ether with linen, boots, and other articles of that sort; that,
though the coats, breeches, and waistcoats were of bright colour and
old-fashioned, they would keep them as warm as if they had been cut by a
tailor of to-day.

"These things," said I, "you can wear at sea, keeping your own clothes
ready to slip on should we be spoken or to wear when we arrive in
England. To-morrow they shall be divided among you, and they will
become your property. The suit you saw me in to-day is all that I shall
need."

Both negroes burst into a most diverting laugh of joy on hearing this.
Nothing delights a black man more than coloured apparel. They had seen
the clothes in the forecastle and guessed the kind of garments I meant
to present them with.

Whilst supper was getting, I walked the deck with Wilkinson, both of us
keeping a bright look-out, for it was blowing fresh; the darkness lay
thick about us, there might be ice near us, and the schooner was
storming under her reefed mainsail, topsail, and staysail through the
hollow seas, thundering with a great roaring seething noise into the
trough, and lifting to the foaming slope with her masts wildly aslant. I
talked to my companion very freely, being anxious to find out what kind
of person he was, and I must say that there was something in his
conversation that impressed me very favourably. He told me that he had a
wife at New Bedford, that he was heartily sick of the sea, and that he
hoped the money he would get by this adventure, added to his _lay_,
would enable him to set up for himself ashore.

"Well," said I, "we will see to-morrow what cargo Captain Tucker has
left us. But that you may be under no misapprehension, Wilkinson, if we
are fortunate enough to bring the ship safely to England, I will enter
into a bond to pay you five hundred pounds sterling for your share one
week after the date of our arrival."

He answered that if he could get that sum he would be a made man for
life. "But it's too much to expect, sir," says he.

I told him that he had no idea of the value of the cargo. The wines and
spirits were of such a quality I would stake my interest in the schooner
in their fetching a large sum of money.

"That'll depend," said he, "on how much the capt'n left us."

"He helped himself freely," I answered, "but we are well off too. You
shall judge to-morrow. Then there's the schooner--as she stands: besides
a noble stock of stores of all kinds, sails, ropes, tools, am