University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

[OMITTED]

for he hoped to be back again in the course of the succeeding
day. No time was to be lost, he knew, the return of the
Arabs being hourly expected, and the tranquillity of the open
sea being at all times a matter of the greatest uncertainty.
With the declared view of making quick work, and with the
secret apprehension of a struggle with the owners of the
country, the captain took with him every officer and man in
his ship that could possibly be spared, and as many of the
passengers as he thought might be useful. As numbers might
be important in the way of intimidation, he cared almost as
much for appearances as for any thing else, or certainly he
would not have deemed the presence of Mr. Dodge of any
great moment; for to own the truth, he expected the editor
of the Active Inquirer would prove the quality implied by
the first word of the title of his journal, as much in any
other way as in fighting.

Neither provisions nor water, beyond what might be
necessary in pulling to the wreck, nor ropes, nor blocks, nor
any thing but arms and ammunition, were taken in the
boats; for the examination of the morning had shown the
captain, that, notwithstanding so much had been plundered,
a sufficiency still remained in the stranded vessel. Indeed,
the fact that so much had been left was one of his reasons
for hastening off himself, as he deemed it certain that they
who had taken away what was gone, would soon return for
the remainder. The fowling-pieces and pistols, with all the
powder and ball in the ship, were taken: a light gun that
was on board, for the purpose of awaking sleepy pilots, being
left loaded, with the intention of serving for a signal of
alarm, should any material change occur in the situation of
the ship.

The party included thirty men, and as most had fire-arms
of one sort or another, they pulled out of the inlet with spirit
and great confidence in their eventual success. The boats
were crowded, it is true, but there was room to row, and the
launch had been left in its place on deck, because it was
known that two boats were to be found in the wreck, one of
which was large: in short, as Captain Truck had meditated
this expedient from the moment he ascertained the situation
of the Dane, he now set about carrying it into effect with
method and discrimination. We shall first accompany him

on his way, leaving the small party in the Montauk for our
future attention in another chapter.

The distance between the two vessels was about four
leagues, and a headland intervening, those in the boats in
less than an hour lost sight of their own ship, as she lay
shorn of her pride anchored within the reef. At almost the
same moment, the wreck came into view, and Captain Truck
applied his glass with great interest, in order to ascertain the
state of things in that direction. All was tranquil—no signs
of any one having visited the spot since morning being visible.
This intelligence was given to the people, who pulled
at their oars the more willingly under the stimulus of probable
success, driving the boats ahead with increasing velocity.

The sun was still some distance above the horizon, when
the cutter and jolly-boat rowed through the narrow channel
astern of the wreck, and brought up, as before, by the side
of the rocks. Leaping ashore, Captain Truck led the way
to the vessel, and, in five minutes, he was seen in the forward
cross-trees, examining the plain with his glass. All was as
solitary and deserted as when before seen, and the order was
immediately given to commence operations without delay.

A gang of the best seamen got out the spare topmast and
lower-yard of the Dane, and set about fitting a pair of sheers,
a job that would be likely to occupy them several hours.
Mr. Leach led a party up forward, and the second mate went
up with another further aft, each proceeding to send down
its respective top-gallant-mast, top-sail-yard, and top-mast;
while Captain Truck, from the deck, superintended the same
work on the mizen-mast. As the men worked with spirit,
and a strong party remained below to give the drags, and to
come up the lanyards, spar came down after spar with
rapidity, and just as the sun dipped into the ocean to the
westward, everything but the lower-masts was lying on the
sands, alongside of the ship; nothing having been permitted
to touch the decks in descending. Previously, however, to
sending down the lower-yards, the launch had been lifted
from its bed and landed also by the side of the vessel.

