er, like a persecuting fiend, once more right between
us, glaring on us, and apparently watching every motion. It was a
terrible spectacle, and rendered still more striking by the melancholy
occurrence of the forenoon. "That's the very identical, damnable
_baste_ himself, as murthered poor little Louis this morning, yeer
honour; I knows him from the torn flesh of him under his larboard
blinker, sir--just where Wiggen's boat hook punished him," quoth the
Irish captain of the mizzen-top.
"A water-kelpie," murmured another of the Captain's gigs, a Scotchman.
The men were evidently alarmed, "Stretch out, men: never mind the shark.
He can't jump into the boat surely," said the skipper. "What the deuce
are you afraid of?"
We arrived within pistol-shot of the ship.
As we approached, the sentry hailed, "Boat, ahoy!"
"Firebrand," sung out the skipper, in reply.
"Man the side--gangway lanterns there," quoth the officer on duty; and
by the time we were close to, there were two sidesmen over the side with
the manropes ready stuck out to our grasp, and two boys with lanterns
above them. We got on deck.
[12] "Leave me room, countrymen--leave me room, my children."
[13] Equivalent to "Pull, you devils, pull!"
* * * * *
The Gatherer.
* * * * *
_The Emperor Adrian and the Architect Apollodorus._--When
Apollodorus was conversing with Trajan on some plans of architecture,
Adrian interfered, and gave an opinion, which the artist treated with
contempt. "Go," says he, "and paint gourds" (an amusement which Adrian
was fond of), "for you are very ignorant of the subject on which we are
conversing." When Adrian became emperor, the affront was remembered, and
it prevented Apollodorus from being employed. Nor was the opinion which
Apollodorus gave with respect to the plans of a sumptuous temple of
Venus forgotten: viz.--upon seeing the statues sitting, as they were,
in the temple (which, it seems, wanted much of its due proportion in
height), he said, "if the goddesses should ever attempt to stand upon
their feet, they would assuredly break their heads against the ceiling."
Adrian, meanly jealous and inexcusably revengeful, banished the
architect, and having caused him to be accused of various crimes, put
him to death.
P.T.W.
* * * * *
Juan Rufa said--"There are two classes of persons who are inconsola
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