gans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of
our ark, without bloody hands being lifted. God has predestinated,
mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel
in our souls. The rest of the nations must soon be in our rear. We are
the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the
wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that
is ours. In our youth is our strength; in our inexperience, our wisdom.
At a period when other nations have but lisped, our deep voice is heard
afar. Long enough, have we been skeptics with regard to ourselves, and
doubted whether, indeed, the political Messiah had come. But he has
come in us, if we would but give utterance to his promptings. And let
us always remember that with ourselves, almost for the first time in
the history of earth, national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy;
for we can not do a good to America but we give alms to the world.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

SOME SUPERIOR OLD "LONDON DOCK" FROM THE WINE-COOLERS OF NEPTUNE.

We had just slid into pleasant weather, drawing near to the Tropics,
when all hands were thrown into a wonderful excitement by an event that
eloquently appealed to many palates.

A man at the fore-top-sail-yard sung out that there were eight or ten
dark objects floating on the sea, some three points off our lee-bow.

"Keep her off three points!" cried Captain Claret, to the
quarter-master at the _cun_.

And thus, with all our batteries, store-rooms, and five hundred men,
with their baggage, and beds, and provisions, at one move of a round
bit of mahogany, our great-embattled ark edged away for the strangers,
as easily as a boy turns to the right or left in pursuit of insects in
the field.

Directly the man on the top-sail-yard reported the dark objects to be
hogsheads. Instantly all the top-men were straining their eyes, in
delirious expectation of having their long _grog fast_ broken at last,
and that, too, by what seemed an almost miraculous intervention. It was
a curious circumstance that, without knowing the contents of the
hogsheads, they yet seemed certain that the staves encompassed the
thing they longed for.

Sail was now shortened, our headway was stopped, and a cutter was
lowered, with orders to tow the fleet of strangers alongside. The men
sprang to their oars with a will, and soon five goodly puncheons lay
wallowing in the sea, just under the main-chains. We got o