ligence of him?'

At these words Captain Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture, clapped
his hand to his head, on which the hard glazed hat was not, and looked
discomfited.

'Have you any fears for Walter's safety?' inquired Florence, from whose
face the Captain (so enraptured he was with it) could not take his eyes:
while she, in her turn, looked earnestly at him, to be assured of the
sincerity of his reply.

'No, Heart's-delight,' said Captain Cuttle, 'I am not afeard. Wal'r is a
lad as'll go through a deal o' hard weather. Wal'r is a lad as'll bring
as much success to that 'ere brig as a lad is capable on. Wal'r,' said
the Captain, his eyes glistening with the praise of his young friend,
and his hook raised to announce a beautiful quotation, 'is what you may
call a out'ard and visible sign of an in'ard and spirited grasp, and
when found make a note of.'

Florence, who did not quite understand this, though the Captain
evidently thought it full of meaning, and highly satisfactory, mildly
looked to him for something more.

'I am not afeard, my Heart's-delight,' resumed the Captain, 'There's
been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there's no denyin',
and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be t'other side
the world. But the ship's a good ship, and the lad's a good lad; and it
ain't easy, thank the Lord,' the Captain made a little bow, 'to break
up hearts of oak, whether they're in brigs or buzzums. Here we have 'em
both ways, which is bringing it up with a round turn, and so I ain't a
bit afeard as yet.'

'As yet?' repeated Florence.

'Not a bit,' returned the Captain, kissing his iron hand; 'and afore
I begin to be, my Hearts-delight, Wal'r will have wrote home from
the island, or from some port or another, and made all taut and
shipsahape.' And with regard to old Sol Gills, here the Captain became
solemn, 'who I'll stand by, and not desert until death do us part,
and when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow--overhaul the
Catechism,' said the Captain parenthetically, 'and there you'll find
them expressions--if it would console Sol Gills to have the opinion of a
seafaring man as has got a mind equal to any undertaking that he puts
it alongside of, and as was all but smashed in his 'prenticeship, and of
which the name is Bunsby, that 'ere man shall give him such an opinion
in his own parlour as'll stun him. Ah!' said Captain Cuttle, vauntingly,
'as much as if he'd gone and knocked his