'Mafame,' said the Captain, a glass of grog a-piece to the Dragonflies' and a tumbler of liquid amber (to borrow from my old friend Cooper) sparkled in the large bony claw of each of them. 'Now, drink Mr. Bang's health.' They, as in duty bound, let fly at our amigo in a volley.

'Your health, Mr. Bang.'

Aaron sprung from his seat, and made his salaam, and the Dragonflies bundled out of the cabin again.

'I say, Transom, John Canoeing still-always some frolic in the wind.'

We, the Watersprites, had shifted and rigged, and were all mustered aft on the poop, enjoying the little air there was, as it fanned us gently, and waiting for the announcement of supper. It was a pitch-dark night, neither moon nor stars. The murky clouds seemed to have settled down on the mastheads, shrouding every object in the thickest gloom.

'Ready with the gun forward there, Mr. Catwell?' said Yerk.

'All ready, sir.'

'Fire!'

Pent up as we were in a narrow channel, walled in on each side with towering precipitous rocks, the explosion, multiplied by the echoes into a whole broadside, was tremendous, and absolutely deafening.

The cold, grey, threatening rocks, and the large overhanging twisted branches of the trees, and the clear black water, and the white Moro in the distance, glanced for an instant, and then all was again veiled in utter darkness, and down came a

rattling shower of sand and stones from the cliffs, and of rotten branches, and heavy dew from the trees, sparkling in the water like a shower of diamonds; and the birds of the air screamed, and, frightened from their nests and perches in crevices and on the boughs of the trees, took flight with a strong rushing noise, that put one in mind of the rising of the fallen angels from the infernal council in Paradise Lost; and the cattle on the mountainside lowed, and the fish, large and small, like darts and arrows of fire, sparkled up from the black abyss of waters, and swam in haloes of flame round the ship in every direction, as if they had been the ghosts of a shipwrecked crew, haunting the scene of their destruction; and the guanas and large lizards, which had been shaken from the trees, skimmed and struggled on the surface in glances of fire, like evil spirits watching to seize them as their prey. At length the screaming and shrieking of the birds, the clang of their wings, and the bellowing of the cattle ceased, and the startled fish subsided slowly down into the oozy caverns at the bottom of the sea, and becoming motionless, disappeared, and all was again black and undistinguishable—the deathlike silence being only broken by the hoarse murmuring of the distant surf.

'Magnificent!' burst from the captain. Messenger, send Mr. Portfire here.' The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared. Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him burn a blue light.'

The lurid glare blazed up balefully amongst the spars and rigging, lighting up the decks, and blasting the crew into the likeness of the host of

Sennacherib, when the day broke on them, and they were all dead corpses. Astern of us, indistinct from the distance, the White Moro Castle reappeared, and rose frowning, tier above tier, like a Tower of Babel, with its summit veiled in the clouds, and the startled sea-fowl wheeling above the higher batteries, like snow-flakes blown about in a storm; while, near at hand, the rocks on each side of us looked as if fresh splintered asunder, with the sulphureous flames which had split them still burning; the trees looked no longer green, but were sicklied o'er with a pale ashy colour, as if sheeted ghosts were holding their midnight orgies amongst their branches; cranes, and water-fowl, and birds of many kinds, and all the insect and reptile tribes—their gaudy noontide colours merged into one and the same fearful deathlike samenessflitted and sailed and circled above us, and chattered and screamed and shrieked; and the unearthly looking guanas, and numberless creeping things, ran out on the boughs to peer at us; and a large snake twined itself up a scathed stump that shot out from a shattered pinnacle of rock that overhung us, with its glossy skin glancing like the brazen serpent set up by Moses in the camp of the Israelites; and the cattle on the beetling summit of the cliff craned over the precipitous ledge to look down upon us; and, while everything around us and above us was thus glancing in the blue and ghastly radiance, the band struck up a low moaning air ; the light burnt out, and once more we were cast, by the contrast, into even more palpable darkness than before. I was entranced, and stood with folded arms, looking forth into the night, and musing intensely on the appalling scene which had

just vanished like a feverish dream-' Dinner waits, sir,' quoth Mafame.

Oh! I am coming;' and, kicking all my romance to Old Nick, I descended, and we had a pleasant night of it, and some wine and some fun, and there an end; but I have often dreamed of that dark pool, and the scenes I witnessed there that day and night.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PIRATE'S LEMAN

'When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye,

To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom-is to die.'

Vicar of Wakefield.

'Ay Dios, si sera possible que he ya hallado lugar que pueda servir de escondida sepultura a la carga pesada deste cuerpo, que tan contra mi voluntad sostengo?'-Don Quixote de la Mancha.

THE next morning after breakfast I proceeded to Santiago, and landed at the customhouse wharf, where I found everything bustle, dust, and heat. Several of the captains of the English vessels were there, who immediately made up to me, and reported how far advanced in their lading they were, and inquired when we were to give them convoy, the latest news from Kingston, etc.

At

length I saw our friend Ricardo Campana going along one of the neighbouring streets, and I immediately made sail in chase. He at once recognised me, gave me a cordial shake of the hand, and inquired how he could serve me. I produced two letters which I had brought for him, but which had been forgotten in the bustle of the preceding day; they were introductory, and, although sealed, I had some reason to conjecture that my friend, Mr. Pepperpot Wagtail, had done me much more than justice. Campana, with great kindness, immediately invited me to his house. 'We foreigners,' said he, 'don't keep your hours; I am just going home to breakfast.' It was past eleven in the forenoon. I was about excusing myself on the plea of having already breakfasted, when he silenced me. "Why, I guessed as much, Mr. Lieutenant, but then you have not lunched; so you can call it lunch, you know, if it will ease your conscience.' There was no saying nay to all this civility, so we stumped along the burning streets, through a mile of houses, large massive buildings, but very different in externals from the gay domiciles of Kingston. Aaron Bang afterwards used to say that they looked more like prisons than dwelling-houses, and he was not in this very much out. Most of them were built of brick and plastered over, with large windows, in front of each of which, like the houses in the south of Spain, there was erected a large heavy wooden balcony, projecting far enough from the wall to allow a Spanish chair, such as I have already described, to be placed in it. The front of these verandahs was closed in with a row of heavy balustrades at the bottom, of a variety of shapes, and by