d they was goin' to beach her; she'd steered
better if they'd sot the foresail too."

The eleventh verse of the twenty-eighth chapter gave occasion for
question and explanation.

"And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had
wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux."

"Sign!" said Tom Pipes, "what does that mean?"

"Why, her figure-head, I s'pose," said the _questionee_.

"Yes, but, d--n my buttons, there's two on 'em."

"Well, I s'pose they fixed 'em as the Dutchmen does De Ruyter and Von
Tromp, put one on the knight-heads and t'other on the rudder-head."

"Ay, that indeed."

The reader went on to the fifteenth verse:

"And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as
far as Appii-forum, and The Three Taverns; whom when Paul saw, he
thanked God, and took courage."

"Took courage?" said old Tom; "I don't know who the d--l wouldn't take
courage with three taverns all in sight at once. I wouldn't wish a
better land-fall if I'd been cast away."

"That there Happy afore 'em must have been a jovious kind of a place,"
observed a seaman, "to judge by the name on't; and then them three
taverns so handy--a fellow might shake a foot, and have a comfortable
glass of somethin' whenever he took a notion."

All further reading and commentary was suddenly put a stop to, by one of
those occurrences that frequently take place at sea, and cause so much
bustle and hurry as is very apt to frighten passengers. The good ship
Albatross was neither thrown on her beam-ends by a sudden squall, for
squalls are not fashionable in the trade-winds, nor did she strike upon
a rock, for there was none sufficiently near the surface; but still, for
a few minutes every thing seemed to be uppermost, and nothing at hand,
like the contents of a lady's travelling trunk.

One of the crew, who had been for some time lying on his breast on the
weather cat-head, crooning over some interminable "love-song about
murder," suddenly surceased his singing, raised himself up, and cast an
eager and hurried glance ahead of the ship, shouted "Fish ho!" at the
very top of his lungs, sprang from the cat-head, and ran down the
fore-scuttle. In an instant all was commotion and hurry. Captain Williams
threw down his bible with most anti-christian and unorthodox
carelessness, and hurried to the forecastle, shouting, "A bottle of rum
for the first fish;" the premium always offered formerly, though I
bel