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“‘Steady, then, boys, and clear for action,’ said the mate.

‘She’s a French smuggling craft that will sheer off when we show fight, so that we must not fire a shot till she comes alongside.’

“‘And harkee, lads,’ said I, taking up the tone of encouragement he spoke with, ‘if we take her, I promise to claim nothing of the prize. Whatever we capture you shall divide among yourselves.’

“‘It’s very easy to divide what we never had,’ said one; ‘Nearly as easy as to give it,’ cried another; ‘I’ll never light match or draw cutlass in the cause,’ said a third.

“‘Surrender!’ ‘Strike the flag!’ ‘Down with the colors!’ roared several voices together.

“By this time the Frenchman was close up, and ranging his long gun to sweep our decks; his crew were quite perceptible, – about twenty bronzed, stout-looking follows, stripped to the waist, and carrying pistols in broad flat belts slung over the shoulder.

“‘Come, my lads,’ said I, raising my voice, as I drew a pistol from my side and cocked it, ‘our time is short now; I may as well tell you that the first shot that strikes us amidship blows up the whole craft and every man on board. We are nothing less than a fireship, destined for Brest harbor to blow up the French fleet. If you are willing to make an effort for your lives, follow me!’

“The men looked aghast. Whatever recklessness crime and drunkenness had given them, the awful feeling of inevitable death at once repelled. Short as was the time for reflection, they felt that there were many circumstances to encourage the assertion, – the nature of the vessel, her riotous, disorderly crew, the secret nature of the service, all confirmed it, – and they answered with a shout of despairing vengeance, ‘We’ll board her; lead us on!’ As the cry rose up, the long swivel from the chase rang sharply in our ears, and a tremendous discharge of grape flew through our rigging. None of our men, however, fell; and animated now with the desire for battle, they sprang to the binnacle, and seized their arms.

“In an instant the whole deck became a scene of excited bustle; and scarcely was the ammunition dealt out, and the boarding party drawn up, when the Frenchman broached to and lashed his bowsprit to our own.

“One terrific yell burst from our fellows as they sprang from the rigging and the poop upon the astonished Frenchmen, who thought that the victory was already their own; with death and ruin behind, their only hope before, they dashed forward like madmen to the fray.

“The conflict was bloody and terrific, though not a long one. Nearly equal in number, but far superior in personal strength, and stimulated by their sense of danger, our fellows rushed onward, carrying all before them to the quarter-deck. Here the Frenchmen rallied, and for some minutes had rather the advantage, until the mate, turning one of their guns against them, prepared to sweep them down in a mass. Then it was that they ceased their fire and cried out for quarter, – all save their captain, a short, thick-set fellow, with a grizzly beard and mustache, who, seeing his men fall back, turned on them one glance of scowling indignation, and rushing forward, clove our boatswain to the deck with one blow. Before the example could have been followed, he lay a bloody corpse upon the deck; while our people, roused to madness by the loss of a favorite among the men, dashed impetuously forward, and dealing death on every side, left not one man living among their unresisting enemies. My story is soon told now. We brought our prize safe into Malta, which we reached in five days. In less than a week our men were drafted into different men-of-war on the station. I was appointed a warrant officer in the ‘Sheerwater,’ forty-four guns; and as the admiral opened the despatch, the only words he spoke puzzled me for many a day after.

“‘You have accomplished your orders too well,’ said he; ‘that privateer is but a poor compensation for the whole French navy.’”

“Well,” inquired Power, “and did you never hear the meaning of the words?”

“Yes,” said he; “many years after I found out that our despatches were false ones, intended to have fallen into the hands of the French and mislead them as to Lord Nelson’s fleet, which at that time was cruising to the southward to catch them. This, of course, explained what fate was destined for us, – a French prison, if not death; and after all, either was fully good enough for the crew that sailed in the old ‘Brian.’”

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE LAND

It was late when we separated for the night, and the morning was already far advanced ere I awoke; the monotonous tramp overhead showed me that the others were stirring, and I gently moved the shutter of the narrow window beside me to look out.

The sea, slightly rippled upon its surface, shone like a plate of fretted gold, – not a wave, not a breaker appeared; but the rushing sound close by showed that we were moving fast through the water.

“Always calm hereabouts,” said a gruff voice on deck, which I soon recognized as the skipper’s; “no sea whatever.”

“I can make nothing of it,” cried out Power, from the forepart of the vessel. “It appears to me all cloud.”

“No, no, sir, believe me; it’s no fog-bank, that large dark mass to leeward there, – that’s Cintra.”

