to slippery shrouds,' lest the next wave bear them into eternity.
"Whoever has been to prayers at sea during a storm has had a solemnexperience he will never forget."
"Perhaps there is no more impressive ocean-scene ever beheld by thesailor," said Captain Ben Roberts, "than the phosphorescent seaswitnessed at times in the tropics." But though far more common in theseregions than in the temperate zones, this extraordinary luminosity ofthe water is sometimes observed around our own coasts.
"I shall always remember," he continues, "the first time I witnessed thephenomenon, though I've often seen it since.
"What a happy day we had had, to be sure! We were a party of five--Ibut a schoolboy, my comrades little more. It was the first time I hadbeen to that most bewitching of western islands called Skye. We hadstarted off one morning early on a ramble. We simply meant to gosomewhere--anywhere, so long as we did not come back again for a nightor two. Not that we were not happy enough in the old-fashioned manse ofK--. But we wanted change, we wanted adventure if we could find any,and if we did not, then probably we should be able to make some. Therewas, at all events, the wild mountain peak of Quiraing to be climbed,with its strange top--the extinct crater of a burning mountain. Ah! butlong before we came anywhere near it, there was a deal to be done.
"We had started from the beautiful little bay of Nigg, keeping anortherly course over a broad Highland upland.
"It was the month of June; the heather was not purple yet, but it waslong and rank and green, and it was inhabited by many a curious wildbird, whose nests we hunted for, but did not rob; we saw some snakes,too, and one of us killed a very long one, and we all thought that boy avery hero, though I know now it was no more dangerous or deadly than atallow candle.
"But the best fun we got was when we took to horse-catching. There wasnot much harm in this after all. There were dozens of ponies roamingwild over the green moor, and if they allowed themselves to be caughtand ridden for miles through the heather, why, it did not hurt them;they soon danced back again.
"We laughed, and screamed, and whooped, loud enough to scare even thecurlews, and that is saying a good deal. I'm not sure, indeed, that wedidn't scare the eagles from their eeries; at all events we thought wedid. Then we began to ascend Quiraing, a stiff climb and somewhathazardous; and light-hearted though we were, I believe we were allimpressed with the grandeur of the view we caught from between theneedle-like rocks that form one side.
"We went down to the plains below more quickly than we came up.
"Presently we came to a little Highland village close to the sea, andthere, to our joy, we found that a large fishing-boat was going roundthe northernmost and east part of the island to Portree, the capital.For a trifle we managed to take a passage. We had lots of bread andcheese in our wallets, and we had some money in our pockets, goodsticks, and stout young hearts; so that we should not be badly off evenalthough we should have to trudge on foot back again to the old manse.Which, by the way, we had to.
"Our voyage was a far longer one in time than we had expected it wouldbe, because the wind fell. But the beauty of the scenery, the hills,the strange-shaped mountains, the rocks and cliffs, with waterfallstumbling sheer over them and falling into the sea; the sea itself, socalm and blue, and the distant mainland, enshrouded in the purple mistof distance, repaid us for all, and made the day seem like one long,happy dream.
"But daylight faded at last, and just as the gloaming star peeped outthere came down upon our boat a very large shoal of porpoises, which theboatman gravely assured us at first was the great sea-serpent. Thesecreatures were in chase of herrings, but they were so reckless in theirrush and so headlong, that we were fain to scream to frighten them off,and even to arm ourselves with stones from the ballast, and throw atthose that came too near.
"Night fell at last, and we were still at sea, and the stars came outabove us. But if there were stars above us there were stars beneath ustoo; nay, not only beneath us, but everywhere about and around us. Thesea was alive with phosphorescent animalculae; the wake of the boat wasa broad belt of light behind us, every ripple sparkled and shone, andthe water that dripped from the oars looked like molten silver."
"Ah!" said I, "that was one of your first experiences of the open sea,wasn't it, Ben?"
"I was only a boy, Nie," replied my friend. "I've had many a sleep inthe cradle of the deep since then."
