good deal of conversation with them, but whatever topic I started they always reverted to the cholera. The gloom which hung over them was contagious, if the disease was not; and my old despondency began to return as I stood leaning over the bulwarks while the captain was transacting business. I was, therefore, glad when it was over, and felt something like the relief one experiences after shaking off a nightmare, when we got into the Wally's boat. As we rowed towards her, neither the captain nor I spoke a word for about a quarter of an hour, when our reverie was broken by a splash in the water. We turned our heads towards the frigate, and saw them consign to the sea four bodies sewed up in their hammocks.

On reaching our own vessel, the captain held a consultation whether we should try to trade with the other vessels, as probably they were all infected. I, who am a disbeliever in contagion, and, besides, a fatalist, argued that in all probability the whole fleet, as well in the Black Sea as here, would be infected, and that if we made this an objection to trading, it was likely the object of our voyage would be lost, and that besides, since cholera was in the atmosphere, we ran as much risk where we were as on board the ships of war. The captain concurred with me, and we accordingly visited in succession the other ships. All of them had more or less cholera, but none were so bad as the Behemoth, and their officers spoke more hopefully.

We heard something of the progress of the war. the Crimea, and an attack on Sebastopol is expected.

An expedition to

August 17.

We did not land at Athens. Indeed, I find the captain has a holy aversion to land, and to-day told me that when on a voyage, he made it a rule never to go on land if he could avoid it. Time is of great importance to the captain of a sailing vessel, a favourable wind is not to be neglected for any consideration, and even when it is foul, if he keep tacking, he is still making some way, and is always ready to take advantage of a change. These are the captain's formal reasons, but I suspect his real one is a salutary knowledge of the perils of the land, if not to himself, at least to his crew. The desire for a spree as a sea voyage is prolonged is certainly natural.

We have sailed past Salamis, Syra, and Scio; we have been visited by several boats from the island, offering country produce, eggs, butter, fowls, milk, all agreeable additions to our fare. Our visitors are apparently very intelligent, and many of them can make themselves understood in English, but Italian seems to be the best medium of interpretation, and with it and English I managed to carry on a very hazy and haphazard correspondence with most of them. These descendants of Pericles and Alcibiades are ordinary peasants, but are superior in intelligence to the peasantry of England, who certainly are not an intellectual class of men, though for various other qualities, in particular for the facility with which they enlist, they are our country's pride. The English race require high culture to attain civilisation. It is only the gentry who are gentlemen, and the race is deficient in that plasticity which makes politeness, and even elegance, natural to the working classes of other nations. The secret may be in the feeding; and perhaps if our peasantry drank less beer, and lived upon something less oleaginous than fat pork, they would appear as sharp as the Greeks and as polite as the French. Your Scotch Highlander, and even the Irish

bogtrotter, men who live more sparingly, are less boorish than the English labourer.

August 25. As we were lying becalmed this morning off the island of Mytilene, a boat was observed to push off for the shore and make for us. Our suspicions of pirates-a race indigenous to these waters since the date of the Argonauts-were aroused by a difference in the make of this boat to that of the market-boats which had already visited us, and also by the more ship-shape way in which she was managed; the captain, therefore, as a measure of caution, distributed the different arms with which the Wally was furnished among the crew. These consisted of a doublebarrelled fowling-piece, which the captain kept for himself; an old musket, which was the property of the mate; the ship's hatchet, which I secured; four marlinespikes, which were entrusted to four of the crew, among whom were Phelim and the Lascar: the cook armed himself with boiling water and the poker, while the rest of the crew seized the oars of the ship's boat. We made out by the ship's telescope that the boat was full of men, and of a size much larger than any which as yet had visited us. But, as she came a little nearer, we observed that the men were unarmed, and though somewhat astonished at so many visitors, we were satisfied their intentions were peaceful. We were soon undeceived, for as they came close to us they lifted several muskets from the bottom of the boat, and half a dozen of them, standing up, pointed them at us. "Lie down, all of you," said the captain, in a quiet, unconcerned voice. We obeyed, and the captain hailed the boat in the mongrel dialect of the Mediterranean, "What do you want?" "Cargo," was the equally laconic answer, the direction of the muskets significantly filling up the ellipsis, while the boat continued rowing steadily towards us. The captain did not hesitate; he discharged one barrel of his musket into the boat, and from the exclamations of rage, and the general discharge which followed of muskets from the boat's crew, it was pretty clear he had done execution. "Lie down till I give the word," said the captain, as he quietly ensconced himself behind a water-barrel and deliberately reloaded his gun. The boat was close at our stern. "Mate, here," said the captain, "take aim -now!" and the mate's musket and both barrels of the captain's gun exploded. They evidently told, but no cry was heard from the boat, which now had grappled to our larboard side. Two or three of the pirates attempted to climb up, while others stood with their guns ready to shoot any of us who might appear. One man in the boat standing at the stern, seemed to be the leader. I gazed furtively at him from behind one of the water-casks. He was a tall, fine-looking fellow, dressed in full Greek opera costume, as if piracy were an occasion of ceremony; the only thing not precisely in keeping was a red nightcap instead of the close-fitting Greek skull-cap. As I made my survey of this hero, I thought I saw him beckon to some one on our deck. I followed the direction of his gestures, and distinctly saw my friend the Lascar put his hand to his head. There was one traitor at least on board. Immediately there flashed on my recollection the scene in Gibraltar. I did not take a note of that meeting for nothing, it now appeared. Meantime the pirates had nearly succeeded in getting on deck. Indeed, they had it apparently all their own way, as no one was visible on our deck except the Lascar. One fellow accordingly was just lifting himself over the gangway, another had got into the boat at the stern, while