“Land!” cried I, springing up, and rushing upon deck; “where, Skipper, – where is the land?”

“I say, Charley,” said Power, “I hope you mean to adopt a little more clothing on reaching Lisbon; for though the climate is a warm one – ”

“Never mind, O’Malley,” said the major, “the Portuguese will only be flattered by the attention, if you land as you are.”

“Why, how so?”

“Surely, you remember what the niggers said when they saw the 79th Highlanders landing at St. Lucie. They had never seen a Scotch regiment before, and were consequently somewhat puzzled at the costume; till at last, one more cunning than the rest explained it by saying: ‘They are in such a hurry to kill the poor black men that they came away without their breeches.’”

“Now, what say you?” cried the skipper, as he pointed with his telescope to a dark-blue mass in the distance; “see there!”

“Ah, true enough; that’s Cintra!”

“Then we shall probably be in the Tagus River before morning?”

“Before midnight, if the wind holds,” said the skipper. We breakfasted on deck beneath an awning. The vessel scarcely seemed to move as she cut her way through the calm water.

The misty outline of the coast grew gradually more defined, and at length the blue mountains could be seen; at first but dimly, but as the day wore on, their many-colored hues shone forth, and patches of green verdure, dotted with sheep or sheltered by dark foliage, met the eye. The bulwarks were crowded with anxious faces; each looked pointedly towards the shore, and many a stout heart beat high, as the land drew near, fated to cover with its earth more than one among us.

“And that’s Portingale, Mister Charles,” said a voice behind me. I turned and saw my man Mike, as with anxious joy, he fixed his eyes upon the shore.

“They tell me it’s a beautiful place, with wine for nothing and spirits for less. Isn’t it a pity they won’t be raisonable and make peace with us?”

“Why, my good fellow, we are excellent friends; it’s the French who want to beat us all.”

“Upon my conscience, that’s not right. There’s an ould saying in Connaught, ‘It’s not fair for one to fall upon twenty.’ Sergeant Haggarty says that I’ll see none of the divarsion at all.”

“I don’t well understand – ”

“He does be telling me that, as I’m only your footboy, he’ll send me away to the rear, where there’s nothing but wounded and wagons and women.”

“I believe the sergeant is right there; but after all, Mike, it’s a safe place.”

“Ah, then, musha for the safety! I don’t think much of it. Sure, they might circumvint us. And av it wasn’t displazing to you, I’d rather list.”

“Well, I’ve no objection, Mickey. Would you like to join my regiment?”

“By coorse, your honor. I’d like to be near yourself; bekase, too, if anything happens to you, – the Lord be betune us and harm,” here he crossed himself piously, – “sure, I’d like to be able to tell the master how you died; and sure, there’s Mr. Considine – God pardon him! He’ll be beating my brains out av I couldn’t explain it all.”

“Well, Mike, I’ll speak to some of my friends here about you, and we’ll settle it all properly. Here’s the doctor.”

“Arrah, Mr. Charles, don’t mind him. He’s a poor crayture entirely. Devil a thing he knows.”

“Why, what do you mean, man? He’s physician to the forces.”

“Oh, be-gorra, and so he may be!” said Mike, with a toss of his head. “Those army docthers isn’t worth their salt. It’s thruth I’m telling you. Sure, didn’t he come to see me when I was sick below in the hould?

“‘How do you feel?’ says he.

“‘Terribly dhry in the mouth,’ says I.

“‘But your bones,’ says he; ‘how’s them?’

“‘As if cripples was kicking me,’ says I.

“Well, with that he wint away, and brought back two powders.

“‘Take them,’ says he, ‘and you’ll be cured in no time.’

“‘What’s them?’ says I.

“‘They’re ematics,’ says he.

“‘Blood and ages!’ says I, ‘are they?’

“‘Devil a lie,’ says he; ‘take them immediately.’

“And I tuk them; and would you believe me, Mister Charles? – it’s thruth I’m telling you, – devil a one o’ them would stay on my stomach. So you see what a docther he is!”

I could not help smiling at Mike’s ideas of medicine, as I turned away to talk to the major, who was busily engaged beside me. His occupation consisted in furbishing up a very tarnished and faded uniform, whose white seams and threadbare lace betokened many years of service.

