I
+have not the slightest idea where, in all the world, the birds have
+come from!' Of course, I looked as innocent as possible; so that the
+more she stared and reflected, the less she could make the matter out.
+At last, she went on plucking the birds, and when this was done she
+stuck them on the spit. When the ortolans were roasted and ready to be
+served up, I went into the kitchen, carried them off, and put my
+mother's knitting apparatus on the spit. Imagine her surprise when she
+beheld her worsted and stockings at the fire, knowing, at the same
+time, that four hungry stomachs were waiting for their dinners! At
+last, fearing that she was going to ascribe the metamorphosis to some
+hallucination of her own, I went up to her, threw my arms round her
+neck, told her the whole story, and we both of us enjoyed a hearty
+laugh over it."
+
+"Aye, Jack, those were laughing times," said Fritz, sadly.
+
+"Not only that, but our mother was always so even--tempered; she was
+never ruffled in the slightest degree by my nonsense; though she often
+had the right to be very angry, yet she never once took offence. On
+another occasion, Mary and Sophia Wolston were working here at those
+mysterious embroideries which they always hid when we came near."
+
+"Toby's collar, I suppose," remarked Fritz.
+
+"My tobacco pouch," suggested Willis.
+
+"I approached," continued Jack, "with the muffled softness of a cat,
+and was just on the point of discovering their secret, when my monkey,
+Knips, who was cracking nuts at their feet, made a spring, and drew a
+bobbin of silk after it; this caused them to look round, and great was
+my astonishment to find myself caught at the very moment I expected to
+surprise them. They commenced scolding me at an immense rate, but then
+it was so delightful to be scolded!"
+
+"Aye," murmured Fritz, "that is all over now."
+
+Like a file of sheep, one recollection dragged another after it, so
+that the whole of the past recurred to their memories. Some faint
+streaks of light now warned them that day was about to break; the
+cocks began to crow one after the other, and to fill the air with
+their shrill voices.
+
+"Now," said Willis, "it is high time to be off."
+
+Jack hastily gathered two bouquets of flowers, which he suspended to
+the lintel of each dwelling.
+
+"These," said he, "will show them that we have paid them another
+visit."
+
+They then bent down all three on their knees, uttered a short prayer,
+and afterwards disappeared amidst the shadows of the chestnut trees.
+
+"Listen!" said Willis, seeing that his companions were about to make a
+halt, "if you stop again, or speak of returning any more, I will cease
+to regard you as men."
+
+Half an hour afterwards, on the morning of the 8th March, 1812, the
+pinnace bore out to sea, and when day broke, the crew could not descry
+a single trace of New Switzerland on any point of the horizon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE--THE MARY--COUNT UGOLINO--THE
+SOURCES OF RIVERS--THE ALPS DEMOLISHED--NO MORE PYRENEES--THE
+FIRST SHIP--ADMIRAL NOAH--FLEETS OF THE ISRAELITES--THE
+COMPASS--PRINTING--GUNPOWDER--ACTIUM AND SALAMIS--DIDO AND
+AENEAS--STEAM--DON GARAY AND ROGER BACON--MELCHTHAL, FURST, AND
+WILLIAM TELL--GOING A-PLEASURING--UPSET VERSUS BLOWN UP--A DEAD
+CALM--THE LOG--WILLIS'S ARCHIPELAGO--THE ISLAND OF SOPHIA--THE BREAD
+FRUIT-TREE--NATIVES OF POLYNESIA--STRIPED TROWSERS--ABDUCTION OF
+WILLIS--IS HE TO BE ROASTED OR BOILED?--WHEN THE WINE IS POURED OUT,
+WE MUST DRINK IT.
+
+
+At the date of the events narrated in the preceeding chapter,
+comparatively little was known of Oceania, that is, of the islands and
+continents that are scattered about the Pacific Ocean. Most of them
+had been discovered, named, and marked correctly enough in the charts,
+but beyond this all was supposition, hypothesis, and mystery. The
+mighty empire of England in the east was then only in its infancy,
+Sutteeism and Thuggism were still rampant on the banks of the Ganges,
+but the power of the descendants of the Great Mogul was on the wane.
+California was only known as the hunting-ground of a savage race of
+wild Indians. The now rich and flourishing colonies of Australia were
+represented by the convict settlement of Sydney. The Dutch had
+asserted that the territory of New Holland was utterly uninhabitable,
+and this was still the belief of the civilized world; nor was it
+without considerable opposition on the part of _soi-disant_
+philanthropists that the English government succeeded in establishing
+a prison depot on what at the time was considered the sole spot in
+that vast territory susceptible of cultivation. At the present time,
+these formerly-despised regions send _one hundred tons of pure gold_
+to England. The political state of Europe itself had at this time
+assumed a singular aspect. Napoleon had made himself master of nearly
+all the continental states; Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and a
+part of Germany were at his feet; and, by the Peace of Tilsit, he had
+secured the cooperation of Alexander, Emperor of Russia, in his
+schemes to ruin the trade and commerce of Great Britain. England, by
+her opportune seizure of the Danish fleet, broke up the first great
+northern confederacy that was formed against her. This act, though
+much impugned by the politicians of the day, is now known not only to
+have been perfectly justifiable, but also highly creditable to the
+political foresight of Canning and Castlereagh, by whom it was
+suggested, to say nothing of the daring and boldness that Nelson
+displayed in executing the manoeuvre. When news of this event reached
+the Russian Emperor it threw him into a paroxysm of rage, and he
+declared war against England in violent language. He had the insolence
+to make peace with France the _sina qua non_ of his friendship. At the
+distance of nearly half a century, the actual language employed has a
+peculiar flavor. The emperor, after detailing his grievances, declares
+that henceforth there shall be no connection between the two
+countries, and calls on his Britannic Majesty to dismiss his
+ministers, and conclude a peace forthwith. The British Government
+replied to this by ordering Nelson to set sail forthwith for the mouth
+of the Neva. A bitter and scorching manifesto was at the time
+forwarded to the emperor. It accused him flatly of duplicity, and
+boldly defied him and all his legions. The whole document is well
+worthy of perusal in these lackadaisical times. It is dated
+Westminister, December 18, 1807. It sets forth anew the principles of
+maritime war, which England had then rigidly in force. Napoleon had
+declared the whole of the British Islands in a state of blockade. The
+British Government replied by blockading _de facto_ the whole of
+Europe. This was done by those celebrated orders in council, which,
+more than anything else, precipitated the downfall of Napoleon. They
+threw the trade of the world into the hands of England. Of course,
+Russia was deeply affected, so was Spain and all the other maritime
+states; and they were all, one way or another, in open hostility with
+this country. But England laughed all their threats to scorn; and in
+the whole history of the country, there was not a more brilliant
+period in her eventful history. She stood alone against the world in
+arms. Even the blusterings of the United States were unheeded, and in
+no degree disturbed her stern equanimity. She saw the road to victory,
+and resolved to pursue it. But England then had great statesmen, and,
+of them all, Lord Castlereagh was the greatest, although he served a
+Prince Regent who cared no more for England or the English people,
+than the Irish member, who, when reproached for selling his country,
+thanked God that he had a country to sell.
+
+At length the ill-will of the Americans resolved itself into open
+warfare, and the United States was numbered with the overt enemies of
+England. This resulted in British troops marching up to Washington and
+burning the Capitol, or Congress House, about the ears of the members
+who had stirred up the strife. Meanwhile, all the islands of France in
+the east and west had been taken possession of; the British flag waved
+on the Spanish island of Cuba, and in the no less valuable possessions
+of Holland, in Java. Everywhere on the ocean England held undisputed
+sway. This state of things gave rise to one great evil--the sea
+swarmed with cruisers and privateers, English, French, and American;
+so that no vessel, unless sailing under convoy, heavily armed, or a
+very swift sailer, but ran risk of capture.
+
+The _Mary_--for so Fritz now called the pinnace--had been ten days at
+sea, the wind had died away, and for some time scarcely a zephyr had
+ruffled the surface of the water, the sails were lazily flapping
+against the mast, and but for the currents, the voyagers would have
+been almost stationary. It may readily be supposed that, under such
+circumstances, their progress was somewhat slow, and, as Jack
+observed, to judge from their actual rate of sailing, they ought to
+have started when very young, in order to arrive at the termination of
+the voyage before they became bald-headed old men.
+
+They prayed for a breeze, a gale, or even a storm; their fresh water
+was beginning to get sour, and they reflected that, if the calm
+continued any length of time, their provisions would eventually run
+short, and the ordinary resource of eating one another would stare
+them in the face. Jack, being the youngest, would probably disappear
+first, next Fritz, then Willis would be left to eat himself, in order
+to avoid dying of hunger, just as the unfortunate Count Ugolino
+devoured his own children to save them from orphanage.
+
+As yet, however, there were no symptoms of such a dire disaster; they
+were in excellent health and tolerable spirits; they had provisions
+enough to last them for six months at least, and consequently had not
+as yet, at all events, the slightest occasion to manifest a tendency
+to anthropophagism.
+
+"I can understand the sea," remarked Jack, "as I understand the land
+and the sky; God created them, that is enough; but I cannot understand
+how a mighty river like the Nile or the Ganges can continue eternally
+discharging immense deluges of water into the sea without becoming
+exhausted. From what fathomless reservoirs do the Amazon and the
+Mississippi receive their endless torrents?"
+
+"The reservoirs of the greatest rivers," replied Fritz, "are nothing
+more than drops of water that fall from the crevice of some rock on or
+near the summit of a hill; these are collected together in a pool or
+hollow, from which they issue in the form of a slender rivulet. At
+first, the smallest pebble is sufficient to arrest the course of this
+thread of water; but it turns upon itself, gathers strength, finally
+surmounts the obstacle, dashes over it, unites itself with other
+rivulets, reaches the plain, scoops out a bed, and goes on, as you
+say, for ever emptying its waters into the sea."
+
+"Yes; but it is the source of these sources that I want to know the
+origin of. You speak of hills, whilst we know that water naturally, by
+reason of its weight and fluidity; seeks to secrete itself in the
+lowest beds of the earth."
+
+"It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that water may come down
+a hill, although it never goes up. Rain, snow, dew, and generally all
+the vapors that fall from the atmosphere, furnish the enormous masses
+of water that are constantly flowing into the sea. The vapor alone
+that is absorbed in the air from the sea is more than sufficient to
+feed all the rivers on the face of the earth. Mountains, by their
+formation, arrest these vapors, collect them in a hole here and in a
+cavern there, and permit them to filter by a million of threads from
+rock to rock, fertilizing the land and nourishing the rivers that
+intersect it. If, therefore, you were to suppress the Alps that rise
+between France and Italy, you would, at the same time, extinguish the
+Rhone and the Po."
+
+"It would be a pity to do that," said Jack; "there was a time though
+when there were no Pyrenees."
+
+"That must have been, then, at a period prior to the formation of
+granite, which is esteemed the oldest of rocks."
+
+"No such thing," insisted Jack; "it was so late as 1713, when, by the
+peace of Utrecht, the crown of Spain was secured to the Duke of Anjou,
+grandson of Louis XIV."
+
+"Howsomever," remarked Willis, "all the mariners in the French fleet
+could not convince me that the Pyrenean mountains are only a hundred
+years old."
+
+"My brother is only speaking metaphorically," said Fritz; "when the
+crown of Spain was assigned to the Duke of Anjou, his grandfather
+said--_Qu il n'y avait plus de Pyrenees_. He meant by that simply,
+that France and Spain being governed by the same prince, the moral
+barrier between them existed no longer. The formidable mountains still
+stood for all that, and he who removes them would certainly be
+possessed of extraordinary power."
+
+"I am always putting my foot in it," said Willis, "when the yarn is
+about the land; let us talk of the sea for a bit. Who built the first
+ship?"
+
+"Well," replied Fritz, "I should say that the first ship was the ark."
+
+"Whence we may infer," added Jack, "that Noah was the first admiral."
+
+"We learn from the Scriptures," continued Fritz, "that the first
+navigators were the children of Noah, and it appears from profane
+history that the earliest attempts at navigation were manifested near
+where the ark rested; consequently, we may fairly presume that the art
+of ship-building arose from the traditions of the deluge and the ark."
+
+"In that case, the art in question dates very far back."
+
+"Yes, since it dates from 2348 years before the birth of Christ; but
+the human race degenerated, the traditions were forgotten, and
+navigation was confined to planks, rafts, bark canoes, or the trunk of
+a tree hollowed out by fire."
+
+"That is the sort of craft used by the inhabitants of Polynesia at the
+present day," remarked Willis.
+
+"It appears, however, by the Book of Job, that pirates existed in
+those days, and that they went to sea in ships and captured
+merchantmen, which proves, to a certain extent, that there were
+merchantmen to conquer. We know also that David and Solomon equipped
+large fleets, and even fought battles on sea."
+
+"Whether an ancient or modern, a Jew or a Gentile," said Willis, "he
+must have been a brave fellow who launched the first ship, and risked
+himself and his goods at sea in it."
+
+"True," continued Fritz; "but when once the equilibrium of a floating
+body was known, there would be no longer any risk; as soon as it came
+to be understood that any solid body would float if it were lighter
+than its bulk of water, the matter was simple enough."
+
+"Very good," interrupted Jack; "but the words 'when' and 'as soon as'
+imply a great deal; _when_, or _as soon as_, we know anything, the
+mystery of course disappears. But before! there is the difficulty.
+Particles of water do not cohere--how is it, then, that a ship of war,
+that often weighs two millions of pounds, does not sink through them,
+and go to the bottom? Individuals, like myself for example, who are
+not members of a learned society, may be pardoned for not knowing how
+water bears the weight of a seventy-four."
+
+"The seventy-four would, most undoubtedly, sink if it were heavier
+than the weight of water it displaced; but this is not the case; wood
+is generally lighter than water."
+
+"The wood, yes; but the cannon, the cargo, and the crew?"
+
+"You forget the cabooses, the cockpits, and the cabins, that do not
+weigh anything. Allowing for everything, the weight of a ship, cargo
+and all, is much lighter than its bulk of water, and consequently it
+cannot sink."
+
+"But how is it, then, that the immense bulk of a seventy-four moves so
+easily in the water? One would think that its prodigious weight would
+make it stick fast, and continue immoveable."
+
+"When the seventy-four in question has displaced its weight of water,
+its own weight is substituted for the water, and is in consequence
+virtually annihilated; it does not, in point of fact, weigh anything
+at all, and therefore is easily impelled by the wind."
+
+"When there is any, understood," added Jack.
+
+"And a yard or so of canvas," suggested Willis.
+
+"True," continued Fritz, "a sail or two would be very desirable; these
+instruments of propulsion do not appear, however, to have been used by
+the ancients. We first hear of a sail being employed at the time when
+Isis went in search of her husband Osiris, who was killed by his
+brother Typhon, and whose quarters were scattered in the Nile. This
+lady, it seems, took off the veil that covered her head, and fastened
+it to an upright shaft stuck in the middle of the boat, and, much to
+her astonishment, it impelled her onwards at a marvellous speed."
+
+"A clever young woman that," said Willis; "but I doubt whether veils
+would answer the purpose on board a seventy-four, particularly as
+regards the mainsail and mizentops."
+
+"The Phoenicians were the most enterprising of the early navigators.
+They appeared to have sailed round Africa without a compass, for they
+embarked on the Red Sea and reappeared at the mouth of the Nile, and
+the compass was not invented till the fourteenth century."
+
+"And who was the inventor of the compass?" inquired Willis.
+
+"According to some authorities, it was invented by a Neapolitan named
+Jean Goya; according to others, the inventor was a certain Hugues de
+Bercy."
+
+"Then," said Jack, "you do not admit the claims of the Chinese and
+Hindoos, who assert priority in the discovery?"
+
+"I neither deny nor admit their claims, because I do not know the
+grounds upon which they are founded; like the invention of gunpowder
+and printing, the discovery of the compass has many rival claimants."
+
+"I am of opinion," said Jack, "that Guttenberg is entitled to the
+honor of discovering printing, and that Berthold Schwartz invented
+gunpowder."
+
+"Perhaps you are right; but there is scarcely any invention of
+importance that has not two or three names fastened to it as
+inventors; they stick to it like barnacles, and there is no way to
+shake any of them off. So, in the case of illustrious men, nations
+dispute the honor of giving them birth; there are six or seven towns
+in Asia Minor that claim to be the birth-place of Homer. National
+vanities justly desire to possess the largest amount of genius; hence,
+no sooner does anything useful make its appearance in the world, than
+half a dozen nations or individuals start up to claim it as their
+offspring. The wisest course, under such circumstances, is to side
+with the best accredited opinion, which I have done in the case of the
+compass."
+
+"It was no joke," said Willis, "to circumnavigate Africa without a
+compass."
+
+"You are quite right, Willis, if you judge the navigation of those
+days by the modern standard; but it is to be borne in mind that the
+ancients never lost sight of the coast. They steered from cape to
+promontory, and from promontory to cape, dropping their anchor every
+night and remaining well in-shore till morning. If by accident they
+were driven out into the open sea, and the stars happened to be hidden
+by fog or clouds, they were lost beyond recovery, even though within a
+day's sail of a harbor; because, whilst supposing they were making for
+the coast, they might, in all probability, be steering in precisely
+the opposite direction."
+
+"It is certainly marvellous," said Jack, "that a piece of iron stuck
+upon a board should be a safe and sure guide to the mariner through
+the trackless ocean, even when the stars are enveloped in obscurity
+and darkness!"
+
+"It is a symbol of faith," remarked Willis, "that supplies the doubts
+and incertitudes of reason."
+
+"As for the ships, or rather galleys, of the ancients," continued
+Fritz, "with the exception of the ambitious fleets of the Greeks and
+Romans that fought at Salamis and Actium, one of the modern ships of
+war could sweep them all out of the sea with its rudder."
+
+"Yes," said Jack, "at the period of which you speak, the ancients
+possessed a great advantage over us. The winds in those days were
+personages, and were very well known; they were called Aeolus, Boreas,
+and so forth. They were to be found in caves or islands, and, if
+treated with civility, were remarkably condescending. Queen Dido,
+through one of these potentates, obtained contrary winds, to prevent
+Aeneas from leaving her."
+
+"By the way," said Willis, "there is, or at least was, in one of the
+Scottish rivers, a ship without either oars or sails."
+
+"Yes, very likely; but it did not move."
+
+"It did though, and, what is more, against both wind and tide."
+
+"I wish we had your wonderful ship here just now, it is just the thing
+to suit us under present circumstances," said Jack.
+
+"So it would, Master Jack, for it sails against currents, up rivers,
+and the crew care no more about the wind than I do about the color of
+the clouds when I am lighting my pipe."
+
+"You don't happen to mean that the _Flying Dutchman_ has appeared on
+the Scotch coast, do you, Willis?"
+
+"Not a bit of it, I mean just exactly what I say. It is a real ship,
+with a real stern and a real figure-head, but manned by blacksmiths
+instead of mariners."
+
+"Well, but how does it move? Does somebody go behind and push it, or
+is it dragged in front by sea-horses and water-kelpies?"
+
+"No, it moves by steam."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Aye, there lies the mystery. The affair has often been discussed by
+us sailors on board ship; some have suggested one way and some
+another."
+
+"Neither of which throws much light on the subject," observed Jack;
+"at least, in so far as we are concerned."
+
+"All I can tell you," said Willis, "is, that the steam is obtained by
+boiling water in a large cauldron, and that the power so obtained is
+very powerful."
+
+"That it certainly is, if it could be controlled, for steam occupies
+seventeen or eighteen hundred times the space of the water in its
+liquid state; but then, if the vessel that contains the boiling water
+has no outlet, the steam will burst it."
+
+"It appears that it can be prevented doing that, though," replied
+Willis, "even though additional heat be applied to the vapor itself."
+
+"By heating the steam, the vapor may acquire a volume forty thousand
+times greater than that of the water; all that is well known; but as
+soon as it comes in contact with the air, nothing is left of it but a
+cloud, which collapses again into a few drops of water."
+
+"That may be all very true, Master Fritz, if the steam were allowed to
+escape into the air; but it is only permitted to do that after it has
+done duty on board ship. It appears that steam is very elastic, and
+may be compressed like India-rubber, but has a tendency to resist the
+pressure and set itself free. Imagine, for example, a headstrong young
+man, for a long time kept in restraint by parental control, suddenly
+let loose, and allowed scope to follow the bent of his own
+inclinations."
+
+"Very good, Willis; for argument's sake, let us take your headstrong
+young man, or rather the steam, for granted, and let us admit that it
+is as elastic as ever you please--but what then?"
+
+"Then you must imagine a piston in a cylinder, forced upwards when
+the steam is heated, and falling downwards when the steam is cooled.
+Next fancy this upward and downward motion regulated by a number of
+wheels and cranks that turn two wheels on each side of the ship,
+keeping up a constant jangling and clanking, the wheels or paddles
+splashing in the water, and then you may form a slight idea of the
+thing."
+
+"Oh!" cried Jack, "we invented a machine of that kind for our canoe,
+with a turnspit. Do you recollect it, Fritz?"
+
+"Yes, I recollect it well enough; and I also recollect that the canoe
+went much better without than with it."
+
+"You spoke just now," continued Willis, "of rival nations, who pounce
+like birds of prey upon every new invention; and so it is with the
+steamship. An American, named Fulton, made a trial in the Hudson with
+one in 1807--that is about five years ago--and I believe the Yankees,
+in consequence, are laying claim to the invention."
+
+"Now that you bring the thing to my recollection," said Fritz, "the
+idea of applying steam in the arts is by no means new, although, I
+must candidly admit, I never heard of it being used in propelling
+ships before. The Spaniards assert that a captain of one of their
+vessels, named Don Blas de Garay, discovered, as early as the
+sixteenth century, the art of making steam a motive power."
+
+"I don't believe that," said Jack.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because a real Spaniard has never less than thirty-six words in his
+name. If you had said that the steam engine was discovered by Don
+Pedrillo y Alvares y Toledo y Concha y Alonzo y Martinez y Xacarillo,
+or something of that sort, then I could believe the man to have been a
+genuine Spaniard, but not otherwise."
+
+"Spaniard or no Spaniard, the Spanish claim the discovery of steam
+through Don Blas; the Italians likewise claim the discovery for a
+mechanician, named Bianca; the Germans assign its discovery to
+Solomon de Causs; the French urge Denis Papin; and the English claim
+the invention for Roger Bacon."
+
+"You have forgotten the Swiss," said Jack.
+
+"The Swiss," replied Fritz, with an air of dignity, "put forward no
+candidate: steam and vapor and smoke are not much in their line. They
+discovered something infinitely better--the world is indebted to them
+for the invention of liberty. I mean rational, intelligent, and true
+liberty--not the savagery and mob tyranny of red republicanism. The
+three discoverers of this noble invention were Melchthal, Furst, and
+William Tell."
+
+"You can have no idea," continued Willis, "of the stir that steam was
+creating in Europe the last time I was there. Of course there were
+plenty of incredulous people who said that it was no good; that it
+would never be of any use; and that if it were, it would not pay for
+the fuel consumed. On the other hand, the enthusiasts held that,
+eventually, it would be used for everything; that in the air we should
+have steam balloons; on the sea, steam ships, steam guns, and perhaps
+steam men to work them; that on land there would be steam coaches
+driven by steam horses. Journeys, say they, will be performed in no
+time, that is, as soon as you start for a place you arrive at it, just
+like an arrow, that no sooner leaves the bow than you see it stuck in
+the bull's eye."
+
+"In that case," observed Jack, "it will be necessary to do away with
+respiration, as well as horses."
+
+"A Londoner will be able to say to his wife, My dear, I am going to
+Birmingham to-day, but I will be back to dinner; and if a Parisian
+lights his cigar at Paris, it will burn till he arrives at Bordeaux."
+
+"Holloa, Willis, you have fairly converted Fritz and me into marines
+at last."
+
+"I am only speaking of what will be, not of what is--that makes all
+the difference you know. It is expected that there will be steam
+coaches on every turnpike-road; so that, instead of hiring a
+post-chaise, you will have to order a locomotive, and instead of
+postboys, you will to engage an engineer and stoker."
+
+"Then, instead of saying, Put the horses to," remarked Jack, "we
+shall have to say, Get the steam up."
+
+"Exactly; and when you go on a pleasure excursion, you will be whisked
+from one point to another without having time to see whether you pass
+through a desert or a flower-garden."
+
+"What, then, is to become of adventures by the way, road-side inns,
+and banditti?"
+
+"All to be suppressed."
+
+"So it appears," said Jack; "men are to be carried about from place to
+place like flocks of sheep; perhaps they will invent steam dogs as
+well to run after stragglers, and bring them into the fold by the calf
+of the leg. Your new mode of going a-pleasuring may be a very
+excellent thing in its way, Willis; but it would not suit my taste."
+
+"Probably not; nor mine either, for the matter of that, Master Jack."
+
+"At all events," said Fritz, "you would run no danger of being upset
+on the road."
+
+"No; but, by way of compensation, you may be blown up."
+
+"True, I forgot that."
+
+"This conversation has carried us along another knot," said Jack,
+opening the log, which he had been appointed to keep; "and now, by
+your leave, I will read over some of my entries to refresh your
+memories as to our proceedings.
+
+"March 9th.--Wind fair and fresh--steered to north-west--a flock of
+seals under our lee bow--feel rather squeamish.
+
+"10th.--No wind--fall in with a largish island and four little ones,
+give them the name of Willis's Archipelago.
+
+"11th.--A dead calm--sea smooth as a mirror--all of us dull and
+sleepy.
+
+"12th.--Heat 90 deg.--shot a boobie, roasted and ate him, rather
+fishy--passed the night amongst some reefs.
+
+"13th.--Same as the 12th, but no boobie.
+
+"14th.--Same as the 13th.
+
+"Dreadfully tiresome, is it not," said Jack; "no wonder they call this
+ocean the Pacific."
+
+"Alas!" sighed Willis, thinking of the _Nelson_, "it does not always
+justify the name."
+
+"15th.--Hailed a low island, surrounded with breakers, named it
+Sophia's Island."
