e shingle beach, his system was ever the same: every time that
Bramble opened his lips I gained some information; he was never
wearying, and often very amusing.

One morning we were out on the beach--we had been conversing with the
other pilots, and examining the vessels in the offing with my glass--
when he pointed out to me, it being low neap tide, that the Goodwin
Sands were partially dry. "Tom," continued he, "of all the dangers, not
only of the Channel, but in the wide ocean, there is none to be compared
with those sands:--the lives that have been lost on them, the vessels
that have been wrecked, and the property that has been sucked into them,
would be a dozen kings' ransoms; for, you see, Tom, they are quicksands,
and the vessel which goes on shore does not remain to be broken up, but
in two tides she disappears, sinking down into the sands, which never
give her or her cargo up again. There must be a mighty deal of wealth
buried there, that is certain. They say that once they were a
flourishing fertile island, belonging to an Earl Godwin, whose name they
now bear; it may be so--the sea retreats from one place while it
advances at another. Look at Romney Marshes, where so many thousands of
sheep are now fed; they run up many miles inland; and yet formerly those
very marshes were an arm of the sea, which vessels rode in deep water,
and sea-fights, I am told, took place. Howsomever, when the sea took
the Godwin island to itself, it made the best trap for vessels that old
Neptune now possesses, and he may consider it as the most productive
spot in his dominions. Lord help us! what a deal of gold and
merchandise must there be buried below you yellow patch!"

"Do you never save anything when vessels are run on shore there?"

"When they only tail on, we occasionally get them off again; but when
once fixed, there's an end of it. Yes, we save life occasionally, but
at great risk of our own. I saved little Bessy from a vessel ashore on
these sands."

"Indeed! Pray tell me how it was."

"Why, you see, Tom, it was just at the breaking out of the war. It was
in this very month of October, '93, that I was out in a galley with some
others, looking for vessels. I had just then left off privateering, and
got my warrant as pilot (for you know I did serve my 'prenticeship
before I went a-privateering, as I told you the other night). Well, it
was a blowing night, and we were running in for the Downs, intending to
be