All hands were now mustered on the sands, and the boat
was launched, an operation of some delicacy, as heavy
rollers were occasionally coming in. As soon as it floated,
this powerful auxiliary was swept up to the rocks, and then

the men began to load it with the standing rigging and the
sails, the latter having been unbent, as fast as each spar
came down. Two kedges were found, and a hawser was
bent to one, when the launch was carried outside of the bar
and anchored. Lines being brought in, the yards were
hauled out to the same place, and strongly lashed together
for the night. A great deal of running rigging, many
blocks, and divers other small articles, were put into the
boats of the Montauk, and the jolly-boat of the wreck,
which was still hanging at her stern, was also lowered and
got into the water. With these acquisitions, the party had
now four boats, one of which was heavy and capable of
carrying a considerable freight.

By this time it was so late and so dark, that Captain
Truck determined to suspend his labours until morning. In
the course of a few hours of active toil, he had secured all
the yards, the sails, the standing and running rigging, the
boats, and many of the minor articles of the Dane; and
nothing of essential importance remained, but the three
lower masts. These, it is true, were all in all to him, for
without them he would be but little better off than he was
before, since his own ship had spare canvas and spare
yards enough to make a respectable show above the foundation.
This foundation, however, was the great requisite, and
his principal motive in taking the other things, was to have
a better fit than could be obtained by using spars and sails
that were not intended to go together.

At eight o'clock, the people got their suppers, and prepared
to turn in for the night. Some conversation passed
between Captain Truck and his mates, concerning the manner
of disposing of the men while they slept, which resulted
in the former's keeping a well-armed party of ten with him
in the ship, while the remainder were put in the boats, all
of which were fastened to the launch, as she lay anchored
off the bar. Here they made beds of the sails, and, setting
a watch, the greater portion of both gangs were soon as
quietly asleep as if lying in their own berths on board the
Montauk. Not so with Captain Truck and his mates. They
walked the deck of the Dane fully an hour after the men
were silent, and for some time after Mr. Monday had finished
the bottle of wine he had taken the precaution to bring with

him from the packet, and had bestowed his person among
some old sails in the cabin. The night was a bright starlight,
but the moon was not to be expected until near morning.
The wind came off the sands of the interior in hot
puffs, but so lightly as to sound, that it breathed past them
like the sighings of the desert.

“It is lucky, Mr. Leach,” said the Captain, continuing
the discourse he had been holding with his mate in a low
voice, under the sense of the insecurity of their situation;
“it is lucky, Mr. Leach, that we got out the stream anchor
astern, else we should have had the ship rubbing her copper
against the corners of the rocks. This air seems light, but
under all her canvas, the Montauk would soon flap her way
out from this coast, if all were ready.”

“Ay, ay, sir, if all were ready!” repeated Mr. Leach, as
if he knew how much honest labour was to be expended before
that happy moment could arrive.

“If all were ready. I think we may be able to whip these
three sticks out of this fellow by breakfast-time in the morning,
and then a couple of hours will answer for the raft;
after which, a pull of six or eight more will take us back to
our own craft.”

“If all goes well, it may be done, sir.”

“Well or ill, it must be done. We are not in a situation
to play at jack-straws!”

“I hope it may be done, sir.”

“Mr. Leach!”

“Captain Truck!”

“We are in a d—le category, sir, if the truth must be
spoken.”

“That is a word I am not much acquainted with, but we
have an awkward berth of it here, if that be what you
mean!”

A long pause, during which these two seamen, one of
whom was old, the other young, paced the deck diligently.

“Mr. Leach!”

“Captain Truck!”

“Do you ever pray?”

“I have done such a thing in my time, sir; but, since I
have sailed with you, I have been taught to work first and
pray afterwards; and when the difficulty has been gotten

over by the work, the prayers have commonly seemed surplusage.”

“You should take to your thanksgivings. I think your
grandfather was a parson, Leach.”

“Yes, he was, sir, and I have been told your father followed
the same trade.”

“You have been told the truth, Mr. Leach. My father
was as meek, and pious, and humble a Christian as ever
thumped a pulpit. A poorman, and, if truth must be spoken,
a poor preacher too; but a zealous one, and thoroughly devout.
I ran away from him at twelve, and never passed a
week at a time under his roof afterwards. He could not do
much for me, for he had little education and no money, and,
I believe, carried on the business pretty much by faith. He
was a good man, Leach, notwithstanding there might be a
little of a take-in for such a person to set up as a teacher;
and, as for my mother, if there ever was a pure spirit on
earth it was in her body!”

