ose passages of
the powder-blasts, the liberation of the schooner, my lonely days in her
afloat, my encounter with the whaler, as visionary and vanishing as
those dusky forms of vapour which had swarmed in giant-shape over my
little open boat.

But even if confirmation had been wanting in the sable visage of Billy
Pitt, who sat near the furnace munching away with prodigious enjoyment
of his food and bringing his can of hot spiced wine from his vast
blubber lips with a mighty sigh of deep delight, I must have found it in
each hissing leap and roaring plunge of the old piratical bucket, so
full of the vitality of the wind-swollen canvas, so quick with all the
life-instincts of a vessel storming through the deep with buoyant keel
and under full control. Oh, heaven! how different from the dull ambling
of the morning, the sluggish pitching and rolling to the weak pulling of
the spritsail!

Wilkinson and Cromwell kept the deck whilst Billy Pitt and I got our
supper, and I had some talk with my negro, who seemed to be a very
simple childish fellow, heartily in love with his stomach and very eager
to see England. He told me that he had heard it was a fine country, and
his wish to see it was one reason of his volunteering.

"Dey say," said he, "dat Lunnon's a very fine place, sah, bigger dan
Philadelphy, and dat a man's skin don' tell agin him among de yaller
gals dere."

I laughed and said, that in my country people were judged rather by the
colour of their hearts than by the hue of their faces.

"But dollars count for something too, sah, I spects?" said he.

"Why, yes," said I, "with dollars enough you can make black white in
England."

"Hum!" cried he, scratching his head. "I guess it 'ud take an almighty
load of dollars to make me white, massa."

"Put money in your pocket and chink it," said I, "and your face'll be
found white enough, I warrant."

"By golly!" cried he, "I'll do it den. S'elp me de Lord, massa, I'd
chink twenty year for a white face. Dat comes ob bein' civilized.
Tell'ee what dey dew, massa, dey makes you feel like a white man, but
dey lets you keep black, blast 'em!"

I checked his excitement by telling him that in my country he would find
that the negro was a person held in very high esteem, that the women in
particular valued him for that very dinginess which the Americans found
distasteful, and told him that I could name several ladies of quality
who had married their black servants.

He lo