luxuries. Towards
the end of the afternoon watch we shoved off from the brig's side,
having wished our shipmates "Good-bye!" with a sort of feeling that we
might not meet again. While the _Opossum_ stood away on a bowline to
the northward, we shaped a course for the mouth of the Gaboon river. We
arrived at our cruising ground before daybreak. Waller then ordering
the men to lay in their oars, which had hitherto been kept going, and
lowering the sail, told them to wrap themselves in their blankets, and
to lie down under the thwarts. I kept watch while he also slept. The
night was bright and beautiful, and the sea, smooth as a mirror,
reflected the glittering stars which shone forth from the dark blue
heavens, while our boat lay floating idly on its slumbering bosom. So
deep was the silence which reigned around, that the breathing of the
sleepers sounded strangely loud, and I fancied that I could hear
vessels, even though out of sight, passing by, or fish rising to the
surface to breathe, or cleaving the water with their fins. At other
times my imagination made me fancy that I could hear beings of another
world calling to each other as they flew through the air or floated on
the ocean; and I almost expected to see their shadowy forms glide by me.
About an hour before dawn, Waller got up and told me to take some rest.
I was not sorry to lie down, albeit my rest was far from refreshing. I
soon began to dream, and dreamed that I was a plum-pudding, and that
Betty, the cook at Daisy Cottage, had fastened me up in a flannel
pudding-bag, and put me into a pot to boil. The water soon began to
simmer, and I to swell and swell away, till the string got tighter and
tighter round my throat, while a thick black smoke arose from some coals
which she had just put on. I was looking out of the pot, and meditating
on the proverb, "Out of the frying-pan into the fire," when, being
unable to stand it any longer, I jumped out of the pudding-bag, and
found myself rolling at the bottom of the boat.

"Why, D'Arcy, I thought you were going to spring overboard," said
Waller. When I told him my dream, he laughed heartily, and agreed there
was ample cause for it.

Our blankets were wet through and through, and a dense black fog hung
over us, through which it was impossible to discover the position of the
sun, which had some time been up, or of any object ten fathoms off;
while the sea was as smooth as a sheet of glass, and as dull-col