“Ay, that is the way commonly with the mothers, sir.”

“She taught me to pray,” added the captain, speaking a
little thick, “but since I've been in this London line, to own
the truth, I find but little time for any thing but hard work,
until, for want of practice, praying has got to be among the
hardest things I can turn my hand to.”

“That is the way with all of us; it is my opinion, Captain
Truck, these London and Liverpool liners will have a
good many lost souls to answer for.”

“Ay, ay, if we could put it on them, it would do well
enough; but my honest old father always maintained, that
every man must stand in the gap left by his own sins;
though he did assert, also, that we were all fore-ordained to
shape our courses starboard or port, even before we were
launched.”

“That doctrine makes an easy tide's-way of life; for I
see no great use in a man's carrying sail and jamming
himself up in the wind, to claw off immoralities, when he
knows he is to fetch up upon them after all his pains.”

“I have worked all sorts of traverses to get hold of this
matter, and never could make any thing of it. It is harder
than logarithms. If my father had been the only one to
teach it, I should have thought less about it, for he was no

scholar, and might have been paying it out just in the way
of business; but then my mother believed it, body and soul,
and she was too good a woman to stick long to a course that
had not truth to back it.”

“Why not believe it heartily, sir, and let the wheel fly?
One gets to the end of the v'y'ge on this tack as well as on
another.”

“There is no great difficulty in working up to or even
through the passage of death, Leach, but the great point is
to know the port we are to moor in finally. My mother
taught me to pray, and when I was ten I had underrun all
the Commandments, knew the Lord's Creed, and the Apostles'
Prayer, and had made a handsome slant into the Catechism;
but, dear me, dear me, it has all oozed out of me,
like the warmth from a Greenlander.”

“Folks were better educated in your time, Captain Truck,
than they are now-a-days, by all I can learn.”

“No doubt of that in the world. In my time, younkers
were taught respect for their betters, and for age, and their
Catechism, and piety, and the Apostles' Prayer, and all
those sort of things. But America has fallen astern sadly
in manners within the last fifty years. I do not flatter
myself with being as good as I was when under my excellent
dear mother's command, but there are worse men in the
world, and out of Newgate, too, than John Truck. Now,
in the way of vices, Leach, I never swear.”

“Not you, sir; and Mr. Monday never swear.”

As the protestation of sobriety on the part of their passenger
had got to be a joke with the officers and men of the
ship, Captain Truck had no difficulty in understanding his
mate, and though nettled at a retort that was like usurping
his own right to the exclusive quizzing of the vessel, he was
in a mood much too sentimental and reflecting to be angry.
After a moment's pause, he resumed the dialogue, as if nothing
had been said to disturb its harmony.

“No, I never swear; or, if I do, it is in a small gentlemanly
way, and with none of your foul-mouthed oaths, such
as are used by the horse-jockeys that formerly sailed out of
the river.”

“Were they hard swearers?”

“Is a nor-wester a hard wind? Those fellows, after

they have been choked off and jammed by the religion
ashore for a month or two, would break out like a hurricane
when they had made an offing, and were once fairly out of
hearing of the parsons and deacons. It is said that old Joe
Bunk began an oath on the bar that he did not get to the end
of until his brig was off Montauk. I have my doubts, Leach,
if any thing be gained by screwing down religion and morals,
like a cotton bale, as is practised in and about the
river!”

“A good many begin to be of the same way of thinking;
for when our people do break out, it is like the small-pox!”

“I am an advocate for education; nor do I think I was
taught in my own case more than was reasonable. I think
even a prayer is of more use to a ship-master than Latin,
and I often have, even now, recourse to one, though it may
not be exactly in Scripture language. I seldom want a wind
without praying for it, mentally, as it might be; and as for
the rheumatis', I am always praying to be rid of it, when
I'm not cursing it starboard and larboard. Has it never
struck you that the world is less moral since steamboats
were introduced than formerly?”

