e, let me tell you, at the best, but especially
to be avoided in any thing like a gale of wind. The clouds in the
horizon looked particularly threatening, and I got a little anxious, for
I knew that there were rocks about, and not a light-house in the whole
of the district.

"In an hour or two it grew as dark as a wolf's throat. I could not for
the life of me make out where we were, for the Sound is very narrow in
some parts, and occasionally I thought that I could hear breakers ahead.

"'Tom,' said I, 'Tom, you lubber!'--for our esteemed friend was, as
usual, lying on the deck, with a cigar in his mouth, twangling at that
eternal guitar--'take hold of the helm, will you, for a minute, while I
go down and look at the chart.'

"I was as cold as a cucumber; so, after having ascertained, as I best
could, the bearings about the Sound, I rather think I _did_ stop below
for one moment--but not longer--just to mix a glass of swizzle by way of
fortification, for I didn't expect to get to bed that night. All of a
sudden I heard a shout from the bows, bolted upon deck, and there, sure
enough, was a black object right ahead, with the surf shooting over it.

"'Luff, Tom! or we are all dead men;--Luff, I say!' shouted I. I might
as well have called to a millstone. Tom was in a kind of trance.

"'O Dorothea!' said our friend.

"'To the devil with Dorothea!' roared I, snatching the tiller from his
hand.

"It was too late. We went smash upon the rock, with a force that sent us
headlong upon the deck, and Strachan staggered to his feet, bleeding
profusely at the proboscis.

"Down came the sail rattling about our ears, and over lurched the yacht.
I saw there was no time to lose, so I leaped at once upon the rock, and
called upon the rest to follow me. They did so, and were lucky to escape
with no more disaster than a ruffling of the cuticle on the basalt; for
in two minutes more all was over. Some of the timbers had been staved in
at the first concussion. She rapidly filled,--and down went, before my
eyes, the Caption the tidiest little craft that ever pitched her
broadside into the hull of a Frenchman!"

"Very well told indeed," said I, "only, Anthony, it does strike me that
the last paragraph is not quite original. I've heard something like it
in my younger days, at the Adelphi. But what became of you afterwards?"

"Faith, we were in a fix, as you may easily conceive. All we could do
was to scramble up the rocks,--which, for