+
+"But all these islands have been named half a dozen times already,"
+said Willis.
+
+"Oh, never mind that, another name or two will not break their backs."
+
+"16th.--Current bearing us rapidly to westward--caught a sea cow, and
+had it converted into pemican.
+
+"17th.--Shot another boobie, which we put in the pot to remind us that
+we were no worse off than the subjects of Henry IV. No wind--sea
+blazing like a furnace."
+
+"You will have to turn over a new leaf in your log by-and-by," said
+Willis, "or I am very much mistaken."
+
+"Well, I hope you are not mistaken, Willis, for I am tired of this
+sort of thing."
+
+A red haze now began to shroud the sun, the heat of the air became
+almost stifling, but the muffled roar of distant thunder and bright
+flashes of light warned the voyagers to prepare for a change. Willis
+reefed the canvas close to the mast, and suggested that everything
+likely to spoil should be put under hatches. This was scarcely done
+before the storm had reached them, and they were soon in the midst of
+a tropical deluge. At first, a light breeze sprung up, blowing towards
+the south-east, which continued till midnight, when it chopped round.
+Towards morning, it blew a heavy gale from east to east-south-east,
+with a heavy sea running. In the meantime, the pinnace labored
+heavily, and several seas broke over her. Willis now saw that their
+only chance of safety lay in altering their course. All the canvas was
+already braced up except the jib, which was necessary to give the
+craft headway, and with this sail alone they were soon after speeding
+at a rapid rate in the direction of the Polynesian Islands. The gale
+continued almost without intermission for three weeks, during which
+period Willis considered they must have been driven some hundreds, of
+miles to the north-west.
+
+The gale at length ceased, the sea resumed its tranquility, and the
+wind became favorable. The pinnace had, however, been a good deal
+battered by the storm, and their fresh water was getting low, and it
+was decided they should still keep a westerly course till they reached
+an island where they could refit before resuming their voyage.
+
+"The gale has not done us much good," said Jack, sadly; "if it had
+blown the other way, we might have been in the Indian Ocean by this
+time."
+
+"Cheer up," said Willis, taking the glass from his eye, "I see land
+about three miles to leeward, and the landing appears easy."
+
+"But the savages?" inquired Jack.
+
+"The islands of this latitude are not all inhabited," replied Fritz;
+"besides, under our present circumstances, we have no alternative but
+to take our chance with them."
+
+"Well, I do not know that," objected Jack; "it would be better for us
+to do without fresh water than to run the risk of being eaten."
+
+"What a beautiful coast!" cried Willis, who still kept the telescope
+at his eye. "Near the shore the land is flat, and appears cultivated;
+but behind, it rises gradually, and is closed in with a range of
+hills, covered with trees. There is a beautiful bay in front of us,
+which appears to invite us ashore. But the place is inhabited; the
+shore is strewn with huts, and I can see clumps of the bread-fruit
+tree growing near them."
+
+"What sort of vegetable is the bread-fruit?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"It is a very excellent thing, and supplies the natives with bread
+without the intervention of grain, flour-mills, or bakers. It can be
+eaten either raw, or baked, or boiled; either way, it is palatable.
+The tree itself is like our apple trees; but the fruit is as large as
+a pine-apple--when it is ripe, it is yellow and soft. The natives,
+however, generally gather it before it is ripe; it is then cooked in
+an oven; the skin is burnt or peeled off--the inside is tender and
+white, like the crumb of bread or the flour of the potato."
+
+"Let me have the telescope an instant," said Fritz; "I should like to
+see what the natives are like. Ah, I see a troop of them collecting on
+shore; some of them seem to be covered with a kind of wrought-steel
+armor."
+
+"Perhaps the descendants of the Crusaders," remarked Jack, "returning
+from the Holy Land by way of the Pacific Ocean!"
+
+"Others wear striped pantaloons," continued Fritz.
+
+"That is to say," observed Willis, "the whole lot of them are as naked
+as posts. What you suppose to be cuirasses and pantaloons, are their
+tabooed breasts and legs."
+
+"Are you sure of that, Willis?"
+
+"Not a doubt about it."
+
+"Such garments are both durable and economical," remarked Jack; "but I
+scarcely think they are suitable for stormy weather. But do you think
+it is safe to land amongst such a set of barebacked rascals, Willis?"
+
+"I should not like to take the responsibility of guaranteeing our
+safety; but I do not see what other course we can adopt."
+
+They had now approached within musket-shot of the shore. They could
+see that a venerable-looking old man stood a few paces in front of the
+group of natives. He held a green branch in one hand, and pressed with
+the other a long flowing white beard to his breast.
+
+"According to universal grammar," said Jack, "these signs should mean
+peace and amity."
+
+"Yes," replied the Pilot; "the more so that the rear-guard are pouring
+water on their heads, which is the greatest mark of courtesy the
+natives of Polynesia can show to strangers."
+
+"Gentlemen," cried Jack, taking off his cap and making a low bow, "we
+are your most obedient servants."
+
+"We must be on our guard," said Willis; "these savages are very
+deceitful, and sometimes let fly their arrows under a show of
+friendship. I will go on shore alone, whilst you keep at a little
+distance off, ready to fire to cover my retreat, if need be."
+
+The young men objected to Willis incurring danger that they did not
+share; but on this point Willis was inexorable, so they were obliged
+to suffer him to depart alone. By good chance, they had shipped a
+small cask of glass beads on board the pinnace. The Pilot took a few
+of these with him, and, placing a cask and a couple of calabashes in
+the canoe, he rowed ashore.
+
+The natives were evidently in great commotion; there was an immense
+amount of running backwards and forwards. Something important was,
+obviously enough, going forward; but, whether the excitement was
+caused by curiosity or admiration, it was hard to say. They might be
+preparing a friendly reception for the stranger, or they might be
+preparing to eat him--which of the two was an interesting question
+that Willis did not care about probing too deeply at that particular
+moment.
+
+Fritz and Jack anxiously watched the operations of the natives from
+the bay. They could not with safety abandon the pinnace; but to leave
+Willis to the mercy of the sinister-looking people on shore was not to
+be thought of either. The _Mary_ was, therefore, run in as close as
+possible, and Jack leaped on the sands a few minutes after the Pilot.
+
+Willis marched boldly on towards the natives, and when he arrived
+beside the old man, the crowd opened up and formed an avenue through
+which a chief advanced, followed by a number of men, seemingly
+priests, who carried a grotesque-looking figure that Jack presumed to
+be an idol. The figure was made up of wicker-work--was of colossal
+height--the features, which represented nothing on earth beneath nor
+heaven above, were inconceivably hideous--the eyes were discs of
+mother-of-pearl, with a nut in the centre--the teeth were apparently
+those of a shark, and the body was covered with a mantle of red
+feathers.
+
+At the command of the chief, some of the natives advanced and placed a
+quantity of bananas, bread-fruits, and other vegetables at the Pilot's
+feet; the priests then came forward and knelt down before him, and
+seemed to worship after the fashion of the ancients when they paid
+their devotions to the Eleusinian goddess, or the statue of Apollo.
+Meanwhile, Jack, on his side, was likewise surrounded by the natives,
+who was treated with much less ceremony than Willis. Instead of
+falling down on their knees, each of them, one after the other, rubbed
+their noses against his, and then danced round him with every
+demonstration of savage joy.
+
+Jack had now an opportunity of observing the personages about him more
+in detail. They were mostly tall and well-formed; their features bore
+some resemblance to those of a negro, their nose being flat and their
+lips thick; on the other hand, they had the high cheek-bones of the
+North American Indian and the forehead of the Malay. Nearly all of
+them were entirely naked, but wore a necklace and bracelets of shells.
+They were armed with a sort of spear and an axe of hard wood edged
+with stone. Their skins were tattooed all over with lines and circles,
+and painted; these decorations, in some instances, exhibiting careful
+execution and no inconsiderable degree of artistic skill. These
+observations made, Jack pushed his way to the spot where Willis was
+receiving the homage of the priests.
+
+"What! you here?" said the Pilot.
+
+"Yes, Willis, I have come to see what detained you. By the way, is
+there anything the matter with my nose?"
+
+"Nothing that I can see; but the natives of New Zealand rub their
+noses against each other, and probably the same usage is fashion
+here."
+
+"Why, then, do they make you an exception?"
+
+"I have not the remotest idea."
+
+The priests at length rose, and the chief advanced. This dignitary
+addressed a long discourse to Willis in a sing-song tone, which lasted
+nearly half an hour. After this, he stood aside, and looked at Willis,
+as if he expected a reply.
+
+"Illustrious chief, king, prince, or nabob," said Willis, "I am highly
+flattered by all the fine things you have just said to me. It is true,
+I have not understood a single word, but the fruits you have placed
+before me speak a language that I can understand. Howsomever, most
+mighty potentate, we are not in want of provisions; but if you can
+show us a spring of good water, you will confer upon us an everlasting
+favor."
+
+"You might just as well ask him to show you what o'clock it is by the
+dial of his cathedral," said Jack.
+
+"They would only point to the sun if I did."
+
+"But suppose the sun invisible."
+
+"Then they would be in the same position as we are when we forget to
+wind up our watches. Gentlemen savages," he said, turning to the
+natives and handing them the glass beads, "accept these trifles as a
+token of our esteem."
+
+The natives required no pressing, but accepted the proffered gifts
+with great good-will. The dancing and singing then recommenced with
+redoubled fury, and poor Jack's nose was almost obliterated by the
+constant rubbing it underwent.
+
+Suddenly the hubbub ceased, and a profound silence reigned throughout
+the assembly. The oldest of the priests brought a mantle of red
+feathers, similar to the one that covered the idol. This was thrown
+over the Pilot's shoulders; a tuft of feathers, something resembling a
+funeral plume, was placed upon his head, and a large semi-circular fan
+was thrust into his hand. Thus equipped, a procession was formed, one
+half before and the other half behind him. The _cortege_ began to move
+slowly in the direction of the interior, but the operation was
+disconcerted by Willis, who remained stock-still.
+
+"Thank you," he said, "I would rather not go far away from the shore."
+
+As soon as the natives saw clearly that Willis was not disposed to
+move, the chief issued a mandate, and four stout fellows immediately
+removed the idol from its position, and Willis was placed upon the
+vacant pedestal.
+
+The kind of adoration with which all these proceedings were
+accompanied greatly perplexed the voyagers. What could it all mean?
+Was this a common mode of welcoming strangers? It occurred to Jack
+that the Romans were accustomed to decorate with flowers the victims
+they designed as sacrifices to the altars of their gods before
+immolating them. This reminiscence made his flesh creep with horror,
+and filled him with the utmost dismay.
+
+"Willis!" he cried to the Pilot, whom they were now leading off in
+triumph, "let us try the effects of our rifles on this rabble; you
+jump over the heads of your worshippers, and we will charge through
+them to shore. I will shoot the first man that pursues us, and signal
+Fritz to discharge the four-pounder amongst them."
+
+"Impossible," replied Willis; "we should both be stuck all over with
+arrows and lances before we could reach the pinnace. Did I not tell
+you not to come ashore?"
+
+"True, Willis, but did you suppose I had no heart? How could I look on
+quietly whilst you were surrounded by a mob of ferocious-looking men?"
+
+"Well, well, Master Jack, say no more about it; I do not suppose they
+mean to do me any harm; but there would be danger in rousing the
+passions of such a multitude of people. They seem, luckily, to direct
+their attentions exclusively to me, so you had better go back and look
+after the canoe."
+
+"No; I shall follow you wherever you go, Willis, even into the
+soup-kettles of the wretches."
+
+"In that case," said Willis, "the wine is poured out, and, such as it
+is, we must drink it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+JUPITER TONANS--THE THUNDERS OF THE PILOT--WORSHIPPERS OF THE
+FAR WEST--A LATE BREAKFAST--RONO THE GREAT--A POLYNESIAN
+LEGEND--MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OCEANIA--MR. AND MRS. TAMAIDI--REGAL
+POMP--ELBOW ROOM--KATZENMUSIK--QUEEN TONICO AND THE SHAVING
+GLASS--CONSEQUENCES OF A PINCH OF SNUFF--DISGRACE OF THE GREAT
+RONO--MARIUS--CORIOLANUS--HANNIBAL--ALCIBIADES--CIMON--ARISTIDES--A
+SOP FOR THE THIRSTY--AIR SOMETHING ELSE BESIDES OXYGEN AND
+HYDROGEN--MARYLAND AND WHITECHAPEL--HALF-WAY UP THE CORDILLERAS--HUMAN
+MACHINES--STAR OF THE SEA, PRAY FOR US!
+
+
+Was he on his way to the Capitol or to the Gemoniae? The solution of
+this question became, for the moment, of greater importance to Willis
+than the "to be or not to be" of Hamlet to the State of Denmark. This
+incertitude was all the more painful, that it was accompanied by
+myriads of insects, created by the recent rains; these swarmed in the
+air to such an extent, that it was utterly impossible to inhale the
+one without swallowing the other. The sailor, notwithstanding his
+elevated and somewhat perilous position, true to his instincts and
+tormented by the flies, took out his pipe, filled it, and struck a
+light. As soon as the first column of smoke issued from his mouth, the
+cavalcade halted spontaneously, the natives fell on their faces, their
+noses touching the ground, and in an attitude of the profoundest fear
+and apprehension. Jupiter thundering never created such a sensation as
+Willis smoking. The savages seemed glued to the earth with terror. If
+the Pilot had thought it advisable to escape, he might have walked
+over the prostrate bodies of his captors, not one of whom would have
+been bold enough to follow what appeared to be a human volcano,
+vomiting fire and smoke,--the fire of course being understood.
+
+Willis, however, now saw that he possessed in his pipe a ready means
+of awing them. Besides, it was clear that, through some fortunate
+coincidence, the natives had mistaken him for a divinity. There was,
+consequently, no immediate danger to be apprehended; he therefore
+became himself again, and began to enjoy the novelty of his new
+dignity.
+
+It was certainly a curious contrast. Willis, seated on a sort of
+throne, crowned with a waving plume of feathers, shrouded in a fiery
+mantle, and surrounded by a crowd of prostrate figures, was quietly
+puffing ribbons of smoke from the tips of his lips. There he sat, for
+all the world like a crane in a duck-pond. From time to time the more
+daring of the worshippers slightly raised their heads to see whether
+Jupiter was still thundering; but when their eye caught a whiff of
+smoke, they speedily resumed their former posture. Some of them even
+thrust their heads into holes, or behind stones, as if more
+effectually to shelter themselves from the fury of the fiery furnace.
+At last the eruption ceased, Willis knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
+replaced it in his pocket, and the convoy resumed its route. After
+half an hour's march, the procession halted near a clump of plantains,
+in front of a structure more ambitious than any of those in the
+neighborhood. A female, laden with rude ornaments, was standing at the
+door. This lady, who rivalled the celebrated Daniel Lambert in
+dimensions, would have created quite a _furore_ at Bartholomew Fair;
+according to Jack, she was so amazingly fat, that it would have taken
+full five minutes to walk round her. She took the Pilot respectfully
+by the hand, and led him into the interior of the building, which was
+crowded with images of various forms, and was evidently a temple.
+Willis, at a sign from his conductress, seated himself in a chair,
+raised on a dais, and surmounted by a terrific figure similar to the
+one already described, but draped in white feathers instead of red.
+
+The fat lady, or rather the high priestess--for she was the reigning
+potentate in this magazine of idols--took a sucking pig that was held
+by one of the priests. After muttering a prayer or homily of some
+sort, she strangled the poor animal, and returned it to the priest. By
+and by, the pig was brought in again cooked, and presented with great
+ceremony to Willis. There were likewise sundry dishes of fruit, nuts,
+and several small cups containing some kind of liquid. One of the
+priests cut up the pig, and lifted pieces of it to Willis's mouth;
+these, however, he refused to eat. The fat priestess, observing this,
+chewed one or two mouthfuls, which she afterwards handed to the Pilot.
+This was putting the sailor's gallantry to rather a rude test. He was
+equal to the emergency, and did not refuse the offering. But he must
+have felt at the time, that being a divinity was not entirely without
+its attendant inconveniences.
+
+Nor was this the only infliction of the kind he was doomed to
+withstand. One of the priests took up a piece of kava-root, put it
+into his mouth, chewed it, and then dropped a bit into each of the
+cups already noticed. One of these, containing this nectar, was
+presented to Willis by the fat Hebe who presided at the feast, and he
+had the fortitude to taste it. Another of the cups was handed to Jack.
+
+"No, I thank you," said he, shaking his head; "I breakfasted rather
+late this morning."
+
+Meantime, another personage had entered upon the scene. After having
+performed an obeisance to Willis like the rest, this individual backed
+himself to where Jack was standing, by this means adroitly avoiding
+both the kava and the nose-rubbings. He was distinguished from the
+other natives by an ornament round his waist, which fell to his knees.
+His skin seemed a trifle less dark, his features less marked; but his
+body was tattooed and stained after the common fashion.
+
+The new comer turned out to be a Portuguese deserter, who had
+abandoned his ship twenty years before, and had married the daughter
+of a chief of the island on which he now was. At the present moment,
+he filled the part of prime minister to the king, an office be could
+not have held in his own ungrateful country, since he could neither
+read nor write. These accomplishments, it appeared, were not,
+however, absolutely indispensable in Polynesia. It has been found that
+when a savage is transferred to Europe, he readily acquires the habits
+of civilized life. By a similar adaptation of things to circumstances,
+this European had identified himself with the savages. He had adopted
+their manners, their customs, and their costume. When he thought of
+his own country, it was only to wonder why he ever submitted to the
+constraint of a coat, or put himself to the trouble of handling a fork
+and spoon. He had not, however, entirely forgotten his mother tongue,
+and, moreover, still retained in his memory a few English words. He
+was likewise very communicative, and told Jack that they were in the
+Island of Hawai; that the name of the king was Toubowrai Tamaidi, who,
+he added, intended visiting the pinnace with the queen next day, to
+pay his respects in person to the great Rono. "His Majesty," said the
+Portuguese, "would have been amongst the first to throw himself at his
+feet, but unfortunately the royal residence is a good way off; and
+though both the king and the queen are on the way, running as fast as
+they can, it may take them some time yet to reach the shore."
+
+"But who is the great Rono?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Well," replied the prime minister, "you ought to know best, since you
+arrived with him."
+
+Jack felt that he was touching on delicate ground, and saw that it was
+necessary to diplomatise a little.
+
+"True," said he; "but I am not acquainted with the position that
+illustrious person holds in relation to Hawai." The Portuguese then
+made a very long, rambling, and not very lucid statement, from which
+Jack gleaned the following details. About a hundred years before,
+during the reign of one of the first kings, there lived a great
+warrior, whose name was Rono. This chief was very popular, but he was
+very jealous. In a moment of anger he killed his wife, of whom he was
+passionately fond. The regret and grief that resulted from this act
+drove him out of his senses; he wandered disconsolately about the
+island, fought and quarrelled with every one that came near him. At
+last, in a fit of despair, he embarked in a large canoe, and, after
+promising to return at the expiration of twelve hundred moons, with a
+white face and on a floating island, he put out to sea, and was never
+heard of more.
+
+This tradition, it appears, had been piously handed down from family
+to family. The natives of Hawai--who are not more extravagant in the
+matter of idols than some nations who boast a larger amount of
+civilization, but who do not destroy them so often--enrolled Rono
+amongst the list of their divinities. An image of him was set up,
+sacrifices were instituted in his honor. Every year the day of his
+departure was kept sacred, and devoted to religious ceremonies. The
+twelfth hundred moon had just set, when a large boat appeared in the
+bay, and a man came ashore. The high priest of the temple, Raou, and
+his daughter, On La, priestess of Rono, solemnly declared that the man
+in question was Rono himself, who had returned at the precise time
+named, and in the manner he promised.
+
+It was, therefore, clear from this statement that Willis was to be
+henceforward Rono the Great.
+
+Jack was rather pleased than otherwise to learn that he was the
+companion of a real live divinity. It assured him, in the first place,
+that the danger of his being converted into a stew or a fricassee was
+not imminent. He did not forget, however, that the consequences might
+be perilous if, by any chance, the illusion ceased; for he knew that
+the greater the height from which a man falls, the less the mercy
+shown to him when he is down. As soon, therefore, as the ceremonies
+had a little relaxed, and Willis was left some freedom of action, Jack
+went forward, and knelt before him in his turn.
+
+"O sublime Rono," said he, "I know now why your nose has escaped all
+the rubbings that mine has had to undergo."
+
+"Do you?" said Willis; "glad to hear it, for I am as much in the dark
+as ever."
+
+Jack then related to him the fabulous legend he had just heard.
+
+After a while, Willis shook off his _entourage_ as gently as possible,
+and succeeded in getting out of the temple. Accompanied by Jack, he
+proceeded towards the shore, receiving, as he went, the adoration of
+the people. The route was strewn with fruit, cocoa-nuts, and pigs, and
+the natives were highly delighted when any of their offerings were
+accepted by the deified Rono.
+
+The islanders appeared mild, docile, and intelligent, notwithstanding
+the singular delusion that possessed them. Living from day to day,
+they were, doubtless, ignorant of those continual cares and
+calculations for the future that in the old world pursue us even into
+the hours of sleep. Were they happier in consequence? Yes, if the
+child is happier than the man, and if we admit that we often loose in
+tranquillity and happiness what we gain in knowledge and perfection:
+yes, if happiness is not exclusively attached to certain peoples and
+certain climates; yes, if it is true that, with contentment, happiness
+is everywhere to be found.
+
+The houses of the Hawaians are singular structures, and scarcely can
+be called dwellings. They consist of three rows of posts, two on each
+side and one in the middle, the whole covered with a slanting roof,
+but without any kind of wall whatever.
+
+They do not bury their dead, but swing them up in a sort of hammock,
+abundantly supplied with provisions. It is supposed that this is done
+with a view to enable the souls of the departed to take their flight
+more readily to heaven. The practice, consequently, seems to indicate
+that the natives possess a confused idea of a future state. When a
+child dies, flowers are placed in the hammock along with the
+provisions--a touch of the nature common to us all. They express deep
+grief by inflicting wounds upon their faces with a shark's tooth; and,
+when they feel themselves in danger of dying, they cut off a joint of
+the little finger to appease the anger of the Divinity. There was
+scarcely one of the adult islanders who was not mutilated in this way.
+
+Though the worshippers of the great Rono appeared gentle and peaceable
+enough, there were to be seen here and there a human jaw-bone,
+seemingly fresh, with the teeth entire, suspended over the entrances
+to the huts. These ghastly objects sent a shudder quivering through
+Jack's frame, and made Willis aware that it would not be advisable
+rashly to throw off his sacred character.
+
+As it was now late, and as they knew that Fritz would be uneasy about
+them, they put off laying in their stock of water till next day. Jack
+told the prime minister that the great Rono would be prepared to
+receive their majesties whenever they chose to visit him. This done,
+Willis and his companion seated themselves in the canoe, and rowed out
+to the pinnace.
+
+"God be thanked, you have returned in safety!" cried Fritz; "I never
+was so uneasy in the whole course of my life."
+
+"Well, brother, we have not been without our anxieties as well, and
+had we not happened to have had a divinity amongst us, we might not
+have come off scathless."
+
+Jack then related their adventures, which gradually brought a smile to
+the pale lips of Fritz.
+
+"But the water?" inquired Fritz, after he had heard the story.
+
+"Oh, water; they offered us something to drink on shore that will
+prevent us being thirsty for a month to come, but we shall see to that
+to-morrow."
+
+Towards dark, some fireworks were discharged on board the pinnace, by
+way of demonstrating that Willis's pipe was not the only fiery terror
+the great Rono had at his command.
+
+Early next morning a flotilla of canoes were observed rounding one of
+the points that formed the bay. The one in advance was larger than the
+others, and was evidently the trunk of a large tree hollowed out.
+Jack's new friend, the Portuguese, hailed the pinnace, and announced
+the King and Queen of Hawai, who thereupon scrambled into the pinnace.
+His majesty King Toubowrai had probably felt it incumbent upon himself
+to do honor to the illustrious Rono, for he wore an old uniform coat,
+very likely the produce of a wreck, through the sleeves of which the
+angular knobs of his copper-colored elbows projected. He did not seem
+very much at his ease in this garment, which contrasted oddly with the
+tight-fitting tattooed skin that served him for pantaloons.
+
+His wife, Queen Tonico, princess-like was half stifled in a thick
+blanket or mat of cocoa-nut fibre. Her ears were heavily laden with
+teeth and ornaments of various kinds, made out of bone, mother of
+pearl, and tortoise-shell. Her nails were two or three inches long;
+and, to judge by the number of finger-joints that were wanting, she
+was either troubled with delicate nerves, or was slightly
+hypochondriac.
+
+The royal pair were accompanied by a band of music: fortunately, this
+remained in the regal barge. It consisted of a flute with four holes,
+a nondescript instrument, seemingly made of stones; a drum made out of
+the hollow trunk of a tree, covered at each end with skin, of what
+kind it is needless to inquire. The sounds emitted by this orchestra
+were of an ear-rending nature, and of a kind graphically termed by the
+Germans Katzenmusik.
+
+"Illustrious Rono," cried Jack, "for goodness sake, tell these
+gentlemen you are not a lover of sweet sounds."
+
+"Belay there!" roared Willis.
+
+This command, however, had no effect; the artists continued thumping
+and blowing away as before. Willis, thinking to make himself better
+heard, placed his hands on his mouth, and roared the same order
+through them. This action seemed to be received as a mark of
+approbation, for the noise became absolutely terrific.
+
+"No use," said Willis: "I can make nothing of them. You try what you
+can do."
+
+"Very good," said Jack, lighting what is technically termed an
+_artichoke_, but better known as a zig-zag cracker; "if they do not
+understand English, perhaps they may comprehend pyrotechnics."
