to entertain shipwrecked crews, taking them
in and giving them board and lodging until
an opportunity occurs for sending them ashore.
There is amongst our voyaging sailors a kindly
sympathy for the lightsmen, and a just
appreciation of the value of the light-ships to
navigation, and in consequence captains of passing
vessels will often go close to the light-ship,
the sailors will shout out a friendly salutation
and fling out a bundle of newspapers or some
other equally acceptable offering for the benefit
of the lightsmen. But the most remarkable
visitors come on very dark and cloudy nights.
It is then that belated birds who have flown
out to sea and are unable to find their way
back in the dark, are attracted by the ship's
lights, and settle in hundreds on the rigging
and about the ship. Some of the more thoughtless
and rash, in their eager haste to reach the
light, fly towards it with all their strength, and
before they know where they are, come with
great force against the lantern glass and fall
stunned and often killed on the deck. Many
people would be astonished to hear of the
woodcocks, partridges, blackbirds, thrushes, &c.,
that are sometimes caught by the seamen of
the light-vessels.

It is somewhat surprising that men can be
readily found to man these ships. To be
cooped up in a vessel of one hundred and fifty
tons, which is chained to one position in a
dreary waste of waters; to be subjected to all
the perils of storms and tempests; to be
continually pitched and flung about—all this
would seem to make life a burden and a
misery. But there are men who like to tumble
through life, who delight in being tempest-
tossed and storm-beaten, and who are quite
willing to undergo the perils and hardships of
life in a light-ship, provided they can earn a
livelihood by it. Moreover, as a rule, these
men are by no means intelligent, and therefore
do not want any intellectual food; they are
generally to be found in that state of mental
vacuity which seems to be a not uncommon
condition of mind at sea. But they are
remarkable for the dogged bravery with which
they will discharge their important duties, in
spite of the wildest raging of the sea, or the
most blustering fury of the wind.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JOHN
ACKLAND.

A TRUE STORY.

IN THIRTEEN CHAPTERS. CHAPTER X.

MR. D'OILEY, the watchmaker, was a
strange mixture of practical shrewdness and
an inveterate appetite for the miraculous.
Spiritualism had not then been invented.
Otherwise Mr. D'Oiley would surely have
been one of its most enthusiastic disciples.
But on the subject of animal magnetism,
electro-biology, presentiments, clairvoyance,
and second sight, Mr. D'Oiley was great
and terrible. The whole story of John Ackland,
in all its details, had been discussed
in every circle of Richmond society, high
and low. Mr. D'Oiley was well up in it;
and he had formed very decided opinions
about it. He confided them to the wife of
his bosom.

"Just look at the case without
prejudice," said Mr. D'Oiley, in the confidence
of the nuptial couch. "How does it stand,
ma'am? It is well known that Cartwright
owed Ackland a large sum of money. It
is equally well known, ma'am, that
Cartwright never had a large sum of money—
of his own. How, then, did he get the
money with which he says he paid off his
debt to Ackland? There are only two ways,
my dear, in which that man could have got
that money. Either by a loan from some
other person, to be repaid at the shortest
possible date, or by a forgery. The first
is not probable. The second is. In either
case it would have been a matter of
vital importance to Cartwright to regain
possession of the money he paid to
Ackland. In the one case, in order to
liquidate the second loan on which he must
have raised it; in the other case, to
recover the forged draft before it fell due.
The moment he had succeeded in securing
Ackland's receipt for the money, he had
nothing more to fear from Ackland. Why
did Cartwright talk so much about his
transactions with Ackland? Why did he
show about Ackland's receipt for the money,
if it were not to avert suspicion from himself
after Ackland's disappearance, by making
every one say, 'Cartwright could have had
no motive to murder Ackland, for he owed
him nothing'? Mark my words, Mrs. D.
Time will show that John Ackland never
left Virginia alive, and that he fell by the
hand of Philip Cartwright."

"But in that case," objected Mrs. D.,
"why has the body never been found?"

"Time will show," replied Mr. D'Oiley,
oracularly. "But you don't suppose that
dead bodies are in the habit of walking
about with their heads in their hands and
showing themselves off, like waxworks?
Eh?"

It is needless to say that both Mr. and
Mrs. D. believed even more in Miss
Simpson's magnetic gift than did Miss Simpson
herself. That young lady, whenever
the subject of John Ackland was referred
to, assured her friends that she did not
doubt she had talked a great deal of
nonsense about Mr. Ackland, but she had
not the least recollection of anything she
might have said. This subject was
inexpressibly distasteful to her, and she