the hands of two of them were seen clingingto the bulwarks. "Now, my lads!" said the captain..... The pirate in the boat was pushed over by the thrust of an oar; the one who had nearly got in was knocked into the water; I had the honour and pleasure of chopping off a hand in good carpenter fashion; and the captain was just about applying the buttend of his musket to the other pair of hands, when I observed the marlinespike of the Lascar raised right over the captain's head. I uttered a cry of warning and sprang forwards; but I would have been too late had it not been for Phelim, who using his weapon, a heavy marlinespike, like a shillelagh, with a loud shout came right down on the head of the unfortunate disciple of the Lama. No European head could have stood the shock without being crushed to a jelly; but, so far as I could observe, the Lascar was only stunned, the blow ringing on his head as if it were bellmetal. Meantime, however, we had inevitably exposed ourselves, and the pirates gave us a volley. Luckily their aim was destroyed by the pitching of their boat and the excitement of the moment, but it took effect on the poor cook, who was preparing to deluge them with boiling water. He fell on the deck quite dead. The pirates clustered thicker on the sides of the vessel; a general boarding was the order, and we would inevitably have been captured, had not, just at this moment, a shot been heard! And rounding a headland about three miles from us was seen a stately steamer at the top of her speed. The pirates saw that they had lost their chance, and immediately tumbled into their boat and prepared to let it loose. "All hands here!" cried our captain; "unsling this water-cask. Now-once, twice-over with it!" Unfortunately we were too late; the heavy barrel splashed into the water, almost grazing the boat, which now rowed away with as much speed as possible. It was a close chase betwixt them and the steamer; the latter, indeed, might have destroyed the boat at any time by a shot from one of her guns, but apparently the captain seemed to wish to get the pirates alive. This hesitation turned the scale. Half a mile further and there was a headland. The pirates strained every nerve. The steamer lowered her boat, and the chase became more and more animated, but they had got the start; they rounded the headland which protected them from the guns of the steamer and shut both the pursued and pursuer from our sight. We were about an hour in suspense. At last the man-of-war gig appeared, towing the pirates' boat, but the pirates themselves had reached land and escaped.

The captain of the war steamer has come on board. It turns out to be the Simeon; the same which had passed us near Athens.

Justice had been done on the Lascar, so her Majesty's officers were saved the trouble of putting him in irons. Phelim's blow had sufficed, though, singular to say, on the closest investigation of his skull by Mr. Buller, the surgeon of the Simeon, it was found to be perfectly uninjured. He and the cook were accordingly committed to the deep, sewed up in a biscuit-bag, with coal to make them sink, and the only trophy of our skirmish which remained was the pirate's hand I had chopped off, which I have preserved in a glass bottle.

Captain Somers, of the Simeon, much to our relief, agreed to take us in tow the rest of our journey-at least the length of Constantinople—and, in return for his politeness, our skipper sold him a considerable quantity of brandy and bottled beer at double cost prices.