+
+The artichoke was thrown into the royal barge. At first there was only
+a slight whiz, finally it gave an angry bound and leaped into the
+midst of the musicians. Startled, they tried to get out of its way;
+but they were no sooner at what they thought to be a safe distance,
+than the thing was amongst them again. Their majesties, who were just
+then engaged in kissing the Rono's feet, started up in alarm; but when
+they saw the danger did not menace themselves, they burst into a
+hearty laugh at the antics of their suite.
+
+This episode over, and the orchestra silenced, the Sovereign of Hawai
+proceeded to inspect the pinnace. He expressed his delight every now
+and then by uttering the syllables "_ta-ta_." Fritz handed one of
+those shaving glasses to the Queen that lengthen the objects they
+reflect. This astonished her Majesty vastly, and caused her to _ta-ta_
+at a great rate. She looked behind the mirror, turned it upside down,
+and at last, when she felt assured that it was the royal person it
+caricatured, she commenced measuring her cheeks to account for the
+extraordinary disproportion.
+
+They next all sat down to a repast that was spread on deck. Their
+Majesties observing Rono use a fork, did so likewise; but though they
+stuck a piece of meat on the end of it, and held it in one hand, they
+continued carrying the viands to their mouths with the other. At the
+conclusion of the feast, Willis took a pinch of snuff out of a
+canister. Their Majesties insisted upon doing so likewise. Willis
+handed them the canister, and they filled their noses with the
+treacherous powder. Then followed a duet of sneezing, accompanied with
+facial contortions. The royal personages thinking, probably, that they
+were poisoned, leaped into the sea like a couple of frogs, and swam to
+the royal barge.
+
+"Holloa, sire," cried Jack, "where are you off to?"
+
+This was answered by the barge paddling away rapidly towards land.
+Hitherto, the whole affair had been a farce; but now the natives, who
+had collected in great numbers along the shore, seeing their king and
+queen leap into the water with a terrified air, supposed that an
+attempt had been made to cut short their royal lives, and, under this
+impression, discharged a cloud of arrows at the pinnace, and matters
+began to assume a serious aspect.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jack, "shooting at the great Rono!"
+
+"That," said Fritz, "only proves they are men like ourselves. He who
+is covered with incense one day, is very often immolated the next."
+
+"And that simply because Rono treated Mr. and Mrs. What's-their-names
+to a pinch of snuff. Serve them right to discharge the contents of the
+four-pounder amongst them."
+
+"No, no," cried Willis; "the worthy people are, perhaps, fond of their
+king and queen."
+
+"Worthy people or not," said Fritz, drawing out an arrow that had sunk
+into the capstan, "it is very likely that if this dart had hit one of
+us, there would only have been two instead of three in the crew of the
+pinnace."
+
+"Well," said Willis, "Master Jack thought the voyage rather dull; now
+something has turned up to relieve the monotony of his log."
+
+"We are still without fresh water though, Willis; I wish you could say
+that had turned up as well."
+
+"It will be prudent to go in search of that somewhere else now," said
+Willis, unfurling the sails. "Fortunately the wind is fresh, and we
+can make considerable headway before night."
+
+As they steered gently out of the bay a second cloud of arrows was
+sent after them, but this time they fell short.
+
+"The belief in Rono is about to be seriously compromised," remarked
+Fritz; "I should advise the priestess to retire into private life."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because she is too fat to live in an ordinary house, she could only
+breathe in a temple. But, O human vicissitudes!" added Jack, rolling
+himself up in a sail after the manner of the Roman senators; "behold
+Rono the Great banished from his country, and compelled to go and
+pillow his head on a foreign sail, like Marius at Minturnus--like
+Coriolanus amongst the Volcians--like Hannibal at the house of
+Antiochus--like Alcibiades at the castle of Grunium in Phrygia, given
+to him out of charity by the benevolent Pharnabazus, and in which he
+was burnt alive by his countrymen--like Cimon, voted into exile by
+ballot and universal suffrage--like Aristides, whom the people got
+tired of hearing called the Just, and many others."
+
+"Who are all these personages?" inquired Willis.
+
+"They were worthies of another age," replied Fritz; "very excellent
+men in their way, and you are in no way dishonored by being numbered
+amongst them."
+
+"Yesterday," continued Jack, "an entire people were upon their knees
+before you; they offered up sacrifices, and poured out incense on
+their altars for you; fruit and pigs were scattered in heaps, like
+flowers, upon your path; the crowd were prostrated by the fumes of
+your pipe. To-day--alas, the change!--a cloud of arrows, and not a
+single glass of cold water!"
+
+"That gives you an opportunity of quenching your thirst with the
+nectar offered to you yesterday," said Fritz; "as for myself, I have
+no such resource."
+
+"Yes, that was a posset to quench one's thirst withal; I only wish I
+had a cupful to give you. I do not regret having had an opportunity of
+becoming acquainted with the people though. They have enabled me to
+rectify some erroneous notions I formerly entertained. If, for
+example, I were to ask you what air consists of? you would, no doubt,
+reply that is a compound body made of oxygen and hydrogen or azote, in
+the proportion of twenty-one of the one to seventy-nine of the other."
+
+"Yes, most undoubtedly."
+
+"Well, such is not the case; there are other elements in the air
+besides these."
+
+"If you mean that the air accidentally, or even permanently, holds in
+solution a certain quantity of water, or a portion of carbonic acid
+gas, and possibly some particles of dust arising from terrestrial
+bodies, then I grant your premises."
+
+"No; what I mean is, that the air of Hawai is composed of three
+distinct elements."
+
+"Possibly; but if so, the air in question is not known to chemists."
+
+"These three elements are oxygen, hydrogen, and insects."
+
+"Ah, insects! I might have fancied you were driving at some hypothesis
+of that sort."
+
+"I intend to communicate this discovery to the first learned society
+we fall in with."
+
+"In the Pacific Ocean?"
+
+"Yes: there or elsewhere."
+
+"I always understood," observed Willis, "that air was a sort of cloud,
+one and indivisible."
+
+"A cloud if you like, Willis; but do you know the weight of it you
+carry on your shoulders?"
+
+"Well, it cannot be very great, otherwise I should feel it."
+
+"What do you say to a ton or so, old fellow?"
+
+"If you wish me to believe that, you will have to explain how, where,
+when, why, and wherefore."
+
+"Very good. Willis; you have bathed sometimes?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"In the sea?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know what water weighs?"
+
+"No, but I know that it is heavy."
+
+"Well, a square yard of air weighs two pounds and a half, but a square
+yard of water weighs two thousand pounds. Now, can you calculate the
+weight of the water that is on your back and pressing on your sides
+when you swim?"
+
+"No, I cannot."
+
+"You are not sufficiently up in arithmetic to do that, Willis?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor am I either, Willis; but let me ask you how it is that the waves
+do not carry you along with them?"
+
+"Because one wave neutralises the effect of another."
+
+"Very good; but how is it that these ponderous waves, coming down upon
+you, do not crush you to atoms by their mere weight?"
+
+"Well, I suppose that liquids do not operate in the same way as
+solids: perhaps there is something in our bodies that counterbalances
+the effect of the water."
+
+"Very likely; and if such be the case as regards water, may it not be
+so also as regards air?"
+
+"But I do not feel air; whereas, if I go into water, I not only feel
+it, but taste it sometimes, and I cannot force my way through it
+without considerable exertion."
+
+"That is because you are organized to live in air and not in water.
+You ask the smallest sprat or sticklebake if it does not, in the same
+way feel the air obstruct its progress."
+
+"But would the stickleback answer me, Master Fritz?"
+
+"Why not, if it is polite and well bred?"
+
+"By the way, Willis," inquired Jack, "do you ever recollect having
+lived without breathing?"
+
+"Can't say I do."
+
+"Very well, then; had you felt the weight of the air at any given
+moment, it must have produced an impression you never felt before, but
+you have not, because circumstances have never varied. A sensation
+supposes a contrast, whilst, ever since you existed, you have always
+been subject to atmospheric pressure."
+
+"Ah, now I begin to get at the gist of your argument. You mean, for
+example, that I would never have appreciated the delicate flavor of
+Maryland or Havanna, had I not been accustomed to smoke the
+cabbage-leaf manufactured in Whitechapel."
+
+"Precisely so; and take for another example the farm of Antisana,
+which is situated about midway up the Cordilleras, mountains of South
+America. When travellers, arriving there from the summits which are
+covered with perpetual snow, meet others arriving from the plain where
+the heat is intense, those that descend are invariably bathed in
+perspiration, whilst those that have come up are shivering with cold
+and covered with furs. The reason of this is, that we cannot feel warm
+till we have been cold, and _vice versa_."
+
+"Our bodies," resumed Fritz, "however much the thermometer descends,
+never mark less than thirty-five degrees above zero. In winter the
+skin shrinks, and becomes a bad conductor of heat from without; but,
+at the same time, does not allow so much gas and vapor to escape from
+within. In summer, on the contrary, the skin dilates and allows
+perspiration to form, a process that consumes a considerable amount of
+latent heat. Starting from this principle, it has been calculated that
+a man, breathing twenty times in a minute, generates as much heat in
+twenty-four hours as would boil a bucket of water taken at zero."
+
+"If means could be found," remarked Jack, "to furnish him with a
+boiler, by fixing a piston here and a pipe there man might be
+converted into one of the machines we were talking about the other
+day."
+
+"Were I disposed to philosophize," added Fritz, "I might prove to you
+that for a long time men have been little else than mere machines."
+
+Before night they had run about thirty miles further to the
+north-east, without seeing any thing beyond a formidable bluff,
+guarded by a fringe of breakers, that would soon have swallowed up the
+_Mary_ had she ventured to reach the land. It was necessary however to
+obtain fresh water at any price before they resumed their voyage.
+
+It was to be feared that all the islanders of the Pacific were not in
+expectation of a great Rono, consequently Willis suggested that it
+would be as well to search for an uninhabited spot. The only question
+was, how long they might have to search before they succeeded; for
+they knew that there were plenty of small islands in these latitudes
+unencumbered by savages, and furnished with pools and springs of
+water.
+
+Night at length closed in upon them, and with it came a dense mist,
+that enveloped the _Mary_ as if in a triple veil of muslin.
+
+"Willis," inquired Jack, "what difference is there between a mist and
+a cloud?"
+
+"None that I know of," replied the Pilot, "except that a cloud which
+we are in is mist, and mist that we are not in is a cloud. And now, my
+lads," he added, "you may turn in, for I intend to take the first
+watch."
+
+Before turning in, however, all three joined in a short prayer. The
+young men had not yet forgotten the pious precepts of their father.
+Prayer is beautiful everywhere, but nowhere is it so beautiful as on
+the open sea, with infinity above and an abyss beneath. Then, when all
+is silent save the roar of the waves and the howling of the winds, it
+is sublime to hear the humble voice of the sailor murmuring, "Star of
+the night, pray for us!"
+
+That night the star of the night did pray for the three voyagers, for
+the rays of the moon burst through the darkness and the mist, and fell
+upon a long line of reefs under the lee of the pinnace. Had they held
+on their course a few minutes longer, our story would have been ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LYING TO--HEART AND INSTINCT--SPARROWS VIEWED AS
+CONSUMERS--MIGRATIONS--POSTING A LETTER IN THE
+PACIFIC--CANNIBALS--ADVENTURES OF A LOCKET.
+
+
+The glimpse of moonshine only lasted a second, but it was sufficient
+to light up the valley of the shadow of death. All around was again
+enveloped in obscurity. The moon, like a modest benefactor who hides
+himself from those to whose wants he has ministered, concealed itself
+behind its screen of blackness.
+
+The pinnace was thrown into stays, and they resolved to lie-to till
+daybreak. There might be rocks to windward as well as to leeward; at
+all events, they felt that their safest course lay in maintaining, as
+far as possible, their actual position; and, after having returned
+thanks for their almost miraculous escape, they made the usual
+arrangements for passing the night.
+
+Next morning they found themselves in the midst of a labyrinth of
+rocks, from which, with the help of Providence, they succeeded in
+extricating themselves. The rocks, or rather reefs, amongst which they
+were entangled, are very common in these seas. As they are scarcely
+visible at high water, they are extremely dangerous, and often baffle
+the skill of the most expert navigator.
+
+Whilst Willis steered the pinnace amongst the islands and rocks of the
+Hawaian Archipelago, Fritz kept a look-out for savages, fresh water,
+and eligible landing-places. And Jack, after having posted up his log,
+set about inditing a letter for home.
+
+"The voyage," said he, "has lately been so prolific in adventure, that
+I scarcely know where to begin."
+
+"Begin by saluting them all round," suggested Fritz.
+
+"But, brother of mine, that is usually done at the end of the
+letter," objected Jack.
+
+"What then? you can repeat the salutations at the end, and you might
+also, for that matter, put them in the middle as well."
+
+"I have written lots of letters on board ship for my comrades,"
+remarked Willis, "and I invariably commenced by saying--_I take a pen
+in my hand to let you know I am well, hoping you are the same_."
+
+"What else could you take in your hand for such a purpose, O Rono?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Sometimes, after this preamble, I added, '_but I am afraid_.'"
+
+"I thought you old salts were never afraid of anything, short of the
+Flying Dutchman."
+
+"Yes; but the letters I put that in were for young lubbers, who,
+instead of sending home half their pay, were writing for extra
+supplies, and were naturally in great fear that their requests would
+be refused."
+
+"I scarcely think I shall adopt that style, Willis, even though it
+were recognized by the navy regulations."
+
+"Do you think the pigeon will find its way with the letter from here
+to New Switzerland?" inquired Willis.
+
+"I have no doubt about that," replied Fritz, "it naturally returns to
+its nest and its affections. If you had wings, would you not fly
+straight off in the direction of the Bass Rock or Ailsa Craig, to hunt
+up your old arm-chair?"
+
+"Don't speak of it; I feel my heart go pit-pat when I think of home,
+sweet home."
+
+"So do the birds. When they soften the grain before they throw it into
+the maw of their fledgelings--when they fly off and return laden with
+midges to their nests--when they tear the down from their breasts to
+protect their eggs and their young, do you think their hearts do not
+beat as well as yours?"
+
+"But all that is said to be instinct."
+
+"Heart or instinct, where is the difference? The Abbe Spallanzani saw
+two swallows that were carried to Milan return to Pavia in fifteen
+minutes, and the distance between the two cities is seven leagues."
+
+"That I can easily believe."
+
+"When you see a little, insignificant bird flying backwards and
+forwards, perching on one branch and hopping off to another,
+whistling, carolling, perching here and there, you think that it has
+no cares, that it does not reflect, and that it does not love!"
+
+"Well, I have heard in my time a great many wonderful stories of
+robin-redbreasts and jenny-wrens, but I always understood that they
+were intended only to amuse little boys and girls."
+
+"You consider, doubtless, that a field-sparrow is not a creature of
+much importance; but do you know that he consumes half a bushel of
+corn annually?"
+
+"If that is his only merit, the farmers, I dare say, would be glad to
+get rid of him."
+
+"But it is not his only merit. What do you think of his killing three
+thousand insects a week."
+
+"That is more to the purpose. But, to return to the pigeon, supposing
+it is possible for it to find its way, how long do you suppose it will
+take to get there?"
+
+"It is estimated that birds of passage fly over two hundred miles a
+day, if they keep on the wing for six hours."
+
+"Two hundred miles in six hours is fast sailing, anyhow."
+
+"Swallows have been seen in Senegal on the 9th of October, that is,
+eight or nine days after they leave Europe; and that journey they
+repeat every year."
+
+"They must surely make some preparations for such a lengthy
+excursion."
+
+"When the period of departure approaches, they collect together in
+troops on the chimneys or roofs of houses, and on the tops of trees.
+During this operation, they keep up an incessant cry, which brings
+families of them from all quarters. The young ones try the strength of
+their wings under the eyes of the parents. Finally, they make some
+strategic dispositions, and elect a chief."
+
+"You talk of the swallows as if they were an army preparing for
+battle, with flags flying, trumpets sounding, and ready to march at
+the word of command."
+
+"The resemblance between flocks of birds and serried masses of men in
+martial array is striking. Wild ducks, swans, and cranes fly in a kind
+of regimental order; their battalions assume the form of a triangle or
+wedge, so as to cut through the air with greater facility, and
+diminish the resistance it presents to their flight.
+
+"But how do you know it is for that?"
+
+"What else could it be for? The leader gives notice, by a peculiar
+cry, of the route it is about to take. This cry is repeated by the
+flock, as if to say that they will follow, and keep the direction
+indicated. When they meet with a bird of prey whose attacks they may
+have to repulse, the ranks fall in so as to present a solid phalanx to
+the enemy."
+
+"If they had a commissariat in the rear and a few sappers in front,
+the resemblance would be complete."
+
+"If a storm arises," continued Fritz, without noticing Willis's
+commentary, "they lower their flight and approach the ground."
+
+"Forgotten their umbrellas, perhaps."
+
+"When they make a halt, outposts are established to keep a look out
+while the troop sleeps."
+
+"And, in cases of alarm, the outposts fire and fall in as a matter of
+course."
+
+"Great Rono," said Jack, "you are become a downright quiz. I have
+finished my letter whilst you have been discussing the poultry," he
+added, handing the pen to his brother, "and it only waits your
+postscriptum." Fritz having added a few lines, the epistle was sealed,
+and was then attached to one of the pigeons, which, after hovering a
+short time round the pinnace, took a flight upwards and disappeared in
+the clouds.
+
+They were now in sight of a large island, which bore no traces of
+habitation. There was a heavy surf beating on the shore, but the case
+was urgent, so Willis and Jack embarked in the canoe, and, after a
+hard fight with the waves, landed on the beach.
+
+Each of them were armed with a double-barrelled rifle, and furnished
+with a boatswain's whistle. The whistle was to signal the discovery of
+water, and a rifle shot was to bring them together in case of danger.
+These arrangements being made, Jack proceeded in the direction of a
+thicket, which stood at the distance of some hundred yards from the
+shore. He had no sooner reached the cover in the vicinity of the trees
+than he was pounced upon by two ferocious-looking savages. They gave
+him no time to level his rifle or to draw a knife. One of his captors
+held his hands firmly behind his back, whilst the other dragged him
+towards the wood. At this moment the Pilot's whistle rang sharply
+through the air. This put an end to any hopes that Jack might have
+entertained of being rescued through that means. Had he sounded the
+whistle, it would only have led Willis to suppose that he had heard
+the signal, and was on his way to join him.
+
+Poor Jack judged, from the aspect of the men who held him, that they
+were cannibals, and consequently that his fate was sealed, for if his
+surmises were correct, there was little chance of the wretches
+relinquishing their prey. Jack had often amused himself at the expense
+of the anthropophagi, but here he was actually within their grasp.
+Though death terminates the sorrows and the sufferings of man, and
+though the result is the same in whatever shape it comes, yet there
+are circumstances which cause its approach to be regarded with terror
+and dismay. In one's bed, exhausted by old age or disease, the lips
+only open to give utterance to a sigh of pain; life, then, is a burden
+that is laid down without reluctance; we glide imperceptibly and
+almost voluntarily into eternity.
+
+At twenty years of age, however, when we are full of health and ardor,
+the case is very different. Then we are at the threshold of hope and
+happiness; our illusions have not had time to fade, the future is a
+brilliant meteor sparkling in sunshine. At that age our seas are
+always calm, and the rocks and shoals are all concealed. Our barks
+glide jauntily along, the sailors sing merrily, the perils are
+shrouded in romance, and the flag flutters gaily in the breeze. Then
+life is not abandoned without a tear of regret.
+
+To die in the midst of one's friends is not to quit them entirely.
+They come to see us through the marble or stone in which we are
+shrouded. It is another thing to have no other sepulchre than the
+aesophagus of a cannibal. How the recollections of the past darted into
+Jack's mind! He felt that he loved those whom he was on the point of
+leaving a thousand times more than he did before. What would he not
+have given for the power to bid them one last adieu? The idea of
+quitting life thus was horrible.
+
+It was in vain that he tried to shake off his assailants; his
+adolescent strength was as nothing in the arms of steel that bound
+him. He saw that he was powerless in their hands, and at length ceased
+making any further attempts to escape.
+
+The savages, finding that he had relaxed his struggles, commenced to
+rifle and strip him. They tore off his upper garments, and discovered
+a small locket, containing a medallion of his mother, which the
+unfortunate youth wore round his neck. This prize, which the savages
+no doubt regarded as a talisman of some sort, they both desired to
+possess. They quarrelled about it, and commenced fighting over it.
+Jack's hands were left at liberty. In an instant he had seized his
+rifle. He ran a few paces back, turned, took deliberate aim at the
+most powerful of his adversaries, who, with a shriek, fell to the
+ground. The other savage, scared by the report of the shot and its
+effects upon his companion, took to flight, but he carried off the
+locket with him.
+
+Jack had now regained his courage. He felt, like Telemachus in the
+midst of his battles, that God was with him, and he flew, perhaps
+imprudently, after the fugitive. Seeing, however, that he had no
+chance with him as regards speed, he discharged his second rifle. The
+shot did not take effect, but the report brought the savage to his
+knees. The frightened wretch pressed his hands together in an attitude
+of supplication. Jack stopped at a little distance, and, by an
+imperious gesture, gave him to understand that he wanted the locket.
+The sign was comprehended, for the savage laid the talisman on the
+ground.
+
+"Now," said Jack, "in the name of my mother I give you your life."
+
+By another sign, he signified to the man that he was at liberty, which
+he no sooner understood than he vanished like an arrow.
+
+Great was the consternation of Fritz when he heard the reports; he
+feared that the whole island was in commotion, and that both his
+brother and the Pilot were surrounded by a legion of copper-colored
+devils. From the conformation of the coast he could see nothing, and,
+like Sisiphus on his rock, he was tied by imperious necessity to his
+post.
+
+The Pilot, on hearing the first shot, ran to the spot, and both he and
+Jack arrived at the same instant, where the savage lay bleeding on the
+ground.
+
+"You are safe and sound, I hope?" said Willis, anxiously.
+
+"With the exception of some slight contusions, and the loss of my
+clothes, thank God, I am all right, Willis."
+
+"We are born to bad luck, it seems."
+
+"Say rather we are the spoilt children of Providence. I have just
+passed through the eye of a needle."
+
+"Is this the only savage you have seen?"
+
+"No, there were two of them; and, to judge from their actions, I
+verily believe the rascals intended to eat me. As for this one, he is
+more frightened than hurt."
+
+And so it was, he had escaped with some slugs in his shoulders; but he
+seemed, by the contortions of his face, to think that he was dying.
+
+"Fortunately," said Jack, "my rifle was not loaded with ball. I should
+be sorry to have the death of a human being on my conscience."
+
+"Well," said Willis, "I am not naturally cruel, but, beset as you have
+been, I should have shot both the fellows without the slightest
+compunction."
+
+"Still," said Jack, giving the wounded savage a mouthful of brandy,
+"we ought to have mercy on the vanquished--they are men like
+ourselves, at all events."
+
+"Yes, they have flesh and bone, arms, legs, hands, and teeth like us;
+but I doubt whether they are possessed of souls and hearts."
+
+"The chances are that they possess both, Willis; only neither the one
+nor the other has been trained to regard the things of this world in a
+proper light. Their notions as to diet, for example, arise from
+ignorance as to what substances are fit and proper for human food."
+
+"As you like," said Willis; "but let us be off; there may be more of
+them lurking about."
+
+"What! again without water?"
+
+"No, this time I have taken care to fill the casks; the canoe is laden
+with fresh water."
+
+"Fritz must be very uneasy about us; but this man may die if we leave
+him so."
+
+"Very likely," said the Pilot; "but that is no business of ours."
+
+"Good bye," said Jack, lifting up the wounded savage, and propping him
+against a tree; "I may never have the pleasure of seeing you again,
+and am sorry to leave you in such a plight; but it will be a lesson
+for you, and a hint to be a little more hospitable for the future in
+your reception of strangers."
+
+The savage raised his eyes for an instant, as if to thank Jack for his
+good offices, and then relapsed into his former attitude of dejection.
+
+Twenty minutes later the canoe was aboard the pinnace.
+
+"Fritz," said Jack, throwing his arms round his brother's neck, "I am
+delighted to see you again; half an hour ago I had not the shadow of a
+chance of ever beholding you more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE UTILITY OF ADVERSITY--AN ENCOUNTER--THE HOROKEN--BILL ALIAS BOB.
+
+
+A light but favorable breeze carried them away from land, and they
+were once again on the open sea. Willis, after a prolonged
+investigation of the sun's position, taken in relation to some
+observations he had made the day before, concluded that the best
+course to pursue, under existing circumstances, was to steer for the
+Marian Islands.[H] In addition to the distance they had originally to
+traverse, all the way lost during the storm was now before them. As
+regards provisions, they had little to fear; they could rely upon
+falling in with a boobie or sea-cow occasionally, and fresh fish were
+to be had at any time. Their supply of water, however, gave them some
+uneasiness, for the quantity was limited, and they might be retarded
+by calms and contrary winds. The chances of meeting a European ship
+were too slender to enter for anything into their calculations.
+
+"It appears to me," said Jack, one beautiful evening, when they were
+some hundreds of miles from any habitable spot, "that, having escaped
+so many dangers, the watchful eye of Providence must be guarding us
+from evil."
+
+"Very possibly," replied Fritz; "one of the early chroniclers of the
+Christian Church says that Lazarus, whom our Saviour resuscitated at
+the gates of Jerusalem, became afterwards one of the most popular
+preachers of Christianity, and in consequence the Jews regarded him
+with implacable hatred."
+
+"But what, in all the world, has that to do with the Pacific Ocean?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Very little with the Pacific in particular, but a great deal with
+the ocean in general. Lazarus, his sisters, and some of his friends,
+were thrown into prison, tried, and condemned."
+
+"And stoned or crucified," added Jack.
+
+"No; the high priest of the temple had a great variety of punishments
+on hand besides these. He resolved to expose them to the mercy of the
+waves, without provisions, and without a mast, sail, or rudder."
+
+"Thank goodness, we are not so badly off as that."
