es towards immortality.

If Captain Ludlow ever gave any further account of the transaction than
what was stated in the log-book of his ship, the bienseance, observed by
the Lords of the Admiralty, prevented it from becoming public.

Returning from this digression, which has no other connexion with the
immediate thread of the narrative, than that which arises from a reflected
interest, we shall revert to the further proceedings on board the cruiser.

When the Coquette had hoisted in her boats, that portion of the crew which
did not belong to the watch was dismissed to their hammocks, the lights
were lowered, and tranquillity once more reigned in the ship. Ludlow
sought his rest, and although there is reason to think that his slumbers
were a little disturbed by dreams, he remained tolerably quiet in the
hammock-cloths, the place in which it has already been said he saw fit to
take his repose, until the morning watch had been called.

Although the utmost vigilance was observed among the officers and
look-outs, during the rest of the night, there occurred nothing to arouse
the crew from their usual recumbent attitudes between the guns. The wind
continued light but steady, the sea smooth, and the heavens clouded, as
during the first hours of darkness.

Chapter XX.

"The mouse ne'er shunned the cat, as they did budge
From rascals worse than they."

Coriolanus.

Day dawned on the Atlantic, with its pearly light, succeeded by the usual
flushing of the skies, and the stately rising of the sun from out the
water. The instant the vigilant officer, who commanded the morning watch,
caught the first glimpses of the returning brightness, Ludlow was
awakened. A finger laid on his arm, was sufficient to arouse one who slept
with the responsibility of his station ever present to his mind. A minute
did not pass, before the young man was on the quarter-deck, closely
examining the heavens and the horizon. His first question was to ask if
nothing had been seen during the watch. The answer was in the negative.

"I like this opening in the north-west," observed the captain, after his
eye had thoroughly scanned the whole of the still dusky and limited view.
"Wind will come out of it. Give us a cap-full, and we shall try the speed
of this boasted Water-Witch!--Do I not see a sail, on our
weather-beam?--or is it the crest of a wave?"

"The sea is getting irregular, and I have often been thus deceived, since
the