"Why, Mynheer," asked the schipper, "where the seven duyvels were you going?"

"Going!" ejaculated the worthy man, "going !"....

And he said no more, for he was silent through astonishment and incipient sea-sickness. Svaardeken called two of the men to hand him to the vessel's side, where they left him to enjoy the pleasures of sailing.

The breeze came down afresh a minute afterwards, and down the Versluys laid herself to her work in a business-like manner. On she went banging and bursting through the waves that came in endless succession charging up against her bluff bow. Showers and sheets of spray were soon bounding in over the weather-bulwark down upon the slanting deck.

Vincentio Sterazzi, the young Italian who had come on board in the mouth of the Texel, was sitting to leeward, endeavouring to keep the cloak tight about his lovely bride. Just as he opened his mouth to give utterance to an anxious inquiry as to how she felt, the halfformed words were sent down his throat again, by a gallon of seawater, that bounced very unceremoniously over the main-chains, right into his face.

The same wave threw a spare quart or two of its water into a mug of gin that one of the seamen forward was lifting to his mouth. Yacob Braak [so was the man styled,] swore and cursed tremendously;Sterazzi contented himself with spitting out the stuff he had swallowed, and then turning to his companion, he recommended her to go below.

"Where thou wilt, dear Sterazzi," murmured she, "where thou wilt !"

"Humph!" said a little wizen faced, ferret eyed, old codger, who was looking on. Vincentio thought he saw the old fellow's leathern cheek distend, as if his tongue was in it.

Mynheer," said the Italian, "this is not courteous-I will not bear to be mocked at!"

"Humph!" grunted the shrivelled being, and his other cheek distended perceptibly, while the former shrunk to its natural, or rather its unnatural proportions. One instant more and down he would have gone under Sterazzi's blow, when just as the latter's arm was raised, a supplicating cry from the lady recalled him to her side.

Alas for the romance of our tale! she was getting sea-sick!Yacob Braak, fuming and fretting for the loss of his gin, pulled up the waistbands of nine of his outermost pairs of inexpressibles, spit twice, swore again tremendously, and then went up to Svaardeken.

"Schipper," said he, "it's time to reef and 'hand, she has too much sail on for this sea."

The schipper stopped, looked about him, then up, then down, then in Yacob Braak's face, whistled, scratched his head, and finally called the ship's company about him. There were in the crew, three named Hans, two Yacobs, three Donkers, seven Hendricks, five Carls, and two Philips.

Three of the Hendricks, one Carl, and one Philip, were for carrying on just as they were; but the others, being the majority, carried

the day, and sail was shortened accordingly, with the loss of only one man, Yacob Bremen, who was always drunk and went aloft so. He was swept off the main-yard, and as he was whirled to leeward by the raging waters, he stretched his hands in the air and screamed for help. No one saw his fall but the ill-natured old monkey whom Sterazzi was going to beat.

"Humph!" said the little old brute, thrusting his tongue in his cheek. In an instant more the wretched seaman was swept beyond human ken, and in about half an hour more he was missed on board. “ Oh—h—h—h-h!" groaned Van Imhoff, as he recovered from a paroxysm of sea-sickness, "I wish we were at our journey's end!"

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Humph!" grunted the old fellow behind him. The burgomaster: turned and saw the fellow's tongue in his cheek.

"What's your name? what's your name ?" roared Van Imhoff, in a fury.

"What's the honest man's name to you," cried a shrill voice at his ear; "what's the honest man's name to you, Peter Van Imhoff; why don't you come down to your snug bed, and the night coming on? Eh-eh?"

"I go I go, mein vrouw," hastily said Van Imhoff, as he gazed in alarm at the clenched fist of the bony giantess at his side.

And he went, and the little old codger with the ferret eyes said "humph!" louder than ever, and stretched his cheek out further than

ever.

Mistress Trudschen Van Imhoff turned on him in a fury, and caught at his thin grey hair. Missing her aim, she stumbled against the lee bulwarks, and [the Versluys heeling to a squall at the moment,] over went the poor vrouw into the water.

