THE SURPRISING, UNHEARD-OF, AND NEVER-TO-BE-SURPASSED STORY THE SECOND-OF DANGERS OF THE DEEP. NE thing I have never yet conquered "ONE "The sea! "I have sailed on it till I have been wrecked, swam in it till I have been drowned, fished in it till I have been swallowed, starved on it, till- but no matter. Enough that I am afraid to tell you half my dangers,' you must put up with the least alarming. "I shall never forget the night of the eighteenth of September, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two; I had just returned from sea, my dear relations sat round me with their mouths open, greedily taking in the vivid story of my perils. Eager to tell my plain unvarnished tale, I did not notice its terrible effect upon them, till struck by a great wonder at the brilliant manner in which the room was suddenly lit up, I cast my eyes around. All their hair was turned grey, or say rather, snowy white; and each particular head was acting as a reflector to the moderator lamp on the table, in the midst of the room. All their hair grey, STRANGE REFLECTION. and all their jaws locked past picking. I need not say, that I am now rather unwilling to narrate the best of my stories. "Talking of grey hairs, reminds me of a skipper, a mate, and a bo'sun, all grey haired, and all three obstinate men. I was sailing in their ship, a passenger to Melbourne. "Skipper,' said I, one morning, pointing to a white line of foam, about half a mile ahead-skipper, beware of the sunken rocks of the Pacific.' He laughed at me, and I said no more; but in five minutes we had struck upon these very rocks, of whose existence no one but myself was aware. All was confusion; no one knew what was to be done; we were off the rocks indeed, but with a great hole in the ship's bottom, and the water pouring in. "The hole is three foot square,' shrieked the obstinate skipper. STOPPING A LEAK. "So are you!" I replied, and shoved him in feet foremost; he fitted exactly. "Starboard!' I cried to the mate, who had taken the command. "Larboard!' he roared; we struck again. "Two foot nine,' whispered the mate. Another hole. "So are you,' I cried, and shoved him in by the side of the skipper. The bo'sun was now captain. "Larboard!' I shouted. "Starboard!' yelled the bo'sun; we struck a third time. "Two foot six,' screamed the bo'sun. "So are you,' I cried, and the bo'sun was shoved in beside the mate. I then took command, made for a friendly port, released the three greyheaded officers from their uncomfortable berths, and explained to the agents, that they were not much to blame, and would never do so any more. "But a worse calamity than this happened on my next voyage, in sight of land; the ship struck, and at once went in two; this was a great trouble, neither half of the ship could sail by itself; so I spliced them together with the mainbrace, rigged a flying jib-boom, and with that and a gaff-topsail, steered her safely into harbour. "I was once in a ship, on my way to the North Pole, when a cry of "Fire" was raised; too truly, indeed; our cargo of paraffin, train oil, turpentine, and rough towelling, was in a blaze. Three hundred and nine barrels of gunpowder lay in the next bulk. lyzed; the captain fainted away; I, the only person capable of giving help, looked round in despair; nothing likely to assist A NEW FIRE-ENGINE. The crew were para us met my eye, save and except a whale, which lay off on our weather bow, gaily spouting huge streams of water through her blow holes; a forlorn hope, indeed, yet I steered the burning ship up to the monster, and laying alongside, managed to harpoon her cleverly, a little overhanded, so that the strain of the rope drew her on one side; her spouts of water coming fairly on to the vessel, put out the flames, brought the captain to his senses, and filled our barrels— which were getting empty-with the sweetest fresh water you ever tasted. This accident gave me a great fright, and has made me very careful about fire ever since. I have taken my spermaceti, my whalebone, and my right whales; indeed, when captain of a whaler, I found myself on the high road to fortune, but I met with an adventure once, that fairly drove me from the trade, hazardous as it is. "We were out in the boat, pulling towards as fine a fish as ever you saw (we used to call them fish, you know), when, A TALKING WHALE. to my amazement, the huge monster up with her fins, and began spelling out the dumb alphabet 'HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT YOURSELF?' she motioned. "Not at all,' I answered. She