op-sail yard.

"Where away?"

"Right ahead, sir. A brig on the starboard tack!"

Ay, the old "Martha Blunt" bouncing along under all sail, squaring off
at the short-armed seas, and striking them doggedly, as she beat up for
the Windward Passage between Hayti and Cuba.

But there was an old sea-bruiser of a different build, who wore the belt
in the West Indies, and was after that sturdy old brig with teak ribs
for a hearty set-to; and when she came up alongside, in the friendly
sparring-match which ensued while both squared their main yards, and lay
for an hour side by side, there was considerable conversation; so much
talk, in fact--boats going to and fro, mingled with roars and shrieks,
and clasping of hands on board the brig--never a sound on board the
ship--that the blue pennant fluttered in such a way it was hard to tell
whether it was Jacob, or Piron, or the sweet wife, or mademoiselle, or
her lovely mother, who threw their arms around that pennant's truck.

Then yard-arm and yard-arm, the frigate with her canvas canopy of upper
sails furled, and the brig in her best bib and tucker, they both filled
away and moved side by side.

For a day or two they went on, talking and laughing to one another in
these friendly shakes of the hand over blue water, until one day, the
brig being to windward, she came upon an old water-logged launch, with a
broken mast and a torn sail hanging over her side.

It fell calm, and Jacob Blunt ordered young Binks to get into the yawl
and tow the boat alongside, and to be smart about it; for the breeze
might make so soon as the fog rose, and the commodore was not the man to
be kept waiting in a big frigate. Mr. Binks was smart about it, and
presently he returned--though there was no hurry, for the calm lasted a
long time--with his water-logged prize.

There was no human being in this prize; but when she came alongside, and
a yard tackle was hooked on to let the water drain out of her, Jacob
Blunt and the people on board gave a pleasant yell of astonishment.

It was not the soiled pack of Spanish cards, or the few bundles of
saturated paper cigars floating about, which caused this excitement. No,
it was several canvas bags lying there in the stern-sheets, strapped
with strands of a woman's red petticoat to the empty water-cask beneath
the thwarts; and not one of those canvas bags, or what was in them,
injured in the least by salt water. Very carefully were those bags--and
they were