in him, and his
stomach heave; and his weary body, and more weary soul, gave themselves
up helplessly to the depressing influence of that doleful place. The
black bank of dingy leathern leaves above his head, the endless
labyrinth of stems and withes (for every bough had lowered its own
living cord, to take fresh hold of the foul soil below); the web of
roots, which stretched away inland till it was lost in the shades of
evening--all seemed one horrid complicated trap for him and his; and
even where, here and there, he passed the mouth of a lagoon, there was
no opening, no relief--nothing but the dark ring of mangroves. Wailing
sadly, sad-colored mangrove-hens ran off across the mud into the dreary
dark. The hoarse night-raven, hid among the roots, startled the
voyagers with a sudden shout, and then all was again silent as a grave.
The loathy alligators lounging in the slime lifted their horny eyelids
lazily, and leered upon him as he passed with stupid savageness. Lines
of tall herons stood dimly in the growing gloom, like white fantastic
ghosts, watching the passage of the doomed boat. All was foul, sullen,
weird as witches' dream. If Amyas had seen a crew of skeletons glide
down the stream behind him, with Satan standing at the helm, he would
scarcely have been surprised. What fitter craft could haunt that
Stygian flood?

THE CLUB-HAULING OF THE DIOMEDE

From "Peter Simple," BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT

We continued our cruise along the coast, until we had run down into the
Bay of Arcason, where we captured two or three vessels, and obliged
many more to run on shore. And here we had an instance showing how
very important it is that the captain of a man-of-war should be a good
sailor, and have his ship in such discipline as to be strictly obeyed
by his ship's company. I heard the officers unanimously assert, after
the danger was over, that nothing but the presence of mind which was
shown by Captain Savage could have saved the ship and her crew. We had
chased a convoy of vessels to the bottom of the bay: the wind was very
fresh when we hauled off, after running them on shore; and the surf on
the beach even at that time was so great, that they were certain to go
to pieces before they could be got afloat again. We were obliged to
double-reef the topsails as soon as we hauled to the wind, and the
weather looked very threatening. In an hour afterwards, the whole sky
was covered with one black cloud,