en--were under the most perfect discipline and
command. The service of the vessel was carried on as noiselessly and
regularly as on board a ship of war; and a sense of confidence, that
should a tempest or other sea-peril overtake us, every reliance might be
placed in the professional skill and energy of Captain Starkey, was soon
openly or tacitly acknowledged by all on board. The weather throughout
happily continued fine, but the wind was light and variable, so that for
several days after we had sighted the blue mountains of Jamaica, we
scarcely appeared sensibly to diminish the distance between them and us.
At last the breeze again blew steadily from the northwest, and we
gradually neared Point Morant. We passed it, and opened up the bay at
about two o'clock in the morning, when the voyage might be said to be
over. This was a great relief to the cabin-passengers--far beyond the
ordinary pleasure to land-folk of escaping from the tedium of confinement
on shipboard. There was a constraint in the behavior of every body that
was exceedingly unpleasant. The captain presided at table with freezing
civility; the conversation, if such it could be called, was usually
restricted to monosyllables; and we were all very heartily glad that we
had eaten our last dinner in the _Neptune_. When we doubled Point Morant,
all the passengers except myself were in bed, and a quarter of an hour
afterward Captain Starkey went below, and was soon busy, I understood,
with papers in his cabin. For my part I was too excited for sleep, and I
continued to pace the deck fore and aft with Hawkins, the first-mate,
whose watch it was, eagerly observant of the lights on the well-known
shore, that I had left so many months before with but faint hopes of ever
seeing it again. As I thus gazed landward, a bright gleam, as of crimson
moonlight, shot across the dark sea, and turning quickly round, I saw that
it was caused by a tall jet of flame shooting up from the main hatchway,
which two seamen, for some purpose or other, had at the moment partially
opened. In my still weak state, the terror of the sight--for the
recollection of the barrels of powder on board flashed instantly across my
mind--for several moments completely stunned me, and but that I caught
instinctively, at the rattlings, I should have fallen prostrate on the
deck. A wild outcry of "Fire! fire!"--the most fearful cry that can be
heard at sea--mingled with and heightened the dizzy ringing in my