sent into the
Clyde for a coal-droger. An old vessel's a perfect pickpocket to owners;
and if this old thing hasn't opened their purses as bad as her own
seams, I'll miss my reckonin'. I've had a strong foreknowledge that we
wouldn't get across in her. I saw the rats leaving in Jamaica--taking
up their line of march, like marines on the fore. It's a sure sign. And
then I'd a dream, which is as sure as a mainstay--never deceives me. I
can depend on its presentiment. I have dreamed it several times, and we
always had an awful passage. Twice we come within a bobstay of all
goin' to Old Davy's store-house. I once escaped it, after I'd had my
mysterious dream; but then I made the cook throw the cat overboard just
after we left port, and 'twas all that saved us."

Thus saying, he went forward to serve a topgallant-stay that was
stretched across the forecastle-hatch from the cat-heads, and had just
been spliced by the men, followed by an old-fashioned sea-urchin, a
miniature of the tar, with a mallet in his hand. The captain, although
a firm, intelligent man, and little given to such notions of fate as
are generally entertained by sailors, who never shake off the spiritual
imaginings of the forecastle, displayed some discomfiture of mind at
the strong character of the mate's misgivings. He knew him to be a good
sailor, firm in his duty, and unmoved by peril. This he had proved on
several occasions when sailing in other vessels, when the last ray
of hope seemed to be gone. He approached the mate again, and with a
pretence of making inquiries about the storage of the cargo, sounded
him further in regard to his knowledge of the Bahamas, and with special
reference to the port of Nassau.

"Six-tenths of her timbers are as rotten as punk," said the mate; "this
North American timber never lasts long; the pump-wells are defective,
and when we carry sail upon her, they don't affect the water in the
lee-bilge, and she rolls it through her air-streaks like a whale. She'll
damage the best cargo that ever floated, in that way. Take my word for
it, skipper, she'll never go across the Banks; she'll roll to splinters
as soon as she gets into them long seas; and if we get dismasted again,
it's gone Davy."

"I know the old scow before to-day, and wouldn't shipped in her, if I
hadn't been lime-juiced by that villanous landlord that advanced me the
trifle. But I seen she was as deep as a luggerman's sand-barge, and I
popped the old cat overbo