+
+"_He_, for whom Lazarus suffered, and who is the same that nourishes
+the birds of the air and feeds the beasts of the field; watched over
+the forlorn craft; under his guidance, the little colony of martyrs
+were wafted in safety to the fertile coasts of Provence. They landed,
+according to the tradition, at Marseilles, of whom Lazarus was the
+first bishop, and has always been the patron saint. Who knows?--the
+same good fortune may perhaps await us."
+
+"We are not martyrs."
+
+"True; but Providence does not always measure its favors by the merits
+of those upon whom they are bestowed--misfortune, alone, is often a
+sufficient claim; so it is well for us to be patient under a little
+suffering, for sweet often is the reward."
+
+"A little hardship, now and then," added Jack, "is, no doubt,
+salutary. The Italians say: '_Le avversita sono per l'animo cio ch' e
+un temporale per l'aria_.' Suffering teaches us to prize health and
+happiness; were there no such things as pain and grief, we should be
+apt to regard these blessings as valueless, and to estimate them as
+our legitimate rights. For my own part, I was never so happy in my
+whole life as when I embraced you the other day, after escaping out of
+the clutches of the savages."
+
+"There are many charms in life that are almost without alloy: the
+perfume of flowers--music--the singing of birds--the riches of
+art--the intercourse of society--the delights of the family
+circle--the treasures of imagination and memory. Some of the most
+beneficent gifts of Nature we only know the existence of when we are
+deprived of them; occasional darkness alone enables us to appreciate
+the unspeakable blessing of light. Man has a multitude of enjoyments
+at his command; but so many sweets would be utterly insipid without a
+few bitters."
+
+"The rheumatism, for example," said Willis, rubbing his shoulders.
+
+"Many enjoyments," continued Fritz, "spring from the heart alone; the
+affections, benevolence, love of order, a sense of the beautiful, of
+truth, of honesty, and of justice."
+
+"On the other hand," said Willis, "there are dishonesty, injustice,
+disappointment, and blighted hopes; but you are too young to know much
+about these. When you have seen as much of the world on sea and on
+land as I have, perhaps you will be disposed to look at life from
+another point of view. In old stagers like myself, the tender emotions
+are all used up; it is only when we are amongst you youngsters that we
+forget the present in the past; when we see you struggling with
+difficulties, it recalls our own trials to our mind, rouses in us
+sentiments of commiseration, and softens the asperities of our years."
+
+"According to you, then," said Fritz, levelling his rifle at a petrel,
+"the misfortunes of the one constitute the happiness of the other?"
+
+"Unquestionably," said Jack; "for instance, if you miss that bird, so
+much the worse for you, and so much the better for the petrel."
+
+"It is very rarely, brother, that you do not interrupt a serious
+conversation with some nonsense."
+
+"Keep your temper, Fritz; I am about to propose a serious question
+myself. How is it that the petrel you are aiming at does not come and
+perch itself quietly on the barrel of your rifle?"
+
+"Jack, Jack, you are incorrigible."
+
+"Did you ever see a hare or a pheasant come and stare you in the face
+when you were going to shoot it?"
+
+"Stunsails and tops!" cried Willis, "if I do not see something
+stranger than that staring us in the face."
+
+"The sea-serpent, perhaps," said Jack.
+
+"I thought it was a sea-bird at first," said Willis, "but they do not
+increase in size the longer you look at them."
+
+"They naturally appear to increase as they approach," observed Fritz.
+
+"Yes, but the increase must have a limit, and I never saw a bird with
+such singular upper-works before. Just take a cast of the glass
+yourself, Master Fritz."
+
+"Halls of AEolus!" cried Fritz, "these wings are sails."
+
+"So I thought!" exclaimed Willis, throwing his sou'-wester into the
+air, and uttering a loud hurrah.
+
+"If it is the _Nelson_" said Jack, "it would be a singular encounter."
+
+"_The Nelson_!" sighed Willis, "in the latitude of Hawai; no, that is
+impossible."
+
+"She is bearing down upon us," said Fritz.
+
+"Just let me see a moment whether I can make out her figure-head,"
+said Willis. "Aye, aye!"
+
+"Can you make it out?"
+
+"No; but, from the sheer of the hull, I think the ship is British
+built."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed both the young men.
+
+"Yes, you may say 'Thank God;' but, if it turns out to be a
+man-of-war, I must report myself on board, and I doubt whether my
+story will go down with the captain."
+
+"But if it is the _Nelson_?" insisted Jack.
+
+"Aye, aye; the _Nelson_," replied Willis, "is not going to turn up
+here to oblige us, you may take my word for that."
+
+"I have better eyes than you, Willis; just let me see if I can make
+her out. No, impossible; nothing but the hull and sails."
+
+"It is just possible," persisted Jack, "that the _Nelson_ may have
+been detained at the Cape, and afterwards blown out of her course like
+ourselves."
+
+"All I can say is," replied Willis, "that if Captain Littlestone be on
+board that ship, it will make me the happiest man that ever mixed a
+ration of grog. But these things only turn up in novels, so it is no
+use talking."
+
+"She has hoisted a flag at the mizzen," cried Fritz.
+
+"Can you make it out?"
+
+"Well, let me see--yes, it must be so."
+
+"What, the Union Jack?" cried Willis.
+
+"No, a red ground striped with blue."
+
+"The United States, as I am a sinner!" cried Willis. "Well, it might
+have been worse. We can go to America; there are surgeons there as
+well as in Europe--at all events, we can get a ship there for England.
+But let me see, we must hoist a bit of bunting; unfortunately, we have
+only British colors aboard, and I am afraid they are not in
+particularly high favor with our Yankee cousins just now."
+
+"Never mind a flag," said Fritz.
+
+"Oh, that will never do, they have hoisted a flag and are waiting a
+reply. But let me see," added Willis, rummaging amongst some stores,
+"here is one of our Shark's Island signals--that, I think, will puzzle
+the Yankee considerably."
+
+The Pilot's signal was answered by a gun, the report of which rang
+through the air. The strange ship's sails were thrown back and she
+stood still. A boat then put off with a young man in uniform and six
+rowers on board.
+
+"Pinnace ahoy!" cried the officer through a speaking trumpet, "who are
+you?"
+
+"Shipwrecked mariners," cried Fritz, in reply.
+
+"What is the name of your craft?"
+
+"The _Mary_."
+
+"What country?"
+
+"Switzerland."
+
+"I was not aware that Switzerland was a naval power," observed Willis.
+
+"She has no sea-port," said Jack, "but she has a fleet--of row boats."
+
+"Where do you hail from?" inquired the officer.
+
+"New Switzerland."
+
+"That gentleman is very curious," observed Jack.
+
+Here a silence of some minutes ensued; the officer seemed at fault in
+his geography.
+
+"Where away?" at last resounded from the trumpet.
+
+"Bound for Europe," replied Fritz.
+
+This reply elicited an expression of doubt, accompanied with such a
+tremendous exjurgation as made both Fritz and Jack almost shrink into
+the hold.
+
+A few minutes after the Yankee in command stepped on board, and
+explanations were entered into that perfectly satisfied the republican
+officer. He continued, however, to eye Willis curiously.
+
+The _Hoboken_, for that was the name of the strange ship, was an
+American cruiser, carrying twelve ship guns and a long paixhan. She
+was attached to the Chinese station, but had recently obtained
+information that war had been declared between England and the States.
+She was now making her way to the west by a circuitous route to avoid
+the British squadron, and, at the same time, with a view to pick up an
+English merchantman or two.
+
+Fritz and Jack being citizens of a sister republic, and subjects of a
+neutral power, were received on board with a hearty welcome, and with
+the hospitality due to their interesting position. Willis also
+received some attention, and was treated with all the courtesy that
+could be shown to the native of an enemy's country.
+
+The pinnace was taken in tow till the young men made up their minds as
+to the course they would adopt. A free passage to the States was
+kindly offered to them, and even pressed upon their acceptance; but
+the captain left the matter entirely to their own option.
+
+Fritz and Jack were delighted with the warmth of their reception; and,
+after being so long cooped up in the narrow quarters of the pinnace,
+looked upon the Yankee cruiser, with its men and officers in uniform,
+as a sort of floating palace. The _Nelson_ having been only a
+despatch-boat, it had given them but an indifferent idea of a
+man-of-war. On board the Yankee every thing was kept in apple-pie
+order. Discipline was maintained with martinet strictness. The
+fittings shone like a mirror. The brass cappings glistened in the sun.
+Complicated rolls of cable were profusely scattered about, but without
+confusion. The deck always seemed as fresh as if it had been planked
+the day before. The sails overhead seemed to obey the word of command
+of their own accord. The boatswain's whistle seemed to act upon the
+men like electricity. The seamen's cabins, six feet long by six feet
+broad, in which a hammock, locker, and lashing apparatus were
+conveniently stowed, were something very different from the
+accommodation on board the pinnace. These things were regarded by
+Fritz and Jack with great interest; and nowhere is the genius of man
+so brilliantly displayed as on board a well-appointed ship of war.
+
+The young men, however, when they sat down to dinner in the captain's
+cabin, and beheld a long table flanked with cushioned seats, commanded
+at each end by arm-chairs, the side-board plentifully garnished with
+plate and crystal of various kinds, fastened with copper nails to
+prevent damage from the ship's pitching, they did not reflect that
+they were in the crater of a volcano, and that two paces from where
+they sat there was powder enough to blow the ship and all its crew up
+into the air.
+
+They were likewise highly amused by the perpetual "guessing,"
+"calculating," "reckoning," and inexhaustible curiosity of the crew;
+but their admiration of the ship, her guns, her stores, and her
+tackle, were boundless; they felt that their pinnace was a mere toy in
+comparison. The urbanity of the officers also was a source of much
+gratification to them; Jack even declared that all the civilization of
+Europe had been shipped on board the _Hoboken_, and in so far as that
+was concerned, they had no occasion to go on much further.
+
+The object of this expedition, however, was a surgeon. There was one
+on board. Would he go to New Switzerland? Jack determined to try, and
+accordingly he walked straight off to the personage in question.
+
+"Doctor," said he, "would you do myself and my brother a great favor?"
+
+"Certainly; and, if it is in my power, you may consider it done."
+
+"Well, will you embark with us for New Switzerland?"
+
+"For what purpose, my friend?"
+
+"My mother is laboring under a malady, which there is every reason to
+fear is cancer."
+
+"And suppose a fever was to break out in this ship whilst I am
+absent, what do you imagine is to become of the officers and crew?"
+
+"There are no symptoms of disease on board; but my mother is dying."
+
+"You forget, young man, that disease may make its appearance at any
+moment. There are many sons on board whose lives are as dear to their
+mothers as your mother's is to you, and for every one of these lives I
+am officially accountable."
+
+Jack hung down his head and was silent.
+
+"No, my good friend, it is impossible for me to grant such a request;
+but, from what I know of your history, and the means at your command,
+you may be able to obtain the services of a competent medical man. I
+would, therefore, recommend you to abandon your boat, and proceed with
+us to our destination."
+
+After a lengthy consultation, the two brothers and Willis determined
+to adopt this course. The cargo of the pinnace was accordingly
+transferred to the hold of the _Hoboken_. A short summary of their
+history was written, corked up in a bottle, and fastened to the mast
+of the _Mary_, which was then cut adrift. A tear gathered on the
+cheeks of the young men as they saw their old friend in adversity
+dropping slowly behind, and they did not withdraw their eyes from it
+till every vestige of its hull was lost in the shadows of the waters.
+
+As Fritz and Jack were thus engaged in gazing listlessly on the ocean,
+and reflecting upon their altered prospects, and perhaps trying to
+penetrate the veil of the future, Willis came towards them rubbing his
+breast, as if he had been seized with a violent internal spasm.
+
+"Hilloa," cried Jack, "the Pilot is sea-sick! Shall I run for some
+brandy, Willis?"
+
+"No, stop a bit; we were in hopes of falling in with Captain
+Littlestone, were we not?"
+
+"Yes; but what then?"
+
+"We were disappointed, were we not?"
+
+"Yes. That has not made you ill, has it?"
+
+"No; somebody else has turned up; there is one of the _Nelson's_ crew
+on board this ship."
+
+"One of the _Nelson's_ crew?"
+
+"Aye, and if you only knew how my heart beat when I saw him."
+
+"I can easily conceive your feelings," said Jack, "for my own heart
+has almost leaped into my mouth."
+
+"And I am thunderstruck," added Fritz.
+
+"I went towards my old friend," continued Willis, "with tears in my
+eyes, threw my arms round him, and gave him a hearty but affectionate
+hug."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Nothing, at first; but, as soon as I left his arms at liberty, he
+gave me such a punch in the ribs as almost doubled me in two; it was
+enough to knock the in'ards out of a rhinoceros--ugh!"
+
+"A blow in earnest?" exclaimed Fritz in astonishment.
+
+"Yes; there was no mistake about it; it was a real, good, earnest John
+Bull knock-down thump; it put me in mind of Portsmouth on a pay
+day--ugh!"
+
+"Extremely touching," said Jack, smiling.
+
+"Then, when I called him by his name Bill Stubbs, and asked what had
+become of the sloop, he said that he knew nothing at all about the
+sloop, and swore that he had never set his eyes on my figure-head
+before, the varmint--ugh!"
+
+"Odd," remarked Jack.
+
+"Are you sure of your man?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"But you say his name is Bill, whilst he declares his name is Bob."
+
+"Aye, he has evidently been up to some mischief, and changed his
+ticket."
+
+"Then what conclusion do you draw from the affair."
+
+"I am completely bewildered, and scarcely know what to think; perhaps
+the crew has mutinied, and turned Captain Littlestone adrift on a
+desert island. That is sometimes done. Perhaps--"
+
+"It is no use perhapsing those sort of melancholy things," said Fritz;
+"we may as well suppose, for the present, that Captain Littlestone is
+safe, and that your friend has been put on shore for some
+misdemeanour."
+
+"May be, may be, Master Fritz; and I hope and trust it is so. But to
+have an old comrade amongst us, who could give us all the information
+we want, and yet not to be able to get a single thing out of him--"
+
+"Except a punch in the ribs," suggested Jack.
+
+"Exactly; and a punch that will not let me forget the lubber in a
+hurry," added Willis, clenching his fist; "but I intend, in the
+meantime, to keep my weather eye open."
+
+A few weeks after this episode the _Hoboken_ was slowly wending her
+way along the bights of the Bahamas. Fritz, Jack, and Willis were
+walking and chatting on the quarter-deck. The sky was of a deep azure.
+The sea was covered with herbs and flowers as far as the eye could
+reach--sometimes in compact masses of several miles in extent, and at
+other times in long straight ribbons, as regular as if they had been
+spread by some West Indian Le Notre. The ship seemed merely displaying
+her graces in the sunshine, so gentle was she moving in the water. The
+air was laden with perfumes, and a soft dreamy languor stole over the
+friends, which they were trying in vain to shake off. In one direction
+rose the misty heights of St. Domingo, and in another the cloud-capped
+summits of Cuba. Sometimes the highest peaks of the latter pierced the
+veil that enveloped them, and seemed like islands floating in the sky,
+or heads of a race of giants.
+
+"The air here is almost as balmy and fragrant as that of New
+Switzerland," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Aye, aye," said the Pilot; "but it is not all gold that glitters: in
+these sweet smells a nasty fever is concealed, with which I have no
+wish to renew my acquaintance."
+
+"By the way, talking about acquaintances, Willis, have you obtained
+any further intelligence from your friend Bill, _alias_ Bob?" inquired
+Jack.
+
+"No, not a syllable; the viper is as cunning as a fox, and keeps his
+mouth as close as a mouse-trap."
+
+"He seems as obstinate as a mule, and as obdurate as a Chinaman into
+the bargain."
+
+"All that, and more than that; but," added Willis, "I have found out
+from the mate that he was pressed on board this ship at New Orleans."
+
+"Pressed on board?" said Fritz, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes; that is a mode of recruiting for the navy peculiar to England
+and the United States. Would you like to hear something about how the
+system is carried out?"
+
+"Yes, Willis, very much."
+
+"The transactions, however, that I shall have to relate are in no way
+creditable, either to myself or anybody else connected with them; and
+I am afraid, when you hear the particulars, you will be ready to turn
+round and say, your friend the Pilot is no good after all."
+
+"Have you, then, been desperately wicked, Willis?"
+
+"Well, that depends entirely upon the view you take of what I am to
+tell you. Listen."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[H] Sometimes called the _Ladrones_ or _Archipelago of Saint Lazarus_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+IN WHICH WILLIS SHOWS, THAT THE TERM PRESS-GANG MEANS SOMETHING ELSE
+BESIDES THE GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS.
+
+
+"When I was a youngster, about a year or two older than you are now,
+Master Fritz, I slipped on board the brig _Norfolk_ as boatswain's
+mate. The ship at the time was short of hands, so there was no
+immediate probability of her weighing anchor; but on the same day I
+scratched my name on the books a despatch arrived, in consequence of
+which we left the harbor, and proceeded out to sea under sealed
+orders. One day, when off the Irish coast, I was called aft by the
+first lieutenant.
+
+"'You know something of Cork, my man, I believe?' said he.
+
+"'Yes, your honor, I have been ashore there once or twice,' said I.
+
+"'Very good,' said he; 'get ready to go ashore there again as quick as
+you like.'
+
+"Leave to go on shore is always agreeable to a sailor. He prefers the
+sea, but likes to stretch himself on land now and then, just to enjoy
+a change of air, and look about him a bit; so it was with all possible
+expedition that I made the requisite preparations.
+
+"When I reappeared, I found a party of twenty men mustered on deck in
+pipe-clay order. A full ration of small arms was served out to them,
+and, under the command of the lieutenant, we embarked in the long-boat
+and rowed ashore. We landed at a point of the coast some miles distant
+from Cork, and it was dark before we reached the military barracks of
+that town, which, for the present, appeared to be our destination.
+
+"I had not the slightest idea of what we were to do on shore. From our
+being so heavily armed, I knew it was no mere escort or parade duty
+that was in question, and began to think there was work of some kind
+on hand. This gave me no kind of uneasiness. I only wondered whatever
+it could be, for there was clearly a mystery of some kind or other.
+Were we going to besiege Paddy, in his own peaceable city of Cork? Had
+some of the peep-o'-day boys been burning down farmer Magrath's ricks
+again? or was there a private still to be routed out and demolished? I
+could not tell.
+
+"Half an hour after our arrival, I was called into a private room by
+the lieutenant, who was seated at a table with a package of clothes
+beside him. The first lieutenant of the _Norfolk_, I must remark, was
+a bit of an original. He had won his way up to the rank he then held
+from before the mast. His build was rather squat, and his face was
+garnished with a pair of fiery red whiskers, so he was no beauty,
+added to which he was reckoned one of the most rigid martinets in the
+service; yet, for all that, his crew liked him, for they knew his
+heart was in the right place.
+
+"'See, my man,' said he, 'take this package, and rig yourself out in
+the toggery it contains.'
+
+"I obeyed this order, and soon after stood before him, in a pair of
+jack-boots, with a slouching sort of tarpauling hat on my head, so
+that I might either have passed for a manner out of luck or a dustman.
+
+"'Well,' said the lieutenant, laughing, 'now you have quite the air of
+the hulks about you.'
+
+"This remark not being very complimentary, I did not feel called upon
+to make any reply.
+
+"'You know,' he continued, 'that the brig is short about a dozen
+hands, and I want you to pick up a few likely lads here. I understand
+there are a number of able-bodied seamen skulking about the
+public-houses, where they will likely remain as long as their money
+lasts. I should like to secure as many of them as possible, and then
+capture a few stout landsmen to make up the number; but, in the first
+place, I want you to go and find out the best place to make a razzia.'
+
+"I stared when I found myself all at once promoted to the post of
+pioneer for a party of kidnappers, and muttered something or other
+about honor.
+
+"'Honor, sir!' roared the lieutenant, 'what has honor to do with it,
+sir? It is duty, sir. It is the laws of the service, sir, and you must
+obey them, sir.'
+
+"'But it is hard, your honor,' said I, 'that the laws of the service
+should force men to do what they think is wrong.'
+
+"'And what right, sir, have you to think it is wrong, or to judge the
+acts of your superiors? If the laws of the service order you fifty
+lashes at the yard-arm to-morrow, you will find that you will get
+them. Do you want to be handed over to the drummer, and to cultivate
+an acquaintance with the cat?'
+
+"'No, your honor,' said I, laughing.
+
+"The lieutenant's face by this time was as red as his whiskers, and,
+though he was in a towering rage, he quickly calmed down again, like
+boiling milk when it is taken off the fire.
+
+"'Then,' said he, quietly, 'am I to understand you refuse?'
+
+"'No, your honor,' said I. 'If it is my duty, I must obey; but you
+will pardon the liberty, when I say that it is hard to be forced to
+drag away a lot of poor fellows against their wills.'
+
+"'Look ye,' replied the lieutenant, 'I tolerate your freedom of speech
+for two reasons--the first, because we are here alone, and no harm is
+done; the second, because I entertain the same opinion myself; but,
+mind you, we are both bound by the regulations of the service, and it
+is mutiny for either of us to disobey.'
+
+"According to the moral law, the mission with which I was charged
+could scarcely be considered honorable; but, according to the laws of
+the land, or rather of the sea, it was perfectly unexceptionable.
+Amongst the seamen, a foray amongst the landlubbers was regarded more
+in the light of a spree than anything else. If, indeed, it were
+possible to pick up the lazy and idle amongst the population, this
+mode of enlistment might be useful; but often the industrious head of
+a family was seized, whilst the idle escaped. It was rare, however,
+that a ship's crew were employed in this sort of duty; men were more
+usually obtained through the crimps on shore, who often fearfully
+abused the authority with which they were invested for the purpose. As
+for myself, the lieutenant's arguments removed all my scruples, if I
+ever had any.
+
+"I then suggested a plan of operations, which was approved. The men
+were to be kept ready for action, and the lieutenant himself was to
+await my report at the 'Green Dragon,' one of the hotels in the town.
+
+"At that time there was in the outskirts of Cork a sort of tavern and
+lodging-house, called the 'Molly Bawn.' This establishment was
+frequented by the lowest class of seamen and 'tramps.' Thither I
+wended my way. It was late when I arrived in front of the place; and
+whilst hesitating whether I should venture into such a precious
+menagerie, I happened to look round, and, by the light of a dim lamp
+that burned at the corner of the street, I caught a glimpse of the
+lieutenant leaning against the wall, quietly smoking an Irish dudeen."
+
+"Like Rono the Great in the island of Hawai," suggested Jack.
+
+"Something. This, however, cut short my deliberations. I walked in.
+There was a crowd of men and women drinking and smoking about the bar.
+These, however, were not the people I sought. The regular tenants of
+the house were not amongst that lot, and it was essential for me to
+find out in what part of the premises they were stowed. I commenced
+proceedings by ordering a noggin of whisky, and making love to the
+damsel that brought it in. After having formally made her an offer of
+marriage, I asked after the landlord. She told me he was engaged with
+some customers, but offered to take a message to him.
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'just tell him that a friend of One-eyed Dick's would
+like to have a parley with him.'"
+
+"And who was One-eyed Dick?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"One of the crew of a piratical craft captured by one of our cruisers
+a few months before, and who at that time was safely lodged in
+Portsmouth jail.
+
+"The girl soon returned. She told me to walk with her, and led me
+through some narrow passages into what appeared to be another house.
+She knocked at a door that was strongly barred and fastened inside. A
+slight glance at these precautions made me aware that there was no
+chance of making a capture here without creating a great disturbance.
+So, after reflecting an instant, I decided upon adopting some other
+course.
+
+"When the door was opened I could see nothing distinctly; there was a
+turf-fire throwing a red glare out of the chimney, a dim oil-lamp hung
+from the roof, but everything was hidden in a dense cloud of tobacco
+smoke, through which the light was not sufficiently powerful to
+penetrate."
+
+"The atmosphere must have been stifling," observed Fritz.
+
+"Yes, it puts me in mind of your remark about the air, which, you
+said, consists of--let me see--"
+
+"Oxygen and hydrogen."
+
+"Just so; but the air a sailor breathes when he is at home consists
+almost entirely of tobacco smoke. At last, I could make out twenty or
+thirty rough-looking fellows seated on each side of a long deal table
+covered with bottles, glasses, and pipes. Dan Hooligan, the landlord,
+sat at the top--a fit president for such an assembly. He was partly a
+smuggler, partly a publican, and wholly a sinner. I should say that
+the liquor consumed at that table did not much good to the revenue.
+How Dan contrived to escape the laws, was a mystery perhaps best known
+to the police."
+
+"So you are a pal of One-eyed Dick's, are you?' said he.
+
+"'Rather,' said I, adopting the slang of the place.
+
+"'Well,' said he, 'Dick has been a good customer of mine, and all his
+pals are welcome at the 'Molly.' I have not seen him lately,
+however--how goes it with him now?'
+
+"'Right as a trivet,' said I, 'and making lots of rhino.'
+
+"'Glad to hear it; and what latitude does he hail in now?'
+
+"'That,' said I, 'is private and confidential.'
+
+"'Oh,' said he, 'there are no outsiders here, we are all sworn friends
+of Dick's, every mother's son of us.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'Dick is off the Cove in the schooner _Nancy_, of
+Brest,'"
+
+"Holloa, Willis," cried Jack, "there was a fib!"
+
+"Well, I told you to look out for something of that sort when I
+began."
+
+"'What!' cried the landlord, 'Dick in a schooner off the Irish coast?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I; 'and aboard that schooner there is as tight a cargo of
+brandy and tobacco as ever you set eyes upon.'
+
+"Here the landlord pricked up his ears, and the rest of the company
+began to listen attentively. The fellow that sat next me coolly told
+me that both he and Dick had been lagged for horse-stealing, and had
+subsequently broken out of prison and escaped. He further told me that
+most of the gentlemen present had been all, one way or another, mixed
+up with Dick's doings; from which I concluded they were a rare parcel
+of scamps, and resolved, within myself, to try and bag the whole
+squad. They were all stout fellows enough, most of them seamen. I
+thought they might be able to 'do the State some service,' and
+determined to convert them into honest men, if I could.'
