ades who had just left
them--the last link, as it were, with the civilised world from which
they were self-exiled, of the unknown dangers and difficulties that lay
before them, and of the all but forlorn hope they had undertaken, there
need be little wonder that for some time they all looked rather grave,
and were disposed to silence.

But life is made up of opposites, light and shade, hard and soft, hot
and cold, sweet and sour, for the purpose, no doubt, of placing man
between two moral battledores so as to drive the weak and erring
shuttlecock of his will right and left, and thus keep it in the middle
course of rectitude. No sooner had our adventurers sunk to the
profoundest depths of gloom, than the battledore of brighter influences
began to play upon them. It did not, however, achieve the end at once.

"I'm in the lowest, bluest, dreariest, grumpiest, and most utterly
miserable state of mind I ever was in in all my life," said poor little
Benjy Vane, thrusting his hands into his pockets, sitting down on a
rock, and gazing round on the waste wilderness, which had only just
ceased howling, the very personification of despair.

"So's I, massa," said Butterface, looking up from a compound of wet coal
and driftwood which he had been vainly trying to coax into a flame for
cooking purposes; "I's most 'orribly miserable!"

There was a beaming grin on the negro's visage that gave the lie direct
to his words.

"That's always the way with you, Benjy," said the Captain, "either
bubblin' over with jollity an' mischief, or down in the deepest blues."

"Blues! father," cried the boy, "don't talk of blues--it's the blacks
I'm in, the very blackest of blacks."

"Ha! jus' like me," muttered Butterface, sticking out his thick lips at
the unwilling fire, and giving a blow that any grampus might have
envied.

The result was that a column of almost solid smoke, which had been for
some time rising thicker and thicker from the coals, burst into a bright
flame. This was the first of the sweet influences before referred to.

"Mind your wool, Flatnose," cried Benjy, as the negro drew quickly back.

It may be remarked here that the mysterious bond of sympathy which
united the spirits of Benjy Vane and the black steward found expression
in kindly respect on the part of the man, and in various eccentric
courses on the part of the boy--among others, in a habit of patting him
on the back, and giving him a choice selection of impromp