University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

Tempest.

At sunset, the speck presented by the reefed top-sail of
the corvette had sunk beneath the horizon, in the southern
board, and that ship was seen no longer. Several islands
had been passed, looking tranquil and smiling amid the fury
of the tempest; but it was impossible to haul up for any
one among them. The most that could be done was to
keep the ship dead before it, to prevent her broaching-to,
and to have a care that she kept clear of those rocks and
of that bottom, for which Nanny Sidley had so much pined.

Familiarity with the scene began to lessen the apprehensions
of the passengers, and as scudding is an easy process
for those who are liable to sea-sickness, ere another night
shut in, the principal concern was connected with the course
the ship was compelled to steer. The wind had so far
hauled to the westward as to render it certain that the coast
of Africa would lie in their way, if obliged to scud many
hours longer; for Captain Truck's observations, actually
placed him to the southward and eastward of the Canary
Islands. This was a long distance out of his course, but
the rate of sailing rendered the fact sufficiently clear.

This, too, was the precise time when the Montauk felt
the weight of the tempest, or rather, when she experienced

the heaviest portion of that which it was her fate to feel.
Lucky was it for the good ship that she had not been in this
latitude a few hours earlier, when it had blown something
very like a hurricane. The responsibility and danger of
his situation now began seriously to disturb Captain Truck,
although he kept his apprehensions to himself, like a prudent
officer. All his calculations were gone over again
with the utmost care, the rate of sailing was cautiously
estimated, and the result showed, that ten or fifteen hours
more would inevitably produce shipwreck of another sort,
unless the wind moderated.

Fortumately, the gale began to break about midnight.
The wind still blew tremendously, but it was less steadily,
and there were intervals of half-an-hour at a time when the
ship might have carried much more canvas, even on a bow-line:
of course her speed abated in proportion, and, after
the day had dawned, a long and anxious survey from aloft
showed no land to the eastward. When perfectly assured
of this important fact, Captain Truck rubbed his hands with
delight, ordered a coal for his cigar, and began to abuse
Saunders about the quality of the coffee during the blow.

“Let there be something creditable, this morning, sir,”
added the captain, after a sharp rebuke; “and remember
we are down here in the neighbourhood of the country of
your forefathers, where a man ought, in reason, to be on
his good behaviour. If I hear any more of your washy
compounds, I'll put you ashore, and let you run naked a
summer or two with the monkeys and ouran-outangs.”

“I endeavour, on all proper occasions, to render myself
agreeable to you, Captain Truck, and to all those with
whom I have the happiness to sail,” returned the steward;
“but the coffee, sir, cannot be very good, sir, in such weater,
sir. I do diwine that the wind must blow away its flavour,
for I am ready to confess it has not been as odorous
as it usually is, when I have had the honour to prepare it.
As for Africa, sir, I flatter myself, Captain Truck, that you
esteem me too highly to believe I am suited to consort or
resort with the ill-formed and inedicated men who inhabit
that wild country. I misremember whether my ancestors
came from this part of the world or not; but if they did,

sir, my habits and profession entirely unqualify me for their
company, I hope. I know I am only a poor steward, sir,
but you'll please to recollect that your great Mr. Vattel was
nothing but a cook.”

“D—n the fellow, Leach; I believe it is this conceit that
has spoiled the coffee the last day or two! Do you suppose
it can be true that a great writer like this man could
really be no better than a cook, or was that Englishman
roasting me, by way of showing how cooking is done
ashore? If it were not for the testimony of the ladies, I
might believe it; but they would not share in such an indecent
trick. What are you lying-by for, sir? go to your pantry,
and remember that the gale is broken, and we shall all
sit down to table this morning, as keen-set as a party of
your brethren ashore here, who had a broiled baby for
breakfast.”