“Getting up our traps, you see, O’Malley,” said he, as he looked with no small pride at the faded glories of his old vestment. “Astonish them at Lisbon, we flatter ourselves. I say, Power, what a bad style of dress they’ve got into latterly, with their tight waist and strapped trousers; nothing free, nothing easy, nothing dégagé about it. When in a campaign, a man ought to be able to stow prog for twenty-four hours about his person, and no one the wiser. A very good rule, I assure you, though it sometimes leads to awkward results. At Vimeira, I got into a sad scrape that way. Old Sir Harry, that commanded there, sent for the sick return. I was at dinner when the orderly came, so I packed up the eatables about me, and rode off. Just, however, as I came up to the quarters, my horse stumbled and threw me slap on my head.

“‘Is he killed?’ said Sir Harry.

“‘Only stunned, your Excellency,’ said some one.

“‘Then he’ll come to, I suppose. Look for the papers in his pocket.’

“So they turned me on my back, and plunged a hand into my side-pocket; but, the devil take it! they pulled out a roast hen. Well, the laugh was scarcely over at this, when another fellow dived into my coat behind, and lugged out three sausages; and so they went on, till the ground was covered with ham, pigeon-pie, veal, kidney, and potatoes; and the only thing like a paper was a mess-roll of the 4th, with a droll song about Sir Harry written in pencil on the back of it. Devil of a bad affair for me! I was nearly broke for it; but they only reprimanded me a little, and I was afterwards attached to the victualling department.”

What an anxious thing is the last day of a voyage! How slowly creep the hours, teeming with memories of the past and expectations of the future!

Every plan, every well-devised expedient to cheat the long and weary days is at once abandoned; the chess-board and the new novel are alike forgotten, and the very quarter-deck walk, with its merry gossip and careless chit-chat, becomes distasteful. One blue and misty mountain, one faint outline of the far-off shore, has dispelled all thought of these; and with straining eye and anxious heart, we watch for land.

As the day wears on apace, the excitement increases; the faint and shadowy forms of distant objects grow gradually clearer. Where before some tall and misty mountain peak was seen, we now descry patches of deepest blue and sombre olive; the mellow corn and the waving woods, the village spire and the lowly cot, come out of the landscape; and like some well-remembered voice, they speak of home. The objects we have seen, the sounds we have heard a hundred times before without interest, become to us now things that stir the heart.

For a time the bright glare of the noonday sun dazzles the view and renders indistinct the prospect; but as evening falls, once more is all fair and bright and rich before us. Rocked by the long and rolling swell, I lay beside the bowsprit, watching the shore-birds that came to rest upon the rigging, or following some long and tangled seaweed as it floated by; my thoughts now wandering back to the brown hills and the broad river of my early home, now straying off in dreary fancies of the future.

How flat and unprofitable does all ambition seem at such moments as these; how valueless, how poor, in our estimation, those worldly distinctions we have so often longed and thirsted for, as with lowly heart and simple spirit we watch each humble cottage, weaving to ourselves some story of its inmates as we pass!

The night at length closed in, but it was a bright and starry one, lending to the landscape a hue of sombre shadow, while the outlines of the objects were still sharp and distinct as before. One solitary star twinkled near the horizon. I watched it as, at intervals disappearing, it would again shine out, marking the calm sea with a tall pillar of light.

“Come down, Mr. O’Malley,” cried the skipper’s well-known voice, – “come down below and join us in a parting glass; that’s the Lisbon light to leeward, and before two hours we drop our anchor in the Tagus.”

CHAPTER XXXV

MAJOR MONSOON

Of my travelling companions I have already told my readers something. Power is now an old acquaintance; to Sparks I have already presented them; of the adjutant they are not entirely ignorant; and it therefore only remains for me to introduce to their notice Major Monsoon. I should have some scruple for the digression which this occasions in my narrative, were it not that with the worthy major I was destined to meet subsequently; and indeed served under his orders for some months in the Peninsula. When Major Monsoon had entered the army or in what precise capacity, I never yet met the man who could tell. There were traditionary accounts of his having served in the East Indies and in Canada in times long past. His own peculiar reminiscences extended to nearly every regiment in the service, “horse, foot, and dragoons.” There was not a clime he had not basked in; not an engagement he had not witnessed. His memory, or, if you will, his invention, was never at fault; and from the siege of Seringapatam to the battle of Corunna he was perfect. Besides this, he possessed a mind retentive of even the most trifling details of his profession, – from the formation of a regiment to the introduction of a new button, from the laying down of a parallel to the price of a camp-kettle, he knew it all. To be sure, he had served in the commissary-general’s department for a number of years, and nothing instils such habits as this.

