his head, to let me know that he had seen me-and then, in the wild joy of his feelings, he skimmed it far overboard into the sea.

"I need not spin this yarn any longer, topmates," said Jack, when he had arrived at this part of his story, "for you can all guess the rest as well as I can tell it. It wasn't long, you may be sure, before little Ned lowered away the stern-boat, and jumping from the taffarel into it, with a rashness that liked to have cost him his neck, sculled her to me. It was with some difficulty that he got me into the boat, and when we came alongside, he found it utterly impossible to get me aboard, till he happened to think of the Captain's locker, and brought me a glass of clear brandy, which he poured down my throat. When was it the case that an allowance of grog didn't warm the heart of man, and give him fresh strength and courage, however weak and spiritless? It was so with me: that sup of brandy revived me, and with the assistance of Ned I got on board. For several days I was unable to stir out of my bunk; and during all that time, as good luck would have it, the wind continued steady and the weather pleasant. As soon as I was able to listen, Ned told me what had happened after I fell overboard. The Captain, it seemed, had tried to rise from his birth, and come on deck to separate us; but the effort had been too much for him, and he had fallen back on the floor and expired. Ned, by his violent struggles to get loose from the rigging, and by the use to which he had put his teeth, at last succeeded in slacking up the knot of one of the seizings, and, as soon as he extricated one hand, found little difficulty in casting off the line from the other wrist and from his ankles. With a presence of mind not to have been expected from him, he immediately jumped to the tiller, and put it hard down, luffing Nancy right up into the wind's eye; he then sprang forward, letting

T

go, as he ran, the main, fore, and jib haliards, thus leaving the little schooner as quiet as a log on the water, except what she might drift. A shift of wind took place in the course of the night, which had the effect to set her back towards where I was unconsciously drifting, on a coop, which Ned luckily threw overboard immediately on getting loose from the mainrigging. It was a long time before my hand got perfectly well; and I don't know what we should have done, if we hadn't fell in with a Liverpool trader, which, on learning our situation, spared us one of her crew, by whose assistance we were enabled to work our schooner, and in due time arrived in New-York." By the time that Jack had finished the above story, to which I have been able to do but halting justice, the breeze, which was pretty stiff at the beginning of the watch, had gradually died away; and further conversation was interrupted by an order from the officer of the deck to get ready to set fore and main topmast studdingsails. This order had hardly been complied with, when the sentry reported eight bells; as soon as which were struck, the relief was called; and when I saw the head of the midshipman, who was to take my place, above the rim of the top, I seized hold of a backstay, and, sliding down, in less than five minutes was fast asleep in my hammock.

WHITE HANDS;

OR,

NOT QUITE IN CHARACTER.

It was on a dull, misty morning, in the early part of November, that two persons were observed to land, from a little boat, on the New-Jersey_shore, about three quarters of a mile, or a mile, below Powles Hook. The elder of these, a tall, rough-looking man, apparently between forty and forty-five years of age, was clad in fine apparel of a fashionable make; but which, either from a want of dexterity on the part of the tailor, or from his own awkwardness, did not seem exactly adapted to the person of the wearer. His countenance was dark, apparently from long exposure to the sun; and, except that his eye had a certain disagreeable expression, might be said to be destitute of meaning. A bluish tinge on the end of the nose,-which owed its cerulean hue to the chilliness of the weather, being in a milder state of the atmosphere of a deep crimson--and several blotches on his face, indicated that he was addicted to the bottle; while his rolling gait, his hoarse voice, his frequent expectorations of tobacco juice, and the coarseness of the black neckcloth around his throat, seemed to mark him as a sailer--who, probably, had spent a large part of his

hard earned wages in purchasing the new suit, in which he was so incongruously arrayed.

His companion was a young man of about his own height; but evidently of much better proportions, although his figure was partially concealed by the rough sailer's jacket and trowsers which he wore. His face was pale, but handsome; his eye, which was large and black, seemed fraught with a sad expression; and the perspiration that had collected on his forehead, from the fatigue of rowing, denoted him to be either less used to, or less able to endure athletic exercises than his companion. As he lifted his tarpaulin hat from his head, to wipe away the moisture from his brow, his dark glossy locks were exposed to view, making a beautiful contrast with the paleness of his high and expansive forehead. Perhaps he was a novice in the perilous profession to which his dress marked him as belonging.

On reaching the shore, the two persons we have described sprang to land, and immediately busied themselves in hauling the boat upon the beach, and making it fast to a stake that had been driven in the ground for that purpose. They then proceeded to walk along the shore together, in the direction of Powles Hook, each apparently absorbed in his own reflections. At length the elder of the party, drawing a small flask from his pocket, and offering it to the other, interrupted the silence with an invitation to drink.

"Come, Mr. Charles," said he, "it's a cursed chilly morning, and we may as well brace our stomachs with a little stingo. Of all the winds that blow, I hate these smoky south-easters. They go through one worse than the but-end of a nor-wester, and make one as sad and shiverish as an old woman with the nunb palsy. Will you taste a mouthful of my brandy?"

"No, Tom, no," answered the person addressed;

1

it is a chill at my heart, not the coldness of the weather, that affects me. The sadness which weighs upon my spirits is of a kind that no artificial excitement can dissipate; though, alas! I cannot but think that wine had a large share in producing it."

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"I am sorry, Mr. Charles, that you have got into trouble," resumed the first speaker, "and am ready to do any thing in my power to help you out of it."

"Thank you, Tom, thank you; all you can do is to keep the secret I have intrusted to you, and give no intimation of the knowledge of which you have accidentally become possessed. Circumstances may yet assume a brighter aspect, which I pray heaven may be the case, and all may yet go well."

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"I hope so too, Mr. Charles," answered the elder person, "and since I can be of no further use to you, we may as well part here. My business lays a couple of miles down the beach; so, hoping you may ride out the gale in safety, I bid you good-bye." The rude speaker on saying this, extended his rough, sunburnt hand to his young companion,-which the other took with a cordial grasp and then turning on his heel, he retraced his steps for some distance along the beach. Arriving opposite a little mean-looking hut, near the spot where he had landed, he cast a furtive glance around, to note if he from whom he had just separated were still in sight, and finding that an intervening eminence had shut him out from view, he approached the hut, and knocking on the door, at the same time whistling in a low and peculiar manner, was instantly admitted.

In the meanwhile, the younger person kept on his way towards the little town we have mentioned, his mind apparently engaged in thoughts of a deep and absorbing nature. Whatever was the subject of his reflections, he was evidently not happy; for a sigh would every now and then steal from his