“The boats date from before my birth, sir.”

“Very true—you are but a boy. Mankind appear to be
hurried, and no one likes to stop to pray, or to foot up his
sins, as used to be the case. Life is like a passage at sea.
We feel our way cautiously until off soundings on our own
coast, and then we have an easy time of it in the deep water;
but when we get near the shoals again, we take out the
lead, and mind a little how we steer. It is the going off and
coming on the coast, that gives us all the trouble.”

“You had some object in view, Captain Truck, when you
asked me if I ever prayed!”

“Certain. If I were to set to work to pray myself just
now, it would be for smooth water to-morrow, that we may
have a good time in towing the raft to the ship—hist! Leach;
did you hear nothing?”

“There was a sound different from what is common in
the air from the land! It is probably some savage beast,
for Africa is full of them.”

“I think we might manage a lion from this fortress. Unless
the fellow found the stage, he could hardly board us;

and a plank or two thrown from that, would make a draw-bridge
of it at once. Look yonder! there is something
moving on the bank, or my eyes are two jewel-blocks.”

Mr. Leach looked in the required direction, and he, too,
fancied he saw something in motion on the margin of the
bank. At the point where the wreck lay, the beach was far
from wide, and her flying jib-boom, which was still out, projected
so near the low acclivity, where the coast rose to the
level of the desert, as to come within ten feet of the bushes
by which the latter was fringed. Although the spar had
drooped a little in consequence of having lost the support of
the stays, its end was still sufficiently high to rise above the
leaves, and to permit one seated on it to overlook the plain,
as well as the starlight would allow. Believing the duty to
be important, Captain Truck, first giving his orders to Mr.
Leach, as to the mode of alarming the men, should it become
necessary, went cautiously out on the bowsprit, and
thence by the foot-ropes, to the farther extremity of the
booms. As this was done with the steadiness of a seaman,
and with the utmost care to prevent discovery, he was soon
stretched on the spar, balancing his body by his legs beneath,
and casting eager glances about, though prevented by
the obscurity from seeing either far or very distinctly.

After lying in this position a minute, Captain Truck discovered
an object on the plains, at the distance of a hundred
yards from the bushes, that was evidently in motion. He
was now all watchfulness, for, had he not seen the proofs
that the Arabs or Moors had already been at the wreck, he
knew that parties of them were constantly hovering along
the coast, especially after every heavy gale that blew from
the westward, in the hope of booty. As all his own people
were asleep, the mates excepted, and the boats could just be
discovered by himself, who knew their position, he was in
hopes that, should any of the barbarians be near, the presence
of his own party could hardly be known. It is true,
the alteration in the appearance of the wreck, by the removal
of the spars, must strike any one who had seen it
before; but this change might have been made by another
party of marauders, or those who had now come, if any
there were, might see the vessel for the first time.

While such thoughts were rapidly glancing through his

mind, the reader will readily imagine that the worthy master
was not altogether at his ease. Still he was cool, and,
as he was resolved to fight his way off, even against an
army, he clung to the spar with a species of physical resolution
that would have done credit to a tiger. The object on
the plain moved once more, and the clouds opening beyond,
he plainly made out the head and neck of a dromedary.
There was but one, however; nor could the most scrupulous
examination show him a human being. After remaining
a quarter of an hour on the boom, during all which time
the only sounds that were heard were the sighings of the
night-air, and the sullen and steady wash of the surf, Captain
Truck came on deck again, where he found his mate
waiting his report with intense anxiety. The former was
fully aware of the importance of his discovery, but, being a
cool man, he had not magnified the danger to himself.

“The Moors are down on the coast,” he said, in an under
tone; “but I do not think there can be more than two or
three of them at the most; probably spies or scouts; and,
could we seize them, we may gain a few hours on their comrades,
which will be all we want; after which they shall be
welcome to the salt and the other dunnage of the poor Dane.
Leach, are you the man to stand by me in this affair?”

“Have I ever failed you, Captain Truck, that you put the
question?”

