ich toward night-fall began to show
signs of abating.

Just before darkness set in, a Spanish bark crossed their bows. The
storm had left its mark on her upper spars, which were terribly
shattered; but the crew, instead of clearing away the wreck, were
groaning and praying around a little doll-like image of the Virgin,
while their officers vainly urged them to return to their duty.

"Skulkin' lubbers!" growled old Herrick; "they should git what that
feller in the song got. D'ye mind it, Frank, my boy?

"'The boatswain he rope's-ended him, and "Now," says he, "just work!
I read my Bible often, but it don't tell men to _shirk_;
The pumps they are not choked as yet, so let us not despair:
When all is up, or when we're saved, we'll join with you in prayer."'"

The next morning they sighted the craggy islet of Zembra, which Jack
Dewey, the wit of the forecastle, said should be called "Zebra," for its
cliffs were curiously veined with stripes of blue, red, and black, as
regular as if painted with a brush. A few hours later appeared the
larger island of Partellaria, standing boldly up from the sea in one
great mass of cloud-capped mountain, with the trim white houses of the
little toy town scattered along its base like a game of dominoes.

By sunset that evening the gale seemed to have fairly blown itself out.
But now came another enemy almost as dangerous. A little after midnight
the ship was hemmed in by a perfect wall of fog, through which neither
moon nor star was to be seen; and all that could be done was to set the
bells and fog-horns to work, making an uproar worthy of a Chinese
concert.

About three in the morning came a faint answering chime of church bells;
and the _Arizona_, "porting" her helm, kept circling about the same spot
for two hours more ("playin' circus," as Jack Dewey said), till the
morning breeze suddenly parted the fog, displaying to Frank's eager eyes
the rocky shores of Malta, and the entrance of Valetta Harbor.

"There's _one_ thing here as you're bound to see, lad," said Herrick,
"and that's a sort o' under-ground tunnel, like ever so many streets
buried alive, and pitch-dark every one of 'em. They calls it the
Cat-and-Combs [Catacombs]. I never could tell why, for it ain't got
nothin' to do with combs, nor yet with cats neither. But you've got to
take guides and lights with yer, and stick mighty close to 'em, or ye're
a gone 'coon. Guess _I_ ought to know that!"

"Why, did _you_ e