no time to consider on the dangerous tendency it would have in perverting the minds and duty of the men then under my command. I thought only of the danger of my invaluable friend, if he was this night exposed to the fury of the stormy weather; and, muffling myself up as well as I could with my watch-coat, I hastened the men out with the boat, and with two seamen and Manfrida launched it into the bosom of the ocean, and steered for the cliffs of Cromer; leaving Hasrac to keep a careful look-out at the old Abbey during the time that I should be absent. "By St. Peter, there will be some tight wrecks before the morning,' cried Manfrida, taking a quid of tobacco. I warrant that Dick has been feathering his nest already; there's a smartish breeze blows strong from the eastward; and if a vessel goes to the shore, it is all up with her, and I would not give a rotten rope's yarn for the lives of all that are on board of her.-Helm-aweather, Jack! have you a mind to float us?' "There is surely a sail at a distance,' observed I; 'pull 'away, my hearties, and let us hail her if we can.' 666 6 Avast, captain!' cried Manfrida, who was at this moment guiding the helm: there's a breaker coming that will finish our business if we don't mind, and keep a sharp look-out for ourselves. Helm-a-lee, Jack; what the devil is the fool's head about?' "At this moment, lady a tremendous sea washed over us; and I now began to feel some apprehensions that I had rashly exposed my own life, and those of my companions, to the most imminent peril, without the slightest probability of effecting the preservation of Captain Singleton: nor were my uncomfortable sensations rendered more pleasing by the increased darkness of the atmosphere and the continued raging of the tempest; and, relying more on the skill and dexterity of Manfrida, who was a most expérienced mariner, than on the feeble knowledge I possessed myself of the watery elements, I suffered him to guide the helm at his own discretion, and to steer the boat to whatever part of the coast he might think best for the immediate safety of our lives. CHAPTER XXXII. "She looks, methinks of old Acasta's line! "THOSE, lady, who have never been exposed to the fury and contending warfare of the angry elements, or never viewed the sea but in a calm, can form little notion of a tempest in its utmost violence, from which no relief is to be expected but from the timely interposition of Almighty Providence. Such a storm it was which at last reduced us in anticipation to the necessity of seeking safety even on the very rocks whose foaming aspect threatened us with immediate destruction if we approached nearer, while the surge, dashing with resistless fury, almost overpowered every effort that we made to save our feeble bark and ourselves from being buried in the bosom of the remorseless deep. Never had I seen so fearful a tempest, nor ever beheld Manfrida so intimidated: though he had a lion's heart the sense of the present danger had operated even upon him, and, struggling with main force for self-preservation, he exclaimed, "Avast, Jack! keep her off the rocks! pull to the left, my hearty! lower, boy, lower! down with the sail!-gently, tack about; pull in, or by St. Peter we shall be food for the fishes, before we can cry Jack Robinson!-Now we have it-Helm-alee!-Bravo, Jack! weather the breaker, and we shall make to shore as clean as a whistle!' "From these unconnected sentences, gasped rather than spoken by the still undaunted and vigorous helmsman, I could perceive that if we once weathered the rocks which so fearfully opposed us on every side, we might reach the land in safety, and that even our boat might be spared from the merciless waves, which now dashed over us with the most appalling violence: there were, indeed, moments in which I could neither see, nor hear the voice of my companions, whom I expected every instant finally to lose sight of amidst the overwhelming billows, and that they would shortly share with me what seemed to be inevitable to us all-a watery grave !—But it was not so destined, lady! for a few minutes brought us once more on terra firma, though greatly exhausted with the danger and exertion we had undergone, and scarcely able to drag our benumbed limbs to a part of the coast eligible for our security. The night was so dark that we could espy no habitation in which we might find a shelter from the continued pelting of the storm, dry our drenched garments, or warm our frozen limbs; for even the keg of brandy which Manfrida had stowed away in the boat was, in the terror and hurry of the moment, forgotten by us all; and how long we should have remained in this forlorn condition I know not, had not some poor fishermen, who like us had been exposed to the fury of the tempest, been journeying homewards. "What ho, my masters!' uttered one of them, 'belike Davy has cast you up, and given you another chance for life, as well as the rest of us!' "We acknowledged that we had just grappled our boat, and hauled it to shore; were entire strangers on the coast, and were there in search of some friendly habitation that would