“That you have never, my fine fellow; give me a squeeze
of your honest hand, and let there be a pledge of life or
death in it.”

The mate met the iron grasp of his commander, and
each knew that he received an assurance on which he might
rely.

“Shall I awake the men, sir?” asked Mr. Leach.

“Not one of them. Every hour of sleep the people get
will be a lower mast saved. These sticks that still remain
are our foundation, and even one of them is of more account
to us, just now, than a fleet of ships might be at another
time. Take your arms and follow me; but first we will
give a hint to the second-mate of what we are about.”

This officer was asleep on the deck, for he had been so
much wearied with his great exertions that afternoon as to
catch a little rest as the sweetest of all gifts. It had been

the intention of Captain Truck to dismiss him to the boats;
but, observing him to be overcome with drowsiness, he had
permitted him to catch a nap where he lay. The look-out,
too, was also slumbering under the same indulgence; but
both were now awakened, and made acquainted with the
state of things on shore.

“Keep your eyes open, but keep a dead silence,” concluded
Captain Truck; “for it is my wish to deceive these
scouts, and to keep them ignorant of our presence. When
I cry out `Alarm!' you will muster all hands, and clear
away for a brush, but not before. God bless you, my lads!
mind and keep your eyes open. Leach, I am ready.”

The captain and his companion cautiously descended to
the sands, and passing astern of the ship, they first took
their way to the jolly-boat, which lay at the rocks in readiness
to carry off the two officers to the launch. Here they
found the two men in charge so soundly asleep, that nothing
would have been easier than to bind them without giving the
alarm. After a little hesitation, it was determined to let
them dream away their sorrows, and to proceed to the spot
where the bank was ascended.

At this place it became necessary to use the greatest precaution,
for it was literally entering the enemy's country.
The steepness of the short ascent requiring them to mount
nearly on their hands and feet, this part of their progress
was made without much hazard, and the two adventurers
stood on the plain, sheltered by some bushes.

“Yonder is the camel,” whispered the captain: “you see
his crooked neck, with the head tossing at moments. The
fellow is not fifty yards from the body of the poor German!
Now let us follow along this line of bushes, and keep a sharp
look-out for the rider.”

They proceeded in the manner mentioned, until they came
to a point where the bushes ceased, and there was an opening
that overlooked the beach quite near the wreck.

“Do you see the boats, Leach, here away, in a line with
the starboard davit of the Dane? They look like dark spots
on the water, and an ignorant Arab might be excused for
taking them for rocks.”

“Except that they rise and fall with the rollers; he must
be doubly a Turk who could make such a blunder!”

“Your wanderers of the desert are not so particular.
The wreck has certainly undergone some changes since
yesterday, and I should not wonder if even a Mussulman
found them out, but—”

The gripe of Mr. Leach, whose fingers almost entered the
flesh of his arm, and a hand pointed towards the bushes on
the other side of the opening, silenced the captain's whisper.
A human form was seen standing on the fringe of the bank,
directly opposite the jib-boom. It was swaddled in a sort of
cloak, and the long musket that was borne in a hollow of an
arm, was just discernible, diverging from the line of the
figure. The Arab, for such it could only be, was evidently
gazing on the wreck, and presently he ventured out more
boldly, and stood on the spot that was clear of bushes. The
death-like stillness on the beach deceived him, and he advanced
with less caution towards the spot where the two
officers were in ambush, still keeping his own eye on the
ship. A few steps brought him within reach of Captain
Truck, who drew back his arm until the elbow reached his
own hip, when he darted it forward, and dealt the incautious
barbarian a severe blow between the eyes. The Arab fell
like a slaughtered ox, and before his senses were fairly recovered,
he was bound hands and feet, and rolled over the
bank down upon the beach, with little ceremony, his fire-arms
remaining with his captors.

“That lad is in a category,” whispered the captain; “it
now remains to be seen if there is another.”

A long search was not rewarded with success, and it was
determined to lead the camel down the path, with a view
to prevent his being seen by any wanderer in the morning.