Saunders, who ex-officio might be said to be trained in
similar lectures, went pouting to his work, taking care to
expend a proper part of his spleen on Mr. Toast, who, quite
as a matter of course, suffered in proportion as his superior
was made to feel, in his own person, the weight of Captain
Truck's authority. It is perhaps fortunate that nature
points out this easy and self-evident mode of relief, else
would the rude habits of a ship sometimes render the relations
between him who orders and him whose duty it is to
obey, too nearly approaching to the intolerable.

The captain's squalls, however, were of short duration,
and on the present occasion he was soon in even a better
humour than common, as every minute gave the cheering
assurance, that the tempest was fast drawing to a close.
He had finished his third cigar, and was actually issuing
his orders to turn the reef out of the foresail, and to set the
main-top-sail close-reefed, when most of the passengers appeared
on deck, for the first time that morning.

“Here we are, gentlemen!” cried Captain Truck, in the
way of salutation, “nearer to Guinea than I could wish,
with every prospect, now, of soon working our way across
the Atlantic, and possibly of making a thirty or thirty-five
days' passage of it yet. We have this sea to quiet; and
then I hope to show you what the Montauk has in her, besides

her passengers and cargo. I think we have now got
rid of the Foam, as well as of the gale. I did believe, at
one time, her people might be walking and wading on the
coast of Cornwall; but I now believe they are more likely
to try the sands of the great Desert of Sahara.”

“It is to be hoped they have escaped the latter calamity,
as fortunately as they escaped the first!” observed Mr.
Effingham.

“It may be so; but the wind has got round to nor'-west,
and has not been sighing these last twelve hours. Cape
Blanco is not a hundred leagues from us, and, at the rate
he was travelling, that gentleman with the speaking-trumpet
may now be philosophizing over the fragments of his
ship, unless he had the good sense to haul off more to the
westward than he was steering when last seen. His ship
should have been christened the `Scud,' instead of the
`Foam.' ”

Every one expressed the hope that the ship, to which
their own situation was fairly enough to be ascribed, might
escape this calamity; and all faces regained their cheerfulness
as they saw the canvas fall, in sign that their own
danger was past. So rapidly, indeed, did the gale now
abate, that the topsails were hardly hoisted before the order
was given to shake out another reef, and within an hour all
the heavier canvas that was proper to carry before the
wind was set, solely with a view to keep the ship steady.
The sea was still fearful, and Captain Truck found himself
obliged to keep off from his course, in order to avoid the
danger of having his decks swept.

The racing with the crest of the waves, however, was
quite done, for the seas soon cease to comb and break, after
the force of the wind is expended.

At no time is the motion of the vessel more unpleasant,
or, indeed, more dangerous, than in the interval that occurs
between the ceasing of a violent gale, and the springing up
of a new wind. The ship is unmanageable, and falling
into the troughs of the sea, the waves break in upon her
decks, often doing serious injury, while the spars and rigging
are put to the severest trial by the sudden and violent
surges which they have to withstand. Of all this Captain

Truck was fully aware, and when he was summoned to
breakfast he gave many cautions to Mr. Leach before
quitting the deck.

“I do not like the new shrouds we got up in London,”
he said, “for the rope has stretched in this gale in a way
to throw too much strain on the old rigging; so see all
ready for taking a fresh drag on them, as soon as the people
have breakfasted. Mind and keep her out of the trough,
sir, and watch every roller that you find comes tumbling
upon us.”

After repeating these injunctions in different ways, looking
to windward some time, and aloft five or six minutes,
Captain Truck finally went below, to pass judgment on
Mr. Saunders' coffee. Once in his throne, at the head of
the long table, the worthy master, after a proper attention
to his passengers, set about the duty of restoration, as the
steward affectedly called eating, with a zeal that never
failed him on such occasions. He had just swallowed a
cup of the coffee, about which he had lectured Saunders,
when a heavy flap of the sails announced the sudden failure
of the wind.