"I was reading this morning," I said, "of that terrible shipwreck in theAtlantic. It puts me in mind of the loss of the _London_. I was in theBay of Biscay in that very gale, Ben; our vessel unmanageable, wallowingin the trough of the seas, the waves making a clean breach over us; and,Ben, at the very darkest hour of midnight, we saw, by the lightning'sgleam, a great ship stagger past us. We were so close that we couldhave pitched a coil of rope on board. There were no men on her decks;her masts were carried away, and her bulwarks gone, and it was evidentshe was foundering fast. There were more ships lost, Ben, that night inthe Bay of Biscay than ever we shall know of--
"`Till the sea gives up its dead.'"
CHAPTER TEN.
"Throned in his palace of cerulean ice, Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court."
Thomson's "Seasons."
"I don't think," said I, as Captain Ben Roberts and I sat at breakfastone day in a homely old hotel in Bala, North Wales, "I don't think, Ben,my boy, I ever ate anything more delicious in the way of fish than thesesame lovely mountain trout."
"Well, you see," replied my friend, "we caught them ourselves, to beginwith; then the people here know exactly how to cook them. But, Nie,lad, have you forgotten the delicious fries of flying-fish you used tohave in the dear old _Niobe_?"
"Almost, Ben; almost."
"Well, I can tell you that you did use to enjoy them, all the same."
"Ay, and I've enjoyed them since many and many is the time in thetropics, and especially in the Indian Ocean."
"So have I," said Ben Roberts. "Funny way they used to have of catchingthem, though, in the old _Sans Pareil_. Of course you know they willalways fly to a light if held over the ship's side?"
"Yes."
"Well, but the orders were not to have lights kicking about the deck atnight, either naked or in a lantern; so some of our fellows--not that Iat all approve of what they did--utilised a wild cat the doctor kept ina cage. When they came on deck to keep the middle watch--we were on avoyage from Seychelles to the Straits of Malacca--they would swing him,cage and all, over the stern. His eyes would be gleaming like bottledwildfire. 'Twasn't long, I can tell you, before the flying-fish sprangup at the cage. Old Tom put out his claws and hooked some of them in;but lots flew on board, and they were being fried five minutesafterwards."
"I quite believe you, Roberts," I said; "though some would call that atraveller's tale. But just look at that lovely pair of Persian cats inthe corner there, Ben; it seems almost impossible to believe they canbelong to the same family as the wild cat you've been speaking about."
"Yes, Nie, civilisation is a wonderful thing when it can extend even tothe lower animals. You were once a savage yourself too, Nie. Think ofthat."
"I shan't think about it," I replied. "None of your sauce, my worthyfriend. What were you doing at Seychelles, and what were you doing witha wild cat on board?"
"We had queerer things than wild cats on board, Nie; the fact is, wewere what they call cruising on special service. We had a fine time ofit, I can tell you. We seemed to go everywhere, and do nothing inparticular. At the time we had that wild cat on board, Nie, we hadalready been three years in commission, and had sailed about and overalmost every ocean and sea in the world."
"What a lot of fun and adventure you must have had, Ben! Wish I hadbeen with you."
"You were in the Rocky Mountains then, I believe?"
"Yes, and in Australia, and the Cape. You see, I had a turn after goldand diamonds wherever I thought I could find them. But help yourselfand me to some more of those glorious trout, and spin your
yarn."
"Let us get away out of doors first, Nie. On this lovely summer's daywe should be on the lake."
So we were, reader, one hour afterwards; but the sun was too bright;there were neither clouds nor wind, and the fish wouldn't bite; so wepulled on shore, drew up our boat, and seated ourselves at the shadyside of a great rock on a charming bit of greensward, and there westayed for hours, Ben lazily talking and smoking, I listening in adreamy kind of way, but enjoying my friend's yarn all the same.
"Yes," said Ben, "we were on special service. One day we would bedredging the bottom of the sea, the next day taking soundings. One daywe would be