“The commissaries are to the army what the special pleaders are to the bar,” observed my friend Power, – “dry dogs, not over creditable on the whole, but devilish useful.”

The major had begun life a two-bottle man; but by a studious cultivation of his natural gifts, and a steady determination to succeed, he had, at the time I knew him, attained to his fifth. It need not be wondered at, then, that his countenance bore some traces of his habits. It was of a deep sunset-purple, which, becoming tropical, at the tip of the nose verged almost upon a plum-color; his mouth was large, thick-lipped, and good-humored; his voice rich, mellow, and racy, and contributed, with the aid of a certain dry, chuckling laugh, greatly to increase the effect of the stories which he was ever ready to recount; and as they most frequently bore in some degree against some of what he called his little failings, they were ever well received, no man being so popular with the world as he who flatters its vanity at his own expense. To do this the major was ever ready, but at no time more so than when the evening wore late, and the last bottle of his series seemed to imply that any caution regarding the nature of his communication was perfectly unnecessary. Indeed, from the commencement of his evening to the close, he seemed to pass through a number of mental changes, all in a manner preparing him for this final consummation, when he confessed anything and everything; and so well regulated had those stages become, that a friend dropping in upon him suddenly could at once pronounce from the tone of his conversation on what precise bottle the major was then engaged.

Thus, in the outset he was gastronomic, – discussed the dinner from the soup to the Stilton; criticised the cutlets; pronounced upon the merits of the mutton; and threw out certain vague hints that he would one day astonish the world by a little volume upon cookery.

With bottle No. 2 he took leave of the cuisine, and opened his battery upon the wine. Bordeaux, Burgundy, hock, and hermitage, all passed in review before him, – their flavor discussed, their treatment descanted upon, their virtues extolled; from humble port to imperial tokay, he was thoroughly conversant with all, and not a vintage escaped as to when the sun had suffered eclipse, or when a comet had wagged his tail over it.

With No. 3 he became pipeclay, – talked army list and eighteen manoeuvres, lamented the various changes in equipments which modern innovation had introduced, and feared the loss of pigtails might sap the military spirit of the nation.

With No. 4 his anecdotic powers came into play, – he recounted various incidents of the war with his own individual adventures and experience, told with an honest naïveté, that proved personal vanity; indeed, self-respect never marred the interest of the narrative, besides, as he had ever regarded a campaign something in the light of a foray, and esteemed war as little else than a pillage excursion, his sentiments were singularly amusing.

With his last bottle, those feelings that seemed inevitably connected with whatever is last appeared to steal over him, – a tinge of sadness for pleasures fast passing and nearly passed, a kind of retrospective glance at the fallacy of all our earthly enjoyments, insensibly suggesting moral and edifying reflections, led him by degrees to confess that he was not quite satisfied with himself, though “not very bad for a commissary;” and finally, as the decanter waxed low, he would interlard his meditations by passages of Scripture, singularly perverted by his misconception from their true meaning, and alternately throwing out prospects of censure or approval. Such was Major Monsoon; and to conclude in his own words this brief sketch, he “would have been an excellent officer if Providence had not made him such a confounded, drunken, old scoundrel.”

“Now, then, for the King of Spain’s story. Out with it, old boy; we are all good men and true here,” cried Power, as we slowly came along upon the tide up the Tagus, “so you’ve nothing to fear.”

“Upon my life,” replied the major, “I don’t half like the tone of our conversation. There is a certain freedom young men affect now a-days regarding morals that is not at all to my taste. When I was five or six and twenty – ”

“You were the greatest scamp in the service,” cried Power.

“Fie, fie, Fred. If I was a little wild or so,” – here the major’s eyes twinkled maliciously, – “it was the ladies that spoiled me; I was always something of a favorite, just like our friend Sparks there. Not that we fared very much alike in our little adventures; for somehow, I believe I was generally in fault in most of mine, as many a good man and many an excellent man has been before.” Here his voice dropped into a moralizing key, as he added, “David, you know, didn’t behave well to old Uriah. Upon my life he did not, and he was a very respectable man.”

“The King of Spain’s sherry! the sherry!” cried I, fearing that the major’s digression might lose us a good story.

“You shall not have a drop of it,” replied the major.

“But the story, Major, the story!”

“Nor the story, either.”

“What,” said Power, “will you break faith with us?”

“There’s none to be kept with reprobates like you. Fill my glass.”

“Hold there! stop!” cried Power. “Not a spoonful till he redeems his pledge.”

