that we give him something that he can't eat. Now if you are all
agreeable to that, say so, and give three cheers for the honor of the
Yankee flag, and we'll fix his flint for him before the cook's dinner is
ready."

This pertinent harangue was received with three roaring cheers, which
were distinctly heard by the Spaniards, who were thereby convinced that
the Americans were not the sort of men to be frightened into a
surrender; and they, the Spaniards that is, "smelled the battle" by no
means "afar off," but, on the contrary, rather nearer their noses than
was altogether agreeable.

By way of commentary to his speech, the Yankee commander called to the
steward to "bring up the case bottle, &c. and the molasses jug,"
observing, that; "although he knew that the Albatrosses didn't require
any Dutch courage, the sun was over the fore-yard, and it was grog time
in all Christian countries."

Jones, who by virtue of his office was always foremost at "splicing the
main-brace," having compounded a tolerably stiff tumbler of blackstrap,
turned to his shipmates, prefacing with the invariable commencement of a
sailor's toast,

"_Here's hoping_ that every shot we fire will make work for the doctor
or carpenter."

This pithy "sentiment," as it would be called at the present day, was
received with vast applause; and, having finished their grog,
interspersed with similar toasts, the men quietly returned to their
quarters.

During this scene Morton descended to the cabin and conducted his fair
charge to her Gibraltar in the steerage. Isabella, weeping bitterly,
clung to him, and Morton's heart, softened by the tears of one whom he
loved so tenderly, seemed divested of all the elasticity of young hope
and courage, and he began to regard the _possibility_ of his being
killed or taken prisoner as a _probability_; but he resisted the
fast-coming weakness, and, pressing her to his bosom, tore himself from
her arms, and hurried upon deck. Isabella was attended and consoled in
her retirement by her faithful servant Transita, her "fidus Achates."

I hope my fair and also my classical readers will pardon me for giving
the masculine title and name of a hero of antiquity to a lady's maid;
but I could think of no other. History has immortalized Achates as a
single friend, and Pylades and Orestes, and Damon and Pythias, as pairs
of attached and inseparable friends; but, alas! neither ancient nor
modern history has recorded the name of a s