the faded lineaments slowly settled into the appalling stiffness of death.

Griffith directed the body to be removed to the apartment of the Master, and proceeded with a heavy heart to the upper deck. The Alacrity had been unnoticed during the arduous chase of the frigate, and favored by day-light, and her light draught of water, she had easily effected her escape also among the mazes of the shoals. She was called down to her consort by signal, and received the necessary instructions how to steer during the approaching night. The British ships were now only to be faintly discovered, like small white specks on the dark sea, and as it was known that a broad barrier of shallow water lay between them, the Americans no longer regarded their presence as at all dangerous.

The

When the necessary orders had been given, and the vessels were fully prepared, they were once more brought up to the wind, and their heads pointed in the direction of the coast of Holland. wind, which freshened towards the decline of day, hauled round with the sun, and when that luminary retreated from the eye, so rapid had been the progress of the mariners, it seemed to sink in the bosom of the ocean, the land having long before settled into its watery bed. All night the frigate continued to dash through the seas with a sort of sullen silence, that was soothing to the melancholy of Cecilia and Katherine, neither of whom closed an eye during that gloomy period. In addition to the scene they had witnessed, their feelings were harrowed by the knowledge that, in conformity to the necessary plans of Griffith, and in compliance with the new duties he had assumed, they were to separate in the morning for an indefinite period, and possibly forever.

With the appearance of light, the boatswain sent

his rough summons through the vessel, and the crew were collected in solemn silence in her gang-ways, to 'bury the dead.' The bodies of Boltrope, of one or two of her inferior officers, and of several common men, who had died of their wounds in the night, were, with the usual formalities, committed to the deep; when the yards of the ship were again braced by the wind, and she glided along the trackless waste, leaving no memorial in the midst of the ever-rolling waters, to mark the place of their sepulture.

When the sun had gained the meridian the vessels were once more hove-to, and the preparations were made for a final separation. The body of Colonel Howard was transferred to the Alacrity, whither it was followed by Griffith and his cheerless bride, while Katherine hung fondly from a window of the ship, suffering her own scalding tears to mingle with the brine of the ocean. After every thing was arranged, Griffith waved his hand to Barnstable, who had now succeeded to the command of the frigate, and the yards of the latter were braced sharp to the wind, when she proceeded to the dangerous experiment of forcing her way to the shores of America, by attempting the pass of the streights of Dover, and running the gauntlet through the English ships that crowded their own channel; an undertaking, however, for which she had the successful example of the Alliance frigate, which had borne the stars of America along the same hazardous path but a few months previously.

In the meanwhile the Alacrity, steering more to the west, drew in swiftly towards the shores of Holland, and about an hour before the setting of the sun, had approached so nigh as to be once more hove into the wind, in obedience to the mandate of Griffith, A small light boat was lowered into the sea, when the young sailor, and the pilot, who had found his

1

way into the cutter unheeded, and almost unseen, ascended from the small cabin together. The stranger glanced his eyes along the range of coast, as if he would ascertain the exact position of the vessel, and then turned them on the sea and the western horizon to scan the weather. Finding nothing in the appearance of the latter to induce him to change his determination, he offered his hand frankly to Griffith, and said

"Here we part. As our acquaintance has not led to all we wished, let it be your task, sir, to forget we ever met."

Griffith bowed respectfully, but in silence, when the other continued, shaking his hand contemptuously towards the land

"Had I but a moiety of the navy of that degenerate republic, the proudest among those haughty islanders should tremble in his castle, and be made to feel there is no security against a foe that trusts his own strength and knows the weakness of his enemy! But", he muttered in a lower and more hurried voice, this has been like Liverpool, and-Whitehaven-and Edinburgh, and fifty more! it is past, sir; let it be forgotten."

Without heeding the wondering crew, who were collected as curious spectators of his departure, the stranger bowed hastily to Griffith, and springing into the boat, he spread her light sail with the readiness of one who had nothing to learn even in the smallest matters of his daring profession. Once more, as the boat moved briskly away from the cutter, he waved his hand in adieu, and Griffith fancied, that even through the distance, he could trace a smile of bitter resignation, lighting his calm features with a momentary gleam. For a long time the young man stood an abstracted gazer at his solitary progress, watching the small boat as

it glided towards the open ocean, nor did he remember to order the head sheets of the Alacrity drawn, in order to put the vessel again in motion, until the dark speck was lost in the strong glare that fell, obliquely across the water, from the setting sun.

Many wild and extraordinary conjectures were uttered among the crew of the cutter, as she slowly drew in towards her friendly haven, on the appearance of the mysterious pilot, during their late hazardous visit to the coast of Britain, and on his still more extraordinary disappearance, as it were, amid the stormy wastes of the North sea. Griffith himself was not observed to smile, nor to manifest any other evidence of his being a listener to their rude discourse, until it was loudly announced that a small boat was seen pressing for their own harbor, across the fore foot of the cutter, under a single lug-sail. Then, indeed, the sudden and cheerful lighting of his troubled eye, might have betrayed to more accurate observers, the vast relief that was imparted to his feelings by the interesting discovery.

CHAPTER XVII.

Come all you kindred Chieftains of the deep!
In mighty phalanx, round your brother bend;
Hush every murmur that invades his sleep-
And guard the laurels that o'ershade your friend!
Lines on Tripp.

HERE, perhaps, it would be wise to suffer the curtain of our imperfect drama to fall before the reader, trusting that the imagination of every individual can readily supply the due proportions of health, wealth, and happiness, that the rigid rules of poetic justice would award to the different characters of the legend. But as we are not disposed to part so coldly from those with whom we have long held amicable intercourse, and as there is no portion of that in reservation which is not quite as true as all that has been already related, we see no unanswerable reason for dismissing the dramatis personæ so abruptly. We shall therefore proceed to state briefly, the outlines of that which befel them in after-life, regretting, at the same. time, that the legitimate limits of a modern tale will not admit of such a dilatation of many a merry or striking scene, as might create the pleasing hope of beholding hereafter, some more of our rude sketches quickened into life, by the spirited pencil of Dunlap.