“Well, then, if you must have a story, – for most assuredly I must drink, – I have no objection to give you a leaf from my early reminiscences; and in compliment to Sparks there, my tale shall be of love.”

“I dinna like to lose the king’s story. I hae my thoughts it was na a bad ane.”

“Nor I neither, Doctor; but – ”

“Come, come, you shall have that too, the first night we meet in a bivouac, and as I fear the time may not be very far distant, don’t be impatient; besides a love-story – ”

“Quite true,” said Power, “a love-story claims precedence; place aux dames. There’s a bumper for you, old wickedness; so go along.”

The major cleared off his glass, refilled it, sipped twice, and ogled it as though he would have no peculiar objection to sip once more, took a long pinch of snuff from a box nearly as long as, and something the shape of a child’s coffin, looked around to see that we were all attention, and thus began: —

“When I have been in a moralizing mood, as I very frequently am about this hour in the morning, I have often felt surprised by what little, trivial, and insignificant circumstances our lot in life seems to be cast; I mean especially as regards the fair sex. You are prospering, as it were, to-day; to-morrow a new cut of your whiskers, a novel tie of your cravat, mars your destiny and spoils your future, varium et mutabile, as Horace has it. On the other hand, some equally slight circumstance will do what all your ingenuity may have failed to effect. I knew a fellow who married the greatest fortune in Bath, from the mere habit he had of squeezing one’s hand. The lady in question thought it particular, looked conscious, and all that; he followed up the blow; and, in a word, they were married in a week. So a friend of mine, who could not help winking his left eye, once opened a flirtation with a lively widow which cost him a special license and a settlement. In fact you are never safe. They are like the guerillas, and they pick you off when you least expect it, and when you think there is nothing to fear. Therefore, as young fellows beginning life, I would caution you. On this head you can never be too circumspect. Do you know, I was once nearly caught by so slight a habit as sitting thus, with my legs across.”

Here the major rested his right foot on his left knee, in illustration, and continued: —

“We were quartered in Jamaica. I had not long joined, and was about as raw a young gentleman as you could see; the only very clear ideas in my head being that we were monstrous fine fellows in the 50th, and that the planters’ daughters were deplorably in love with us. Not that I was much wrong on either side. For brandy-and-water, sangaree, Manilla cigars, and the ladies of color, I’d have backed the corps against the service. Proof was, of eighteen only two ever left the island; for what with the seductions of the coffee plantations, the sugar canes, the new rum, the brown skins, the rainy season, and the yellow fever, most of us settled there.”

“It’s very hard to leave the West Indies if once you’ve been quartered there.”

“So I have heard,” said Power.

“In time, if you don’t knock under to the climate, you become soon totally unfit for living anywhere else. Preserved ginger, yams, flannel jackets, and grog won’t bear exportation; and the free-and-easy chuck under the chin, cherishing, waist-pressing kind of way we get with the ladies would be quite misunderstood in less favored regions, and lead to very unpleasant consequences.”

“It is a curious fact how much climate has to do with love-making. In our cold country the progress is lamentably slow. Fogs, east winds, sleet, storms, and cutting March weather nip many a budding flirtation; whereas warm, sunny days and bright moonlight nights, with genial air and balmy zephyrs, open the heart like the cup of a camelia, and let us drink in the soft dew of – ”

“Devilish poetical, that,” said Power, evolving a long blue line of smoke from the corner of his mouth.

“Isn’t it, though?” said the major, smiling graciously. “‘Pon my life, I thought so myself. Where was I?”

“Out of my latitude altogether,” said the poor skipper, who often found it hard to follow the thread of a story.

“Yes, I remember. I was remarking that sangaree and calipash, mangoes and guava jelly, dispose the heart to love, and so they do. I was not more than six weeks in Jamaica when I felt it myself. Now, it was a very dangerous symptom, if you had it strong in you, for this reason. Our colonel, the most cross-grained old crabstick that ever breathed, happened himself to be taken in when young, and resolving, like the fox who lost his tail and said it was not the fashion to wear one, to pretend he did the thing for fun, determined to make every fellow marry upon the slightest provocation. Begad, you might as well enter a powder magazine with a branch of candles in your hand, as go into society in the island with a leaning towards the fair sex. Very hard this was for me particularly; for like poor Sparks there, my weakness was ever for the petticoats. I had, besides, no petty, contemptible prejudices as to nation, habits, language, color, or complexion; black, brown, or fair, from the Muscovite to the Malabar, from the voluptuous embonpoint of the adjutant’s widow, – don’t be angry old boy, – to the fairy form of Isabella herself, I loved them all round. But were I to give a preference anywhere I should certainly do so to the West Indians, if it were only for the sake of the planters’ daughters. I say it fearlessly, these colonies are the brightest jewels in the crown. Let’s drink their health, for I’m as husky as a lime-kiln.”

