rmidons of Neptune to
attempt, strive as recklessly as they might in their wrath, for the good
ship spurned them with her forefoot and the star-crowned maiden bowed
mockingly to them from her perch above the bobstay, laughing in her glee
as she rode over them triumphantly and sailed along onward; and so the
baffled roysterers were forced to fall back discomforted from their rash
onslaught, swirling away in circling eddies aft, where, anon, the cruel
propeller tossed and tore them anew with its pitiless blades--ever
whirling round with painful iteration to the music of their monotonous
refrain, "Thump-thump, Thump-thump," and ever churning up the already
seething sea into a mass of boiling, brawling, bubbling foam that spread
out astern of us in a broad shimmering wake in the shape of a lady's
fan, stretching backward on our track as far as the eye could see and
flashing out sparks of fire as it glittered away into the dim distance,
like an ever-widening belt of diamonds fringed with pearls.

The SS _Star of the North_ was a large schooner-rigged cargo steamer,
strongly built of iron in watertight compartments, and of nearly two
thousand horsepower, but working up, under pressure, of nearly half as
much again on a pinch, having been originally intended for the passenger
trade.

She belonged to one of the great ocean lines that run between Liverpool
and New York, and was now on her last outward trip for the year and
rapidly nearing her western goal--the Fastnet light--and, according to
our reckoning when we took the sun at noon, in latitude 42 deg. 35 minutes
North, and longitude 50 deg. 10 minutes West, that is, just below the banks
of Newfoundland, our course to our American port having been a little
more southerly than usual for the season. This was in consequence of
Captain Applegarth, our skipper, wishing, as I said before, to take
advantage of the varying winds of the northern ocean as much as
possible, so as to economise his steam-power and limit our consumption
of fuel; for freights "across the herring-pond," as the Yankees call it,
are at a very low ebb nowadays, and it is naturally a serious
consideration with shipowners how to make a profit out of the carrying
trade without landing themselves in the bankruptcy court. So, they have
to cut down their working expenses to the lowest point practicable with
efficiency, where "full speed" all the way is not a vital necessity--as
in the case of the mail steamers and