with agitation. "Give it me! Back to the ship!
Fly! 'Fly! Cut her off, or she'll give us the
slip, now"

He never spoke a word more, but sat in a
stupor of joyful wonder.

They soon caught the ship: he got into his
cabin, he scarce knew how: broke the bottle to
atoms, and found the indomitable cash uninjured.
With trembling hands he restored it to its old
place in his bosom, and sewed it tighter than
ever. Until he felt it there once more, he could
hardly realise a stroke of good fortune that
seemed miraculous—though, in reality, it was
less strange than the way he had lost, it—but,
now laid bodily on his heart, it set his bosom on
fire: oh, the bright eye, the bounding pulse, the
buoyant foot, the reckless joy! He slapped
Sharpe on the back a little vulgarly, for him:

"Jonah is on board again, old fellow: look
out for squalls."

He uttered this foreboding in a tone of
triumph, and with a gay, elastic recklessness, which
harmonised so well with his makeshift rudder,
that Sharpe groaned aloud, and wished himself
under any captain in the world but this, and in
any other ship. He looked round to make sure
he was not watched, and then tapped his
forehead significantly: this somewhat relieved him,
and he did his duty smartly for a man going to
the bottom with his eyes open.

But ill luck is not to be bespoken any more
than good: the Agra's seemed to have blown
itself out; the wind varied to the south-west,
and breathed steadily in that quarter for ten
days. The topgallant sails were never lowered
nor shifted day nor night all that time: and not
a single danger occurred between this and the
Cape, except to a monkey, which I fear I must
relate, on account of its remoter consequences.
One fine afternoon, everybody was on deck
amusing themselves as they could; Mrs. Beresford,
to wit, was being flattered under the poop
awning by Kenealy. The feud between her and
Dodd continued; but under a false impression.
The lady had one advantage over the gentler
specimens of her sex; she was never deterred
from a kind action by want of pluck, as they
are. Pluck? Aquilina was brimful of it. When
she found Dodd was wounded, she cast her
wrongs to the wind, and offered to go and nurse
him. Her message came at an unlucky moment,
and by an unlucky messenger: the surgeon said,
hastily, "I can't have him bothered." The
stupid servant reported, "He can't be worried:"
and Mrs. Beresford, thinking Dodd had a hand
in this answer, was bitterly mortified; and with
some reason. She would have forgiven him
though; if he had died: but, as he lived, she
thought she had a right to detest liim; and did:
and showed her sentiments like a lady, by never
speaking to him, nor looking at him, but ignoring
him with frigid magnificence on his own quarter
deck.

Now, among the crew of this ship was a
favourite goat, good tempered, affectionate, playful:
but a single vice counterbalanced all his virtues:
he took a drop. A year or two ago some light-
hearted tempter taught him to sip grog; he took
to it kindjy, and was now arrived at such a pitch,
that at grog time he used to butt his way in
among the sailors, and get close to the canteen;
and, by arrangement, an allowance was always
served him; on imbibing it he passed, with
quadrupedal rapidity, through three stages, the
absurd, the choleric, the sleepy; and was never
his own goat again until he awoke from the
latter. Now Master Fred Beresford encountered
him in the second stage of inebriety, and, being
a rough playfellow, tapped his nose with a battle-
dore.Instantly Billy butted at him; mischievous
Fred screamed and jumped on the bulwarks.
Pot-angry Billy went at him there; whereupon
the young gentleman, with an eldrich screech,
and a comparative estimate of perils, that smacked
of inexperience, fled into the sea, at the very
moment when his anxious mother was rushing to
save him; she uttered a scream of agony, and
would actually have followed him; but was held
back uttering shriek after shriek, that pierced
every heart within hearing.

But Dodd saw the boy go overboard, and
vaulted over the bulwark near the helm, roared
in the very air, "Heave the ship to!" and went
splash into the water about ten yards from the
place; he was soon followed by Vespasian, and
a boat was lowered as quickly as possible. Dodd
caught sight of a broad straw hat on the top of
a wave, swam lustily to it, and found Freddy
inside: it was tied under his chin, and would
have floated Goliah. Dodd turned to the ship,
saw the poor mother with white face and arms
outstretched as if she would fly at them, and held
the urchin up high to her with a joyful "hurrah."
The ship seemed alive and to hurrah in return
with giant voice: the boat soon picked them up,
and Dodd came up the side with Freddy in his
arms, and placed him in his mother's with honest
pride, and deep parental sympathy.

Guess how she scolded and caressed her child
all in a breath, and sobbed over him! For this no
human pen has ever told, nor ever will. All I
can just manage to convey is that, after she had
all but eaten the little torment, she suddenly
dropped him, and made a great maternal rush at
Dodd. She flung her arms round him and kissed
him eagerly, almost fiercely: then, carried away
wild by mighty Nature, she patted him all over
in the strangest way, and kissed his waistcoat,
his arms, his hands, and rained tears of joy and
gratitude on them.

Dodd was quite overpowered: "No! no!" said
he. "Don't now! pray don't! There, I know,
my dear, I know; I'm a father." And he was
very near whimpering himself; but recovered
the man and the commander, and said soothingly,
"There! there!" and handed her tenderly down
to her cabin.

All this time he had actually forgotten the
packet. But now a horrible fear came on him.
He hurried to his own cabin and examined it. A