+
+"'Dick cannot come ashore,' said I; 'some one of his old pals here has
+peached, and there is a warrant out against him.'
+
+"This information threw the assembly into a state of violent
+commotion. They rose up, and swore terrible vengeance against the head
+of the unfortunate culprit when they caught him. The oaths rather
+alarmed me at first, for they were of a most ferocious stamp.
+
+"'Yes,' continued I, 'Dick is aboard the schooner, but, as there are
+two or three warrants out against him, he does not care about coming
+ashore; so said he to me, 'We want a lugger and a few hands to run the
+cargo ashore; and if you look in at the 'Molly,' and see my old pal,
+Dan, perhaps you will find some lads there willing to give us a turn.
+The captain said, if the thing was done clean off, he would stand
+something handsome."
+
+"'Just the thing for us!' shouted half a dozen voices.
+
+"'But the lugger?' said I.
+
+"'Oh, Phil Doolan, at the Cove, has a craft that has landed as many
+cargoes as there are planks in her hull. Besides, he has stowage for a
+fleet of East Indiamen.'
+
+"'Well, gentlemen," said I, 'the chaplain, One-eyed Dick, and myself,
+will be at Phil Doolan's to-morrow at midnight; do you agree to meet
+us there?'
+
+"This question was answered by a universal 'Yes;' and by way of
+clenching the affair, I ordered a couple of gallons of the stiffest
+potheen in the house. This was received with three cheers, and before
+I left the 'Molly' every man-jack of them had disappeared under the
+table. Dan himself, however, kept tolerably sober, and promised, on
+account of his friendship for One-eyed Dick, to have the whole kit
+safe at Phil Doolan's by twelve o'clock next night, and with this
+assurance I made my exit from the premises, and steered for the
+'George and Dragon.'
+
+"The lieutenant agreed with me in thinking that it would cause too
+much uproar to attack the 'Molly Bawn.' He congratulated me on my
+success in laying a trap for the people, and promising to meet me at
+the Cove, he ordered a car, and drove off in the direction of the
+_Norfolk's_ boat. Early next morning I started to reconnoitre the
+ground and organize my plan of operations. I found Phil Doolan's
+mansion to be a mud-built tenement, larger, and standing apart from,
+the houses that then constituted the village. It was ostensibly a
+sailor's lodging-house and tavern for wayfarers, but, like the 'Molly
+Bawn,' was in reality a rendezvous of smugglers, occasionally
+patronized by fugitive poachers and patriots. It was known to its
+familiars as 'The Crib,' but was registered by the authorities as the
+'Father Mahony,' who was represented on the sign-post by a full-length
+portrait of James the Second. What gave me most satisfaction was to
+observe that the building was conveniently situated for a sack.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"When night set in I marched the _Norfolk's_ men in close order,
+and as secretly as possible, to the Cove. Approaching Phil Doolan's in
+one direction, I could just catch a glimpse of the red coats of a file
+of marines advancing in another, with the lieutenant at their head,
+and, exactly as twelve o'clock struck on the parish clock, the 'Father
+Mahony' was surrounded on all sides by armed men. Two or three
+lanterns were now lit, and dispositions made to close up every avenue
+of escape."
+
+"'There he is!' cried Willis, interrupting himself, and staring into
+the air.
+
+"Who?" inquired Jack--"Phil Doolan?"
+
+"No--Bill Stubbs, late of the _Nelson_."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"That squat, broad-shouldered man there, bracing the maintops."
+
+"Yes, now that you point him out, I think I have seen him before,"
+said Fritz.
+
+"Holloa, Bill," cried Jack.
+
+"You see," said Willis, "he turned his head."
+
+"How d'ye do, Bill?" added Jack.
+
+"Are you speak'ng to me, sir?" inquired the sailor.
+
+"Yes, Bill."
+
+"Then was your honor present when I was christened? I appear to have
+forgotten my name for the last six-and thirty years."
+
+"No use, you see," said Willis; "he is too old a bird to be caught by
+any of these dodges. But I have lost the thread of my discourse."
+
+"You had surrounded the cabin, and were lighting lamps."
+
+"Half a dozen men were stationed at the door, pistol in hand, ready to
+rush in as soon as it opened. The lieutenant and I went forward and
+knocked, but no one answered. We knocked again, louder than before,
+but still no answer.
+
+"'Open the door, in the King's name!' thundered the lieutenant.
+Silence, as before.
+
+"Calling to the marines, he ordered them to root up Phil Doolan's
+sign-post, and use it as a battering ram against the door. The first
+blow of this machine nearly brought the house down, and a cracked
+voice was heard calling on the saints inside.
+
+"'Blessed St. Patrick!' croaked the voice, 'whativer are ye kicking up
+such a shindy out there for? Whativer d'ye want wid an old woman, and
+niver a livin' sowl in the house 'cept meself and Kathleen in her
+coffin?'
+
+"'Kathleen is dead, then?' said the lieutenant with a grin.
+
+"'Save yer honor's presence, she's off to glory, an' as dead as a
+herrin,' replied the voice.
+
+"'Really!' said the lieutenant, 'and where is Phil Doolan?'
+
+"'Och, yer honor? he's gone to get some potheen for the wake.'
+
+"'Well,' said the lieutenant, 'I should like to take a share in waking
+the defunct--what's her name?'
+
+"'Kathleen, yer honor.'
+
+"'Well, just let us in to take a last look at the worthy creature.'
+
+"The door then creaked on its rusty hinges, and we entered. Not a
+soul, however, was to be seen anywhere, save and except the old woman
+herself. The coffin containing the remains of Kathleen, resting on two
+stools, stood in the middle of the floor, with a plate of salt as
+usual on the lid. I fairly thought I had been done, and looked upon
+myself as the laughing stock of the entire fleet."
+
+"So far," remarked Jack, "your story has been all right, but the last
+episode was rather negligently handled."
+
+"How?" inquired Willis.
+
+"Why, you did not make enough of the coffin scene; your description is
+too meagre. You should have said, that the wind blew without in fierce
+gusts, the weathercocks screeched on the roofs, and caused you to
+dread that the ghost of the defunct was coming down the chimney; large
+flakes of snow were rushing through the half-open door; a solitary
+rushlight dimly lit up the chamber, and cast frightful shadows upon
+the wall."
+
+"Well; but the night was fine, and there was not a breath of wind."
+
+"What about that? A little wind, more or less, a weathercock or so,
+some drops of rain, or a few flakes of snow, do not materially detract
+from the truth, whilst they heighten the color of the picture."
+
+"And if some lightning tearing through the clouds were added?"
+
+"Yes, that would most undoubtedly increase the effect; but go on with
+your story."
+
+"I knew Phil to be an artful dodger, and was determined not to be
+foiled by a mere trick, so I laid hold of a lantern and closely
+examined the walls and flooring. My investigation was successful, for
+just under the coffin I detected traces of a trap-door."
+
+"'Well, my good woman, what have you got down there?" inquired the
+lieutenant.
+
+"'Is it underground, ye mane, yer honor? divil a hail's there, if it
+isn't the rats.'
+
+"'Well, just remove the coffin a little aside; we shall see if we
+cannot pepper some of the rats for you.'
+
+"Here the old woman appealed to a vast number of saints, and protested
+against Kathleen's remains being disturbed. The lieutenant, however,
+grew tired of this farce, and ordered the coffin to be shifted. A
+sailor accordingly laid hold of each end.
+
+"'Blazes!' said one, 'here is a body that weighs.'
+
+"'Perhaps,' said the other, 'the coffin is lined with lead.'
+
+"The trap-door was drawn up, and the lieutenant, pistol in hand,
+descended alone.
+
+"'Now, my lads,' said he, addressing some invisible personages, 'we
+know you are here, and I call upon you to yield in the King's
+name--resistance is useless, the house is surrounded, and we are in
+force, so you had better give in without more ado.'
+
+"No answer was returned to this exordium; but we heard the murmuring
+of muffled voices, as if the rapscallions were deliberating. I now
+descended with my lamp, followed by some of the seamen, and beheld my
+friends of the night before either stretched on the ground or propped
+up against the walls, like a lot of mummies in an Egyptian tomb.
+
+"They were handcuffed one by one, pushed or hauled up the stairs, and
+then tied to one another in a line. When we had secured the whole lot
+of them in this way--
+
+"'Lieutenant,' said I, winking, 'will you permit me to send a ball
+into that coffin?'
+
+"'Please yourself about that, young man,' said he.
+
+"Here the old woman recommenced howling again and called upon all the
+saints in the calendar to punish us for my sacrilegious design.
+
+"'Shoot a dead body,' said I, 'where's the harm?' Besides, what is
+that salt there for?'
+
+"'To keep away evil spirits,' was the reply.
+
+"'Very well,' said I, 'my pistol will scare them away as well.' Then,
+cocking it with a loud clink, I presented it slowly at the coffin."
+
+"The lid all at once flew off--the salt-was thrown on the ground with
+a crash--the defunct suddenly returned from the other world in perfect
+health, and sat half upright in his bier. I did not recognize the
+individual at first, but, on closer inspection, found him to be my
+communicative companion of the preceding night--the horse-stealer of
+the 'Molly Bawn;' and, being a stout young fellow, he was harnessed to
+the others, and we commenced our march to the boats."
+
+"You do not appear to have had much trouble in effecting the capture,"
+remarked Fritz.
+
+"No; the men were unarmed, and were nearly all intoxicated. You never
+saw such a troop; scarcely one of them could walk straight; they
+assumed all sorts of figures; the file of prisoners was just like a
+bar of music, it was a string of quavers, crotchets, and zig-zags.
+Luckily, it was late at night, else we might have had the village
+about our ears, and, instead of flakes of snow and screeching
+weathercocks, we might have had a shower of dead cats and rotten eggs.
+Probably a rescue might have been attempted; at all events, we might
+have calculated on a volley of brickbats on our way to the boats.
+There would have been no end of commotion, uproar, confusion, and
+hubbub, possibly smashed noses, blackened eyes, broken beads--"
+
+"Holloa, Willis!"
+
+"You said just now that a little colouring was necessary."
+
+"Certainly; but the privilege ought not to be abused. Besides, broken
+heads and smashed faces are the realities, and not the accessories of
+the picture."
+
+"Oh, I see. If it is night, the moon should be introduced; and if it
+is day, the sun--and so on?"
+
+"Of course; and, if the circumstances are of a pleasing nature, you
+must leave horrors and terrors on your pallette; change gusts into
+zephyrs, snow into roses and violets, and the weathercocks into golden
+vanes glittering in the sunshine."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"You want to color a popular outbreak, do you not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you should introduce a tempest howling, the waves roaring, the
+lightning flashing, and discord raging in the air as well as on the
+earth."
+
+"Well, to continue my story. Although it was midnight, the disturbance
+began to wake up the villagers, and a crowd was collecting, so we
+hurried off our prisoners to the boats as speedily as we could. Some
+five and twenty able bodied men were thus added to his Majesty's
+fleet. The object of our visit to the Irish coast was accomplished,
+and the _Norfolk_ continued her voyage to the West Indies. Now you
+know what is meant by the word _pressed_, and likewise the nautical
+signification of the word _press-gang_."
+
+"And you say that Bill Stubbs has been trapped on board this ship by
+such means?"
+
+"Yes, at New Orleans."
+
+"According to your story, then, that does not say very much in his
+favor?"
+
+"No, not a great deal; still, that proves nothing--the fact of his
+calling himself Bob is a worse feature. A man does not generally
+change his name without having good, or rather bad, reasons for it."
+
+"What appears to me," remarked Fritz, "as the most singular feature of
+your press-gang adventure is, that you are alive to tell it."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because I think it ought to end thus: 'The victims of the press-gang
+strangled Willis a few days after,'"
+
+"Aye, aye, but you do not know what a sailor is; our recruits had not
+been a fortnight at sea before they entirely forgot the trick I had
+played them."
+
+Just as Willis concluded his narrative, the man at the mast-head
+called out, "Sail ho!"
+
+"Where away?" bawled the captain.
+
+"Right a-head," replied the voice.
+
+The _Hoboken_ had hitherto pursued her voyage uninterruptedly, and the
+Yankee captain now prepared to signalize himself by a capture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A SEA FIGHT--ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S--THE BOUDEUSE.
+
+
+The captain of the _Hoboken_ was rather pleased than otherwise when
+the look-out reported the strange sail to show English colors. He
+looked rather glum, however, half an hour afterwards, when the same
+voice bawled that she was a bull-dog looking craft, schooner-rigged,
+and pierced for sixteen guns. The Yankee had hoped to fall in with a
+fat West Indiaman, instead of which he had now to deal with a
+man-of-war, carrying, perhaps, a larger weight of metal than himself.
+
+The heads of the two ships were standing in towards each other, there
+was no wind to speak of, but every hour lessened the distance that
+separated the antagonists.
+
+"Pilot," said the captain, addressing Willis, "be kind enough to let
+me know what you think of that craft."
+
+"I think," said Willis, taking the telescope, "I have had my eyes on
+her before. Aye, aye, just as I thought. An old tub of a Spaniard
+converted into an English cruiser, and commanded by Commodore
+Truncheon, I shouldn't wonder. She has caught a Tartar this time,
+however. Nothing of a sailer. If a breeze springs up, you may easily
+give her the slip, if you like, captain."
+
+"Give her the slip! No, not if I can help it. My cruise hitherto has
+not been very successful, and I must send her into New York as a
+prize. Mr. Brill," added he, addressing the officer next in command,
+"prepare for action."
+
+In an instant all was commotion and bustle on deck. Half an hour
+after, the captain, now in full uniform, took a hasty glance at the
+position of his crew. A portion of the men were stationed at the guns,
+with lighted matches. Others were engaged in heating shot, and
+preparing other instruments of destruction. Jack and Fritz, armed with
+muskets, were ready to act as sharp-shooters as soon as the enemy came
+within range, and Willis was standing beside them, with his hands in
+his pockets, quietly smoking his pipe.
+
+"What, Pilot!" exclaimed the captain in passing, "don't you intend to
+take part in the skirmish?"
+
+"I am much your debtor, captain, but I cannot do that."
+
+"And these young men?"
+
+"They are not Englishmen, and your kindness to them entitles you to
+claim their assistance. I am sorry that honor and duty prevent me
+giving you mine."
+
+"No matter, captain," said Fritz, "my brother and myself will do duty
+for three."
+
+"Then, Pilot, you had better go below."
+
+"With your permission, captain, I would rather stay and look on."
+
+"But what is the use of exposing yourself here?"
+
+"It is an idea of mine, captain. But I shall remain perfectly neutral
+during the engagement."
+
+"As you like then, Pilot, as you like," said the captain, as he
+resumed his place on the quarter-deck.
+
+At this moment a cannon ball whistled through the air.
+
+"Good," said Willis; "the commodore gives the signal."
+
+"That shot," observed Jack, "passed at no great distance from your
+head, Willis. You had better take a musket in self-defence. Besides,
+that ship is English, and you are a Scotchman."
+
+"The ship is a Spaniard by birth," replied Willis, "and it is pretty
+well time it was converted into firewood, for the matter of that. But
+it is the flag, my boy--_that_ is neither Spanish nor English."
+
+"What is it, then?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"It is the union-jack, Master Fritz. It is the ensign of Scotland,
+England, and Ireland united under one bonnet; and as such, it is as
+sacred in my eyes as if it bore the cross of St. Andrew."
+
+Musket balls were now rattling pretty freely amongst the shrouds. The
+young men levelled their muskets and fired.
+
+Soon after, the two ships were abreast of each other, and almost at
+the same instant both discharged a deadly broadside. The conflict
+became general. The crashing of the woodwork and the roaring of the
+guns was deafening. A thick smoke enveloped the two vessels, so that
+nothing could be seen of the one from the other; still the firing and
+crashing went on. The sails were torn to shreds, the deck was
+encumbered with fragments of timber; men were now and then falling,
+either killed or wounded, and a fatigue party was constantly engaged
+in removing the bodies. There are people who consider such a spectacle
+magnificent; but that is only because they have never witnessed its
+horrors.
+
+Already many immortal souls had returned to their Maker; many sons had
+become orphans, and many wives had been deprived of their husbands;
+but as yet there was nothing to indicate on which side victory was to
+be declared. Soon, however, a cry of fire was raised, which caused
+great confusion; and another cry, announcing that the captain had
+fallen, increased the disorder.
+
+A ball crashed through the taffrail, near where Jack and Fritz were
+standing; it passed between them, but they were both severely wounded
+by the splinters, and were conveyed by Willis to the cockpit. The
+doctor, seeing his old friend Jack handed down the ladder, hastened
+towards him and tore out a piece of wood from the fleshy part of his
+arm. He next turned to Fritz, who had received a severe flesh-wound on
+the shoulder. When both wounds were bandaged, he left the care of the
+young men to Willis, who had escaped with a few scratches, which,
+however, were bleeding pretty freely--to these he did not pay the
+slightest attention.
+
+"How stands the contest?" inquired Fritz in a weak voice.
+
+"The _Hoboken_ is done for," replied Willis; "the commodore was
+preparing to board when we left the deck; but it does not make much
+difference; we shall go to England instead of America, that is all."
+
+"God's will be done," said Fritz.
+
+Just then Bill Stubbs was swung down in a hammock; both his legs had
+been shot off by a cannon ball. The surgeon could only now attend to a
+tithe of his patients, so numerous had the wounded become. A glance at
+the new comer satisfied him that he was beyond all human skill, and he
+directed his attention to the cases that promised some hopes of
+recovery. Willis, seeing that his old comrade was abandoned to die
+almost uncared for, staunched his wounds as well as he could, fetched
+him a panniken of water, and performed a number of other little acts
+of kindness and good will. This he did, less with a view of obtaining
+an explanation from him at a moment when no man lies, than to mitigate
+the pangs of his last convulsions. For an instant the old mariner's
+body appeared re-animated with life. His eyes were fixed upon Willis
+with an ineffable expression of recognition and regret. He
+convulsively grasped the Pilot's hand and pressed it to his breast,
+and his lips parted as if to speak. Willis bent his ear to the mouth
+of the dying man, but all that followed was an expiring sigh. His
+earthly career was ended.
+
+The hardy sailor who is supposed never to shed a tear, then wiped the
+corner of his eyes. Next he turned to the children of his adoption,
+whose pale faces indicated the amount of blood they had shed, and
+whose wounds, if he could have transferred them to himself, would have
+less pained his powerful muscles than they now grieved his excellent
+heart.
+
+A party of boarders from the enemy had taken possession of the ship.
+Willis reported himself to the officer in command, and at his request,
+Fritz and Jack, together with the cargo of the pinnace, were conveyed
+on board the victorious schooner. Shortly after the _Hoboken_ was
+despatched to Bermuda as a prize, with the prisoners, the wounded, and
+the dying.
+
+The old tub that had gained this victory was named the _Arzobispo_,
+having, as Willis supposed, been captured in the Spanish Main. It was
+under the command of Commodore Truncheon, better known in the fleet by
+the _soubriquet_ of Old Flyblow.
+
+The _Arzobispo_, though old and clumsy, was a stout-built craft; and
+so thick was its hide, that the broadsides of the Yankee had done the
+hull no damage to speak of. The superstructure, however, was
+completely shattered; the masts and rigging hung like sweeps over the
+sides; and, to the unpractised eye, the ship was a complete wreck. A
+few days, however, sufficed to put everything to rights again so far
+as regards external appearance; but how this impromptu carpentry would
+stand a storm was another question.
+
+The commodore was on his way to Europe when he fell in with the
+Yankee, and, notwithstanding the disabled condition of the ship, he
+resolved to continue his voyage. Some of the officers expostulated
+with him on the hazard of crossing the Atlantic in so shaky a trim. He
+only got red in the face, and said that he had crossed the
+herring-pond hundreds of times in crafts not half so seaworthy. He was
+like the
+
+  Froggy who would a wooing go,
+  Whether his mother would let him or no.
+
+The consequences of this defiance of advice were fatal to Old Flyblow;
+for, a week or two after his victory, he was pounced upon by the
+French corvette, _Boudeuse_, which was fresh, heavily armed, and well
+manned. The commodore's jury masts were knocked to pieces by the first
+broadside, his flag went by the board, and he was completely at the
+enemy's mercy. Willis lent a hand this time with a good will; but it
+was of no use, the wreck would not obey the helm, and the corvette
+hovered about, firing broadsides, and sending in discharges of
+musketry, when and where she liked. It was only when the commodore saw
+clearly that there was neither mast nor sail enough to yaw the ship,
+that he waved his cocked hat in token of surrender.
+
+Fritz and Jack were still confined below with their wounds, when
+Willis brought them word that they would have to shift themselves and
+their cargo once more. The captain received them on board the
+_Boudeuse_ with marked courtesy, and informed them that he was bound
+direct for Havre de Grace.
+
+"It seems, then," said the Pilot, "that neither America nor England
+is to be our destination after all. But never mind, there are no lack
+of surgeons amongst the _mounseers_."
+
+"If we go on this way much longer," said Jack, sighing, "we shall be
+carried round the world without arriving anywhere. Alas, my poor
+mother!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+DELHI--WILLIAM OF NORMANDY AND KING JOHN--ISABELLA OF BAVARIA AND JOAN
+OF ARC--POITIERS AND BOVINES--HISTORY OF A GHOST, A GRIDIRON, AND A
+CHEST OF GUINEAS.
+
+
+At first the three adventurers were regarded as prisoners of war;
+when, however, their entire history came to be known, and their
+extraordinary migrations from ship to ship authenticated, they were
+looked upon as guests, and treated as friends.
+
+"I thought I had only obtained possession of an English cruiser," said
+the captain; "but I find I have also acquired the right of being
+useful to you."
+
+The commander of the _Boudeuse_ was a very different sort of a person
+from Commodore Truncheon; the former treated his men as if every one
+of them had a title and great influence at the Admiralty, whilst the
+latter swore at his crew as if the word of command could not be
+understood without a supplementary oath. The English commodore might
+be the better sailor of the two, but certainly the French captain
+carried off the palm as regards politeness, urbanity, and gentlemanly
+bearing.
+
+The wounds of Fritz and Jack were healing rapidly under the skilful
+treatment of the French surgeon, and, with a lift from Willis, they
+were able to walk a portion of the day on deck. With reviving health,
+their cheerful hopes of the future returned, their dormant spirits
+were re-awakened, and their minds regained their wonted animation.
+
+"The corvette spins along admirably," said the Pilot, "and is steering
+straight for the Bay of Biscay."
+
+"Ah!" said Jack sighing, "it is very easy to steer for a place, but it
+is not quite so easy to get there. I am sick of your friend the sea,
+Willis; and would give my largest pearl for a glimpse of a town, a
+village, or even a street."
+
+"If you want to see a street in all its glory, Master Jack, you must
+try and get the captain to alter his course for Delhi."
+
+"But I should think, Willis, that there is nothing in the
+street-scenery of Delhi to compare with the Boulevards of Paris,
+Regent-street in London, or the Broadway of New York."
+
+"Beg your pardon there, Master Jack; I know every shop window in
+Regent-street; I have often been nearly run over in the Broadway, and
+can easily imagine the turn out on the Boulevards; but they are
+solitudes in comparison with an Indian street."
+
+"How so, Willis?"
+
+"Well, it is not that there are more inhabitants, nor on account of
+the traffic, for no streets in the world will beat those of London in
+that respect--it is because the people live, move, and have their
+being in the streets; they eat, drink, and sleep in the streets; they
+sing, dance, and pray in the streets; conventions, treaties, and
+alliances are concluded in the streets; in short, the street is the
+Indians' home, his club, and his temple. In Europe, transactions are
+negotiated quietly; in India, nothing can be done without roaring,
+screaming, and bawling."
+
+"There must be plenty of deaf people there," observed Jack.
+
+"Possibly; but there are no dumb people. Added to the endless
+vociferations of the human voice, there is an eternal barking of dogs,
+elephants snorting, cows lowing, and myriads of pigs grunting. Then
+there is the thump, thump of the tam-tam, the whistling of fifes, and
+the screeching of a horrible instrument resembling a fiddle, which can
+only be compared with the Belzebub music of Hawai. If, amongst these
+discordant sounds, you throw in a cloud of mosquitoes and a hurricane
+of dust, you will have a tolerable idea of an Indian street."
+
+"There may be animation and life enough, Willis, but I should prefer
+the monotony of Regent-street for all that. Would you like to air
+yourself in Paris a bit?"
+
+"Yes, but not just now; the less my countrymen see of France, under
+present circumstances, the better."
+
+"What is England and France always fighting about, Willis?"
+
+"Well, I believe the cause this time to be a shindy the _mounseers_
+got up amongst themselves in 1788. They first cut off the head of
+their king, and then commenced to cut one another's throats, and
+England interfered."
+
+"That," observed Fritz, "may be the immediate origin of the present
+war [1812]. But for the cause of the animosity existing between the
+two nations, you must, I suspect, go back as far as the eleventh
+century, to the time of William, Duke of Normandy."
+
+"What had he to do with it?"
+
+"A great deal. He claimed a right, real or pretended, to the English
+throne. He crossed the Channel, and, in 1066, defeated Harold, King of
+England, at the battle of Hastings."
+
+"Both William and Harold were originally Danes, were they not?"
+inquired Jack.
+
+"Yes; I think Rollo, William's grandfather, was a Norman adventurer,
+or sea-king, as these marauders were sometimes called. William, after
+the victory of Hastings, proclaimed himself King of England and Duke
+of Normandy, and assumed the designation of William the Conqueror."
+
+"Then how did France get mixed up in the affair?" inquired Willis.
+
+"William's grandfather, when he seized the dukedom cf Normandy, became
+virtually a vassal of the King of France, though it is doubtful
+whether he ever took the trouble to recognize the suzerainty of the
+throne. As sovereign, however, the King of France claimed the right of
+homage, which consisted, according to feudal usage, in the vassal
+advancing, bare-headed, without sword or spurs, and kneeling at the
+foot of the throne."
+
+"Was this right ever enforced?"
