ves--you do benevolently to hoist a light yonder as on a
dangerous shoal. It tempts no wise man to pull off and see what's the
matter, but bids him steer small and keep off shore--that is Charles's
Island; brace up, Mr. Mate, and keep the light astern."

* * * * *

SKETCH EIGHTH.

NORFOLK ISLE AND THE CHOLA WIDOW.

"At last they in an island did espy
A seemly woman sitting by the shore,
That with great sorrow and sad agony
Seemed some great misfortune to deplore;
And loud to them for succor called evermore."

"Black his eye as the midnight sky.
White his neck as the driven snow,
Red his cheek as the morning light;--
Cold he lies in the ground below.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed, ys
All under the cactus tree."

"Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Belov'd till life can charm no more,
And mourned till Pity's self be dead."

Far to the northeast of Charles's Isle, sequestered from the rest, lies
Norfolk Isle; and, however insignificant to most voyagers, to me,
through sympathy, that lone island has become a spot made sacred by the
strangest trials of humanity.

It was my first visit to the Encantadas. Two days had been spent ashore
in hunting tortoises. There was not time to capture many; so on the
third afternoon we loosed our sails. We were just in the act of getting
under way, the uprooted anchor yet suspended and invisibly swaying
beneath the wave, as the good ship gradually turned her heel to leave
the isle behind, when the seaman who heaved with me at the windlass
paused suddenly, and directed my attention to something moving on the
land, not along the beach, but somewhat back, fluttering from a height.

In view of the sequel of this little story, be it here narrated how it
came to pass, that an object which partly from its being so small was
quite lost to every other man on board, still caught the eye of my
handspike companion. The rest of the crew, myself included, merely stood
up to our spikes in heaving, whereas, unwontedly exhilarated, at every
turn of the ponderous windlass, my belted comrade leaped atop of it,
with might and main giving a downward, thewey, perpendicular heave, his
raised eye bent in cheery animation upon the slowly receding shore.
Being high lifted above all others was the reason he perceived the
object, otherwise unperceivable; and this elevation of his eye