than the yacht's complement answered to their names.

"Ah, poor fellows!" sighed the captain, "they have got a seaman's end! but they would have had the same fifty years hence; or else have been thrown into a hole on shore, which is worse than they now have got. A short life and a gallant one, is my maxim, my lord," he said, turning round and speaking to the earl. "Poor brave boys, Heaven give them a snug berth aloft! Well, lads, let us get a bit of sail on the craft, and cry afterward. My lad," he continued, addressing Meredith, "I see you are a sailor! You must take poor Marston's place, and wait till you get on shore for your commission. Go forward and set the jib at once. Here! a dozen of you close reef this spanker, and let us see how long it will take for the wind to cut it up into ribands. Lively, men, lively! Stand by there, at the helm, to bring her smartly up to the wind as soon as she begins to feel her canvass. Hoist away briskly!"

In a few minutes the yacht was lying to under a reefed jib and close-reefed spanker, with her helm lashed to the starboard bulwarks; the steersman, with the two men who had been detailed to assist him at the beginning of the storm, having been carried forward into the waste on the first billow that broke over the stern.

The force of the wind gradually lessened, and, in half an hour after the jib was set, an order was given to set the foresail, and shake the reefs out of the spanker.

"Put her away a point or two, and give her headway," said the captain to the lieutenant, as the above orders were executed. "So, steady! there she walks bravely! See, my lord, how like a duck she rides on the top of the waves. She's a tight boat for so gayly painted a craft, or we should, ere this, have been helping the mermaids string coral in their sea-caves below. Never judge a ship by the colour of her bends, is my maxim, my lord."

The yacht was now under steerage way, and rose regularly on the billows, which before had broken against her sides flinging the spray in showers upon her decks. The wind blew steadily, but no longer with violence; the storm-cloud, broken into a myriad of fragments, was scudding across the heavens towards the southeast; the waves momently diminished in size; and at intervals the moon shone down through an opening upon the sea, like the smile of hope beaming on the tempest-tossed mariners: all things indicated the termination of the hurricane, to the fury of which they had so nearly been sacrificed. The pumps were now tried, and it was ascertained that less than three inches of water had been made.

"A capital craft, my lord. The Roebuck would scarcely have ridden out a tornado like this, especially after having been laid on her ribs. I congratulate both your lordship and your niece on your escape from a grave in the sea, for which landsmen, I am told, have a strange antipathy. But bury me, my lord, in the deep sea; let the green waves, which have borne me living, wrap about me dead. Let me lie where the ripple of driving keels and the song of the sailor shall be my requiem."

"You are eloquent, Kenard; and perhaps you are right."

"It matters little where a man's bones are laid, my lord; and the sea is as safe a repository, and will yield them up as readily at the judgment day as the earth. Ay, more readily, it may be," said the captain.

"It may be so," replied the nobleman, smiling at the literal way in which the seaman viewed the subject. "If it is now safe to unclose the companion-way, I will convey my niece to the cabin for a change of wardrobe."

"We shall have no more washing decks to-night," replied the captain, giving the necessary orders to remove the companion-way and hatches, which had been firmly closed as the storm came on.

They were now opened, and the earl awoke Grace, who, after her submersion, had dropped into a gentle sleep in his arms, and assisted her to her stateroom, where, arousing her terrified and almost insensible maid from the floor, he left her with a kiss of paternal affection, mingled with gratitude for her preservation.

"Shall I come to the deck again after I have changed my dripping dress?" she asked, with playful entreaty, as he was leaving her.

"No, my child, you need rest after your bath. Your cheek is pale as marble," he replied, tapping upon it.

"I shall be sick here; I miss the pure air; there is a suffocating sensation of closeness; and I think I feel the motion of the vessel more below. I must go on deck again, uncle," she said, earnestly. "Besides, the moon is coming out, and it will be pleasant to watch the caps of the waves sparkling in her light."

"There is no resisting you, Grace; I will come down for you when you are ready. Let us be thankful, my child, for our preservation," he added, devoutly.

"I am, uncle, indeed," she said, with touching sincerity.

And, as the earl closed the door of her stateroom, she kneeled by her couch in her wet garments, and offered up a short, heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving and gratitude for her safety; nor in it did she forget the youth who had been the instrument of it. How much nearer did the gallant service he had performed for her bring the handsome but humble young sailor to her heart! How much closer did the union of his name with her own in prayer bind him to her young and warm affections! And when she rose from her knees, her thoughts, it is to be feared, ran much more upon the instrument of her preservation than upon the Being who directed it.

When the earl returned to the deck, the moon was riding in a broad field of blue, unobscured by a single cloud, and on all sides the waves leaped towards it to fall back into the shining sea in showers of silver. The clouds were drifting far to leeward, and the darkness and terror that had hitherto reigned had given place to brightness and serenity. The yacht was gallantly riding over the crested waves, parting them with her prow and dashing to either side their glittering drops in snowy jets of spray. The fore-topgallant-sail was set, and drawing freely; and, notwithstanding the loss of her topsails and main-topgallant-mast with its yard, she held her course and was making good headway through the water. Two of her larboard guns had been shifted to the starboard, and other means had been taken to put her in suitable sailing trim. The men were engaged in clearing the decks; serving the rigging where it had been chafed; fishing the foremast, which Mark had before temporarily secured and thereby saved; and otherwise repairing the disasters of the storm. Some of them, the earl observed, were filling the beds around the guns with shot, disposing cutlasses and muskets in stands and beckets about the masts, and making altogether very plain preparations for fight.

"You see, my lord, we are hard at work," said the captain, approaching the earl as he saw him come to the deck. "In half an hour, save bending a new set of topsails, we shall be as sound as we were before this squall. See that those guns are as dry as a boatswain's whistle," he shouted to the men.

"What is the meaning of these hostile preparations, Kenard?"

"I have reason to believe the pirate is lurking in this quarter. He was seen from aloft during the blackest of the storm, scudding through it, like the flying Dutchman, under bare poles. If he should discover us as we are, we should have a hard matter to escape him."

"He is likely to be as crippled as ourselves."

"Not he, my lord; the masts of these craft are stout single sticks, and their sails are fashioned so as to come down by the run at an instant's warning. There is no way of sinking one of those fellows without knocking his bottom out. Lively, men, lively. Ha! that's my lad! make them fly!"

It was Meredith he addressed. In the absence of the usual