as floaty as a gull,
Hal; and drier than e'er a seventy-four that ever was launched would be
in a sea like this. Now, what lubber comes here with his eyes sealed up
instead of looking before him? Jump up, Harry; quick, boy! we are in a
mess here, and no mistake. No, no; it's all right, he'll clear us a'ter
all. No thanks to him though, for there's not a soul--ah! so you're
beginning to wake up at last, eh!"

Here I put my head up through the companion, alongside of Bob's lovely
phiz, and saw within forty fathoms of us, over the ridge of a sea, and
broad on our port beam, the topmast-heads of a brig. As we both rose
together on the same sea, her sails first, and then her hull, came into
view.

She was not a large vessel; about two hundred tons or thereabouts,
apparently; painted all black down to her copper, excepting a narrow red
ribbon which marked the line of her sheer.

She was hove-to on the port tack under a storm-staysail, and her
topgallant-masts were down on deck. Everything was very trim and man-
o'-warlike on board her; but no government dockyard ever turned out such
a beautiful model as she was.

When I first caught sight of her, she was heading directly for us; but
as we watched her, her head paid off, and she swept slowly down across
our stern, near enough for us to have hove a biscuit on board her.

Some ten or a dozen heads peered curiously at us over her weather
bulwarks as she drove slowly past us, and one man aft on the quarter-
deck, the officer of the watch apparently, seized a trumpet to hail us;
but whether he did so or not, or, if he did, what he said, we neither of
us knew; for at that moment we both sank once more into the trough with
a perfect mountain of water between us, until we lost sight of him
altogether for a moment, even to his mast-heads.

I took the glass, which we always kept slung in beckets in the
companion-way, open and adjusted ready for immediate use, and as she
rose once more into view I applied it to my eye, and the first thing
which caught my attention was her name, painted on her stern, which was
now towards us.

"The _Albatross_, by all that's unlucky!" exclaimed I.

"Blest if we mightn't have guessed as much if we'd been in a guessin'
humour," ejaculated Bob. "Honest-going merchant ships ain't so plaguy
careful of their spars as that chap--leastways, not such small fry as he
is. Pity but what they was, I often says; but where d'ye find a skipper
who'll b