ck! M'Clise shuddered, and made no reply. Onward went the
vessel, impelled by the sea and wind: one moment raised aloft, and
towering over the surge; at another, deep in the hollow trough, and
walled in by the convulsed element. M'Clise still held his Katerina in
his arms, who responded not to his endearments, when a sudden shock
threw them on the deck. The crashing of the timbers, the pouring of the
waves over the stern, the heeling and settling of the vessel, were but
the work of a few seconds. One more furious shock,--she separates,
falls on her beam ends, and the raging seas sweep over her.

M'Clise threw from him her whom he had so madly loved, and plunged into
the wave. Katerina shrieked, as she dashed after him, and all was over.

When the storm rises, and the screaming sea-gull seeks the land, and the
fisherman hasten his bark towards the beach, there is to be seen,
descending from the dark clouds with the rapidity of lightning, the form
of Andrew M'Clise, the heavy bell to which he is attached by the neck,
bearing him down to his doom.

And when all is smooth and calm, when at the ebbing tide, the wave but
gently kisses the rock, then by the light of the silver moon, the
occupants of the vessels which sail from the Firth of Tay, have often
beheld the form of the beautiful Katerina, waving her white scarf as a
signal that they should approach, and take her off from the rock on
which she is seated. At times, she offers a letter for her father,
Vandermaclin; and she mourns and weeps as the wary mariners, with their
eyes fixed on her, and with folded arms, pursue their course in silence
and in dread.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.

MOONSHINE.

Those who have visited our West India possessions must have often been
amused with the humour and cunning which occasionally appear in a negro
more endowed than the generality of his race, particularly when the
master also happens to be a humourist. The swarthy servitor seems to
reflect his patron's absurdities; and having thoroughly studied his
character, ascertains how far he can venture to take liberties without
fear of punishment.

One of these strange specimens I once met with in a negro called
Moonshine, belonging to a person equally strange in his own way, who
had, for many years, held the situation of harbour-master at Port Royal,
but had then retired on a pension, and occupied a small house at Ryde,
in the Isle of Wight. His name was Cockle, but he had long