followed on with ""Consider my poor children.' It was too much for us, we had never expected to fall in with a whale, learned enough to have feelings, so we rowed back without a word. "I was once out swimming for a wager. Five leagues in the hour for five hundred dollars, and had just done my fourteenth mile within forty minutes, and was barely a mile from our ship, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by white sharks; here was a bother, one came up with me, I pushed my boot down his throat, and left it there, tried the same plan with number two, luckily choking them both, the third snapped at my head, but went off with my hat. I did not for a moment know what to do next, till I caught sight and caught hold of the fine long tail of the oldest shark there; round he flew in a rage at this indignity, carrying me with him; together we waltzed through the water, until we not only puzzled the rest of the shoal, who did not know what to make of it, but we twisted and twirled and tumbled about, until we tumbled on deck just within the hour; so that I not only won my wager, but after having slaughtered the old shark, made me a nice shagreen purse out of his skin, to keep it in. WALTZ WITH A "Worse than sharks, however, and more trying than swimming wagers, are sailors in a state of mutiny; it was but once my fate to quell a rising of this sort, but for all that I should not like it to happen again. She was a good ship, the Arethusa, iron-plated and copper-bottomed, with every improvement; and, moreover, loaded with gold, on her way home from Frazer River; her cargo worth about ten million pounds sterling, but her captain was a poor spiritless fellow, named Tubbs, who had not energy enough to command a crew, and hardly seamanship enough for the navigation of his ship. "One night I was asleep on deck under a tarpauling, when I was aroused by the chief mate and the captain of the fore top leaning over me and speaking in suppressed voices; they were planning a mutiny, G THE MUTINY AND hoping to gain possession of the ship and its valuable cargo, but little thinking that Munchausen was within hearing; such, however, was the case, and when in the morning they began by throwing the captain overboard, they found ME, revolver in each hand, and drawn sword between my teeth, prepared to suppress them at once. I made a dash my six shooters brought down one hundred and forty-three men, not counting the captain of the fore-top, when a marling spike, thrown at me by the blood-thirsty mate, shivered the sword from between my teeth, and sent me backward stunned and bleeding. Now was the time for presence of mind; there was one half of the crew untouched, and the terrible first mate at their head. My case seemed hopeless, at me they came with cutlasses, blunderbusses, pistols, mainbraces, halliards, oaths, and execrations. Ah, the MAINMAST! I made but one rush for it. With a strength for which I had never yet given even myself credit, I dragged the mast out of its socket, brought it down to a horizontal position, and running a tilt with it, as if it were Sir Launcelot's spear, spitted them all like so many larks, and in this uncomfortable condition left them. With the greatest difficulty, for want of the mainmast, which I had not strength enough to lift a second time, I steered into port, cargo safe, and was well rewarded, as you may suppose. My 3 per cents-I always invest in government securities-produced exactly fifteen hundred a year, but I could not remain rich and idle: the poor wives and children of the discomfited mutineers were in such distress that I sold out at once and divided my fifty thousand pounds amongst them,-an act of charity that I am proud to say I have never yet regretted. "But you will hardly guess the means by which I replenished my purse in my next voyage. "We were crossing the line, and of course were preparing to carry out the usual pranks; we had plenty of iron hooping for razors, warm tar for lather, buckets of salt water for baths; down drops the bo'sun from the larboard side, thinking to row quietly round to starboard and hail the ship, as though he were Neptune rising from the sea; but somehow Neptune himself hearing of it, came on board in a great passion, carrying poor Bo'sun by the scruff of his neck, having as a punishment turned him into a merman. What had become of his legs I don't know; there he was, half a fish, and as old Nep. gave him to me when he left the vessel, and I really did not know what to do with a bo'sun who could not walk, NEPTUNE AND THE |