“If we get the lower masts out betimes,” continued the
captain, “these land pirates will have no beacons in sight to
steer by, and, in a country in which one grain of sand is so
much like another, they might hunt a week before they made
a happy land-fall.”

The approach of the two towards the camel was made
with less caution than usual, the success of their enterprise
throwing them off their guard, and exciting their spirits.
They believed, in short, that their captive was either a solitary
wanderer, or that he had been sent ahead as a scout,

by some party that would be likely to follow in the morning.

“We must be up and at work before the sun, Mr. Leach,”
said the captain, speaking clearly, but in a low tone, as they
approached the camel. The head of the animal was tossed;
then it seemed to snuff the air, and it gave a shriek. In the
twinkling of an eye an Arab sprang from the sand, on
which he had been sleeping, and was on the creature's back.
He was seen to look around him, and before the startled
mariners had time to decide on their course, the beast,
which was a dromedary trained to speed, was out of sight
in the darkness. Captain Truck had thrown forward his
fowling-piece, but he did not fire.

“We have no right to shoot the fellow,” he said, “and
our hope is now in the distance he will have to ride to join
his comrades. If we have got a chief, as I suspect, we will
make a hostage of him, and turn him to as much account
as he can possibly turn one of his own camels. Depend
on it we shall see no more of them for several hours, and
we will seize the opportunity to get a little sleep. A man
must have his watch below, or he gets to be as dull and as
obstinate as a top-maul.”

The captain having made up his mind to this plan was
not slow in putting it in execution. Returning to the beach
they liberated the legs of their prisoner, whom they found
lying like a log on the sands, and made him mount the
staging to the deck of the ship. Leading the way into the
cabin, Mr. Truck examined the fellow by a light, turning
him round and commenting on his points very much as he
might have done had the captive been any other animal of
the desert.

The Arab was a swarthy, sinewy man of forty, with all
his fibres indurated and worked down to the whip-cord meagreness
and rigidity of a racer, his frame presenting a perfect
picture of the sort of being one would fancy suited to
the exhausting motion of a dromedary, and to the fare of
a desert. He carried a formidable knife, in addition to the
long musket of which he had been deprived, and his principal
garment was the coarse mantle of camel's hair, that
served equally for cap, coat and robe. His wild dark eyes
gleamed, as Captain Truck passed the lamp before his face,

and it was sufficiently apparent that he fancied a very
serious misfortune had befallen him. As any verbal communication
was out of the question, some abortive attempts
were essayed by the two mariners to make themselves understood
by signs, which, like some men's reasoning, produced
results exactly contrary to what had been expected.

“Perhaps the poor fellow fancies we mean to eat him,
Leach,” observed the captain, after trying his skill in pantomime
for some time without success; “and he has some
grounds for the idea, as he was felled like an ox that is
bound to the kitchen. Try and let the miserable wretch
understand, at least, that we are not cannibals.”

Hereupon the mate commenced an expressive pantomime,
which described, with sufficient clearness, the process of
skinning, cutting up, cooking, and eating the carcass of the
Arab, with the humane intention of throwing a negative
over the whole proceeding, by a strong sign of dissent at
the close; but there are no proper substitutes for the little
monosyllables of “yes” and “no,” and the meaning of the
interpreter got to be so confounded that the captain himself
was mystified.

“D—n it, Leach,” he interrupted, “the man fancies that
he is not good eating, you make so many wry and out-of-the-way
contortions. A sign is a jury-mast for the tongue,
and every seaman ought to know how to practise them, in
case he should be wrecked on a savage and unknown coast.
Old Joe Bunk had a dictionary of them, and in calm
weather he used to go among his horses and horned cattle,
and talk with them by the hour. He made a diagram of
the language, and had it taught to all us younkers who
were exposed to the accidents of the sea. Now, I will try
my hand on this Arab, for I could never go to sleep while
the honest black imagined we intended to breakfast on
him.”

