ect. I was wet, starving, and miserably cold. At night I
again fell asleep from exhaustion. When morning broke, and the sun
shone, the gale abated, and I felt more cheered; but I was now ravenous
from hunger, as well as choking from thirst, and was so weak that I
could scarcely stand. I looked round me every now and then, and in the
afternoon saw a large vessel standing right for me; this gave me courage
and strength. I stood up and waved my hat, and they saw me--the sea was
still running very high, but the wind had gone down. She rounded-to so
as to bring me under her lee. Send a boat she could not, but the sea
bore her down upon me, and I was soon close to her. Men in the chains
were ready with ropes, and I knew that this was my only chance. At
last, a very heavy sea bore her right down upon the boat, lurching over
on her beam ends, her main chains struck the boat and sent her down,
while I was seized by the scruff of the neck by two of the seamen, and
borne aloft by them as the vessel returned to the weather-roll. I was
safe. And, as soon as they had given me something to eat, I told my
story. It appeared that she was an East India-man running down Channel,
and not likely to meet with anything to scud me back again. The
passengers, especially the ladies, were very kind to me: and as there
was no help for it, why, I took my first voyage to the _East Indies_."

"And your father and your brother?"

"Why, when I met them, which I did about six years afterwards, I found
that they had been in much the same predicament, having lost the coble,
and the weather being so bad that they could not get on shore again. As
there was no help for it, they took their first voyage to the _West
Indies_; so there was a dispersion of an united family--two went west,
one went east, coble went down, and mother, after waiting a month or
two, and supposing father dead, went off with a soldier. All dispersed
by one confounded gale of wind from the northward and eastward, so
that's the way that I went to sea, Bob. And now it's time that
Moonshine was back."

But Moonshine kept us waiting for some time: when he returned it was
then quite dark, and we had lighted candles, anxiously waiting for him;
for not only was the bottle empty, but we were very hungry. At last we
heard a conversation at the gate, and Moonshine made his appearance with
the two bottles of spirits, and appeared himself to be also in high
spirits. The pork and