+
+"Yes, in one case at least. John Lackland--or, as the French called
+him, John Sans Terre--having assassinated his nephew Arthur, Duke of
+Brittany, in order to obtain possession of his lands, was summoned by
+Philip Augustus, King of France, to justify his crime. John did not
+obey the summons, was declared guilty of felony, and Philip took
+possession of Normandy. Thus the first step to hostilities was laid
+down."
+
+"The English having lost Normandy, the vassalage ceased."
+
+"Yes, so far as regards Normandy; but, in the meantime, Louis le
+Jeune, King of France, unfortunately divorced his wife, Elenor of
+Aquitaine, who afterwards married an English prince, and added
+Guienne, another French dukedom to the English crown."
+
+"So another vassalage sprung up."
+
+"Exactly. All the French King insisted upon was the homage; but Edward
+III. of England, instead of bending his knee to Philip of Valois,
+argued with himself in this way: 'If I were King of England and France
+as well, the claim of homage for the dukedom of Guienne would be
+extinguished.'"
+
+"Rather cool that," said Jack, laughing.
+
+"'We shall then,' Edward said to himself, 'be our own sovereign, and
+do homage to ourself, which would save a deal of bother.'"
+
+"Well, he was right there, at least," remarked the Pilot.
+
+"The King of France, however, entertained a different view of the
+subject. Hence arose an endless succession of sieges, battles,
+conquests, defeats, exterminations, and hatreds, which, no doubt, gave
+rise to the ill-feeling that exists at present between England and
+France. It is curious, at the same time, to observe what mischief
+individual acts may occasion. If William of Normandy had remained
+contented with his dukedom, and Louis le Jeune had not divorced his
+wife, France would not have lost the disastrous battles of Agincourt
+and Poitiers."
+
+"Nor gained the brilliant victory of Bovines," suggested Jack.
+
+"Certainly not; but she would have been spared the indignity of having
+one of her kings marched through the streets of London as a prisoner."
+
+"True; but, on the other hand, the captured monarch would not have
+had an opportunity of illustrating the laws of honor in his own
+person. He returned loyally to England and resumed his chains, when he
+found that the enormous sum demanded by England for his ransom would
+impoverish his people: otherwise he could not have given birth to the
+maxim, 'That though good faith be banished from all the world beside,
+it ought still to be found in the hearts of kings.'"
+
+"One of the kings of Scotland," remarked Willis, "was placed in a
+similar position. The Scottish army had been cut to pieces at the
+battle of Flodden, the king was captured in his harness, conveyed to
+London, and the people had to pay a great deal more to obtain his
+freedom than he was worth. But, before that, the Scotch nearly caught
+one of the Edwards. This time the English army had been cut to pieces;
+but the king did not wait to be captured, he took to his heels, or
+rather to his horse's hoofs. He was beautifully mounted, and followed
+by half a dozen Scottish troopers; away he went, over hill and dale,
+ditch and river. Dick Turpin's ride from London to York was nothing to
+it. The king proved himself to be a first-rate horseman, for, after
+being chased this way over half the country, he succeeded in baffling
+his pursuers. All these escapades between England and Scotland are,
+however, forgotten now, or at least ought to be; there are, doubtless,
+a few thick-headed persons in both sections of the empire who delight
+in keeping alive old prejudices, but they will die out in time."
+
+"It seems, however, they have not died away yet," said Fritz, "in so
+far as regards France and England, since the two countries are at war
+again. But, as I observed before, had it not been for the ambition of
+William and the anti-connubial propensities of John, the English would
+never have been masters of Paris, and a great part of France under
+Charles VI."
+
+"Still, in that case," persisted Jack, "Charles VII. would not have
+had the opportunity of liberating his country."
+
+"Then," continued Fritz, "history would not have had to record the
+shameless deeds of Isabella of Bavaria."
+
+"Nor chronicle the brilliant achievements of Joan of Arc," added Jack.
+
+"Any how," observed Willis, "the mounseers are a curious people. I
+have heard it remarked that they are occupied all day long in getting
+themselves into scrapes, and that Providence busies herself all night
+in getting them out again."
+
+By chatting in this way, Fritz, his brother, and the Pilot contrived
+to relieve the monotony of the voyage, and to pass away the time
+pleasantly enough. Each contributed his quota to the common fund;
+Fritz his judgment, Jack his humor, and Willis his practical
+experience, strong good sense, and vigorous, though untutored
+understanding. A portion of Jack's time was passed with the surgeon,
+between whom a great intimacy had sprung up. Time did not, therefore,
+hang heavily on the hands of the young men; for even during the night
+their thoughts were busy forming projects, or in embroidering the
+canvas of the future with those fairy designs which youth alone can
+create.
+
+One morning Willis arrived on deck, pale, and with an air of fatigue
+and lassitude altogether unusual. He gazed anxiously into every nook
+and cranny of the ship.
+
+"Whatever is the matter, Willis?" inquired Jack. "Have you seen the
+Flying Dutchman?"
+
+"No, Master Jack," said he in a forlorn tone; "but I have either seen
+the captain or his ghost."
+
+"What! the captain of the _Hoboken_?"
+
+"No; the captain of the _Nelson_."
+
+"In a dream?"
+
+"No, my eyes were as wide open as they are now; he looked into my
+cabin, and spoke to me."
+
+"Impossible, Willis."
+
+"I assure you it is the case though, impossible or not."
+
+"Where is he then?" exclaimed both the young men, starting.
+
+"That I know not; I have looked for him everywhere."
+
+"What did he say to you?"
+
+"At first he said, How d'ye do, Willis?"
+
+"Naturally; and what then?"
+
+"He asked me what I thought of the cloud that was gathering in the
+south-west."
+
+"Imagination, Willis."
+
+"But look there, you can see a storm is gathering in that quarter."
+
+"The nightmare, Willis. But what did you say to him?"
+
+"I could not answer at the moment; my tongue clove to the roof of my
+mouth, and I rose to take hold of his hand."
+
+"Then he disappeared, did he not?"
+
+"Yes, Master Jack."
+
+"I thought so."
+
+"But I heard the door of my cabin shut behind him, as distinctly as I
+now hear the waves breaking on the sides of the corvette at this
+moment."
+
+"You ought to have run after him."
+
+"I did so."
+
+"Well, did you catch him?"
+
+"No; I was stopped by the watch, for I had nothing on me but my shirt;
+the officers stared, the sailors laughed, and the doctor felt my
+pulse. But, for all that, I am satisfied there is a mystery
+somewhere."
+
+"But, Willis, the thing is altogether improbable."
+
+"Well, look here; Captain Littlestone is either dead or alive, is he
+not?"
+
+"Yes," replied Jack, "there can be no medium between these
+hypotheses."
+
+"Then all I can say is this, that as sure as I am a living sinner, I
+have seen him if he is alive, and, if he is dead, I have seen his
+ghost."
+
+"You believe in visitations from the other world then, Willis?"
+
+"I cannot discredit the evidences of my own senses, can I?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"Besides, this brings to my recollection a similar circumstance that
+happened to an old comrade of mine. Sam Walker is as fine a fellow as
+ever lived, he sailed with me on board the _Norfolk_, and I know him
+to be incapable of telling a falsehood. Though his name is Sam
+Walker, we used to call him 'Hot Codlins.'"
+
+"Why, Willis?"
+
+"Because he had an old woman with a child tatooed on his arm, instead
+of an anchor, as is usual in the navy."
+
+"A portrait of _Notre Dame de Bon Lecours_, I shouldn't wonder," said
+Jack; "but what had that to do with hot codlins: a codlin is a fish,
+is it not?"
+
+"I will explain that another time," said Willis, the shadow of a smile
+passing over his pale features. "The short and the long of the story
+is, that Sam once saw a ghost."
+
+"Well, tell us all about it, Willis."
+
+"But I am afraid you will not believe the story if I do."
+
+"On the contrary, I promise to believe it in advance."
+
+"Very well, Master Jack. Did you ever see a windmill?"
+
+"No, but I know what sort of things they are from description."
+
+"There are none in Scotland," continued Willis; "at least I never saw
+one there."
+
+"How do they manage to grind their corn then? There should be oats in
+the land o' cakes, at all events," said Jack, with a smile.
+
+"Well, in countries that have plenty of water, they can dispense with
+mills on land. Though there are no wind-mills in Scotland, there are
+some in the county of Durham, on the borders of England, for it
+appears my mate Sam was born in one of them. His father and mother
+died when he was very young, and he, conjointly with the rats, was
+left sole owner and occupant of the mill. Some of the neighboring
+villagers, seeing the poor boy left in this forlorn condition, got him
+into a charity school, whence he was bound apprentice to a shipmaster
+engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young
+Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the
+hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him
+about."
+
+"I thought so," said Jack; "the mark in question represents the patron
+saint of French sailors."
+
+"After a variety of ups and downs, Sam found himself rated as a
+first-class seaman on board a British man-of-war. He served with
+myself on board the _Norfolk_, and was wounded at the battle of
+Trafalgar [1806], which, I dare say, you have heard of."
+
+"Yes, Willis, it was there that your Admiral Nelson covered himself
+with immortal renown."
+
+"There and elsewhere, Master Fritz."
+
+"It cost him his life, however, Willis, and likewise shortened those
+of the French Admiral Villeneuve and the Spanish Admiral Gravina;
+that, you must admit, is too many eggs for one omelet."
+
+"As you once said yourself, great victories are not won without loss,
+and the battle of Trafalgar was no exception to the rule. Sam, having
+been wounded, was sent to the hospital, and when his wound was healed,
+he was allowed leave of absence to recruit his strength, so he thought
+he would take a run to Durham and see how it fared with the paternal
+windmill. Time had, of course, wrought many changes both outside and
+in, but it still remained perched grimly on its pedestal, but now
+entirely abandoned to the bats and owls. The sails were gone, and the
+woodwork was slowly crumbling away; but the basement being of hewn
+granite, it was still in a tolerable state of preservation. The place,
+however, was said to be haunted; exactly at twelve o'clock at night
+dismal howls were heard by the villagers to issue from the mill.
+According to the blacksmith, who was a great authority in such
+matters, Sam's father was a very avaricious old fellow, and had hid
+his money somewhere about the building; and you know, Master Jack,
+that when a man dies and leaves his money concealed, there is no rest
+for him in his grave till it is discovered."
+
+"I really was not aware of it before," replied Jack; "but I am
+delighted to hear it."
+
+"When Sam arrived, nobody disputed his title to the property, except
+the ghost; but Sam had seen a good deal of hard service, and declared
+that he would not be choused out of his patrimony for all the ghosts
+in the parish; and, in spite of the persuasions of the villagers,
+resolved to take up his abode there forthwith. Sam accordingly laid in
+a supply of stores, including a month's supply of tobacco and rum. He
+first made the place water-tight, then made a fire sufficient to roast
+an ox, and when night arrived made a jorum of grog, a little stiff, to
+keep away the damp. This done, he lit his pipe, and began to cook a
+steak for his supper. The old mill, for the first time since the
+decease of the former proprietor, was filled with the savory odor of
+roast beef."
+
+"And there are worse odors than that," remarked Jack. "Whilst the
+steak was frizzling, he took a swig at the grog; and, thinking one
+side was done, he gave the gridiron a twist, which sent the steak a
+little way up the chimney, and, strange to say, it never came down
+again.
+
+"'Ten thousand What's-a-names,' cried Sam, 'where's my steak?'
+
+"No answer was vouchsafed to this query; he looked up the chimney, and
+could see no one."
+
+"The steak had really disappeared then?" said Jack, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes, not a fragment remained; but he had more beef, so he cut off
+another; and, as his head had got a little middled with the grog, he
+thought it just possible that he might have capsized the gridiron into
+the fire, so he quietly recommenced the operation."
+
+"And the second steak disappeared like the first?" "Yes, Master Fritz,
+with this difference--there was a dead man's thigh-bone in its place."
+
+"An awkward transformation for a hungry man," said Jack.
+
+"'Here's a go!' cried Sam, like to burst his sides with laughing,
+'they expect to frighten me with bones, do they? they've got the wrong
+man--been played too many tricks of that kind at sea to be scared by
+that sort of thing. Ha, ha, ha! capital joke though.'"
+
+"Your friend Sam must have been a merry fellow, Willis."
+
+"Yes, but he was hungry, and wanted his supper; so he continued
+supplying the gridiron with steaks as long as the beef lasted, but
+only obtained human shin-bones, clavicles and tibias.
+
+"'Never mind,' said Sam to himself, 'they will tire of this game in
+course of time.'
+
+"When the beef was done, he kept up a supply of rashers of bacon, and
+threw the bones as they appeared in a corner, consoling himself in the
+meantime with his pipe and his grog."
+
+"He must have been both patient and persevering," remarked Jack.
+
+"This went on till a skull appeared on the gridiron."
+
+"A singular object to sup upon," observed Jack.
+
+"'I wonder what the deuce will come next,' said Sam to himself,
+throwing the skull amongst the rest of the bones.
+
+"The next time, however, he took the gridiron off the fire, there was
+his last rasher done to a turn.
+
+"'Now,' said Sam, 'I am going to have peace and quietness at last.'
+
+"He sat down then very comfortably, and kept eating and drinking, and
+drinking and smoking, till the village clock struck twelve."
+
+"Good!" cried Jack. "You may come in now, ladies and gentlemen; the
+performance is just a-going to begin."
+
+"Sam heard a succession of crack cracks amongst the bones, and turning
+round he beheld a frightful-looking spectre, pointing with its finger
+to the door."
+
+"Was it wrapped up in a white sheet?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Yes, I rather think it was."
+
+"Very well, then, I believe the story; for spectres are invariably
+wrapped up in white sheets."
+
+"The bones, instead of remaining quietly piled up in the corner, had
+joined themselves together--the leg bones to the feet, the ribs to the
+back-bone--and the skull had stuck itself on the top. Where the flesh
+came from, Sam could not tell; but he strongly suspected that his own
+steaks and bacon had something to do with it. But, be that as it may,
+there was not half enough of fat to cover the bones, and the figure
+was dreadfully thin. Sam stared at first in astonishment, and began to
+doubt whether he saw aright. When, however, he beheld the figure move,
+there could be no mistake, and he knew at once that it was a ghost.
+Anybody else would have been frightened out of their senses, but Sam
+took the matter philososophically and went on with his supper.
+
+"'How d'ye do, old fellow?' he said to the spectre. 'Will you have a
+mouthful of grog to warm your inside? Sit down, and be sociable.'
+
+"The spectre did not make any reply, but continued making a sign for
+Sam to follow.
+
+"'If you prefer to stand and keep beckoning there till to-morrow you
+may, but, if I were in your place, I would come nearer the fire,' said
+Sam; 'you may catch cold standing there without your shirt, you know.'
+
+"The same silence and the same gesture continued on the part of the
+ghost, and Sam, seeing that his words produced no effect, recommenced
+eating."
+
+"There is one thing," remarked Jack, "more astonishing about your
+friend Sam than his coolness, and that is his appetite."
+
+"The spectre did not appear satisfied with the state of affairs, for
+it assumed a threatening attitude and strode towards the fire-place.
+
+"'Avast heaving, old fellow,' cried Sam, 'there is one thing I have
+got to say, which is this here: you may stand and hoist signals there
+as long as ever you like; but if you touch me, then look out for
+squalls, that's all.'
+
+"The 'old fellow,' however, paid no attention to this caution. He
+strode right up to the fire-place, and, whilst pointing to the door
+with one hand, grasped Sam's arm with the other. Sam started up, shook
+off the hand that held him, and pitched into the spectre right and
+left. But, strange to say, his hands went right through its bones and
+all, just as if it had been made of the hydrogen gas you spoke of the
+other day. Sam saw that it was no use laying about him in this
+fashion, for the spectre stood grinning at him all the time, so he
+gave it up.
+
+"'I wish,' said he, 'you would be off, and go to bed, and not keep
+bothering there.'
+
+"Still the spectre maintained the same posture, and kept
+pertinaciously pointing to the door.
+
+"'Well,' said Sam, 'since you insist upon it, let us see what there is
+outside. Go a-head, I will follow.'
+
+"The spectre led him into what used to be the garden of the mill, but
+the enclosure was now overgrown with rank and poisonous weeds. There
+was a path running through it paved with flagstones; the spectre
+pointed with its finder to one of them. Sam stooped down, and, much to
+his astonishment, raised it with ease. Beneath there was an iron
+chest, the lid of which he also opened, and saw that it was filled
+with old spade guineas and Spanish dollars.
+
+"'You behold that treasure!' said the spectre, in a hollow voice.
+
+"'Ha, ha, old fellow! you can speak, can you? Now we shall understand
+each other. Yes, I see a box, filled with what looks very like gold
+and silver coins.'
+
+"'I placed that treasure there before my death,' added the spectre.
+
+"'Ah, so! than you are dead?' said Sam.
+
+"'One half of that money I wish you to give to the poor, and the other
+half you may keep to yourself, if you choose.'
+
+"'Golley!' said Sam, 'you are not much of a swab after all, though you
+look as thin as a purser's clerk. Give us a shake of your paw, my
+hearty.'
+
+"Here Sam, somehow or other, stumbled over the lamp, and when he got
+up again the spectre had vanished. He laid hold of the chest, however,
+and groped his way back to the mill. When safe inside, he made a stiff
+jorum of grog, and then fell comfortably asleep. That night he dreamt
+that he was eating gold and silver, that he was his own captain, that
+the cat-o'-nine tails was entirely abolished in the navy, and that his
+ship, instead of sailing in salt water was floating in rum. When he
+awoke, the sun was steaming through all the nooks and crannies of the
+old mill. All the marks of the preceding night's adventures were
+there--the gridiron, the empty rum jar, the the table o'erturned in
+the _melee_ with the ghost--but the chest of money was gone."
+
+"And what did Sam conclude from that incident?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"Well, he supposed that he had slept rather long, and that somebody
+had come in before he as up and had walked off with the box."
+
+"If I had been in his place," continued Fritz, "I should have said to
+myself that the mind often gives birth to strange fancies,
+particularly after a heavy supper, and that I had muddled my brain
+with rum; consequently, that all the things I imagined I had seen were
+only the chimeras of a dream."
+
+"But that could not be, Master Fritz, for two reasons; the first, that
+the mark of the ghost's hand remained on his arm."
+
+"Very likely burnt it when he grilled the bacon."
+
+"The second, that the ghost was no more seen or heard of in the mill."
+
+"That proof is a poser for you, brother, I think," said Jack.
+
+"Did you heave that sigh just now, Master Fritz?" inquired Willis, in
+a low tone.
+
+"It was not I," said Fritz, looking at his brother.
+
+"Nor I," said Jack, looking at Willis.
+
+"Nor I," said Willis, looking behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+WILLIS FALLS IN WITH THE SLOOP ON TERRA FIRMA, INSTEAD OF AT THE
+BOTTOM OF THE SEA, AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED--ADMIRAL CICERO--THE
+DEFUNCT NOT YET DEAD.
+
+
+The corvette, notwithstanding the multitude of British cruisers
+scattered about the ocean, and the other dangers that beset her, held
+on the even tenor of her way. A gale sprung up now and then, but they
+only tended to give a filip to the common-place incidents recorded in
+the log. This quietude was not, however, enjoyed by all the persons on
+board. Willis was a prey to violent emotions; and so it often happens,
+in the midst of the profoundest calm, storms often rage in the heart
+of man.
+
+Whether in reality or in a dream, Willis declared that Captain
+Littlestone paid him a visit every night, and invariably asked him
+precisely the same questions. On these occasions, Willis asserted that
+he distinctly heard the door open and shut whilst a shadow glided
+through. That he might once, or even twice, have been the dupe of his
+own imagination, is probable enough; but a healthy mind does not
+permit a delusion to be indefinitely prolonged--it struggles with the
+hallucination, and eventually shakes it off; providing always the mind
+has a shadow, and not a reality, to deal with, and that the patient is
+not a monomaniac. The dilemma was consequently reduced to this
+position--either Willis was mad, or Captain Littlestone was on board
+the _Boudeuse_.
+
+In all other respects, Willis was perfectly sane. He himself searched
+every corner of the ship, but without other result than a confirmation
+of his own impression that there were no officers on board other than
+those of the corvette; and yet, notwithstanding his own conviction in
+daylight, he still continued to assert the reality of his interviews
+with Captain Littlestone during the night. The Italians say, _La
+speranza e il sogno d'an uomo svegliato_. Was Willis also dreaming
+with his eyes open? Might not the wish be father to the thought, and
+the thought produce the fancy? There is only one other supposition to
+be hazarded--could it be possible, in spite of all his researches,
+that Willis did see what he maintained with so much pertinacity he had
+seen?
+
+These questions are too astute to admit of answers without due
+consideration and reflection; therefore, with the reader's permission,
+we shall leave the replies over for the present.
+
+On the 12th June a voice from the mast-head called "Land ahoy!" much
+to the delight of the voyagers. The land in question was the island of
+St. Helena. This sea-girt rock had not at that time become classic
+ground. It had not yet become the prison and mausoleum of Napoleon the
+Great. The petulant squabbles between Sir Hudson Lowe and his
+illustrious prisoner had not been heard of. Little wotted then the
+proud ruler of France the fate that awaited him, for, when the
+_Boudeuse_ touched at the island, all Europe, with the single
+exception of England, was kneeling at his feet.
+
+On the 30th the Island of Ascension was reached. Here, in accordance
+with a usage peculiar to French sailors, a bottle, containing a short
+abstract of the ship's log, was committed to the deep. Willis thought
+this ceremony, under existing circumstances, would have been better
+observed in the breach than the observance, for, said he, if a British
+cruiser picked up that bottle within twenty-four hours, she stood a
+chance of picking up the _Boudeuse_ as well.
+
+On the 15th July the peak of Teneriffe hove in sight This remarkable
+basaltic rock rises to the extraordinary height of three thousand
+eight hundred yards above the level of the sea; it is consequently
+seen at a considerable distance, and constitutes a valuable landmark
+for navigators in these seas. Six weeks later the _Boudeuse_ dropped
+anchor in the Havre roads.
+
+Here the three adventurers had to encounter by far the greatest
+misfortune that had as yet befallen them. The continental system of
+Napoleon was then in force. The importation of everything English or
+Indian was strictly prohibited. The cargo the young men had brought
+with them from New Switzerland, which already had escaped so many
+perils, was, therefore, declared contraband, and seized by the French
+_fisc_--an institution that rarely permitted such a prize to quit its
+rapacious grasp.
+
+Behold now our poor friends, Fritz and Jack, in a strange land,
+deprived at once of their fortune and their chance of returning
+home--the two beacons that had cheered them on their way! All their
+bright hopes of the future were thus annihilated at one fell swoop.
+Their fortitude almost gave way under the severity of this blow; the
+excess of their distress alone saved them. Grief requires leisure to
+give itself free vent; but when we are compelled, by absolute
+necessity, to earn our daily bread, we cannot find time for tears; and
+such was the case with Willis and his two friends; they were here
+without a friend and without resources of any kind whatever.
+
+If they had only known Greek and Latin; if they had only been half
+doctors or three-quarter barristers, or if even they had been doctors
+and lawyers complete, it would have sorely puzzled their skill to have
+raised a single sous in hard cash. Fortunately, however, whilst
+cultivating their minds, they had acquired the art of handling a saw
+and wielding a hammer. The blouse of the workman, consequently, fitted
+them as well as the gown of the student, and they set themselves
+manfully to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. They were
+carpenters and blacksmiths by turns, regulating their occupations by
+the grand doctrines of supply and demand.
+
+Jack alone of the three was defective in steadiness; he only joined
+Willis and his brother at mid-day. What he did with himself during the
+forenoon was a profound mystery. He rose before daybreak, and
+disappeared no one knew where, or for what purpose. His companions in
+adversity endeavored in vain to discover his secret; he was determined
+to conceal his movements, and succeeded in baffling their curiosity.
+To judge, however, by the ardor with which he worked, he was engaged
+in some one of those schemes that are termed follies before success,
+but which, after success, are universally acknowledged to be brilliant
+and praiseworthy instances of industrial enterprise.
+
+If, after a hard day's work, when assembled together in the little
+room that served them for parlor, kitchen, and hall, the power of
+regret vanquished fatigue, and sadness drove away sleep, then Jack,
+who compared himself to Peter the Great, when a voluntary exile in the
+shipyards of Saardam, would endeavor to infuse a little mirth into the
+lugubrious party. If all his efforts to make them merry failed, all
+three would join together in a humble prayer to their Heavenly Father,
+who bestowed resignation upon them instead.
+
+If Willis and his two friends were not accumulating wealth, at all
+events they were earning the bread they ate honestly and worthily.
+They had all three laid their shoulders vigorously to the wheel and
+kept it jogging along marvellously for a month. By that time, a
+detailed report of the seizure of their property had been placed
+before the director of the Domaine Extraordinaire, who was the
+sovereign authority in all matters pertaining to the exchequer of the
+empire. He saw at once that this capture was extremely harsh, and
+probably thought that, if it became known, it would raise a storm of
+indignation about the ears of his department. Here were two young
+men--Moseses, as it were, saved from the bulrushes. Lost in the desert
+from the period of their birth, and ignorant of the dissensions then
+raging in Europe, they were unquestionably beyond the ordinary
+operation of the law. This will never do, he probably said to himself;
+the civilization which these two young men have come through so many
+perils to seek ought not to appear to them, the moment they arrived in
+Europe, in the form of spoliation and barbarism.
+
+The name of this _extraordinary_ director of Domaine Extraordinaire
+was M. de la Boullerie, and, when we fall in with the name of a really
+good-hearted man, we delight to record it. He felt that the two young
+men had been hardly dealt with, but he had not the power to order a
+restitution of the property, now that the seizure had been made, and
+sundry perquisities, of course, deducted by the excise officials.
+Accordingly, he referred the matter to the Emperor, who commanded the
+goods to be immediately restored intact. Napoleon, at the same time,
+praised the functionary we have named for calling his attention to the
+merits of the case, and thanked him for such an opportunity of
+repairing an injustice.[I]
+
+There are many such instances of generosity as the foregoing in the
+career of the great Emperor--mild rays of the sun in the midst of
+thunderstorms; sweet flowers blowing here and there, in the bosom of
+the gigantic projects of his life--which many will esteem more highly
+than his miracles of strategy and the renown of his battles. As
+nothing that tends to elevate the soul is out of place in this volume,
+we may be permitted to insert one or two of these anecdotes.
