chuckle with a murmur of pleasure as they washed the shore in rhythmical cadence.

There was but a single vessel here, and she was riding at anchor out in the offing some two miles from land, looking quite lonesome by herself in the distance.

She was a barque of some four or five hundred tons, with a broad, bluff-bowed hull that rose well out of the water on account of her not having completed loading her cargo. There was a long row of white ports along her side; and, as she rolled with the motion of the ground-swell, now setting inshore with the wind, she showed her bright copper sheathing almost to her keel.

“Is that the ship, dad?” I asked my father, gazing at her with longing eyes and wondering how we were to reach her.

“Yes, Tom, that’s the vessel I told you of, and we must now see about getting aboard if we can,” said he, preparing to dismount from his horse, whose bridle Jake had already taken hold of.

“And what’s her name, dad?” I then inquired, jumping down from Prince’s back as I spoke and giving the reins also in charge of our darkey groom.

“The Josephine of London,” he replied in regular ship-shape fashion; “Captain Miles, master and part owner.”