to pick them
up on a harpoon, and throw it overboard.

Another speaker said, "I have always heard it asserted that it is
neither safe to accept them voluntarily, nor when they are left to
throw them out of the ship."

"Let no one touch them," said the carpenter. "The way to do with the
letters from the Flying Dutchman is, to case them upon deck, so that,
if he sends back for them, they are still there to give him."

The carpenter went to fetch his tools. During his absence, the ship
gave so violent a pitch that the piece of iron slid off the letters,
and they were whirled overboard by the wind, like birds of evil omen
whirring through the air. There was a cry of joy among the sailors,
and they ascribed the favourable change which soon took place in the
weather, to our having got quit of Vanderdecken. We soon got under
weigh again. The night watch being set, the rest of the crew retired
to their berths.

THE FLOATING BEACON.

[_MAGA._ OCTOBER 1821.]

One dark and stormy night we were on a voyage from Bergen to
Christiansand in a small sloop. Our captain suspected that he had
approached too near the Norwegian coast, though he could not discern
any land, and the wind blew with such violence that we were in
momentary dread of being driven upon a lee-shore. We had endeavoured,
for more than an hour, to keep our vessel away; but our efforts proved
unavailing, and we soon found that we could scarcely hold our own. A
clouded sky, a hazy atmosphere, and irregular showers of sleety rain,
combined to deepen the obscurity of night, and nothing whatever was
visible, except the sparkling of the distant waves, when their tops
happened to break into a wreath of foam. The sea ran very high, and
sometimes broke over the deck so furiously that the men were obliged
to hold by the rigging, lest they should be carried away. Our captain
was a person of timid and irresolute character, and the dangers that
environed us made him gradually lose confidence in himself. He often
gave orders, and countermanded them in the same moment, all the while
taking small quantities of ardent spirits at intervals. Fear and
intoxication soon stupified him completely, and the crew ceased to
consult him, or to pay any respect to his authority, in so far as
regarded the management of the vessel.

About midnight our mainsail was split, and shortly after we found that
the sloop had sprung a leak. We had before shipped a good deal of
water through t