give us a shelter, were it only to warm our frozen limbs; that we had money to reward any one for such accommodation as they could procure for us, and hoped that, if in their power, they would not refuse it in so hard an extremity. "To which the same fisherman replied,- Why, what the d-l do you mean by all this palaver? when a man knows his duty he don't want to be put in mind of it, I promise you. The first duty is a feeling of humanity when we see a fellow-creature in distress; and the next is, to get him out of it. Now for the matter of your giving me any money for only doing what I ought to do, avast there, my jolly masters, for I will have none of it. There may be bribery on this side of the grave, but there's none on the other, remember that :-so here, wet your whistle, shake your feathers, and after that we'll be jogging on to where you shall have a comfortable roost, a good fire to warm your noses, plenty of victuals to fill your bellies, and a fisherman's hearty welcome into the bargain. Come, masters, stir you pegs, or belike the winds will send us back to Davy Jones again, not quite so kindly mayhap as they blowed us to shore.' "Without offering thanks, which had already proved so offensive to these hardy sons of labour and humanity, we followed them to the cabins to which they had so unceremoniously invited us; and where we found, indeed, every thing that they had represented to be there: namely, a good fire and a most excellent repast, prepared by their wives and daughters, and for which I could not prevail upon them to accept in exchange one farthing. 666 Why, what do you take us for?' cried our host, who I perceived was the father of the two young fishermen who accompanied us to the cabin; Sharks, belike; but we don't live by sharking, my jolly masters! the bread we eat is honest, and therefore it is sweet while many have twice as much, but what does that signify, when it do taste so plaguey bitter? A man might as well have so much wormwood in his mouth, as a morsel got by foul ways! "Manfrida and I, at this observation of the honest fisherman, exchanged looks not very pleasing or consolatory to our feelings, well knowing if our real characters were once guessed at by our host, that we should stand a chance of being treated as roughly as we had before been entertained hospitably: and, to change the conversation, I inquired, with an air of seeming indifference, on what part of the coast we had so fortunately landed: to which he answered, "On the Cliffs of Cromer. You are not a gunshot from the mansion of our noble lord, the Duke of Braganza, who, (Heaven bless him with long life and happiness!) is the father of poor fishers, that can't keep themselves;-for, when there is no fish to be had in the sea, there is always plenty of bread for us up at the Castle and the Duchess, she is main kind too, and though she be so mortal beautisome and young, she be as free and as considerate to us poor folks as "I would not wait for the conclusion of the fisher's sentence, * Davy Jones.-A name given to the sea by mariners. my curiosity to hear something more of the Braganza family being insatiate. "Young and beautiful, my honest friend?' repeated I; you are surely under some mistake, for however young and beautiful the Duchess may have been, that time is past. She is now, you know, considerably advanced in years.' "The d-l she is!' answered he; how do you make that out, my jolly master? for, by the claw of a lobster and the tail of a herring, I think she hath not yet seen twenty summers, and is as lovely a lady as ever my eyes beheld. There is not her fellow in all the country round for a delicate shape:-though a body would have thought that the little one she has got now would have put it out of sorts.' “Now,' cried I, I begin to understand you ;-so I suppose the Duke is married, and his lady has lately brought him an heir.' "You are pretty much in the right there,' cried the fisherman, ' only it happens to be a girl instead of a boy: no matter, our noble master will be as fond of one as he would have been of t'other; a child is a child all the world over, and when he comes home, what rejoicings there will be at the castle! "What, the Duke is absent then,' observed I, exulting in the thought that this hated and so greatly envied man was again separated from his beauteous wife ;- and has never seen his child?' "No, but be is expected home every hour,' replied the fisherman, surveying me for the first time with some symptoms of curiosity; and, turning on me a look as I thought of suspicion, he bluntly added, "But pray, Sir, why do you ask that question? If you have yourself any knowledge of the Duke's family, which it appears you seem to have, why do you ask me so many particulars?' "I own I had been off my guard; for my countenance had too evidently betrayed to the honest fisherman a demoniacal expression, which had suddenly seized upon my features. There was but one remedy, then, that I could adopt to repair this evil, and that was by immediately professing myself to be a warm and passionate admirer of the man whom I both feared and hated. Ac |