its
vineyards, its industrious and sturdy Boers, its Hottentot slaves, and
its warlike Kaffirs, is too well-known to require a description. I did
a good deal of trading--a matter of private interest to Garrard, Janrin
and Company, so I will not speak of it. The ship was put to rights, we
enjoyed ourselves very much on shore, and were once more at sea. Strong
easterly winds drove us again into the Atlantic, and when we had
succeeded in beating back to the latitude of Capetown, the weather,
instead of improving, looked more threatening than ever. I had heard of
the peculiar swell off the Cape, but I had formed no conception of the
immense undulations I now beheld. They came rolling on slow and
majestically, solid-looking, like mountains of malachite, heaving up our
stout ship as if she were a mere chip of deal cast on the face of the
ocean. We were alone on the waste of waters, no other objects in sight
besides these huge green masses, which, as the clouds gathered, were
every instant becoming of a darker and more leaden hue.

"We shall get a breeze soon, and I hope that it will be from the right
quarter for us," I remarked to Benjie Stubbs, the second mate, who had
charge of the deck.

"We shall have a breeze, and more than we want, Pusser," (intended for
Purser, a name Benjie always persisted in giving me), he answered,
glancing round the horizon. "You've not seen anything like this before,
eh? A man must come to sea to know what's what. There are strange
sights on the ocean."

"So I have always heard," I remarked.

"Yes, you'd have said so if you had been on deck last night in the
middle watch," he observed, in a low tone.

"How so? what happened?" I asked.

"Why, just this," he answered. "There was not more wind than there is
now, and the sky was clear, with a slice of a moon shining brightly,
when, just as I was looking along its wake, what did I see but a
full-rigged, old-fashioned ship, under all sail, bearing down towards us
at a tremendous rate. When she got within a couple of hundred fathoms
of us she hove-to and lowered a boat. I guessed well enough what she
was, so, running forward, I cast loose one of the guns and pointed at
the boat. They aboard the stranger knew what I was after; the boat was
hoisted in again, and away she went right in the teeth of the wind."

"Did you see this last night?" I asked, looking the mate in the face.
"I should like to speak to some of the men who saw it