"Who hails ?" cried the well known voice of Barnstable.

"Once your master, now your servant," answered the cockswain, in a watch-word of his own invention.

""Tis he," returned the lieutenant; "veer away, boys, veer away. You must wade into the surf."

Tom caught Dillon in his arms, and throwing him, like a cork, across his shoulder, he dashed into the streak of foam that was bearing the boat on its crest, and before his companion had time for remonstrance or entreaty, he found himself once more by the side of Barnstable.

"Who have we here ?" asked the lieutenant; "this is not Griffith!"

"Haul out, and weigh your grapnel," said the cockswain sternly; "and then, boys, if you love the Ariel, pull while the life and the will is left in you."

Barnstable knew his man, and not another question was asked, until the boat was without the breakers; now skimming the rounded summits of the waves, or settling into the hollows of the seas, but always cutting the waters asunder, as she urged her course, with amazing velocity, towards the haven where the schooner had been left at anchor. Then, in a few, but bitter sentences, the cockswain explained to his commander the treachery of Dillon, and the danger of the Ariel.

"The soldiers are slow at a night muster," Tom concluded, "and from what I overheard, the express will have to make a crooked course, to double the head of the bay; so, that but for this north-easter, we might weather upon them yet; but it's a matter that lies altogether in the

will of Providence. Pull, my hearties, pullevery thing depends on your oars to-night."

Barnstable listened, in deep silence, to this unexpected narration, which sounded to the ears of Dillon like his funeral knell. At length, the suppressed voice of the lieutenant was heard, also, uttering

"Wretch! if I should cast you into the sea, as food for the fishes, who could blame me? But if my schooner goes to the bottom, she shall prove your coffin."

CHAPTER VI.

"Had I been any God of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed.”

Tempest.

THE arms of Dillon were released from their confinement, by the cockswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when they entered the surf, and the captive now availed himself of the circumstance, to bury his features in the folds of his attire, where he brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the chief ingredients in his character. From this state of apparent quietude, neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed to rouse him by their remarks, for both were too much engaged with their own gloomy forebodings, to indulge in any unnecessary words. An occasional ejaculation from the former, as if to propitiate the spirit of the storm, as he gazed on the troubled appearance of the elements, or a cheering cry from the latter, to animate his crew, were alone heard amid the sullen roaring of the waters, and the mournful whistling of the winds, that swept heavily across the broad waste of the

"That boy is a miracle for his years!" rejoined the delighted lieutenant; "see, Tom, the younker has shifted his birth in the dark, and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hommoc! what would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our decks, and gone out below the water-line !".

"We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our metal and kentledge would have taken us down," responded Tom; "such a point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and not even left the marines time to say a prayer! tend bow there!"

It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued idle, during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his cockswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over, they had expended their utmost strength in efforts, that had already brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of the Ariel. Though every nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the excitement produced, by his feelings passing from a state of the most doubtful apprehension, to that of a revived and almost confident hope of effecting his escape, he assumed the command of his vessel, with all that stern but calm authority, that seamen find it most necessary to exert, in the moments of extremest danger. Any one of the heavy shot that their enemies continued to hurl from their heights into the darkness of the haven, he well knew must prove fatal to them, as it would, unavoidably, pass through the slight

fabric of the Ariel, and open a passage to the water, that no means he possessed could remedy. His mandates were, therefore, issued, with a full perception of the critical nature of the emergency, but with that collectedness of manner, and intonation of voice, that were best adapted to enforce a ready and animated obedience. Under this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got their anchor freed from the bottom, and, seizing their sweeps, they forced her, by their united efforts, directly in the face of the battery, under that shore, whose summit was now crowned with a canopy of smoke, that every discharge of the ordnance tinged with dim colours, like the faintest tints that are reflected from the clouds toward a setting sun. So long as the seamen were enabled to keep their little bark under the cover of the hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable perceived, as they emerged from its shadow, and were drawing nigh to the passage which led into the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would no longer avail them, against the currents of air they encountered, neither would the darkness conceal their movements from his enemy, who had already employed men on the shore to discern the position of the schooner. Throwing off at once, therefore, all appearance of disguise, he gave forth the word to spread the canvass of his vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.

"Let them do their worst now, Merry," he added; "we have brought them to a distance that I think will keep their iron above water, and we have no dodge about us, younker!"

"It must be keener marksmen than the mili tia, or volunteers, or fencibles, or whatever they call themselves, behind yon grass-bank, to frighten the saucy Ariel from the wind," returned the