“That is bad news,” said Captain Truck, listening to the
fluttering blows of the canvas against the masts. “I never
like to hear a ship shaking its wings while there is a heavy
sea on; but this is better than the Desert of Sahara, and
so, my dear young lady, let me recommend to you a cup
of this coffee, which is flavoured this morning by a dread
of ouran-outangs, as Mr. Saunders will have the honour
to inform you—”

A jerk of the whole ship was followed by a report like
that made by a musket. Captain Truck rose, and stood
leaning on one hand in a bent attitude, expectation and
distrust intensely portrayed in every feature. Another
helpless roll of the ship succeeded, and three or four similar
reports were immediately heard, as if large ropes had
parted in quick succession. A rending of wood followed,
and then came a chaotic crash, in which the impending
heavens seemed to fall on the devoted ship. Most of the
passengers shut their eyes, and when they were opened
again, or a moment afterwards, Mr. Truck had vanished.

It is scarcely necessary to describe the confusion that
followed. Eve was frightened, but she behaved well, though
Mademoiselle Viefville trembled so much as to require the
assistance of Mr. Effingham.

“We have lost our masts,” John Effingham coolly remarked;
“an accident that will not be likely to be very
dangerous, though by prolonging the passage a month or
two, it may have the merit of making this good company
more intimately acquainted with each other, a pleasure for
which we cannot express too much gratitude.”

Eve implored his forbearance by a glance, for she saw
his eye was unconsciously directed towards Mr. Monday
and Mr. Dodge, for both of whom she knew her kinsman
entertained an incurable dislike. His words, however, explained
the catastrophe, and most of the men hastened on
deck to assure themselves of the fact.

John Effingham was right. The new rigging which had
stretched so much during the gale, had permitted too much
of the strain, in the tremendous rolls of the ship, to fall
upon the other ropes. The shroud most exposed had
parted first; three or four more followed in succession, and
before there was time to secure anything, the remainder
had gone together, and the mainmast had broken at a place
where a defect was now seen in its heart. Falling over the
side, the latter had brought down with it the mizzen-mast
and all its hamper, and as much of the fore-mast as stood
above the top. In short, of all the complicated tracery of
ropes, the proud display of spars, and the broad folds of
canvas that had so lately overshadowed the deck of the
Montauk, the mutilated fore-mast, the fore-yard and sail,
and the fallen head-gear alone remained. All the rest
either cumbered the deck, or was beating against the side
of the ship, in the water.

The hard, red, weather-beaten face of Captain Truck
was expressive of mortification and concern, for a single
instant, when his eye glanced over the ruin we have just
described. His mind then seemed made up to the calamity,
and he ordered Toast to bring him a coal of fire, with
which he quietly lighted a cigar.

“Here is a category, and be d—d to it, Mr. Leach,” he

said, after taking a single whiff. “You are doing quite
right, sir; cut away the wreck and force the ship free of it,
or we shall have some of those sticks poking themselves
through the planks. I always thought the chandler in
London, into whose hands the agent has fallen, was a—
rogue, and now I know it well enough to swear to it. Cut
away, carpenter, and get us rid of all this thumping as soon
as possible. A very capital vessel, Mr. Monday, or she
would have rolled the pumps out of her, and capsized the
galley.”

No attempt being made to save anything, the wreck was
floating astern in five minutes, and the ship was fortunately
extricated from this new hazard. Mr. Truck, in spite of
his acquired coolness, looked piteously at all that gallant
hamper, in which he had so lately rejoiced, as yard-arm,
cross-trees, tressel-trees, and tops rose on the summits of
swells or settled in the troughs, like whales playing their
gambols. But habit is a seaman's philosophy, and in no
one feature is his character more respectable than in that
manliness which disinclines him to mourn over a misfortune
that is inevitable.

