ship was faster than"--

"Nothing!" exclaimed Gertrude, laughing at his blunder. "You were playing
Master of Ceremonies at a nautical ball!"

"Will you figure in a minuet? Shall I honour my boards with the graces of
your person?"

"Me, sir? and with whom? the gentleman who knows so well the manner of
keeping his feet in a gale?"

"You were about to relieve any doubts we might have concerning the
amusements of seamen," said the governess, reproving the too playful
spirit of her pupil, by a glance of her own grave eye.

"Ay, it was the humour of the moment, nor will I balk it."

He then turned towards Wilder, who had posted himself within ear-shot of
what was passing, and continued,--

"These ladies doubt our gaiety, Mr Wilder. Let the boatswain give the
magical wind of his call, and pass the word 'To mischief' among the
people."

Our adventurer bowed his acquiescence, and issued the necessary order. In
a few moments, the precise individual who has already made acquaintance
with the reader, in the bar-room of the "Foul Anchor," appeared in the
centre of the vessel, near the main hatchway, decorated, as before, with
his silver chain and whistle, and accompanied by two mates who were
humbler scholars of the same gruff school. Then rose a long, shrill
whistle from the instrument of Nightingale, who, when the sound had died
away on the ear, uttered, in his deepest and least sonorous tones,--

"All hands to mischief, ahoy!"

We have before had occasion to liken these sounds to the muttering of a
bull, nor shall we at present see fit to disturb the comparison, since no
other similitude so apt, presents itself. The example of the boatswain was
followed by each of his mates in turn, and then the summons was deemed
sufficient. However unintelligible and grum the call might sound in the
musical ears of Gertrude, they produced no unpleasant effects on the
organs of a majority of those who heard them. When the first swelling and
protracted note of the call mounted on the still air, each idle and
extended young seaman, as he lay stretched upon a spar, or hung dangling
from a ratling lifted his head, to catch the words that were to follow, as
an obedient spaniel pricks his ears to catch the tones of his master. But
no sooner had the emphatic word, which preceded the long-drawn and
customary exclamation with which Nightingale closed his summons, been
pronounced, than the low murmur of voices, which had so long been
maintai