roar,

“Heave out there, all hands! Heave out, Lady Bird and baby! Land ho!”

There came a joyous note from a soft womanly voice within a screen drawn across the after cabin, mingled with a little cooing grunt from a child, and presently an inner door swung back, and the sweetest little tot of a boy came tumbling out into the open space, and sprang at once into the captain’s arms. The little fellow buried his brown curly head into the old skipper’s whiskers, and then, kicking up his fat naked legs, he laughed and chattered like a magpie.

“Aha! you young scamp, this small nose smells the oranges and cinnamon, eh? And dear lazy mamma shuts her pretty eyes, and won’t look for papa, and so near home, too!”

Here Madame Rosalie’s low sweet voice trilled out merrily in a slightly foreign accent, while the contralto tones vibrated on the ear like the note of a harp.

“Ah! bon capitaine, how could you deceive me? Still, I forgive you for telling me last night that we were so far from Kingston. When you know, too,” she went on in her Creole accent, “how I love and want to see my dear husband these last four years, since you carried him away in your good big ship. But never mind, my good friend, I shall pay you off one of these days; and now send, please, for Banou to dress his little boy.”

Scarcely had the worthy skipper reached a bell-rope near at hand, and given it one jerk, than the cabin door opened, and in stepped a brawny black, whose bare woolly head and white teeth and eyes glittered with delight. There was that about his face which indicated intelligence, courage, devotion, and humanity––those indescribable marks of expression which Nature sometimes stamps in unmistakable lines on the skin, whether it be white or black. He was below the middle height, but the large head was set with a great swelling throat on the shoulders of a Titan. His loose white and red striped shirt was thrown well back over his black and broad chest; and putting out a pair of muscular arms that seemed as massive and heavy as lignum vitæ, the boy jumped from the captain to meet them; and then sticking his little soft legs down the slack of Banou’s shirt, he ran his rosy fingers in his wool, and shouted with glee.

“Oho!” said the black, as he passed his huge arms around the little fellow, and smoothed down his scanty night-dress as if it were the plumage of a bird, “oho! little Master Henri loves his Banou, eh? Good, he take bath.”

Bearing his charge out upon the quarter-deck beneath the awning, he pulled a large tub from under a boat turned upside down over the deck cabin; and then, while the young monkey had scrambled round to his back, and was beating a tattoo with his tiny fists on his shoulders, Banou caught up a bucket and proceeded to draw water from over the side, which he dashed into the tub. When he had nearly filled the tub he felt around with his black paws as delicately as if he was about to seize a musquito, and, clutching the kicking legs with one hand, he spun the little fellow a somersault over his head, and skinning off at the same time his diminutive frock, plunged him into the sparkling brine, singing the while in a laughing chant:

Here the brawny nurse would souse him head over heels in the sparkling water, lift him up at every dip, rub his black nose all over him, making mock bites at the little legs and stomach; and, finally, holding him aloft, dripping, laughing, and struggling, go on with his refrain:

All this time the men seated forward on the deck, pegging away deep into their mess-kids, would pause occasionally, shake their great 11 tarry fingers at the imp, and chuckle pleasantly with their mouths full of lobscouse, as if the urchin belonged to them as individual property.

“What a tidy little chap he’ll make some of these days,” said Ben, “a-furlin’ the light sails in a squall! My eye! wouldn’t I like to live and see him!”

“No, no, messmates,” replied that worthy, as he crunched a biscuit and took a sip of coffee out of the pot, “that ’ere child will, some of these times, when he’s growed a bit, be a-wearing gold swabs on his shoulders, and a-givin’ his orders like a hadmiral of a fleet!”

“Quite right, my hearty! It’ll never do for sich a knowin’ little chub to spend his days along shore a-bilin’ sugar-cane on a plantation, and a-footin’ up accounts; for, ye mind, he was like the chip as was

While these old salts were thus carving out a destiny for the youngster, the black gave him a final souse in the tub, and then holding him up to drain, as it were, for the last time, exclaimed, while his face lighted up with pleasure,

“Oho, my little massa! what will papa say to-morrow when he sees his brave Henri?”

“Ah! how happy he will be, Banou!” said the lovely mother, who had just come on deck, as she kissed the mouth of the young scamp, while the black wrapped and dried his little naked body in a large towel.

“Ah! yes, my mistress, we all will be happy once more to get home to master on the plantation.”

“Tell me! tell me, good capitaine,” said she, turning in a pretty coquettish way to the skipper, “when shall we get in port?”

It was a sight to see her, in the loose white morning-gown folded in plaits about the swelling bosom, her slender waist clasped by a flowing blue sash, the dark brown satin bands of her hair confined by a large gold filigree pin, and half concealed by a jaunty little French cap, with the ribbons floating about her pear-shaped ears; and while her soft, dark hazel eyes were bent eagerly toward the solid old skipper, her round, rosy, dimpled fingers clasped a miniature locket fastened by a massive linked gold chain around her neck. Ah! she was a sight to see and love!

“Tell me, mon cher Capitaine Blunt, how many hours or minutes will it be before I shall behold my husband?”

The good-natured skipper laughed pleasantly at the eagerness of his beautiful passenger, and opening his hands wide, he gave vent to a long, low whistle, and replied,