The Montauk now resembled a tree stripped of its
branches, or a courser crippled in his sinews; her glory
had, in a great degree, departed. The foremast alone
remained, and of this even the head was gone, a circumstance
of which Captain Truck complained more than of
any other, as, to use his own expressions, “it destroyed the
symmetry of the spar, which had proved itself to be a good
stick.” What, however, was of more real importance, it
rendered it difficult, if not impossible, to get up a spare topmast
forward. As both the main and mizzen-mast had
gone quite near the deck, this was almost the only tolerably
easy expedient that remained; and, within an hour of the
accident, Mr. Truck announced his intentions to stand as
far south as he could to strike the trades, and then to make
a fair wind of it across the Atlantic, unless, indeed, he
might be able to fetch into the Cape de Verde Islands,
where it would be possible, perhaps, to get something like
a new outfit.

“All I now ask, my dear young lady,” he said to Eve,

who ventured on deck to look at the desolation, as soon as
the wreck was cut adrift, “all I now ask, my dear young
lady, is an end to westerly winds for two or three weeks,
and I will promise to place you all in America yet, in time
to eat your Christmas dinner. I do not think Sir George
will shoot many white bears among the Rocky Mountains
this year, but then there will be so many more left for another
season. The ship is in a category, and he will be an
impudent scoundrel who denies it; but worse categories
than this have been reasoned out of countenance. All head-sail
is not a convenient show of cloth to claw off a lee-shore
with; but I still hope to escape the misfortune of laying
eyes on the coast of Africa.”

“Are we far from it?” asked Eve, who sufficiently understood
the danger of being on an uninhabitable shore in
their present situation; one in which it was vain to seek for
a port. “I would rather be in the neighbourhood of any
other land, I think, than that of Africa.”

“Especially Africa between the Canaries and Cape
Blanco,” returned Captain Truck, with an expressive
shrug. “More hospitable regions exist, certainly; for, if
accounts are to be credited, the honest people along-shore
never get a Christian that they do not mount him on a
camel, and trot him through the sands a thousand miles or
so, under a hot sun, with a sort of haggis for food, that
would go nigh to take away even a Scotchman's appetite.”

“And you do not tell us how far we are from this frightful
land, Mons. le Capitaine?” inquired Mademoiselle Viefville.

“In ten minutes you shall know, ladies, for I am about
to observe for the longitude. It is a little late, but it may
yet be done.”

“And we may rely on the fidelity of your information?”

“On the honour of a sailor and a man.”

The ladies were silent, while Mr. Truck proceeded to get
the sun and the time. As soon as he had run through his
calculations, he came to them with a face in which the
eye was roving, though it was still good-humoured and
smiling.

“And the result?” said Eve.

“Is not quite as flattering as I could wish. We are materially
within a degree of the coast; but, as the wind is
gone, or nearly so, we may hope to find a shift that will
shove us farther from the land. And now I have dealt
frankly with you, let me beg you will keep the secret, for
my people will be dreaming of Turks, instead of working,
if they knew the fact.”

It required no great observation to discover that Captain
Truck was far from satisfied with the position of his ship.
Without any after-sail, and almost without the means of
making any, it was idle to think of hauling off from the
land, more especially against the heavy sea that was still
rolling in from the north-west; and his present object was
to make the Cape de Verdes, before reaching which he
would be certain to meet the trades, and where, of course,
there would be some chance of repairing damages. His apprehensions
would have been much less were the ship a
degree further west, as the prevailing winds in this part of
the ocean are from the northward and eastward; but it was
no easy matter to force a ship that distance under a fore-sail,
the only regular sail that now remained in its place.
It is true, he had some of the usual expedients of seamen at
his command, and the people were immediately set about
them; but, in consequence of the principal spars having
gone so near the decks, it became exceedingly difficult to
rig jury-masts.

Something must be attempted, however, and the spare
spars were got out, and all the necessary preparations were
commenced, in order that they might be put into their
places and rigged, as well as circumstances would allow. As
soon as the sea went down, and the steadiness of the ship
would permit, Mr. Leach succeeded in getting up an awkward
lower studding-sail, and a sort of a stay-sail forward,
and with these additions to their canvas, the ship was
brought to head south, with the wind light at the westward.
The sea was greatly diminished about noon; but a mile an
hour, for those who had so long a road before them, and
who were so near a coast that was known to be fearfully
inhospitable, was a cheerless progress, and the cry of
“sail, ho!” early in the afternoon, diffused a general joy
in the Montauk.