This ceremony being performed with suitable enthusiasm, the major cried out, “Another cheer for Polly Hackett, the sweetest girl in Jamaica. By Jove, Power, if you only saw her as I did five and forty years ago, with eyes black as jet, twinkling, ogling, leering, teasing, and imploring, all at once, do you mind, and a mouthful of downright pearls pouting and smiling at you, why, man, you’d have proposed for her in the first half-hour, and shot yourself the next, when she refused you. She was, indeed, a perfect little beauty, rayther dark, to be sure, – a little upon the rosewood tinge, but beautifully polished, and a very nice piece of furniture for a cottage orné, as the French call it. Alas, alas, how these vanities do catch hold of us! My recollections have made me quite feverish and thirsty. Is there any cold punch in the bowl? Thank you, O’Malley, that will do, – merely to touch my lips. Well, well, it’s all past and gone now; but I was very fond of Polly Hackett, and she was of me. We used to take our little evening walks together through the coffee plantation: very romantic little strolls they were, she in white muslin with a blue sash and blue shoes; I in a flannel jacket and trousers, straw hat and cravat, a Virginia cigar as long as a walking-stick in my mouth, puffing and courting between times; then we’d take a turn to the refining-house, look in at the big boilers, quiz the niggers, and come back to Twangberry Moss to supper, where old Hackett, the father, sported a glorious table at eleven o’clock. Great feeding it was; you were always sure of a preserved monkey, a baked land-crab, or some such delicacy. And such Madeira; it makes me dry to think of it.

“Talk of West India slavery, indeed. It’s the only land of liberty. There is nothing to compare with the perfect free-and-easy, devil-may-care-kind-of-a-take-yourself way that every one has there. If it would be any peculiar comfort for you to sit in the saddle of mutton, and put your legs in a soup tureen at dinner, there would be found very few to object to it. There is no nonsense of any kind about etiquette. You eat, drink, and are merry, or, if you prefer, are sad; just as you please. You may wear uniform, or you may not, it’s your own affair; and consequently, it may be imagined how insensibly such privileges gain upon one, and how very reluctant we become ever to resign or abandon them.

“I was the man to appreciate it all. The whole course of proceeding seemed to have been invented for my peculiar convenience, and not a man in the island enjoyed a more luxurious existence than myself, not knowing all the while how dearly I was destined to pay for my little comforts. Among my plenary after-dinner indulgences I had contracted an inveterate habit of sitting cross-legged, as I showed you. Now, this was become a perfect necessity of existence to me. I could have dispensed with cheese, with my glass of port, my pickled mango, my olive, my anchovy toast, my nutshell of curaçoa, but not my favorite lounge. You may smile; but I’ve read of a man who could never dance except in a room with an old hair-brush. Now, I’m certain my stomach would not digest if my legs were perpendicular. I don’t mean to defend the thing. The attitude was not graceful, it was not imposing; but it suited me somehow, and I liked it.

“From what I have already mentioned, you may suppose that West India habits exercised but little control over my favorite practice, which I indulged in every evening of my life. Well, one day old Hackett gave us a great blow-out, – a dinner of two-and-twenty souls; six days’ notice; turtle from St. Lucie, guinea-fowl, claret of the year forty, Madeira à discrétion, and all that. Very well done the whole thing; nothing wrong, nothing wanting. As for me, I was in great feather. I took Polly in to dinner, greatly to the discomfiture of old Belson, our major, who was making up in that quarter; for you must know, she was an only daughter, and had a very nice thing of it in molasses and niggers. The papa preferred the major, but Polly looked sweetly upon me. Well, down we went, and really a most excellent feed we had. Now, I must mention here that Polly had a favorite Blenheim spaniel the old fellow detested; it was always tripping him up and snarling at him, – for it was, except to herself, a beast of rather vicious inclinations. With a true Jamaica taste, it was her pleasure to bring the animal always into the dinner-room, where, if papa discovered him, there was sure to be a row. Servants sent in one direction to hunt him out, others endeavoring to hide him, and so on; in fact, a tremendous hubbub always followed his introduction and accompanied his exit, upon which occasions I invariably exercised my gallantry by protecting the beast, although I hated him like the devil all the time.