of years, unless any third party should interfere. In two
years' time, they agreed, Selina Johns would be wise enough to choose--
and then let the best man win! No bad blood afterwards, and meanwhile
no more talk than necessary--they shook hands upon that. That January,
being tired of the free-trade, they shipped together on board a coaster
for the Thames, and re-shipped for the voyage homeward on board the brig
_Hand and Glove_, of London.

The _Hand and Glove_, Uriah Wilcox, master, was bound for Devonport with
a cargo of copper and flour for the dockyard there, and came to anchor
in the Downs on March 24th to join convoy under the _Spider_ gun-brig.
On the 25th (a Sunday) it blew hard from north to west, and she let go
sheet anchor. Next day the weather moderated a bit, and, heaving up her
sheet anchor, she rode to her best bower. On the Tuesday, the wind
having fallen light, the master took off a new longboat from Deal.
There was some hitch in delivering her, and she was scarcely brought
alongside by five the next morning when the Commodore signalled to get
under weigh.

By reason of this delay, the _Hand and Glove_ was taken unawares, and
started well astern of the fleet, which numbered over twenty sail of
merchantmen; and, being a sluggard in anything short of half a gale, she
made up precious little way in the light E.N.E. breeze.

Soon after seven that evening, Beachy Head bearing N.W. by W. four miles
and a half, Abe Cummins on the look-out forward spied a lugger coming
towards shore upon a wind. She crossed well ahead of the _Hand and
Glove_, and close--as it looked--under the stem of an East Indiaman
which was then busy reefing topsails before night. For a while Abe lost
sight of her under the dark of the land; but by-and-by the wheelman took
a glance over his shoulder, and there she was, creeping up close astern.
His call fetched up Captain Wilcox, who ran aft and hailed, but got no
reply. And so she came on, until, sheering close up under the _Hand and
Glove's_ port quarter, she was able to heave a grapnel on board and
throw twenty well-armed Johnnies into the old brig. The Englishmen--
seven in all, and taken unprepared--were soon driven below and shut
down--four in the cabin, two in the steerage, and one in the forecastle,
this last being Abe Cummins. After a while the sentry over the hatchway
called for him to come up and show where the leading ropes were, which
he did at the point of a cutla