a night so dark--"

"Dark!" interrupted the other; by what contrivance then did he manage to
see so well?"

"No man can say!" answered the tailor, "but see he did, just in the
manner, and the very things I have named to you. More than that, he took
good note of the vessel, that he might know her, if chance, or Providence,
should ever happen to throw her again into his way. She was a long, black
ship, lying low in the water, like a snake in the grass, with a desperate
wicked look, and altogether of dishonest dimensions. Then, every body says
that she appears to sail faster than the clouds above, seeming to care
little which way the wind blows, and that no one is a jot safer from her
speed than her honesty. According to all that I have heard, she is
something such a craft as yonder slaver, that has been lying the week
past, the Lord knows why, in our outer harbour."

As the gossipping tailor had necessarily lost many precious moments, in
relating the preceding history he now set about redeeming them with the
utmost diligence, keeping time to the rapid movement of his needle-hand,
by corresponding jerks of his head and shoulders. In the meanwhile, the
bumpkin, whose wondering mind was by this time charged nearly to bursting
with what he had heard, turned his look towards the vessel the other had
pointed out, in order to get the only image that was now required, to
enable him to do fitting credit to so moving a tale, suitably engraved on
his imagination. There was necessarily a pause, while the respective
parties were thus severally occupied. It was suddenly broken by the
tailor, who clipped the thread with which he had just finished the
garment, cast every thing from his hands, threw his spectacles upon his
forehead, and, leaning his arms on his knees in such a manner as to form a