+
+In 1806, Napoleon was at Potsdam. The Prussians were humbled to the
+dust, and the outrage of Rossbach had been fearfully avenged. A letter
+was intercepted, in which Prince Laatsfeld, civil governor of Berlin,
+secretly informed the enemy of all the dispositions of the French
+army. The crime was palpable, capital, and unpardonable. There was
+nothing between the life and death of the prince, except the time to
+load half a dozen muskets, point them to his breast, and cry--Fire.
+The princess flew to the palace, threw herself at the feet of the
+Emperor, beseeched, implored, and seemed almost heart-broken. "Madam,"
+said Napoleon, "this letter is the only proof that exists of your
+husband's guilt. Throw it into the fire." The fatal paper blazed,
+crisped, passed from blue to yellow, and the treachery of Prince
+Laatsfeld was reduced to ashes.
+
+Another time, a young man, named Von der Sulhn, journeyed from Dresden
+to Paris; unless you are told, you could scarcely imagine for what
+purpose. There are people who travel for amusement, for business, for
+a change of air, or merely to be able to say they have been at such
+and such a place. Some go abroad for instruction, others, perhaps,
+with no other object in view than to eat frogs in Paris, bouillabaisse
+at Marseilles, a polenta at Milan, macaroni at Naples, an olla podrida
+in Spain, or conscoussou in Africa. Von der Sulhn travelled to
+assassinate the Emperor. Like Scaevola and Brutus, he, no doubt,
+imagined the crime would hand down his name to posterity. In youth,
+all of us have erred in judgment more or less. Sulhn thought the
+Emperor ought to be slain. Unfortunately for him, the Duke of Rovigo,
+the then minister of police, entertained a different opinion. He
+thought, in point of fact, that the Emperor ought not to be killed:
+hence it was that the young Saxon found himself in chains, and that
+the Duke went to ask the Emperor what he should do with him. We ought,
+however, to mention that the young man, in his character of an
+enlightened German, testified his regret that he had not succeeded in
+carrying out his project, and protested that, in the event of
+regaining his liberty, he would renew the attempt. "Never mind," said
+the Emperor to the duke, "the young man's age is his excuse. Do not
+make the affair public, for, if it is bruited about, I must punish the
+headstrong youth, which I have no wish to do. I should be sorry to
+plunge a worthy family into grief by immolating such a scapegrace.
+Send him to Vincennes, give him some books to read, and write to his
+mother." In 1814, the young man obtained his liberty, his family, and
+his Germany, and it is to be hoped that he afterwards became a
+respectable pater-familias, a sort of Aulic councillor, and that,
+during the troublesome times in the land of Sauerkraut, he was before,
+and not behind, the barricades of his darling patria. If he be dead,
+it is to be supposed that, instead of lying a headless trunk
+ignominiously in a ditch, or in the unconsecrated cemetery of Clamort,
+he is reposing entire in the paternal tomb.
+
+On the 15th of March, 1815, the Emperor landed at Cannes--he had
+returned from the island of Elba. On the beach he was joined by one
+man, at Antibes by a company, at Digne by a battalion, at Gap by a
+regiment (that of Labedoyer), at Grenoble by an army. The hearts of
+the soldiers of France went to him like steel to the loadstone--first
+a drop, and then a torrent; the Empire, like a snowball, increased as
+it progressed. At Lyons, the Count of Artois, the setting sun, is
+obliged to go out of one gate the moment that Napoleon, the rising
+sun, comes in at another. Smiles, orations, triumphal arches, and even
+the discourses that had been prepared to welcome the Bourbons, were
+used to congratulate their successor on his return. Cockades and flags
+were altered to suit the occasion, by inserting a stripe of red here
+and another of blue there. One national guard, but only one, remained
+faithful to the Bourbons; he would neither alter his cockade nor his
+colors, and remained true to his patrons in the hour of disaster.
+Everybody asked, what would the Emperor do with him? Would he be
+imprisoned or banished? Neither; the Emperor sent him a cross of the
+order of merit! It is, no doubt, grand to have overthrown the
+brilliant army of Murad Bey in Egypt; to have vanquished Melas,
+Wurmser, and Davidowich in Italy; Bragation, Kutusoff, and Barclay de
+Tolly in Russia; Mack in Germany; and thus to have reduced the entire
+continent of Europe to subjection. But it appears to us that a still
+greater feat was the victory he gained over himself, when, in the
+midst of the fever excited by his return, and the animosity of
+parties, he gave this cross to the solitary adherent of misfortune.
+Having made these slight digressions into the future, it is proper
+that we should return to our story.
+
+The mysterious roads of Providence do not always lead to the places
+they seem to go; it often happens that, when we expect to be swallowed
+up by the breakers that surround us, we are wafted into a harbor, and
+that we encounter success where we only anticipated disappointment.
+The rigorous enactments of the continental system, that the other day
+had ruined the two brothers, became all at once the source of
+unlooked-for wealth; for, on account of the scarcity of colonial
+produce, a scarcity dating from the prohibitory laws promulgated in
+1807, the merchandise of the young men had more than quadrupled in
+value.
+
+From the grade of hard-working mechanics they were suddenly promoted
+to the rank of wealthy merchants. They consequently abandoned the
+laborious employments that for a month had enabled them to live, and
+to keep despair and misery at bay. Willis, greatly to his
+inconvenience, found himself transformed into a gentleman at large,
+which caused him to make some material alterations in the manipulation
+and quality of his pipes.
+
+Fritz busied himself in collecting in, the by no means inconsiderable
+sums, which their property realised. He did not value the gold for its
+glitter or its sound, he valued it only as a means of enabling himself
+and his brother to return promptly to their ocean home. Jack undertook
+the task of finding a scalpel to save his mother--doubtless a
+difficult task; for how was he to induce a surgeon of standing to
+abandon his connexion, his family, and his fame, and to undertake a
+perilous voyage to the antipodes, for the purpose of performing an
+operation in a desert, where there were neither newspapers to proclaim
+it, academicians to discuss it, nor ribbons to reward it? As for the
+gentlemen of the dentist and barber school, like Drs. Sangrado and
+Fontanarose of Figaro, the remedy was even worse by a great deal than
+the disease. But, as we have said, Jack promised to find a surgeon,
+and the research was so arduous, that he was scarcely ever seen during
+the day by either Willis or his brother.
+
+To Willis was confided the office of chartering a ship for the
+homeward voyage, and there were not a few obstacles to overcome in
+order to accomplish this. French ship-masters at that time engaged in
+very little legitimate business; they embarked their capital in
+privateering, prefering to capture the merchantmen of England to
+risking their own. One morning, Willis started as usual in search of a
+ship, but soon returned to the inn where they had established their
+head-quarters in a state of bewilderment; he threw himself into a
+chair, and, before he could utter a word, had to fill his pipe and
+light it.
+
+"Well," said he, "I am completely and totally flabbergasted."
+
+"What about?" inquired the two brothers.
+
+"You could not guess, for the life of you, what has happened."
+
+"Perhaps not, Willis, and would therefore prefer you to tell us at
+once what it is."
+
+"After this," continued Willis, "no one need tell me that there are no
+miracles now-a-days."
+
+"Then you have stumbled upon a miracle, have you, Willis?"
+
+"I should think so. That they do not happen every day, I can admit;
+but I have a proof that they do come about sometimes."
+
+"Very probably, Willis."
+
+"It is my opinion that Providence often leads us about by the hands,
+just as little children are taken to school, lest they should be
+tempted to play truant by the way."
+
+"Not unlikely, Willis; but the miracle!"
+
+"I was going along quietly, not thinking I was being led anywhere in
+particular, when, all at once, I was hove up by--If a bullet had hit
+me right in the breast, I could not have been more staggered."
+
+"Whatever hove you up then, Willis?"
+
+"I was hove up by the sloop."
+
+"What sloop?"
+
+"The _Nelson_."
+
+"Was it taking a walk, Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Have you been to sea since we saw you last?" asked Fritz.
+
+"If I had fallen in with the craft at sea, Master Fritz, I should not
+have been half so much astonished. The sea is the natural element of
+ships; we do not find gudgeons in corn fields, nor shoot hares on the
+ocean. But it was on land that I hailed the _Nelson_."
+
+"Was it going round the corner of a street that you stumbled upon it,
+Willis?" inquired Jack.
+
+"Not exactly; but to make a long story short--"
+
+"When you talk of cutting anything short, we are in for a yarn," said
+Jack.
+
+"And you are sure to interrupt him in the middle of it," said Fritz.
+
+"Well, in two words," said Willis, knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
+"I was cruising about the shipyards, looking if there was a condemned
+craft likely to suit us--some of them had gun-shot wounds in their
+timbers, others had been slewed up by a shoal--and, to cut the matter
+short--"
+
+"Another yarn," suggested Jack.
+
+"I luffed up beside the hull of a cutter-looking craft that had been
+completely gutted. But, changed and dilapidated as that hull is, I
+recognized it at once to be that of the _Nelson_. Now do you believe
+in miracles?"
+
+"But are you sure, Willis?"
+
+"Suppose you met Ernest or Frank in the street to-morrow, pale,
+meagre, and in rags, would you recognize them?"
+
+"Most assuredly."
+
+"Well, by the same token, sailors can always recognize a ship they
+have sailed in. They know the form of every plank and the line of
+every bend. There are hundreds of marks that get spliced in the
+memory, and are never forgotten. But in the present case there is no
+room for any doubt, a portion of the figure head is still extant, and
+the word _Nelson_ can be made out without spectacles."
+
+"But how did it get there?"
+
+"You know, Master Fritz, it could not have told me, even if I had
+taken the trouble to inquire."
+
+"Very true, Willis."
+
+"I was determined, however, to find it out some other way, so I
+steered for a cafe near the harbor, where the pilots and long-shore
+captains go to play at dominoes. I was in hopes of picking up some
+stray waif of information, and, sooth to say, I was not altogether
+disappointed."
+
+"Another meeting, I'll be bound," said Jack.
+
+"My falling in with the _Nelson_ astonished you, did it not?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"Then I'll bet my best pipe that this one will surprise you still
+more. You recollect my comrade, Bill, _alias_ Bob, of the _Hoboken_?"
+
+"Yes, perfectly."
+
+"Then I met him."
+
+"What! the man who had both his legs shot off, and died in consequence
+of his wounds?" inquired Jack.
+
+"The same."
+
+"And that was afterwards thrown overboard with a twenty-four pound
+shot tied to his feet!" exclaimed Fritz.
+
+"The same."
+
+At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an
+air of apprehension.
+
+"You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?"
+
+"Whatever can we think, Willis?"
+
+"I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but
+still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by. I could scarcely
+believe my eyes when I saw him. 'Is that you, Bill Stubbs,' says I,
+'at last?'
+
+"'Lor love ye!' says he, 'is that you, Pilot?'
+
+"He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost
+wrenched it off.
+
+"'Where in all the earth did you hail from?' he said. 'I thought you
+were dead and gone?'
+
+"'And I thought you were the same,' said I, 'and no mistake.'
+
+"'Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea
+amongst the _mounseers_.'
+
+"'But what about the _Hoboken_?' says I.
+
+"'What _Hoboken_?' says he.
+
+"'Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?'
+
+"'Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,' says Bill.
+
+"And no more he was, for he never left the _Nelson_ till she was high
+and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I
+must have been wrong in that instance."
+
+"So I should think," remarked Fritz.
+
+"Yet the resemblance was very remarkable; the only difference was a
+carbuncle on the nose, which the real Bill has and the other has not,
+but which I had forgotten."
+
+"Like Cicero," remarked Jack.
+
+"Another Admiral?" inquired Willis, drily.
+
+"No, he was only an orator."
+
+"Bill soon satisfied me that he was the very identical William Stubbs,
+and that the other was only a very good imitation."
+
+"He did not receive you with a punch in the ribs, at all events, like
+the apocryphal Bill," remarked Jack.
+
+"No; but what is more to the purpose, he told me that, after having
+struggled with the terrible tempest off New Switzerland--which you
+recollect--the _Nelson_ found herself at such a distance, that Captain
+Littlestone resolved to proceed on his voyage, and to return again as
+speedily as possible.
+
+"'We arrived at the Cape all right,' added Bill, 'landed the New
+Switzerland cargo, and sailed again with the Rev. Mr. Wolston on
+board. A few days after leaving the Cape, we were pounced upon by a
+French frigate; the _Nelson_, with its crew, was sent off as a prize
+to Havre, and here I have been ever since,' said Bill, 'a prisoner at
+large, allowed to pick up a living as I can amongst the shipping.'"
+
+"And the remainder of the crew?" inquired Fritz.
+
+"Are all here prisoners of war."
+
+"And the Rev. Mr. Wolston and the captain?"
+
+"Are prisoners on parole."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here."
+
+"What! in Havre?"
+
+"Yes, close at hand, in the Hotel d'Espagne."
+
+"And we sitting here," cried Jack, snatching up his hat and rushing
+down stairs four steps at a time.
+
+Willis and Fritz followed as fast as they could.
+
+When they all three reached the bottom of the stairs.
+
+"If Captain Littlestone is here, Willis," said Jack, "he could not
+have been on board the _Boudeuse_."
+
+"That is true, Master Jack."
+
+"In that case, Great Rono, you must have been dreaming in the
+corvette as well as in the Yankee."
+
+"No," insisted Willis, "it was no dream, I am certain of that."
+
+"Explain the riddle, then."
+
+"I cannot do that just at present, but it may be cleared up by-and-by,
+like all the mysteries and miracles that surround us."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[I] This circumstance is historical, and will be found at length in
+the Memoirs of Napoleon, by Amedee Goubard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+CAPTAIN LITTLESTONE IS FOUND, AND THE REV. MR. WOLSTON IS SEEN FOR THE
+FIRST TIME.
+
+
+Jack, on arriving at the hotel, ascertained the number of the room in
+which Captain Littlestone was located. In his hurry to see his old
+friend, the young man did not stop to knock at the door, but entered
+without ceremony, with Fritz and Willis at his heels. They found
+themselves in the presence of two gentlemen, one of whom sat with his
+face buried in his hands, the other was reading what appeared to be a
+small bible.
+
+The latter was a young man seemingly of about twenty-four or
+twenty-five years of age. He had a mild but noble bearing, and his
+aspect denoted habitual meditation. His eyes were remarkably piercing
+and expressive; in short, he was one of those men at whom we are led
+involuntarily to cast a glance of respect, without very well knowing
+why; perhaps it might be owing to the gravity of his demeanour,
+perhaps to the peculiar decorum of his deportment, or perhaps to the
+scrupulous propriety of his dress. He raised his eyes from the book he
+held in his hand, and gazed tranquilly at the three figures who had so
+abruptly interrupted his reveries.
+
+"May I inquire," said he, "to what we owe this intrusion on our
+privacy, gentlemen?"
+
+"We have to apologise for our rudeness," said Fritz; "but are you not
+the Rev. Mr. Wolston?"
+
+"My name is Charles Wolston, and I am a minister of the gospel, and
+missionary of the church."
+
+"Then, sir," continued Fritz, "I am the bearer of a message from your
+father."
+
+"From my father!" exclaimed the missionary, starting up; "you come
+then from the Pacific Ocean?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here the second gentleman raised his head, and looked as if he had
+just awakened from a dream. He gazed at the speakers with a puzzled
+air.
+
+"Do you know me, captain?" said Willis.
+
+Littlestone, for it was he, continued to gaze in mute astonishment, as
+if the events of the past had been defiling through his memory; and he
+probably thought that the figures before him were mere phantom
+creations of his brain.
+
+"Willis! can it be possible?" he exclaimed, taking at the same time
+the Pilot's proffered hand.
+
+"Yes, captain, as you see."
+
+"And the two young Beckers, as I live!" cried Littlestone.
+
+"Yes," said Jack, "and delighted to find you at last."
+
+Littlestone then shook them all heartily by the hand.
+
+"It is but a poor welcome that I, a prisoner in the enemy's country,
+can give you to Europe; still I am truly overjoyed to see you. But
+where have you all come from?"
+
+"From New Switzerland," replied Jack.
+
+"But how?"
+
+"By sea."
+
+"That, of course; and I presume another ship anchored in Safety Bay?"
+
+"No, captain. Seeing you did not return to us, we embarked in the
+pinnace and came in search of you."
+
+"Your pinnace was but indifferently calculated to weather a gale,
+keeping out of view the other dangers incidental to such a voyage."
+
+"True, captain; but my brother and I, with Willis for a pilot and
+Providence for a guardian, ventured to brave these perils; and here we
+are, as you see."
+
+"And your mother consented to such a dangerous proceeding, did she?"
+
+"It was for her, and yet against her will, that we embarked on the
+voyage."
+
+"I do not understand."
+
+"For her, because, when we left, she was dying."
+
+"Dying, say you?"
+
+"Yes, and our object in coming to Europe was chiefly to obtain
+surgical aid."
+
+"And have you found a surgeon?"
+
+"Not yet, but we are in hopes of finding one."
+
+"If money is wanted, besides the value of the cargo I landed for you
+at the Cape, you may command my purse."
+
+"A thousand thanks, captain, but the merchandise we have here is
+likely to be sufficient for our purpose. Unfortunately, gold is not
+the only thing that is requisite."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"In the first place, a disinterested love of humanity is needful;
+there are few men of science and skill who would not risk more than
+they would gain by accepting any offer we can make. It is not easy to
+find the heart of a son in the body of a physician."
+
+"What, then, will you do, my poor friend?"
+
+"That is my secret, captain."
+
+During this conversation, the missionary had put a thousand questions
+to Willis and Fritz relative to his father, mother, and sisters, and a
+smile now and then lit up his features as Fritz related some of the
+family mishaps.
+
+"You must have undergone some hardships in your voyage from the
+antipodes to Havre de Grace," said Littlestone to Jack,
+"notwithstanding the skill of my friend the Pilot."
+
+"Yes, captain, a few," replied Jack. "I myself made a narrow escape
+from being killed and eaten by a couple of savages."
+
+"And how did you escape?"
+
+"Providence interfered at the critical moment."
+
+"Well, so I should imagine."
+
+"Our friend the Pilot was more fortunate; he was abducted by the
+natives of Hawaii; but, instead of converting him into mincemeat, they
+transformed him into a divinity, bore him along in triumph to a
+temple, where he was perfumed with incense, and had sacrifices offered
+up to him."
+
+"Willis must have felt himself highly honored," said the captain,
+smiling.
+
+"These fine things did not, however, last long, for next day they were
+wound up with a cloud of arrows."
+
+"And another interposition of Providence?"
+
+"Yes, none of the arrows were winged with death."
+
+"After that," remarked Willis, "we fell in with a Yankee cruiser, were
+taken on board, and carried into the latitude of the Bahamas, where we
+fell in with Old Flyblow, who, after a tough set-to, sent the Yankee a
+prize to Bermuda, and took us on board as passengers."
+
+"And," added Jack, "whilst we were under protection of the American
+flag, Willis fell in with a certain Bill Stubbs, who was shot in the
+fight and died of his wounds. This trifling accident did not, however,
+prevent Willis falling in with him alive in Havre."
+
+"You still seem to delight in paradoxes, Master Jack," said the
+captain.
+
+"The English cruiser," continued Jack, "was afterwards captured by a
+French corvette, on which it appears you were on board _incognito_."
+
+"What! I on board?"
+
+"Yes; ask Willis."
+
+"If you were not, captain, how could you come to my cabin every night
+and ask me questions?" inquired the latter.
+
+At this point, a shade of anxiety crossed Littlestone's features; he
+turned and looked at the missionary--the missionary looked at
+Fritz--Fritz stared at his brother--Jack gazed at Willis--and Willis,
+with a puzzled air, regarded everybody in turn.
+
+"At last," continued Jack, "after experiencing a variety of both good
+and bad fortune, sometimes vanquished and sometimes the victors, first
+wounded, then cured, we arrived here in Havre, where, for a time, we
+were plunged into the deepest poverty; we were blacksmiths and
+carpenters by turns, and thought ourselves fortunate when we had a
+chair to mend or a horse to shoe."
+
+"The workings of Providence," said the missionary, "are very
+mysterious, and, perhaps, you will allow me to illustrate this fact by
+drawing a comparison. A ship is at the mercy of the waves; it sways,
+like a drunken man, sometimes one way and sometimes another. All on
+board are in commotion, some are hurrying down the hatchways, and
+others are hurrying up. The sailors are twisting the sails about in
+every possible direction. Some of the men are closing up the
+port-holes, others are working at the pumps. The officers are issuing
+a multiplicity of orders at once, the boatswain is constantly sounding
+his whistle. There is no appearance of order, confusion seems to reign
+triumphant, and there is every reason to believe that the commands are
+issued at random."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Jack, "how so many directions issued on
+ship board in a gale at one and the same moment could possibly be
+obeyed."
+
+"Let us descend, however, to the captain's cabin," continued the
+missionary. "He is alone, collected, thoughtful, and tranquil, his eye
+fixed upon a chart. Now he observes the position of the sun, and marks
+the meridian; then he examines the compass, and notes the polary
+deviation. On all sides are sextants, quadrants, and chronometers. He
+quietly issues an order, which is echoed and repeated above, and thus
+augments the babel on deck."
+
+"A single order," remarked Willis, "often gives rise to changes in
+twenty different directions."
+
+"On deck," continued the missionary, "the crew appear completely
+disorganized. In the captain's cabin, you find that all this apparent
+confusion is the result of calculation, and is essential to the safety
+of the ship."
+
+"Still," said Jack, "it is difficult to see how this result is
+effected by disorder."
+
+"True; and, therefore, we must rely upon the skill of the captain; we
+behold nothing but uproar, but we know that all is governed by the
+most perfect discipline. So it is with the world; society is a ship,
+men and their passions are the mast, sails, rigging, the anchors,
+quadrants, and sextants of Providence. We understand nothing of the
+combined action of these instruments; we tremble at every shock, and
+fear that every whirlwind is destined to sweep us away. But let us
+penetrate into the chamber of the Great Ruler. He issues his commands
+tranquilly; we see that He is watching over our safety; and whatever
+happens, our hearts beat with confidence, and our minds are at rest."
+
+"Therefore," added Littlestone, "we are resigned to our fate as
+prisoners of war; but still we hope."
+
+"And not without good reason," said Willis; "for it will go hard with
+me if I do not realize your hopes, and that very shortly too."
+
+"I do not see very well how our hopes of liberty can be realized till
+peace is proclaimed."
+
+"Peace!" exclaimed Willis. "Yes, in another twenty years or so,
+perhaps; to wail for such an unlikely event will never do; my young
+friend, Master Jack Becker, is in a hurry, and we must all leave this
+place within a month at latest."
+
+"You mean us, then, to make our escape, Willis; but that is
+impossible."
+
+"I have an idea that it is not impossible, captain; the cargo Masters
+Fritz and Jack have here will realize a large sum; the pearls,
+saffron, and cochineal, are bringing their weight in gold. I shall be
+able to charter or buy a ship with the proceeds, and some dark night
+we shall all embark; and if a surgeon is not willing to come of his
+own accord, I shall press the best one in the place: it won't be the
+first time I have done such a thing, with much less excuse."
+
+"One will be willing," said Jack; "so you need not introduce One-eyed
+Dick's schooner here, Willis."
+
+"So far so good, then; it only remains for us to smuggle the captain,
+the missionary, and the crew of the _Nelson_ on board."
+
+"But we are prisoners," said Littlestone.
+
+"I know that well enough; if you were not prisoners, of course there
+would be no difficulty."
+
+"Recollect, Willis, we are not only prisoners, but we are on parole."
+
+"True," said Willis, scratching his ear, "I did not think of that."
+
+"The situation," remarked Jack, "is something like that of Louis XIV.
+at the famous passage of the Rhine, of whom Boileau said: 'His
+grandeur tied him to the banks.' Had you been only a common sailor,
+captain, a parole would not have stood in the way of your escape."
+
+"But," said Willis, "the parole can be given up, can it not?"
+
+"Not without a reasonable excuse," replied the captain.
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "you can go with the minister to the
+Maritime Prefect, and say: 'Sir, you know that everyone's country is
+dear to one's heart, and you will not be astonished to hear that
+myself and friend have an ardent desire to return to ours. This desire
+on our part is so great, that some day we may be tempted to fly, and,
+consequently, forfeit our honor; for, after all, there are only a few
+miles of sea between us and our homes. We ought not to trust to our
+strength when we know we are weak. Do us, therefore, the favor to
+withdraw our parole; we prefer to take up our abode in a prison, so
+that, if we can escape, we may do so with our honor intact."
+
+"And suppose this favor granted, we shall be securely shut up in a
+dungeon. I scarcely think that would alter our position for the
+better, or render our escape practicable."
+
+"You will, at all events, be free to try, will you not?"
+
+"That is a self-evident proposition, Willis, and, so far as that goes,
+I have no objection to adopt the alternative of prison fare. What say
+you, minister?"
+
+"As for myself," replied the missionary, "a little additional hardship
+may do me good, for the Scriptures say: Suffering purifieth the soul."
+
+"We shall, therefore, resign our paroles, Willis; but bear in mind
+that it is much easier to get into prison than to get out."
+
+"Leave the getting out to me, captain; where there's a will there's
+always a way."
+
+"Do you think," whispered the captain to Fritz, "that Willis is all
+right in his upper story?"
+
+Fritz shook his head, which, in the ordinary acceptation of the sign,
+means, I really do not know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+WILLIS PROVES THAT THE ONLY WAY TO BE FREE IS TO GET SENT TO
+PRISON--AN ESCAPE--A DISCOVERY--PROMOTIONS--SOMNAMBULISM.
+
+
+Three weeks after the events narrated in the foregoing chapter, the
+thrice-rescued produce of Oceania had been converted into the current
+coin of the empire.