"Save me, save me," shrieked she; but away she was hurried by the bounding waves with the rapidity of thought. Van Imhoff looked on, but said nothing. It might be that he thought it a happy deliverance. The schipper, passengers and crew, crowded around the malicious old ruffian, who had been the cause of the accident.

"Thou art a murderer," roared Solon Brummingen, the one-eyed schoolmaster of Vlissingen," be thou anathema!"

All crowded to seize the murderer. As he gazed on them, his wizen features lit up with delight, a wild and strangely echoed laugh burst from his lips. He threw his lean arms on high, and described a circle in air above their heads.

""Tis done, 'tis done," he shrieked; and again burst forth his hideous laugh.

A rush of winds was heard, and a staggering blast struck the vessel, tearing her sails to shivers and roaring against the masts loud as the ragings of ten thousand tigers. It swept off to leeward, and the vessel rose from the recumbent position she had been thrown in nearly to an even keel, and then having no longer sail to steady her, she rolled far and wildly from side to side, the long-yards swinging about and the masts groaning fearfully. The man at the helm had been pitched to leeward with such violence that he lay senseless in the scuppers. No one ventured to take his place, all holding on to the fixtures of the vessel to save themselves from being washed over

board. All command of the vessel being thus lost the natural consequences followed- the masts snapped short off a foot or two above the deck, and down they came, with all their weight of spars and block and tangled rigging, crashing and thundering over the lee bulwarks. There they lay in the water, keeping the ill-fated bark down on her side, and all had been over in a moment, when Sterazzi, rushing from the cabin, where he had been with the lady, seized an axe, and severed the shrouds and stays that yet held the lumber to the ship; returning below again, as the rescued bark righted herself once

more.

Svaardeken and his crew lashed the tiller hard a-lee, and when the Versluys' beak came up in the direction of the wind, he proposed going below, and leaving her as she was till the gale had blown its pipe out. Solon Brummingen exhorted them to pause, until judgment should be dealt upon the old fellow who brought their misfortunes on them.

"He has caused all that has happened to us," roared the schoolmaster, squinting fearfully, "let him be cast forth upon the waters!".

The seamen seized the old wretch and hove him over the gunnel. He splashed heavily in, his horrid laugh bursting from his thin lips at the moment, and piercing every ear. Then away, with fearful rapidity, he scudded, in a sitting posture, over the tops of the waves to leeward. A dark bank of clouds that lay on the bosom of the waters in that direction, shut him presently from view, his shrieking langh ceasing as he disappeared. At once the declining light of day was obscured, and night fell upon the scene. Then came a flash of lightning, vivid as the brightest noon,—another—another!

Then a peal of thunder, harsh and grating, broke upon the ear over head-it rolled, long, loud and dreadful, ceasing with a mighty

crash.

The dark cloud to leeward is rent in twain-a huge vessel of quaint and uncouth form, without sail or mast, issues forth to view, revealed by a swarthy glare of light proceeding from the phantom barque itself. Towards the helpless Versluys the barque came fiercely rushing.

That deck-that hateful deck; what are they that flit to and fro upon it, shapes dubious and horrid as ever blasted mortal eye-And he-the mightiest and the darkest, bearing on his shadowy brow, the semblance of a fiery crown?....

Yacob Bremen was on that deck, and Trudschen Van Imhoff, horror and anguish in their swollen features, and their ghastly eyesshining with phosphoric light. The little old wretch was running up and down, shrieking wildly, as, at every step, he was beset with myriad flakes of fire that appeared to dart through him. Right a-beam the helpless wreck, the career of the fiend-freighted barque was stayed. Silent and motionless as the dead, stood the miserable beings on the Versluys' deck.

The shrieks and lamentations that rent the air, proceeding from the hell-barque, change to a peal of wild, blood-curdling laughteragain that devilish peal rings through the startled sky-again, and now it sinks and breaks into the shrieks of maddening agony and despairing woe.

"Vincentio, Vincentio," gasped the lady, shrinking into Sterazzi's bosom, "we are lost, and lost for ever!"

"Cheer thee, Alice, cheer thee, heaven is our shield, and the fiend shall not prevail."

Suddenly all is still and hushed-that giant and durky form hath waved his hand on high.