The stranger was made to the southward and eastward,
and was standing on a course that must bring her quite near
to their own track, as the Montauk then headed. The wind
was so light, however, that Captain Truck gave it as his
opinion they could not speak until night had set in.

“Unless the coast has brought him up, yonder flaunting
gentleman, who seems to have had better luck with his light
canvas than ourselves, must be the Foam,” he said. “Tobacco,
or no tobacco, bride or bridegroom, the fellow has
us at last, and all the consolation that is left is, that we shall
be much obliged to him, now, if he will carry us to Portsmouth,
or into any other Christian haven. We have shown
him what a kettle-bottom can do before the wind, and now
let him give us a tow to windward like a generous antagonist.
That is what I call Vattel, my dear young lady.”

“If he do this, he will indeed prove himself a generous
adversary,” said Eve, “and we shall be certain to speak
well of his humanity, whatever we may think of his obstinacy.”

“Are you quite sure the ship in sight is the corvette?”
asked Paul Blunt.

“Who else can it be?—Two vessels are quite sufficient
to be jammed down here on the coast of Africa, and we
know that the Englishman must be somewhere to leeward
of us; though, I will confess, I had believed him much
farther, if not plump up among the Mohammedans, beginning
to reduce to a feather-weight, like Captain Riley, who
came out with just his skin and bones, after a journey across
the desert.”

“I do not think those top-gallant-sails have the symmetry
of the canvas of a ship-of-war.”

Captain Truck looked steadily at the young man an instant,
as one regards a sound criticism, and then he turned
his eye towards the object of which they were speaking.

“You are right, sir,” he rejoined, after a moment of examination;
“and I have had a lesson in my own trade
from one young enough to be my son. The stranger is
clearly no cruiser, and as there is no port in-shore of us
anywhere near this latitude, he is probably some trader who
has been driven down here, like ourselves.”

“And I'm very sure, captain,” put in Sir George Templemore,
“we ought to rejoice sincerely that, like ourselves,
he has escaped shipwreck. For my part, I pity the poor
wretches on board the Foam most sincerely, and could almost
wish myself a Catholic, that one might yet offer up
sacrifices in their behalf.”

“You have shown yourself a Christian throughout all
that affair, Sir George, and I shall not forget your handsome
offers to befriend the ship, rather than let us fall into
the jaws of the Philistines. We were in a category more
than once, with that nimble-footed racer in our wake, and
you were the man, Sir George, who manifested the most
hearty desire to get us out.”

“I ever feel an interest in the ship in which I embark,”
returned the gratified baronet, who was not displeased at
hearing his liberality so openly commended; “and I would
cheerfully have given a thousand pounds in preference to
being taken. I rather think, now, that is the true spirit for
a sportsman!”

“Or for an admiral, my good sir. To be frank with you,
Sir George, when I first had the honour of your acquaintance,
I did not think you had so much in you. There was
a sort of English attention to small wares, a species of
knee-buckleism about your debutt, as Mr. Dodge calls it,
that made me distrust your being the whole-souled and one-idea'd
man I find you really are.”

“Oh! I do like my comforts,” said Sir George, laughing.

“That you do, and I am only surprised you don't smoke.
Now, Mr. Dodge, your room-mate, there, tells me you have
six-and-thirty pair of breeches!”

“I have—yes, indeed, I have. One would wish to go
abroad decently clad.”

“Well! if it should be our luck to travel in the deserts,
your wardrobe would rig out a whole harem.”

“I wish, captain, you would do me the favour to step into
our state-room, some morning; I have many curious things
I should like to show you. A set of razors, in particular,
—and a dressing-case—and a pair of patent pistols—and
that life-preserver that you admire so much, Mr. Dodge.
Mr. Dodge has seen most of my curiosities, I believe, and

will tell you some of them are really worth a moment's
examination.”

