ed half the globe; now staggering under
a half-reefed topsail in the Bay of Biscay, now swimming along, with
winged and stretching sails, under the blue cliffs of Baia.

"I 'm sure I don't know how you ever could lead a shore life," said
Sickleton, as Cashel described with warm enthusiasm some passages of his
rover's existence.

"Nor do I understand how I have borne it so long," said Cashel;
"its dissipations weary, its deceits provoke me. I have lost--if not
all--great part of that buoyancy which mingled peril and pleasure
create, and I suppose, in a month or two more, I should be about as
apathetic, as indolent, and as selfish as any fine gentleman ought to
be. Ah, if we had a war!"

"That's it,--that's what I say every day and every night: if we had
a war, the world would be worth living, in or dying for. Fellows like
myself, for instance, are never thought of in a peace; but they 'look
us all out,'--just as they do a storm-jib, when it comes on to blow. No
laughing a man out of position, then,--no, faith!"

"How do you mean?" said Cashel, who saw in the intense expression of the
speaker how much the words covered.

"Just what happened to myself,--that's all," said Sickleton; "but if you
like to hear how,--the story is n't long, or any way remarkable,--we 'll
have a bit of luncheon here, and I'll tell it to you."

Cashel willingly assented, and very quickly a most appetizing meal made
its appearance in the cabin, to which Sickleton did the honors most
creditably.

"I 'm impatient for that anecdote you promised me," said Cashel, as the
dessert made its appearance, and they sat in all the pleasant enjoyment
of social ease.

"You shall hear it,--though, as I said before, it's not much of a story
either; nor should I tell it, if I did n't see that you feel a sort of
interest about myself--unhappily, its hero."

"I 'll not weary you by telling you the story that thousands can repeat,
of a service without patronage, no sooner afloat than paid off again,
and no chance of employment, save in a ten-gun brig off the coast of
Guinea, and I suppose you know what that is?"

Cashel nodded, and Sickleton went on:--

"Well, I passed as lieutenant, and went through my yellow fever in the
Niger very creditably. I was the only one of a ship's company in the
gun-room on the way back to England, after a two years' cruise; I
suppose because life was less an object to me than the other fellows,
who had mothers, and sisters, a