o glad to get away from the
pirates. I thought it was somewhat cowardly of him, and that he would
rather have stopped and fought them. Charley laughed when I told him
this. "He is as brave a man as ever stepped," he answered. "He has his
own business to attend to, and that is to carry his cargo to the port we
are bound for. What good would he have got had he fought the pirates,
even though he had knocked them to pieces?"

The breeze continuing, and darkness coming on, we very soon lost sight
of the boats. It was nearly a fortnight after this that we made the
coast of Sicily, and saw Mount Etna towering up with a flaming top into
the clouds. We stood on towards the Bay of Naples. A bright mist hung
over the land as we approached it soon after sunrise, like a veil of
gauze, but still thick enough entirely to conceal all objects from our
view. Suddenly, as if obeying the command of an enchanter's wand, it
lifted slowly before us and revealed a scene more beautiful that any I
ever expected to behold. On the right was the bright green island of
Capri, with Sorrento and its ruined columns beyond it. Before us was
the gay white city of Naples, with its castles and moles below rising
upwards out of the blue sparkling waters on the side of a hill, amid
orange groves and vineyards, and crowned at its summit by a frowning
fortress, while on the left was the wildly picturesque island of Procida
and the promontory of Baiae, every spot of which was full of classic
associations, which, however, the little knowledge I had picked up was
scarcely sufficient to enable me to appreciate, and in which even now, I
must own, I could not take the interest they deserve. Still the beauty
of the scene fixed itself on my memory never to be eradicated.

CHAPTER TWO.

GREEK PIRATES--A SUSPICIONS STRANGER--MY FIRST FIGHT--DESPERATE
ENCOUNTER--OUR FATE SEALED--THE SINKING VESSEL--THE MATE'S DEATH--WE
SECURE A BOAT--DOWN SHE GOES--OUR PERILOUS VOYAGE--LOSS OF ANOTHER
SHIPMATE--DEATH OF EDWARD SETON--MY PROMISE--A STRONG BREEZE--A GALE
SPRINGS UP--A HEAVY SEA.

Having discharged our cargo at Naples, the captain, finding that we
could get no freight home from thence at the time, determined to go to
Smyrna, where he knew that he could obtain one of dried fruit, figs,
currants, and raisins. We spent ten days there, and on our homeward
voyage, keeping somewhat to the northward of our course, got among the
islands of the Greek Archipelago