Tom Cringle's Log

ars, though few,

he Corsa

he smallest boy of his age I ever saw, and had been badly hurt in repelling the attack of the pirate. His wound was a lacerated puncture in the left shoulder from a boarding pike, but it appeared to be

going to slip through m

ght he had

ame on, which I fear betokens lock jaw; he wavers, too, now a

s in a summer evening, filled the between decks with a rancid oil smell, and with smoke as from a torch, while it ran down and melted like fat before a fire. It cast a dull sickly, gleam on the pale face of the brown-hefted, girlish-looking lad, as he lay in his narrow hammock. When we entered, an

ift me up a little till I try and finish it.-It will be a sore heart to poor Sarah; she has no mother now, nor father, and aunt is not over kind

my fine lit

was choked, but the violence of the convulsion quickly subsided. "I am done for, Doctor!" he could no longer open his mouth, but spoke through his clenched teeth-"I feel it now!-God Almighty receive my soul, and protect my poor sister!" The arch-enemy was indeed advancing to the final struggle, for

ow,"-sung out the

something unusual; the dying midshipman heard it, and said calmly-"Land,-I will never see it.-But how blue all your lips look.-It is cold, piercing cold, and

on his forehead, and reared his forest-crowned summit high into the cold blue sky, impending over us in frowning magnificence, while the long dark range of the Blue Mountains, with their outlines hard and clear in the grey light, sloped away on each side of him as if they had been the Giant's shoulders. Great masses of white mist hung on their sides about half-way down, but all the valleys and coast as yet slept in the darkness. We could see that the land-wind was blowing strong in shore, from the darker colour of the water, and the speed with w

untain sides like gouts of froth, marking their course in the level grounds by the vapours they sent up. Then breeze-mill towers burst into light, and cattle-mills, with their cone-shaped roofs, and overseers houses, and water-mills, with the white spray falling from the wheels, and sugar-works, with long pennants of white smoke streaming from the boiling-house chimneys seaward in the morning wind. Immediately after, gangs of negroes were seen at work; loaded waggons, with enormous teams of fourteen to twenty oxen dragging them, rolled along the roads; long strings of mules loaded with canes were threading the fields; drogging vessels were seen to shove out from every cove; the morning song of the black fishermen was heard, while their tiny canoes, like black specks, started up suddenly on all sides of us, as if they had floated from the bottom of the sea; and the smiling scene burst at once, and as if by magic, on us, in all its coo

ckie," said

sa; blackie is not politeful, sir;" wh

y;" and the remark seemed seasonable enough to a stranger, for

ld Anson. "You will have u

er have you here?"

suspecting he had gone too far-"I take de Tonnant, big ship as him is, close to dat reef, sir, you might have jump ashore, so you

fellow, so he was allowed to have his own way

uns of the Twelve Apostles-a heavy battery of twelve cannon, where there is a tombstone with an inscription, setting forth that the party over whom it was erected

beach-"Oars"-the

e coxswain to a new hand who had been lately impress

of the branches from

, do the trees he

e him ten yards' law, when they started in chase, shouting amongst the bushes, and switching each other like the veriest schoolboys. I had walked some distance along the beach, pelting the amphibious little creatures, half crab, half lobster, called soldiers, which kept shouldering their large claws, and running out and in their little burrows, as the small ripple twinkled on the sand in the rising sun, when two m

Pinkem of the Flash, and that the parties saluted eac

e coast of America, but you must have a little pr

nt of the flagship)-"Mr Clinch, it is not too late to prevent unpleasant con

dy been measured. By the by, his position was deucedly near in a line with the grey stone behind which I lay perdu; nevertheless, the risk I ran did not prevent me noticing that he was very pale, and had much the air of a brave man come to die in a bad cause. He looked upwards for a second for two, and then answered, slowly and distinctly, "Captain Pinke

my fine fellow

g words which I have no conviction of having spoken; yet to any other officer in the service I would not

, Mr Clinch,

agonist, so as to present the smallest possible surface; his head was, as it struck me, painfully slewed round, with his eye looking steadily at Clinch, over his right shoulder, whilst his arm was brought down close to his thigh, with the cock of the pistol turned outwards, so that his weapon must have covered his opponent by the simple raising of his

e to me, Mr Clinch; ta

checked by the dread of being thought to fear; however, took the

es

n fi

Pinkem, and there he stood with his arm raised, and pistol levelled, but he had not fired. He stood thus whilst I might have counted ten, like a finger-post, then dropping his hand, his weapon went off, but without aim, the bullet striking the sand near his feet, and down he came headlong to the ground. He fell with his face turned towards me, and I nev

un set, he w

's work, gentle

heir heads; the boats crews grouped around them-he was lifted into his

poor little Duncan's coffin, that lay on a grating near the gangway. The crew, assisted by thirty men from the flag-ship, were employed in twenty different ways, repairing damages, and w

fell as if his heart was wrun

-The rest stuck in his throat, but, as if ashamed of his softheartedness, he threw as much

nettings between us and the bright blue sky, to the long clear note of the boatswain's whistle, which soon ending in a short chirrup, told that it now rested on the thwarts of the boat alongside. We pulled ashore, and it was a slight perchance to move a woman, to see the poor little fellow's hat and bit of a dirk lying

r was he the boy to rouse the watch from under the lee of the boats in bad weather, to curry with the lieutenant, while he knew the look-outs were as bright as beagles,-and where was the man in our watch that wanted bacc

lieutenant's Commission. Being now my own master for a season, I determined to visit some relations I had in the island, to whom I had never yet been introduced; so I shook hands with old Splinter, packed my kit, and went to the wharf to charter a wherry to c

ivil, sail like a witch

assa; Ballahoo is de

a gentleman!" roared a

, massa; no flying

a step in the direction of his boat. "Oh yes-so get out of de way, you black rascals,"-the fellow was as b

rn sheets; but just as we were shoving off, Mr Callaloo, the clergyman of Port Royal, a tall yellow personage, begged for a passage, and was accordingly taken on board. As it was high water, my boatmen chose the five foot channel, as the boat channel near to Gallows Point is called, by which a long stretch would be saved, and we were cracking on cheerily, my mind full of my recent promotion,

llaloo, you mad

d, but obedient-you sa

, and you no see w

t too?" rejoined the parson, still

an you-we meant poor nigg

ed," pronouncing the last word in two syllabl

gain, amidst the suppressed laughter of the boatmen, and ke