e a hot stove
in the saloon, and strangled with scalding brandy. We had not been
wet, nor had we swallowed any sea-water, but the surgeon said this was
the proper treatment. I suspect, poor man, he did not often get the
opportunity to resuscitate anybody; in fact, he admitted he had not
had any such case as ours for years. It is uncertain what he might
have done to us if the tender-hearted captain had not thrashed him
into his cabin with a knotted hawser, and told us to go on deck.

By this time the ship was passing above the town of Arica, and the
sailors were all for'd, sitting on the bulwarks, snapping peas and
small shot at the terrified inhabitants flitting through the streets a
hundred feet below. These harmless projectiles rattled very merrily
upon the upturned boot-soles of the fleeting multitude; but not seeing
any fun in this, we were about to go astern and fish a little, when
the ship grounded on a hill-top. The captain hove out all the anchors
he had about him; and when the water went swirling back to its legal
level, taking the town along for company, there we were, in the midst
of a charming agricultural country, but at some distance from any
sea-port.

At sunrise next morning we were all on deck. Sam sauntered aft to the
binnacle, cast his eye carelessly upon the compass, and uttered an
ejaculation of astonishment.

"Tell _you_, captain," he called out, "this has been a direr
convulsion of nature than you have any idea. Everything's been screwed
right round. Needle points due south!"

"Why, you cussed lubber!" growled the skipper, moving up and taking a
look, "it p'ints d'rectly to labbard, an' there's the sun, dead
ahead!"

Sam turned and confronted him, with a steady gaze of ineffable
contempt.

"Now, who said it wasn't dead ahead?--tell me _that_. Shows how much
_you_ know about earthquakes. 'Course, I didn't mean just this
continent, nor just this earth: I tell you, the _whole thing's_
turned!"

* * * * *

A TALE OF SPANISH VENGEANCE.

Don Hemstitch Blodoza was an hidalgo--one of the highest dalgos of old
Spain. He had a comfortably picturesque castle on the Guadalquiver,
with towers, battlements, and mortages on it; but as it belonged, not
to his own creditors, but to those of his bitterest enemy, who
inhabited it, Don Hemstitch preferred the forest as a steady
residence. He had that curse of Spanish pride which will not permit
one to be a burden u