“Yes, captain, I must say,” observed Mr. Dodge,—for
this conversation was held apart between the three, the
mate keeping an eye the while on the duty of the ship, for
habit had given Mr. Truck the faculty of driving his people
while he entertained his passengers—“Yes, captain, I must
say I have met no gentleman who is better supplied with
necessaries, than my friend, Sir George. But English gentlemen
are curious in such things, and I admit that I admire
their ingenuity.”

“Particularly in breeches, Mr. Dodge. Have you coats
to match, Sir George?”

“Certainly, sir. One would be a little absurd in his
shirt sleeves. I wish, captain, we could make Mr. Dodge
a little less of a republican. I find him a most agreeable
room-mate, but rather annoying on the subject of kings and
princes.”

“You stick up for the people, Mr. Dodge, or to the old
category?”

“On that subject, Sir George and I shall never agree,
for he is obstinately monarchial; but I tell him we shall
treat him none the worse for that, when he gets among us.
He has promised me a visit in our part of the country, and
I have pledged myself to his being unqualifiedly well
received; and I think I know the whole meaning of a
pledge.”

“I understand Mr. Dodge,” pursued the baronet, “that
he is the editor of a public journal, in which he entertains
his readers with an account of his adventures and observations
during his travels. `The Active Inquirer,' is it not,
Mr. Dodge?”

“That is the name, Sir George. `The Active Inquirer'
is the present name, though when we supported Mr. Adams
it was called `The Active Enquirer,' with an E.”

“A distinction without a difference; I like that,” interrupted
Captain Truck. “This is the second time I have
had the honour to sail with Mr. Dodge, and a more active
inquirer never put foot in a ship, though I did not know the
use he put his information to before. It is all in the way
of trade, I find.”

“Mr. Dodge claims to belong to a profession, captain,
and is quite above trade. He tells me many things have
occurred on board this ship, since we sailed, that will make
very eligible paragraphs.”

“The d— he does!—I should like particularly well,
Mr. Dodge, to know what you will find to say concerning
this category in which the Montauk is placed.”

“Oh! captain, no fear of me, when you are concerned.
You know I am a friend, and you have no cause to apprehend
any thing; though I'll not answer for everybody else
on board; for there are passengers in this ship to whom I
have decided antipathies, and whose deportment meets with
my unqualified disapprobation.”

“And you intend to paragraph them?”

Mr. Dodge was now swelling with the conceit of a vulgar
and inflated man, who not only fancies himself in possession
of a power that others dread, but who was so far blinded
to his own qualities as to think his opinion of importance
to those whom he felt, in the minutest fibre of his envious
and malignant system, to be in every essential his superiors.
He did not dare express all his rancour, while he was unequal
to suppressing it entirely.

“These Effinghams, and this Mr. Sharp, and that Mr.
Blunt,” he muttered, “think themselves everybody's betters;
but we shall see! America is not a country in which people
can shut themselves up in rooms, and fancy they are lords
and ladies.”

“Bless my soul!” said Captain Truck, with his affected
simplicity of manner; “how did you find this out, Mr.
Dodge? What a thing it is, Sir George, to be an active inquirer!”

“Oh! I know when a man is blown up with notions of
his own importance. As for Mr. John Effingham, he has
been so long abroad that he has forgotten that he is a going
home to a country of equal rights!”

“Very true, Mr. Dodge; a country in which a man cannot
shut himself up in his room, whenever the notion seizes
him. This is the spirit, Sir George, to make a great nation,
and you see that the daughter is likely to prove worthy of
the old lady! But, my dear sir, are you quite sure that Mr.

John Effingham has absolutely so high a sentiment in his
own favour. It would be awkward business to make a
blunder in such a serious matter, and murder a paragraph
for nothing. You should remember the mistake of the
Irishman!”

