r another shot, Don Dego has his thundering baggonet right in
your g--ts; and then where are you?"

"Now you may all of you," said an old seaman, "you may all of you just
pipe belay with your jaw-tackle-falls. Captain Williams knows what he's
about, and you'll know before morning what he's up to. You'd better take
a fool's advice, and catch a cat-nap before you're called away. The
boats a'n't histed up, and when did you ever know 'em in the water after
dark since we've been lying here?" So saying, the veteran disappeared
down the fore-ladder.

"There goes old Jemmy Bush, starn foremost down the fore-scuttle, like
a land-bear going into his hole."

"Well," said another smart, active young seaman, the favorite of the
crew; "I shall take old Jemmy's advice, and go and get forty winks in my
hammock. If there's more or less of us sent on this expedition, we
sha'n't be called away till ten or eleven o'clock, when all the Degos
are asleep, and there's nothing awake in the town but fleas and cats."

The proposition for sleeping prevailed, and the groups on the forecastle
began to disappear, when the voice of the second mate was heard:

"For'ard there!"

"Sir, sir," answered half a dozen eager voices at once.

"Who has the anchor watch?"

"Bill Thompson and Sam Hughes, sir."

"Go in the boats alongside, and see that they have their full
complement of oars; and see, too, that the masts and sails are on board
all of them."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Do you hear that, my sons of brass?" said old Jones, the boatswain,
"that looks as if there was going to be wigs on the green before
morning."

We must now leave the marine department for awhile, in order to attend
to exclusively terrene concerns. As night closed, Morton could not avoid
feeling extreme anxiety; Isabella had not visited the prison since the
day previous, nor had she sent any message. Doubts the most annoying
possessed his mind--at one time he thought she had been detected in her
schemes for his rescue; then that her courage had failed, and she had
abandoned him to his fate; or that her affection for her relatives had
overcome her love for him. He had partially made known to his four
fellow-prisoners his hopes of relief, cautioning them against sleeping,
but enjoining upon them to keep perfectly quiet.

It was now past nine o'clock; and, with mingled feelings of
disappointment, grief, and anger, he was just resigning all hopes, when
the sentry at the door challen