dogs, seemed to move away from the ship's
side, far away over the blue water, and go
right down into the sky.

"It's rising out of the water, steady," a
voice said close to me. I had been thinking
on so, that it like woke me with a start,
though it was no stranger voice than the
voice of Harry Charker, my own comrade.

"What's rising out of the water, steady?"
I asked my comrade.

"What?" says he. "The Island."

"O! The Island!" says I, turning my
eyes towards it. "True. I forgot the Island."

"Forgot the port you're going to? That's
odd, an't it?"

"It is odd," says I.

"And odd," he said, slowly considering
with himself, "an't even. Is it, Gill?"

He had always a remark just like that to
make, and seldom another. As soon as he
had brought a thing round to what it was
not, he was satisfied. He was one of the
best of men, and, in a certain sort of a
way, one with the least to say for himself.
I qualify it, because, besides being able to
read and write like a Quarter-master, he had
always one most excellent idea in his mind.
That was, Duty. Upon my soul, I don't
believe, though I admire learning beyond
everything, that he could have got a better
idea out of all the books in the world, if he
had learnt them every word, and been the
cleverest of scholars.

My comrade and I had been quartered
in Jamaica, and from there we had been
drafted off to the British settlement of
Belize, lying away West and North of the
Mosquito coast. At Belize there had been
great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates
(there were always more pirates than enough
in those Caribbean Seas), and as they got
the better of our English cruisers by running
into out-of-the-way creeks and shallows, and
taking the land when they were hotly
pressed, the governor of Belize had received
orders from home to keep a sharp look-out
for them along shore. Now, there was an
armed sloop came once a-year from Port
Royal, Jamaica, to the Island, laden with
all manner of necessaries, to eat and to drink,
and to wear, and to use in various ways; and
it was aboard of that sloop which had
touched at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning
over the bulwarks.

The Island was occupied by a very small
English colony. It had been given the name
of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so
called, was, that the English colony owned
and worked a silver mine over on the mainland,
in Honduras, and used this island as a
safe and convenient place to store their silver
in, until it was annually fetched away by the
sloop. It was brought down from the mine
to the coast on the backs of mules, attended
by friendly Indians and guarded by white
men; from thence, it was conveyed over to
Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in
the canoes of that country; from Silver-
Store, it was carried to Jamaica by the armed
sloop once a-year, as I have already
mentioned; from Jamaica it went, of course, all
over the world.

How I came to be aboard the armed sloop,
is easily told. Four-and-twenty marines under
command of a lieutenant—that officer's name
was Linderwood—had been told off at Belize,
to proceed to Silver-Store, in aid of boats
and seamen stationed there for the chace
of the Pirates. The island was considered
a good post of observation against the
pirates, both by land and sea; neither the
pirate ship nor yet her boats had been seen by
any of us, but they had been so much heard of,
that the reinforcement was sent. Of that
party, I was one. It included a corporal and a
Serjeant. Charker was corporal, and the
serjeant's name was Drooce. He was the most
tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His
Majesty's service.

The night came on, soon after I had had
the foregoing words with Charker. All the
wonderful bright colors went out of the sea
and sky, in a few minutes, and all the stars
in the Heavens seemed to shine out together,
and to look down at themselves in the sea, over
one another's shoulders, millions deep. Next
morning, we cast anchor off the Island. There
was a snug harbor within a little reef; there
was a sandy beach; there were cocoa-nut trees
with high straight stems, quite bare, and
foliage at the top like plumes of magnificent
green feathers; there were all the objects
that are usually seen in those parts, and I
am not going to describe them, having
something else to tell about.

Great rejoicings, to be sure, were made
on our arrival. All the flags in the place
were hoisted, all the guns in the place were
fired, and all the people in the place came
down to look at us. One of those Sambo
fellows—they call those natives Sambos, when
they are half-negro and half-Indian—had
come off outside the reef, to pilot us in,
and remained on board after we had let go
our anchor. He was called Christian George
King, and was fonder of all hands than
anybody else was. Now, I confess, for
myself, that on that first day, if I had been
captain of the Christopher Columbus, instead of
private in the Royal Marines, I should have
kicked Christian George King—who was no
more a Christian, than he was a King, or a
George—over the side, without exactly knowing
why, except that it was the right thing
to do.

But, I must likewise confess, that I was not
in a particularly pleasant humor, when I stood
under arms that morning, aboard the
Christopher Columbus in the harbor of the
Island of Silver-Store. I had had a hard
life, and the life of the English on the Island
seemed too easy and too gay, to please me.
"Here you are," I thought to myself, "good