and gold--bright enough to make the gayest
mother-o'-pearl shell blush for shame. Hilary Leigh had set his mind
upon catching four--two for himself and two for the skipper--and he had
congratulated himself upon the fact that he had already caught his two,
when there was a sharp snatch, the line began to quiver, and for the
next minute it was as though the hook was fast in the barbs of a silver
arrow that was darting in all directions through the sea.

"Here's another, Billy!" cried the young man, or boy--for he was on the
debatable ground of eighteen, when one may be either boy or man,
according to one's acts, deeds, or exploits, as it used to say in
Carpenter's Spelling.

Hilary Leigh, from his appearance, partook more of the man than the boy,
for, though his face was as smooth as a new-laid egg, he had well-cut,
decisive-looking Saxon features, and one of those capital
closely-fitting heads of hair that look as if they never needed cutting,
but settle round ears and forehead in not too tight clustering curls.

"Here's another, Billy," he cried; and a stoutly built sailor amidships
cried, "Cheer ho, sir! Haul away, sir! Will it be a mess o' mick-a-ral
for the lads to-day?"

"Don't know, Billy," was the reply, as the beautiful fish was hauled in,
unhooked, a fresh lask or tongue of silvery bait put on, and the leaded
line thrown over and allowed to run out fathoms astern once again.

Billy Waters, the gunner, went on with his task, rather a peculiar one,
which would have been performed below in a larger vessel, but here the
men pretty well lived on deck, caring little for the close stuffy
quarters that formed the forecastle, where they had, being considered
inferior beings, considerably less space than was apportioned to their
two officers.

Billy's work was that of carefully binding or lashing round and round
the great mass of hair hanging from the poll of a messmate, so as to
form it into the orthodox pigtail of which the sailors of the day were
excessively vain. The tail in question was the finest in the cutter,
and was exactly two feet six inches long, hanging down between the
sailor's shoulders, when duly lashed up and tied, like a long handle
used for lifting off the top of his skull.

But, alas for the vanity of human nature! Tom Tully, owner of the
longest tail in the cutter, and the envy of all his messmates, was not
happy. He was ambitious; and where a man is ambitious there is but
little true bl