The captain now recommenced his own explanations in
the language of nature. He too described the process of
cooking and eating the prisoner—for this he admitted was
indispensable by way of preface—and then, to show his
horror of such an act, he gave a very good representation
of a process he had often witnessed among his sea-sick passengers,
by way of showing his loathing of cannibalism in

general, and of eating this Arab in particular. By this time
the man was thoroughly alarmed, and by way of commentary
on the captain's eloquence, he began to utter wailings
in his own language, and groans that were not to be mistaken.
To own the truth, Mr. Truck was a good deal mortified
with this failure, which, like all other unsuccessful
persons, he was ready to ascribe to anybody but himself.

“I begin to think, Mr. Leach,” he said, “that this fellow
is too stupid for a spy or a scout, and that, after all, he is no
more than a driveller who has strayed from his tribe, from
a want of sense to keep the road in a desert. A man of the
smallest information must have understood me, and yet you
perceive by his lamentations and outcries that he knows no
more what I said than if he were in another parallel of latitude.
The chap has quite mistaken my character; for if I
really did intend to make a beast of myself, and devour my
species, no one of the smallest knowledge of human nature
would think I'd begin on a nigger! What is your opinion
of the man's mistake, Mr. Leach?”

“It is very plain, sir, that he supposes you mean to broil
him, and then to eat so much of his steaks, that you will be
compelled to heave up like a marine two hours out; and, if
I must say the truth, I think most people would have inferred
the same thing from your signs, which are as plainly cannibal
as any thing of the sort I ever witnessed.”

“And what the devil did he make of yours, Master
Cookery-Book?” cried the captain with some heat. “Did
he fancy you meant to mortify the flesh with a fortnight's
fast? No, no, sir; you are a very respectable first officer,
but are no more acquainted with Joe Bunk's principles of
signs, than this editor here knows of truth and propriety.
It is your blundering manner of soliloquizing that has set
the lad on a wrong traverse. He has just grafted your own
idea on my communication, and has got himself into a category
that a book itself would not reason him out of, until
his fright is passed. Logic is thrown away on all `skeary
animals,” said old Joe Bunk. Hearkee, Leach, I've a mind
to set the rascal adrift, condemning the gun and the knife
for the benefit of the captors. I think I should sleep better
for the certainty that he was trudging along the sand, satisfied
he was not to be barbecued in the morning.”

“There is no use in detaining him, sir, for his messmate,
who went off on the dromedary, will sail a hundred feet to
his one, and if an alarm is really to be given to their party,
it will not come from this chap. He will be unarmed, and
by taking away his pouch we shall get some ammunition for
this gun of his, which will throw a shot as far as Queen
Anne's pocket-piece. For my part, sir, I think there is no
great use in keeping him, for I do not think he would understand
us, if he stayed a month, and went to school the whole
time.”

“You are quite right, and as long as he is among us, we
shall be liable to unpleasant misconceptions; so cut his lashings,
and set him adrift, and be d—d to him.”

The mate, who by this time was drowsy, did as desired,
and in a moment the Arab was at liberty. At first the poor
creature did not know what to make of his freedom, but a
smart application, à posteriori, from the foot of Captain
Truck, whose humanity was of the rough quality of the seas,
soon set him in motion up the cabin-ladder. When the
two mariners reached the deck, their prisoner was already
leaping down the staging, and in another minute his active
form was obscurely seen clambering up the bank, on gaining
which he plunged into the desert, and was seen no
more.

None but men indurated in their feelings by long exposure
would be likely to sleep under the circumstances in
which these two seamen were placed; but they were both
too cool, and too much accustomed to arouse themselves on
sudden alarms, to lose the precious moments in womanish
apprehensions, when they knew that all their physical energies
would be needed on the morrow, whether the Arabs
arrived or not. They accordingly regulated the look-outs,
gave strong admonitions of caution to be passed from one
to another, and then the captain stretched himself in the
berth of the poor Dane who was now a captive in the
desert, while Mr. Leach got into the jolly-boat, and was
pulled off to the launch. Both were sound asleep in less
than five minutes after their heads touched their temporary
pillows.