red of the turnkey's compliments to the
prisoner in Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.

"Leave the ship if I can!" Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore
was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done.
For on board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall
fellows, whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in
an open boat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a
long yarn about being the only survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to
the water's edge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they
were keepers of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some
ugly craft still afloat and hearty, and stolen away from her, off
soundings. Among seamen in the Pacific such adventures not seldom
occur. Nor are they accounted great wonders. They are but incidents,
not events, in the career of the brethren of the order of South Sea
rovers. For what matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a
good whale-boat be under foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas
before? And herein lies the difference between the Atlantic and
Pacific:--that once within the Tropics, the bold sailor who has a
mind to quit his ship round Cape Horn, waits not for port. He regards
that ocean as one mighty harbor.

Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I
resolved to weigh well the chances. It's worth noticing, this way we
all have of pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for
others, we hold a bagatelle.

My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the
right or wrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to
split no hairs on this point, let me say, that were I placed in the
same situation again, I would repeat the thing I did then. The
captain well knew that he was going to detain me unlawfully: against
our agreement; and it was he himself who threw out the very hint,
which I merely adopted, with many thanks to him.

In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my
allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a
day, serene and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and
away, away, illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were
was perhaps the most unfrequented and least known portion of these
seas. Westward, however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid
down upon the charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land.
But soon these regions woul