THE quiet and seclusion of my chamber was very refreshing. I cast myself into a chair, and, leaning back my head, gave my thoughts full liberty to roam where they would. I was exhausted with the sad duties this day had so unexpectedly brought upon me. I was sick at heart when my thoughts wandered from Margaret's peculiar case to the condition of humanity at large. I tried to analyse man's nature, to sift the good from the bad, and see how we are constituted; what it is that leads us to perpetrate our own destruction, to shipwreck our own happiness; but vain and disappointing are such efforts. We lay down rules and lines, but when we try to prove ourselves correct, our very proof turns against us, for man's nature is as diverse as the features of the face-no two alike, and yet all consisting of the same material. And if we would account for the anomalies, the warring elements of our composition, we must turn to religion, and there, when our minds are perplexed with our groundless theories, seek for the one great truth, that a spirit of good and a spirit of evil do exist and are ever fighting in us for the mastery. My head ached as I lay back in my chair, and the pale face of the drowned girl came before me. All the many instances of that eventful day, all the conversations I had had, recurred to me, and as I mused, I remembered the letter I had found in my desk, and which, till now, I had not had time to peruse carefully. I took it from my pocket, opened it, and spread the sheets upon the table.

"Agony penned these lines," I thought, as I looked at the irregular, trembling hand, so unlike Margaret's usual writing. They must not be read as we should a letter from a person in possession of calm, rational feeling and thought. She contemplated the terrible act of suicide even while she wrote. Everything was probably in readiness for her departure from her home and relatives-from the place to which kindness and early associations bound her more than to any other spot in the world. She was about to bring sorrow and humiliation on a family to whom she owed her support, her education, and all she possessed; and it was by her own deliberate act she was to do this. A fixed purpose, a monomania had her in its power; she was the victim of a disease brought on by herself from weakness and entire want of common sense. mind had been led away through the enticing paths of morbid melancholy, till, instead of becoming vigorous and active, it had grown dreamy and sentimental; and whilst in this condition, an ideal appeared to her -I say an ideal, because she invested a human being with properties May-VOL. CXVI. NO. CCCCLXI.

I

Her

which it did not possess she saw it through the magnifying lenses of her own imagination, and cast her heart, her joy, her life at its feet. Poor misguided Margaret! if you had but opened your eyes and allowed your mind to regulate their vision, till they saw what really was, and not what fancy pictured, you would have been here now, not entirely happy, perhaps for it was not in your nature to be that-but you might have worked on in your quiet sphere till a natural death came to call you to another world! All that happens is for the best, however, and had it been God's purpose that you should live, would He not have guided some saving hand to draw you from the river ere life was extinct? He does not willingly see one soul lost; let us therefore rest in the joyful assurance that He is all-merciful, and will not require much of those to whom little is given." I bowed my head over the letter, and tried thus to still the bitter, harsh-judging thoughts which rose to my mind. "What was I, that I should judge such an act as hers? Had I not often committed suicide in my thoughts, and been on the brink of committing it on my eternal life, my undying soul?" I shuddered now at what I had been once, and that but a few years back. I had, however, had time to change. A year contains seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months. How many thoughts may not be conceived in a minute! An hour sometimes changes the whole tenor of our thoughts; may not a year, then, alter our entire nature? I had changed-I was no longer the dreaming student, longing to find truth; my dreams had become reasoning thoughts-my longings were in some degree crystallised, and had been brought to recognise the actual in life. I was leaving eager, ardent youth behind, and was entering sterner, colder manhood. This change is not always for the better, but I earnestly hope in my case it was so.

Margaret's letter looked at me as I awoke from my reverie. I took it up humbly; I felt none of that tingling pleasure the consciousness of having excited more than ordinary affection in some fellow-being is apt to produce; I felt only sorrow, deep sorrow, at the degradation of one who might have been so different had she but exercised self-control. Her letter to me ran thus: "Triumph not whilst reading what I am about to write. I shall be far away long ere these lines reach your eye, and, believe me, I would never have made this confession did I not know that the grave places an insuperable barrier between the living and the dead. If we meet in another world, it will not be as man meets man here; we may remember the relationships we held to each other on earth, or we may not. I do not fear, I do not shrink from the thought that we may meet face to face hereafter, but rather would I die a thousand deaths than encounter your gaze on earth after you have read this confession. Why do I make it? you will ask, and my only answer can be, that I could not carry my secret to the grave; I must reveal it before I die, bitter and humiliating though it be. From the time you set foot in our house I have known what it wasto love. You were kind to me, you taught me to think, and understand what I read; I was very happy for the first few months, it was so pleasant to learn from you, to be able to recal at night, when I was alone, all that I had heard you say during the evening. I used to watch you come from visiting your round of patients, and almost wished that I were one of them, that you might