+
+The greater portion of the proceeds was placed at the disposal of
+Willis, to facilitate him in procuring the means of returning to New
+Switzerland. He--like connoisseurs who buy up seemingly worthless
+pictures, because they have detected, or fancy they have detected,
+some masterly touches rarely found on modern canvas--had bought, not a
+ship, but the remains of what had once been one. This he obtained for
+almost nothing, but he knew the value of his purchase. The carcass was
+refitted under his own eye, and, when it left the ship-yard, looked as
+if it had been launched for the first time. The timbers were old; but
+the cabins and all the internal fittings were new; a few sheets of
+copper and the paint-brush accomplished the rest. When the mast was
+fitted in, and the new sails bent, the little sloop looked as jaunty
+as a nautilus, and, according to Willis himself, was the smartest
+little craft that ever hoisted a union-jack.
+
+Whether the captain and the missionary still entertained the belief
+that the Pilot's wits had gone a wool-gathering or not, certain it is
+that they had followed his instructions, in so far as to relinquish
+their parole, and thus to lose their personal liberty. They were both
+securely locked up in one of the rooms or cells of the old palace or
+castle of Francois I., which was then, and perhaps is still, used as
+the state prison of Havre de Grace. This fortalice chiefly consists of
+a battlemented round tower, supported by strong bastions, and
+pierced, here and there, by small windows, strongly barred. The foot
+of the tower is bathed by the sea, which, as Willis afterwards
+remarked, was not only a favor granted to the tower, but likewise an
+obligation conferred upon themselves.
+
+When the Pilot's purchase had been completely refitted, stores
+shipped, papers obtained, and every requisite made for the outward
+voyage, the departure of the three adventurers was announced, and a
+crowd assembled on shore to see their ship leave the harbor. She was
+towed out to the roads, where she lay tranquilly mirrored in the sea,
+ready to start the moment her commander stepped on board. Neither
+Fritz nor Jack, however, had yet completed their preparations. For the
+moment, therefore, the vessel was left in charge of some French
+seamen, whom Willis, however, had taken care to engage only for a
+short period.
+
+Somewhere about a week after this, Fritz and Jack, in a small boat,
+painted perfectly black and manned by four stout rowers, with muffled
+oars, were lurking about the fortalice already mentioned. The night
+was pitch dark, and there was no moon. The waves beat sullenly on the
+foot of the tower and surged back upon themselves, like an enraged
+enemy making an abortive attempt to storm the walls of a town. Not a
+word was uttered, and the young men were intently listening, as if
+expecting to hear some preconcerted signal.
+
+Meanwhile, in one of the rooms or cells of the round tower, about
+sixty feet above the level of the sea, Captain Littlestone, the
+missionary, and the Pilot were engaged in a whispered conversation,
+through which might be detected the dull sound of an oiled file
+working against iron. The cell was ample in size, but the stone walls
+were without covering of any kind. It was lighted during the day by
+one of the apertures we have already described; the thickness of the
+walls did not permit the rays of the sun to penetrate to the interior,
+and at the time of which we speak the apartment was perfectly dark.
+
+"I should like to see the warder," whispered Willis, "when he comes,
+with his bundle of keys and his night-cap in his hand, to wish your
+honors good morning, but, in point of fact, to see whether your
+honors are in safe custody. How astonished the old rascal will be! Ho,
+ho, ho!"
+
+"My good fellow," said the missionary, "it is scarcely time to laugh
+yet. It is just possible we may escape; but vain boasting is in no
+case deserving of approbation. It is, indeed, scarcely consistent with
+the dignity of my cloth to be engaged in breaking out of a prison;
+still, I am a man of peace, and not a man of war."
+
+"No," said Willis, "you are not; but I wish to goodness you were a
+seventy-four--under the right colors, of course."
+
+"I was going to remark," continued the missionary, "that I am a man of
+peace, and, consequently, do not think that I am justly entitled to be
+treated as a prisoner of war. Under these circumstances, I am, no
+doubt, justified in shaking off my bonds in any way that is open to
+me; the more particularly as the apostle Paul was once rescued from
+bondage in a similar way."
+
+"He was let down from a window in a basket, was he not?"
+
+"Yes; whilst journeying in the city of Damascus, the governor, whose
+name was Avetas resolved to arrest him and accordingly placed sentries
+at all the gates. Paul, however was permitted to pass through a house,
+the windows of which overhung the walls of the town, whence, as you
+say, he was let down in a basket, and escaped."[J]
+
+"I trust your reverence will be in much the same position as the
+apostle, by-and-by--only you will have to dispense with the basket,"
+said Willis.
+
+"I have no wish to remain in bondage longer than is absolutely
+necessary," said the minister; "but there still seem difficulties in
+the way."
+
+"Yes," said Willis, plying the file with redoubled energy, "this iron
+gives me more bother than I anticipated; but it is the nature of iron
+to be hard; however, it will not be long before we are all out of
+bondage, as your reverence calls it."
+
+"May not the warder discover our escape, and raise an alarm in time
+to retake us?" inquired the missionary.
+
+"No, I think not," replied the captain; "thanks to our habit of
+sleeping with our faces to the wall, he will be deceived by the
+dummies we have placed in the beds, for he always approaches on
+tip-toe not to awake us."
+
+"That may be for the first round; but the second will assuredly
+disclose our absence."
+
+"Very likely," remarked Willis; "he will then go right up to the beds,
+and shake the dummies by the shoulders, and say, Does your honor not
+know that it is ten o'clock, and that your breakfast is cooling? The
+dummies will, of course, not condescend to reply, and then--but what
+matters? By that time we shall have shaken out our top-sail, and
+pursuit will be out of the question. I should like to see the craft
+that will overtake us when once we are a couple of miles ahead."
+
+"Poor man!" said the missionary, sighing; "our escape may, perhaps,
+cost him his place."
+
+"No fear of that," said Willis; "perhaps, at first, he will make an
+attempt to tear his hair, but, as he wears a wig, that will not do
+much mischief."
+
+"I shall, however, leave my purse on the table," said the missionary;
+"as it is tolerably well filled, that may afford the poor fellow some
+consolation."
+
+"And I shall do the same," said the captain.
+
+"If that does not console him for being deprived of the pleasure of
+our society, I do not know what will," observed Willis.
+
+"It is now two o'clock," said the captain, feeling his watch, "and the
+warder goes his first rounds at three; we have therefore just one hour
+for our preparations."
+
+"I have severed one bar," said Willis, "and the other is nearly
+through at one end, so keep your minds perfectly at ease."
+
+"Your patience and equanimity, Willis, does you infinite credit," said
+the missionary. "Minister of the Gospel though I be, I fear that I do
+not possess these qualities to the same extent, for, to confess the
+truth, I feel an inward yearning to be free, and yet am restless and
+anxious."
+
+"There is no great use in being in a hurry," said the Pilot; "the
+more haste the less speed, you know."
+
+"True; but might not these bars have been sawn through before? If this
+had been done, our flight would have been, at least, less
+precipitate."
+
+"You forget, Mr. Wolston," said the captain, "that we did not know
+till nine o'clock the affair was to come off to-night."
+
+"And I could not come any sooner to tell you," remarked the Pilot; "I
+had the greatest difficulty in the world to get in here; the maritime
+commissary would not take me into custody."
+
+"I forgot to ask you how you contrived to get incarcerated," observed
+the captain; "you were not a prisoner, and could not plead your
+parole."
+
+"No; and consequently I had to plead something else."
+
+"Willis," said the missionary, "the work you are engaged in must be
+very fatiguing, let me exercise my strength upon the bars for a short
+time."
+
+"If you like, minister, but keep the file well oiled."
+
+"What, motive, then, did you urge, Willis?" inquired Captain
+Littlestone.
+
+"'Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'one of your frigates captured the English
+cutter _Nelson_ some time ago, but the capture was not complete.'
+
+"'How so?' inquired the commissary.
+
+"'Because, Mr. Commissary,' said I, 'you did not capture the
+boatswain, and a British ship without a boatswain is no good; it is
+like a body without a soul.'
+
+"'Is that all you have to tell me?' said the commissary, looking glum.
+
+"'No,' said I, 'to make the capture complete, you have still to arrest
+the boatswain, and here he is standing before you--I am the man; but
+having been detained by family affairs in the Pacific Ocean, I could
+not surrender myself any sooner.'
+
+"'And what do you want me to do with you?' said he.
+
+"'Why, what you would have done with me had I been on board the
+_Nelson_, to be sure.'
+
+"'What! take you prisoner?'
+
+"'Yes, commissary.'
+
+"'You wish me to do so?'
+
+"'Yes, certainly,'
+
+"'Is it possible?'
+
+"'Then you refuse to take me into custody, Mr. Commissary?' said I.
+
+"'Yes, positively,' said he; 'we take prisoners, but we do not accept
+them when offered.'
+
+"'Then you will not allow me to join my captain in his adversity?'
+
+"'Your captain is as great a fool as yourself,' said he; 'he need not
+have gone to prison unless he liked.'
+
+"'That was a matter of taste on his part, Mr. Commissary, but is a
+matter of duty on mine,'"
+
+"This bar is nearly through," whispered the missionary.
+
+"There is no time to be lost," said the captain; "the warder will be
+round in a quarter of an hour."
+
+"Well," continued Willis, "the commissary began to get angry, he rose
+up, and was about to leave the room, when I placed myself resolutely
+before him.
+
+"'Sir,' said I, 'one word more--you know the French laws; be good
+enough to tell me what crime will most surely and most promptly send
+me to prison.'
+
+"'Oh, there are plenty of them,' said he, laughing.
+
+"'Well, commissary,' says I, 'suppose I knock you down here on the
+spot, will that do?"
+
+"Was that not going a little too far, Willis?"
+
+"What could I do? The ship was all ready, everybody on board but
+yourselves, circumstances were pressing, and you know I would have
+floored him as gently as possible."
+
+At this moment the bar yielded. To the end of a piece of twine, which
+Willis had rolled round his body, a piece of stone was attached; this
+he let down till it touched the water, and then the caw of a crow rang
+through the air.
+
+"That was a very good imitation, Willis," said the captain. "You did
+not break any of the commissary's bones, did you?"
+
+"No; the threat was quite sufficient; he would not yield to my
+prayers, but he yielded to my impudence, and ordered me into custody.
+At first, however, I was thrust into an underground cell; but I
+obtained, or rather my louis obtained for me, permission to chum with
+you; and, by the way, what a frightful staircase I had to mount! that
+more than any thing else, obliges us to get down by the window."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Willis, who continued to hold one end of the cord, at the sound of a
+whistle drew it up, and found attached to the other end a stout rope
+ladder. This he made fast to the bars of the window that still
+remained intact. At the request of the minister, all three then fell
+upon their knees and uttered a short prayer. Immediately after,
+Wolston went out of the window and began to descend, the captain
+followed, and Willis brought up the rear. All three were cautiously
+progressing downwards, when the missionary called out he had forgotten
+to _forget_ his purse.
+
+"I have made the same omission," said the captain; "hand yours up,
+Wolston."
+
+The missionary accordingly held up his with one hand whilst he held on
+the ladder with the other. The captain bent down to take it, but found
+he could not reach it without endangering his equilibrium. They both
+made some desperate efforts to accomplish the feat, but the thing was
+impossible.
+
+"I see no help for it," said the missionary, "but to ascend all three
+again."
+
+"That is awkward," said the captain.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Willis, "three o'clock is striking on the prison
+clock; the warder will be round in two minutes."
+
+"God sometimes permits good actions to go _unrewarded_," said the
+missionary; "but he never _punishes_ them."
+
+"Let us re-ascend, then," said the captain.
+
+"So be it," said Willis, going upwards.
+
+They had scarcely time to re-enter the cell before they heard the
+sound of steps and the clank of keys in the corridor. The steps
+discontinued at their door, and a key was thrust into the lock.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried the captain from his bed, as the gaoler
+thrust his head inside the door.
+
+"Why," said the warder, "I heard a noise, and thought that your honor
+might be ill."
+
+"Thank you for your attention, Ambroise," replied the captain, in a
+half sleepy tone; "but you have been deceived, we are all quite well."
+
+"Entirely so," added the missionary.
+
+"All right old fellow!" cried Willis, with a yawn.
+
+This triple affirmation, which assured him, not only of the health,
+but also of the custody of his prisoners, seemed satisfactory to the
+gaoler.
+
+"I am sorry to have awoke your honors," said he, as he withdrew his
+head and relocked the door; "it must have been in the room overhead."
+
+"Good?" said Willis, "the old rascal expects nothing."
+
+Two well-lined purses were laid on the table, and in a few minutes
+more the three men resumed their position on the ladder in the same
+order as before. They arrived safely in the boat, where they were
+cordially welcomed by Fritz and Jack. The men were then ordered to
+pull for their lives to the ship, which they did with a hearty will.
+The instant they stepped on board the anchor was weighed, and when
+morning broke not a vestige of the old tower of Havre de Grace was
+anywhere to be seen.
+
+"Why," exclaimed the captain, looking about him with an air of
+astonishment, "this is my own vessel!"
+
+"Yes, captain," said Willis, touching his cap, "and I am its boatswain
+or pilot, whichever your honor chooses to call me."
+
+"But how did you obtain possession of her?"
+
+"By right of purchase she belongs to our friends, Masters Fritz and
+Jack, but they have agreed to waive their claim, providing you proceed
+with them to New Switzerland."
+
+"I agree most willingly to these conditions," said Captain
+Littlestone, addressing the two brothers, "the more so that my
+destination was Sydney when the _Nelson_ was captured."
+
+"In the meantime, captain," said Fritz, "my brother and I have to
+request that you will resume the command, and treat us as passengers."
+
+"Thank you, my friends, thank you. Willis, are all the old crew on
+board?"
+
+"All that were in Havre, your honor; I commissioned Bill Stubbs to
+pick them up, and he managed to smuggle them all on board."
+
+"Then pipe all hands on deck."
+
+"Aye, aye, captain," said Willis, sounding his whistle.
+
+When the men were mustered, Littlestone made a short speech to them,
+told them that they would receive pay for the time they had been in
+the enemy's power, and inquired whether they were all willing to
+continue the voyage under his command. This question was responded to
+by a general assent.
+
+"Then," he continued, turning to Willis, "the share you have had in
+the rescue of the _Nelson_ and its crew, conjointly with my interest
+at the Admiralty, will, I have not the slightest doubt, obtain for you
+the well-merited rank of lieutenant of his Majesty's navy. I have,
+therefore, to request that you will assume that position on board
+during the voyage, until confirmed by the arrival of your commission."
+
+"Thank your honor," said Willis, bowing.
+
+"And now, lieutenant, you will be kind enough to rate William Stubbs
+on the books as boatswain."
+
+"Aye, aye, captain," said Willis, handing his whistle to Bill.
+
+"Pipe to breakfast," said the captain.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied the new boatswain, sounding the whistle.
+
+"By the way," said Littlestone, turning to Jack, "I do not see the
+surgeon you spoke of on board. How is this?"
+
+"He is on board for all that," said Jack, drawing an official looking
+document out of his pocket; "be kind enough to read that."
+
+The captain accordingly read as follows:--
+
+    "_Havre, 15th October, 1812._
+
+    "This is to certify that Mr. Jack Becker has, for some time, been
+    a student in the hospitals of this town, and that he has
+    successfully passed through a stringent examination as to his
+    acquaintance with the diagnosis and cure of various diseases; as
+    also as to his knowledge of the practice of physic and surgery
+    generally.
+
+    "He has specially directed his attention to the treatment of
+    cancer, and has performed several operations for the eradication
+    of that malady to the satisfaction of the surgeon in chief and my
+    own.
+
+    (Signed) "GARAY DE NEVRES, M.D., Inspector of the Hospitals".
+
+This document was countersigned, sealed, and stamped by the mayor, the
+prefect, and other authorities of the department.
+
+"How have you contrived to obtain so satisfactory a certificate in so
+short a period?" inquired the captain.
+
+"I was introduced to the chief surgeon by the medical man on board the
+_Boudeuse_. I stated my position to him, and, probably, he threw
+facilities in my way of obtaining the object I had in view that were,
+perhaps, rarely accorded to others. All the cases of cancer, for
+example, were placed under my care; I had, therefore, an opportunity
+of observing a great many phases and varieties of that disease."
+
+"Are you determined to follow up the profession of surgery, then?"
+
+"Yes, captain; I have shipped a medicine chest on board, a complete
+assortment of instruments, and a collection of English, French, and
+German medical works. It is my intention to make myself thoroughly
+familiar with the theory of the science, and trust to chance for
+practice."
+
+"Then allow me, Mr. Becker, to rate you as surgeon of the _Nelson_ for
+the outward voyage. Will you accept the office?"
+
+"With pleasure, Captain; but, at the same time, I trust there will be
+no occasion to exercise my skill."
+
+"No one can say what may happen; disease turns up where it is least
+expected. Lieutenant," he added, turning to Willis, "be kind enough to
+rate Mr. Becker on the ship's books as surgeon."
+
+"Aye, Aye, sir."
+
+Meantime the _Nelson_ was making her way rapidly along the French
+coast, and had already crossed the Bay of Biscay. The _Nelson_ behaved
+herself admirably, and took to her new gear with excellent grace. All
+was going merrily as a marriage bell. They did not now run very much
+risk of cruisers, as Fritz had French papers perfectly _en regle_, and
+Captain Littlestone would have had little difficulty to prove his
+identity; besides, the speed of the _Nelson_ was sufficient to secure
+their safety in cases where danger was to be apprehended.
+
+One night, about four bells (ten o'clock), when Willis was lazily
+lolling in his hammock, doubtless ruminating on his newly-acquired
+dignity, his cabin-door gradually opened, and the captain entered.
+Willis stared at first, thinking he might have something important to
+communicate, but he only muttered something about a cloud gathering in
+the west. This was too much for Willis; it resembled his former
+meditations so vividly, that he leaped out of his hammock, seized
+Littlestone by the collar, and called loudly for Fritz and Jack.
+
+"It is not very respectfull, captain, to handle you in this way; but
+the case is urgent, and I should like to have the mystery cleared up."
+
+The two brothers, when they entered the cabin, beheld Willis holding
+the captain tightly in his arms.
+
+"I have caught him at last, you see," said the Pilot.
+
+"So it would appear," observed Jack; "but are you not aware the
+captain is asleep?"
+
+And so it was Littlestone had walked from his own cabin to that of
+Willis in a state of somnambulism.
+
+"What is the matter?" inquired the latter, when he became conscious of
+his position.
+
+"Nothing is the matter, captain," replied Jack, "only you have been
+walking in your sleep."
+
+"Ah--yes--it must be so!" exclaimed Littlestone; gazing about him with
+a troubled air. "Have I not paid you a visit of this kind before,
+Willis?"
+
+"Yes, often."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On board the _Boudeuse_."
+
+"That must have been the craft I was transferred to, then, after the
+capture of the _Nelson_. Just call Mr. Wolston, and let us have the
+matter explained."
+
+On comparing notes, it appeared that the captain and the missionary
+had been on board the _Boudeuse_. Both had been ill, and both had been
+closely confined to their cabin during the entire voyage, partly on
+account of their being prisoners of war, and partly on account of
+their illness. On one occasion, but on one only, the captain had
+escaped from his cabin during the night. Willis might, therefore, have
+seen him once, but that he had seen him oftener was only a dream.
+
+"It appears, then," said Littlestone, "that my illness has left this
+unfortunate tendency to sleep-walking. I shall, therefore, place
+myself in your hands, Master Jack; perhaps you may be able to chase it
+away."
+
+"I will do my best, captain; and I think I may venture to promise a
+cure."
+
+Willis was sorry for the captain's sleeplessness, but he was glad that
+the mystery hanging over them both had been so far cleared up. His
+visions and dreams had been a source of constant annoyance to him; but
+now that their origin had been discovered, he felt that henceforward
+he might sleep in peace.
+
+After a rapid run, the sloop cast anchor off the Cape. Here Captain
+Littlestone reported himself to the commander on the station, and
+received fresh papers. He also sent off a despatch to the Lords of the
+Admiralty, in which he reported the capture and rescue of his ship. He
+informed them that his own escape and that of the crew was entirely
+owing to the tact and daring of Willis, the boatswain, whom, in
+consequence, he had nominated his second in command, _vice_ Lieutenant
+Dunsford, deceased; the appointment subject, of course, to their
+lordship's approval.
+
+Willis wrote a long letter to his wife, informing her of his expected
+promotion, adding that, in a year or so after the receipt of his
+commission, he should retire on half-pay, and then emigrate to a
+delightful country, where he had been promised a vast estate. He said
+that, probably, he should have an entire island to himself, and
+possibly have the command of the fleet; but he thought it as well to
+say nothing about tigers, sharks, and chimpanzees.
+
+The missionary also wrote to England, relinquishing his charge in
+South Africa, and requesting a mission amongst the benighted
+inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, where he stated he was desirous of
+settling for family reasons, and where besides, he said, he would have
+a wider and equally interesting field for his labors.
+
+The two brothers found at the Cape a large sum of money at their
+disposal; this, however, they had now no immediate use for; they,
+consequently, left it to await the arrival of Frank and Ernest, who,
+in all probability, would return with the _Nelson_.
+
+The arrangements made, the _Nelson_ was fully armed and manned, an
+ample supply of stores and ammunition was shipped, the mails in Sydney
+were taken on board, and the sloop resumed her voyage.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[J] 2nd Cor., xi., 32.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+Three months after leaving the Cape, the coast of New Switzerland was
+telegraphed from the mast head by Bill Stubbs. A gun was immediately
+fired, and towards evening the _Nelson_ entered Safety Bay. Fritz,
+Jack, Captain Littlestone, the missionary, and Willis, were all
+standing on deck, eagerly scanning the shore.
+
+"There is father!" cried Jack, "armed with a telescope; and now I see
+Frank and Mrs. Wolston."
+
+"There comes Mr. Wolston and Master Ernest," cried Willis, "as usual,
+a little behind."
+
+"But I see nothing of my mother and the young ladies!" said Fritz.
+
+"Very odd," said Captain Littlestone, sweeping the horizon with his
+glass "I can see nothing of them either."
+
+A horrible apprehension here glided into the hearts of the young men.
+They knew well that, had their mother been able, she would have been
+the first to welcome them home. Perhaps, under the inspiration of
+despair, their lips were opening to deny the mercy of that Providence
+which had hitherto so remarkably befriended them, when at a great
+distance, and scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, they descried
+three figures advancing slowly towards the shore.
+
+One of these forms was Mrs. Becker, who was leaning upon the arms of
+Mary and Sophia Wolston.
+
+"God be thanked, we are still in time," cried Fritz and Jack.
+
+A loud cheer, led by Willis, then rent the air. Half an hour after,
+the two young men leaped on shore; they did not stay to shake hands
+with their father and brothers, but ran on to where their mother
+stood. It was a long time before they could utter a syllable; the
+greeting of the mother and her children was too affectionate to be
+expressed in words.
+
+Next morning, at daybreak, preparations for a serious operation were
+made in Mrs. Becker's room. The entire colony was in a state of
+intense excitement, and an air of anxiety was imprinted on every
+countenance. In the room itself the wing of a fly could have been
+heard, so breathless was the silence that prevailed. The patient's
+eyes had been bandaged, under pretext of concealing from her sight the
+surgical instruments and preparations for the operation. The real
+design, however, was to hide the operator, whom Mrs. Becker supposed
+to be an expert practitioner from Europe; for it was not thought
+advisable that a mother's anxieties should be superadded to the
+patient's sufferings.
+
+At the moment of trial the few persons present had sunk on their
+knees; Jack alone remained standing at the bedside of his mother. The
+Jack of the past had entirely disappeared; he was somewhat pale, very
+grave, but collected, firm, and resolute. It was, perhaps, the first
+instance on record of a son being called upon to lacerate the body of
+his mother. But the moment that God imposed such a task upon one of
+His creatures, it is God himself that becomes the operator.
+
+When, some days after, Mrs. Becker--calm, radiant, and
+saved--requested to see and thank her deliverer, it was Jack who
+presented himself. If she had known this sooner, it would, most
+undoubtedly, have augmented her terror, and increased the fever. As it
+was, it redoubled her thankfulness, and hastened her recovery.
+
+Frank and Ernest embarked on board the _Nelson_ when she returned to
+New Switzerland on her way to Europe. Two years afterwards, the former
+returned in the capacity of a minister of the Church of England,
+bringing with him a sufficient number of men, women, and children to
+furnish a respectable congregation; and it was rumored, though with
+what degree of truth I will not venture to say, that one of the young
+lady passengers in the ship was his destined bride. Ernest remained
+some years in Europe, partly to consolidate relations between the
+colony and the mother country, and partly with a view to realize his
+pet project of establishing an observatory in New Switzerland.
+
+Willis, instead of being suspended at the yard-arm as he had insisted
+on prognosticating, received his lieutenancy in due course,
+accompanied by a highly flattering letter from the Lords of the
+Admiralty, thanking him, in the name of the captain and crew of the
+_Nelson_, for his exertions in their behalf. As soon, however, as
+peace was proclaimed, he retired on half-pay, and, with his wife and
+daughter, emigrated to Oceania. He assumed his old post of admiral on
+Shark's Island, where a commodious house had been erected. We must
+premise, at the same time, that to his honorary duties as admiral,
+conjoined the humbler, but not less useful, offices of lighthouse
+keeper, manager of the fisheries, and harbor-master.
+
+As a country grows rich, and advances in prosperity, it rarely, if
+ever, happens that the sum of human life becomes happier or better. It
+is, therefore, not without regret we learn that gold has been
+discovered in a land so highly favored by nature in other respects;
+for, if such be the case, then adieu to the peace and tranquillity its
+inhabitants have hitherto enjoyed. The colony will soon be overrun
+with Chinamen, American adventurers, and ticket-of-leave convicts.
+Farewell to the kindliness and hospitality of the community, for they
+will inevitably be deluged with the refuse of the old, and also, alas!
+of the new world.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Willis the Pilot, by Johanna Spyri
+
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