The dismantled Versluys quivers through all her frame, as a mighty billow bursts over her. Another and a mightier rushes upon the defenceless barque, and, almost ere it breaks, the good ship Versluys, after taking a lazy roll to either side, puts her beak into the water, and goes straight down on a voyage of discovery to the depths below. The results of that voyage have not as yet been ascertained.

When the wave had done its commissioned duty it subsided, leaving of all the good men and women, and good planks and good things that formed the crew, passengers, cargo and self of the good ship the Versluys of Antwerp, nought but a floating spar, to which clung Vincentio, supporting his Alice. Still lay the fiend-barque near them; and again the shout of devilish laughter, that hailed the destruction of the wretched vessel and her inmates, had broken into wailings and curses, when the fire-crowned giant spake :

"Two mortals have escaped thee, Abdaroth; thou art failing in thy duty. Away with him!"

A horrid shriek burst from the little old wretch, as a myriad of howling demons rushed upon him at the word. Whirlwinds of fire involved the direful deck, and the glare hid all there from mortal vision.

Alice still remained insensible, and Vincentio felt his own powers leaving him fast through mental and bodily anguish. An agonizing prayer to his patron saint passed his lips; the next instant the boat of the sunken Versluys drifted near, and he caught the gunnel.Placing Alice in the little barque, he clambered up himself, with toil and difficulty, and reached the inside also.

The deck of the phantom-ship was now again visible-the whirlwinds had passed away; but of all the semblances that had tenanted that deck before, one alone remained, the mighty one. The winds were hushed, the waves had subsided to the long unbroken roll of an ocean calm, darkness lay thick and black every where around, save where the lurid blaze from the phantom-ship disclosed its baleful form and the giant-fiend upon its deck.

"Alice, look up; my life, my soul, look up!"

The fiend laughed long and loud.

"Alice, Alice," cried Vincentio, still more anxiously, as her swoon continued, "look up and bid me hope!"

"Despair!" shouted the fiend.

"Avaunt thee, evil one," cried the youth,

Even at the word Alice revived.

"heaven is with us!"

"Where, where are we, Vincentio? where is the vessel that we sailed in, and those that were with us?"

"Gone to the bottom of the waters, Alice; but we are safe-safe still."

"And that horrid barque that was rushing towards us, with its demon crew...... Ah, there it is!"......She fell back in Sterazzi's arms, and long and loud the demon laughed again.

Hours passed away, and the dreary scene remained unchanged.And ever and anon the fiend voice spake and bade Vincentio to despair.

And despair was creeping cold upon his heart and freezing all its energies. Alice marked the sinking eye, the drooping head, and she spoke to him in her own soft, low tones.

"Vincentio, dear Vincentio, let us pray for aid to the Holy Virgin." They sunk upon their knees together, and the Salve Regina rose upon the air, their voices commingling sweetly. A shriek, surpassing all yet heard, rent the darkened sky. Then howlings and wailings fierce and horrid burst upon the ear. The lurid glare that had lit the scene spread into a mightier and swarthier blaze-a stunning crash succeeded, and then all was still.

Darkness had left the face of the waters-the sun shone bright and joyful from the azure sky-the phantom-barque was gone, and before the rescued pair a lone and lovely island lay upon the bosom of the placid deep. They landed on that beauteous shore, and side by side they knelt upon the grassy slope above the beach, in earnest and grateful prayer. They arose and eat of the rich fruits that hung around, and quenched their thirst in the crystal spring. Then as bloom and health returned, they wandered gaily on to explore the leafy recesses of that lone and beautiful isle.

SONNET.

Nymph of the Minstrel's strain, the Mourner's wail,
Or livelier note that pleasure sometimes wakes,
Whose short and languishing existence speaks

Its ling'ring farewell-how I love to hail

Thy pensive spirit gliding on the gale,

And hear thy swan-expiring breath, that breaks
The silence of the solitude, and makes

Its sweet responses to the nightingale.
But yet not always thus doth music's mild

And gentle incantation wield the spell

That summons thee, where War her victims piled,
Thy ghost hath shriek'd responsive to her yell;
And oft thou'st startled at the lover's wild

Farewell Methinks I hear thee still-Farewell.