e express purpose of affording
consolation to, and praying with a dying woman, and bound by his sacred
word not to leave Gull's Nest, he found himself in the midst of the most
unamiable-looking persons he had ever seen assembled; and his pale eye
grew still more pale within its orbit from the effects of terror.

"Cut him down!" exclaimed one ruffian, drawing a cutlass, long and
strong enough to destroy three at a blow.

"Fill his pinnacle hat with gunpowder, and blow him to the devil!" said
another.

"He is a spy and a Roundhead," vociferated a third, "and, wherever
there's one, there's sure to be more o' the breed."

"Search his pockets," shouted a fourth; "I'll lay my hand there's
villany in them."

"I'm the best at that work," exclaimed Jack Roupall, spinning the
long-legged preacher round and into the midst of the men before he had
time to utter a syllable of explanation. The change produced on them by
this display of Roupall's dexterity was like magic, for, in an instant,
they were to a man convulsed with laughter: the poor preacher retained
most motley marks of the bruised oranges upon his hinder garments, which
were, moreover, rent by various falls, or, as he would designate them,
"perilous overthrows;" and there was something so ludicrous in his whole
appearance, spinning on one leg, (for he was obliged to keep up the
other to maintain his balance,) and looking more like an overgrown
insect, called by children "daddy long-legs," than any other creature
dwelling upon earth, that the mirthfulness of the sailors might well
have been pardoned.

"Children of Satan!" he said at last, recovering his breath during their
laughter--"Imps of darkness!" he added, holding out both hands in front,
as he would keep them from contaminating him by their touch--"if that ye
ever hope for pardon----"

"I told ye he was a Roundhead--a negotiator," shouted one of the rudest;
"stop his gab at once--yard-arm him."

"Peace, peace!" interrupted young Springall; "he is part of our
skipper's cargo, a harmless mad preacher, and no spy; he'd talk to ye by
the hour, and make as rare sport as a mass-service at Lisbon--if ye
hadn't something else to think of."

"Hear him, hear him!" exclaimed the thoughtless fellows, who forgot
their own and their ship's danger in expectation of some revelry.

"Hear him," repeated Roupall, while occupied in searching his pockets.

"Albeit I was not sent unto ye, ye worthless, blasphemous, and accur