rd have mercy on our souls!' and all the
crew, when they heard this, cried out--`Lord save us, or we perish!'
But still they thought that their time was come, for the breaking waves
were under their lee, and the yellow waters told them that, in a few
minutes, the vessel, and all who were on board, would be shivered in
fragments; and some wept and some prayed as they clung to the bulwarks
of the unguided vessel, and others in a few minutes thought over their
whole life, and waited for death in silence. But _he_, he did all; he
cried, and he prayed, and he swore, and he was silent, and at last he
became furious and frantic; and when the man said again and again, `The
Lord save us!' he roared out at last, `Will the _devil_ help us, for--'
In a moment, before these first words were out of his mouth, there was a
flash of lightning, that appeared to strike the vessel, but it harmed
her not, neither did any thunder follow the flash; but a ball of blue
flame pitched upon the knight heads, and then came bounding and dancing
aft to the taffrail, where _he_ stood alone, for the men had left him to
blaspheme by himself. Some say he was heard to speak, as if in
conversation, but no one knows what passed. Be it as it may, on a
sudden he walked forward as brave as he could be, and was followed by
this creature, who carried his head and tail slouching as he does now.

"And the dog looked up and gave one deep bark, and as soon as he had
barked the wind appeared to lull--he barked again twice, and there was a
dead calm--he barked again thrice, and the seas went down--and he patted
the dog on the head, and the animal then bayed loud for a minute or two,
and then, to the astonishment and fear of all, instead of the vessel
being within a cable's length of the Texel sands in a heavy gale, and
without hope, the Foreland lights were but two miles on our beam with a
clear sky and smooth water."

The seaman finished his legend, and there was a dead silence for a
minute or two, broken first by Jansen, who in a low voice said, "Then te
tog is not a tog."

"No," replied Cobb, "an imp sent by the devil to his follower in
distress."

"Yes," said. Short.

"Well, but," said Jemmy Ducks, who for some time had left off touching
the strings of his fiddle, "it would be the work of a good Christian to
kill the brute."

"It's not a mortal animal, Jemmy."

"True, I forgot that."

"Gifen by de tyfel," observed Jansen.

"Ay, and christened by hi