o, like all
educated Germans, had a keen appreciation of the bard and could quote
his pregnant sayings at pleasure. "He wrote plays, you know," he added,
seeing that Captain Brown did not quite comprehend him.

"Oh, I rec'lect now," replied the skipper, understanding him at last,
and his face beaming with curious intelligence. "Him as wrote a piece
called `Hamlet,' hey? I reckon I see it once when I wer to Boston some
years ago, an' Booth acted it uncommon well, too, yes, sirree!"

"Well then," said Fritz, going on to explain the reason for his original
remark, "Shakespeare exactly expresses my sentiments, at this present
moment, in the words which he puts into the mouth of one of his
characters in the `Tempest,' Gonzalo, I think. `Now would I give a
thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown
furze, anything: the wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry
death!'"

The young fellow laughed as he ended the apt quotation.

The skipper, however, did not appear to see the matter in the same
light.

"I guess thet there Gonzalo," he remarked indignantly, "wer no sailor;
an' Mister Shakespeare must hev hed a durned pain in his stummick when
he writ sich trash!"

Some hours afterwards, fortunately for Fritz's feelings, the gale broke;
when, the wind shifting round to the northward of west, the _Pilot's
Bride_ was enabled to steer away from the South American coast and shape
a straight course for Tristan d'Acunha.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

ARRIVAL AT TRISTAN D'ACUNHA.

"This air prime, now ain't it?" said the skipper to Fritz, as the ship,
with her nose pointing almost south, was driving away before the north-
west wind and making some ten knots an hour.

"Yes, she's going along all right," replied he; adding frankly, however,
"I should like it all the better, though, if the vessel didn't roll
about so much."

"Roll?" exclaimed Captain Brown indignantly; "call this rolling? Why,
Jee-rusalem, she only gives a kinder bit of a lurch now an' ag'in! I
thought you would hev got your sea-legs on by this time."

Fritz could only bow to this statement, of course; but, all due
deference to the skipper, nevertheless, the _Pilot's Bride_ did roll,
and roll most unmercifully, too.

She was just like a huge porpoise wallowing in the water!

It may be remembered that she had sailed from port light, with a pretty
considerable freeboard; and now, with the wind almost right aft, so that
she