nset glow, with the sombre hull and ebon spars painted upon it,
until Frank saw the spectre of a double ship suspended in a double
heaven.

And as the last view of the schooner was all beautiful, so his last
thoughts of her were all tender. He remembered no more against her the
hardships of the voyage, the seasickness, the two gills of water a day.
But that she had borne them faithfully through storms, that whether they
slept or waked she had not failed them,--this he remembered. And his
sister's death, and all his sufferings and errors, and the peace of soul
which had come to him at last, were associated now and henceforth, with
his memory of the ship swimming there in the illumined horizon. Only for
a brief interval, like a wind that comes we know not whence, and goes
again we know not whither, touching us with invisible perfumed wings,
these thoughts swept over the boy, and passed as quickly. And he turned
from gazing after the schooner to face the scenes before him. Nearer and
nearer drew the boats to the island. Its woods and shores lay cool and
tranquil in the evening light, and the troops there, half-hidden by the
tall grass and the trees, were tinted with a gleam of romance.

It was now fast growing dark. Clouds were gathering in the sky. From
their edges the last hues of the sunset faded, the moon was hid, and a
portentous gloom fell upon the waves. The cannon were still thundering at
intervals. The shells flew screaming through the air, and fell bursting
on the fort or in the woods. It was now so dark that the flash of the
guns had become lurid and sharp, and the meteoric course of the
projectiles could be traced by their fiery wake.

Amid this scene the boats entered the cove, and as the prows struck, or
before, the excited soldiers leaped out, regardless of mud and water.

"Shouldn't wonder if somebody got a wet foot," said Tucket, in the midst
of the plunging and plashing--himself in up to his hips. "'A horse! a
horse! my kingdom for a horse!' Here, Manly, take a grip of my coat tail.
I'm longer legged than you."

"I'm all right," said Frank. "I've no gun to carry, and I can get along."
And he floundered on as fast as the deep, clinging ooze would permit.

"This is what they call the sacred soil!" observed Harris. "Just the
thing, I should say, to breed rattle-snakes and rebels."

"I swan to man!" chimed in Tucket's voice from a distance,--for his long
legs had given him an advantage in the general ra