—"Wot's glass? Wot's quicksilver? Give me
natur. When you notices them divers a peckin'
at each other's game, instead of each fishin'
steady for hisself, there's a hirritation in the
hair that ses 'squalls a-coming.' Harky here.
One day—'twas in the old Badger brig—we
wos layin' becalmed, as might be now, when
whish! there come a whole flock o' these birds,
whirrying and screeching about the ship. They
was hardly gone, when down come such a squall
as I never see in my life afore. 'Crack!' went
the main-topmast. Away went everything.
Captain he was on deck in a moment. ' Why, where's
the stick?' he sings out, looking wildly about.
' I heerd the topmast go.' Sir, it was gone!
There warn't a rag, nor yet a splinter to be
seen! Squall had taken it away, as if it worn't
no more than one of them inwisible bonnets
ladies wears, and nobody never sot eyes on that
beautiful stick no more."

"The Badger seems to have had her full share
of bad luck."

"Well, first and last she mought. She was
wrecked twice, but got off. Twice a-fire,
scuttled for to save her—all right. Once, keg
o' powder took fire, and blew cap'en's cabin out
o' windy. Once she went down at her moorings—
Lords o' th' Admiralty telegraphed for to
know why?—carpenters warn't conjurors—
couldn't tell. She was weighed again in a
jiffey. Men was as sweet as nuts upon the old
Badger brig."

"Sweet upon her! The deuce they were!
And why?"

"'Twas this way. They thought that, happen
what mought, she couldn't be cast away. Was,
though. Went down in a fog in the Baltic—
not a hand saved, 'cept a monkey and the
cook."

Jacobs's prophecy was destined to be so far
fulfilled, that a stiffish breeze from the south-
east carried us fairly under the shadow of Etna,
distant twenty miles, when it once again fell
calm, and left us heaving on the glassy swell;
the sound of heavy guns from the northward
increasing our impatience to learn what was going
forward. As it afterwards turned out, it was
precisely at this time—eleven o'clock, on the
twenty-first July, 'sixty—that Garibaldi fought
his desperate action at Milazzo. The distance—
from fifty to sixty miles in a direct line—
precluded the possibility of the sounds proceeding
from thence. True, the cannonade at the
second battle of Manassas, in the present
American war, was distinctly heard at a distance of
fifty-six miles; but that was, in weight of metal
and rapidity of action, the most tremendous
cannon conflict of modern times. The guns we
heard were, probably, from the citadel of
Messina, still held by a Bourbon garrison.

I was lying half asleep on deck, in the shadow
of the sail—Frank improving his mind with a
French novel below—when some excited talking
among the men forward, followed by a loud
laugh, aroused my attention. The conversation
appeared to have reference to some object in
the water, which had disappeared, before I
looked up, with a plunge, the traces of which
were still plainly visible. Old Jacobs came
growling aft.

"'Twarn't no good telling o' them. I never
met with no chap as 'ood believe it, yet."

"What's the matter, Jacobs?"

"Thought they sis a serpint," replied that
gentleman, shortly.

"Serpent? Sea-serpent?"

"Well, 'twarn't a wiper," retorted Mr. Jacobs,
still evidently ruffled; " leastways I should say
not. He 'oodn't hardly strike out so far, afore
breakfast. But, now-a-days, a man mustn't trust
his own heyes."

"Tell me now, Jacobs, do you believe in the
sea-serpent?"

"Yes I do, sir, if seein' s believin'," added Mr.
Jacobs, cautiously. "'Tain't always, now-a-
days."

"He has been considered a doubtful monster."

"I'm aweer he have, sir. 'Tis drift-weed,
wreck, a line o' porpuses, anything but what
'tis, and what we ses 'tis. Do you think a sailor
don't know a porpus? Blow the sarpint! 'Tain't
nothing to hus. Why should we go fur to tell
a passel o' lies about it? I knowed the old
captain at Nahant as watched him four hours
from the beach, with half the parish at his heels,
but he's been so chaffed about it since, by them
as warn't there, that he cuts up rough, and
wouldn't talk of the serpint, even to me."

I told Jacobs that, some few years ago, while
at the Zoological Gardens, I happened to notice
a jolly tar standing before one of the dens—
apparently in close conversation with a black
tiger-cat. The beast really seemed to know him
—stretching out its paw as far as it would go,
and rubbing its head sideways against the bars,
in the fondling manner of a cat. I observed to
the man that the animal appeared to recognise
him.

"'He do, sir,' was the reply. ' 'Tis a messmate.
We was together for a long spell in the
Dædalus—just paid off—Captain McQuhae.'

"'The Dædalus! Then you were perhaps one
of those who saw the sea-serpent?'

"'Yes, sir, I was. I was in the watch on deck
when he hove in sight. He kep' company with
us near upon an hour, and once come within a
cable's length of the ship. Captain, he turned
out, and saw him too, and logged it all down.
There was only one thing wrong in the description
that was in the papers. He hadn't no
mane. There was some weed washing about his
head and neck, as if he'd been a-grubbing at the
bottom. 'Twas that, perhaps, made them think
'twas wreck coated with sea-drift. However,
wreck don't make seven knots an hour, and
that's what we was both running, all the time,
sometimes the serpint forging ahead, sometimes
us.'"

Mr. Jacobs was reassured by this anecdote,
and forthwith weighed anchor with his favourite,
in chase. For the sake of clearness, I interpret
his singular statement into the landsman's
tongue. Sinking his voice to that confidential
key which even the truthful use in speaking of