“What was that?” asked the baronet, who was completely
mystified by the indomitable gravity of Captain
Truck, whose character might be said to be actually formed
by the long habit of treating the weaknesses of his fellow-creatures
with cool contempt. “We hear many good things
at our club; but I do not remember the mistake of the
Irishman?”

“He merely mistook the drumming in his own ear, for
some unaccountable noise that disturbed his companions.”

Mr. Dodge felt uncomfortable; but there is no one in
whom a vulgar-minded man stands so much in awe as an
immovable quiz, who has no scruple in using his power.
He shook his head, therefore, in a menacing manner, and
affecting to have something to do he went below, leaving
the baronet and captain by themselves.

“Mr. Dodge is a stubborn friend of liberty,” said the
former, when his room-mate was out of hearing.

“That is he, and you have his own word for it. He has
no notion of letting a man do as he has a mind to! We are
full of such active inquirers in America, and I don't care
how many you shoot before you begin upon the white bears,
Sir George.”

“But it would be more gracious in the Effinghams, you
must allow, captain, if they shut themselves up in their
cabin less, and admitted us to their society a little oftener.
I am quite of Mr. Dodge's way of thinking, that exclusion
is excessively odious.”

“There is a poor fellow in the steerage, Sir George, to
whom I have given a piece of canvas to repair a damage to
his mainsail, who would say the same thing, did he know
of your six-and-thirtys. Take a cigar, my dear sir, and
smoke away sorrow.”

“Thankee, captain: I never smoke. We never smoke
at our club, though some of us go, at times, to the divan to
try a chibouk.”

“We can't all have cabins to ourselves, or no one would
live forward. If the Effinghams like their own apartment,
I do honestly believe it is for a reason as simple as that it
is the best in the ship. I'll warrant you, if there were a
better, that they would be ready enough to change. I suppose
when we get in, Mr. Dodge will honour you with an
article in `The Active Inquirer?' ”

“To own the truth, he has intimated some such thing.”

“And why not? A very instructive paragraph might
be made about the six-and-thirty pair of breeches, and the
patent razors, and the dressing-case, to say nothing of the
Rocky Mountains, and the white bears.”

Sir George now began to feel uncomfortable, and making
a few unmeaning remarks about the late accident, he disappeared.

Captain Truck, who never smiled except at the corner of
his left eye, turned away, and began rattling off his people, and
throwing in a hint or two to Saunders, with as much indifference
as if he were a firm believer in the unfailing orthodoxy
of a newspaper, and entertained a profound respect
for the editor of the `Active Inquirer,' in particular.

The prognostic of the master concerning the strange ship
proved true, for about nine at night she came within hail,
and backed her maintop-sail. This vessel proved to be an
American in ballast, bound from Gibraltar to New York;
a return store-ship from the squadron kept in the Mediterranean.
She had met the gale to the westward of Madeira,
and after holding on as long as possible, had also been compelled
to scud. According to the report of her officers, the
Foam had run in much closer to the coast than herself, and
it was their opinion she was lost. Their own escape was
owing entirely to the wind's abating, for they had actually
been within sight of the land, though having received no injury,
they had been able to haul off in season.

Luckily, this ship was ballasted with fresh water, and
Captain Truck passed the night in negotiating a transfer of
his steerage passengers, under an apprehension that, in the
crippled state of his own vessel, his supplies might be exhausted
before he could reach America. In the morning,
the offer of being put on board the store-ship was made to

those who chose to accept it, and all in the steerage, with
most from the cabin, profited by the occasion to exchange
a dismasted vessel for one that was, at least, full rigged.
Provisions were transferred accordingly, and by noon next
day the stranger made sail on a wind, the sea being tolerably
smooth, and the breeze still ahead. In three hours
she was out of sight to the northward and westward, the
Montauk holding her own dull course to the southward,
with the double view of striking the trades, or of reaching
one of the Cape de Verdes.