y hand, while in "Moby Dick,"
as in his other stories, Herman Melville glorified the theme.
Continental writers like Victor Hugo and the Hungarian, Maurus Jokal,
who had little personal knowledge of the subject, also set their hands
to tales of marine adventure.

Such work as this has established a succession which has been
continuous and progressive ever since. The literature of the sea of
the past half-century is voluminous, varied and universally known, and
whether in the form of personal adventure, or in purely fictional
shape, it has grown to be an art cultivated with great care by the best
contemporary writers.

The noble band of singers of the sea, from the days of the Elizabethans
to the sublime Swinburne, belongs to another volume. It is the sincere
hope of the compiler that the present collection offers undisputable
evidence that the prose tradition has been fully sustained and the
reader will find in these pages living testimony to the marvelous
interest of the theme--its virility and its beauty.

JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH.

GREAT SEA STORIES

SPANISH BLOODHOUNDS AND ENGLISH MASTIFFS

From "Westward Ho!" BY CHARLES KINGSLEY

When the sun leaped up the next morning, and the tropic light flashed
suddenly into the tropic day, Amyas was pacing the deck, with
disheveled hair and torn clothes, his eyes red with rage and weeping,
his heart full--how can I describe it? Picture it to yourselves, you
who have ever lost a brother; and you who have not, thank God that you
know nothing of his agony. Full of impossible projects, he strode and
staggered up and down, as the ship thrashed and close-hauled through
the rolling seas. He would go back and burn the villa. He would take
Guayra, and have the life of every man in it in return for his
brother's. "We can do it, lads!" he shouted. "Drake took Nombre de
Dios, we can take La Guayra." And every voice shouted, "Yes."

"We will have it, Amyas, and have Frank too, yet," cried Cary; but
Amyas shook his head. He knew, and knew not why he knew, that all the
ports in New Spain would never restore to him that one beloved face.

"Yes, he shall be well avenged. And look there! There is the first
crop of our vengeance." And he pointed toward the shore, where between
them and the now distant peaks of the Silla, three sails appeared, not
five miles to windward.

"There are the Spanish bloodhounds on our heels, the same ships which
we saw yesterday off Guay