towards the place of landing, running always at the distance of some fifty
feet from the shore.

"Every craft has its allotted time, like a mortal," continued the
inexplicable mariner of the India-shawl. "If she is to die a sudden death,
there is your beam-end and stern-way, which takes her into the grave
without funeral service, or parish prayers; your dropsy is being
water-logged; gout and rheumatism kill like a broken back and loose
joints; indigestion is a shifting cargo, with guns adrift; the gallows is
a bottomry-bond, with lawyers' fees; while fire, drowning, death by
religious melancholy, and suicide, are a careless gunner, sunken rocks,
false lights, and a lubberly captain."

Ere any were apprized of his intention, this singular being then sprang
from the boat on the cap of a little rock, over which the waves were
washing, whence he bounded, from stone to stone, by vigorous efforts, till
he fairly leaped to land. In another minute, he was lost to view, among
the dwellings of the hamlet.

The arrival of the periagua, which immediately after reached the wharf,
the disappointment of the cutter's crew, and the return of both the boats
to their ship, succeeded as matters of course.




Chapter V.