mysteries of these mysterious waters beyond the comprehension of
the oldest licensed pilot ...

There is plunder for all--birds and men. There are drowned sheep
in multitude, heaped carcasses of kine. There are casks of
claret and kegs of brandy and legions of bottles bobbing in the
surf. There are billiard-tables overturned upon the sand;--there
are sofas, pianos, footstools and music-stools, luxurious chairs,
lounges of bamboo. There are chests of cedar, and toilet-tables
of rosewood, and trunks of fine stamped leather stored with
precious apparel. There are objets de luxe innumerable. There
are children's playthings: French dolls in marvellous toilets,
and toy carts, and wooden horses, and wooden spades, and brave
little wooden ships that rode out the gale in which the great
Nautilus went down. There is money in notes and in coin--in
purses, in pocketbooks, and in pockets: plenty of it! There are
silks, satins, laces, and fine linen to be stripped from the
bodies of the drowned,--and necklaces, bracelets, watches,
finger-rings and fine chains, brooches and trinkets ... "Chi
bidizza!--Oh! chi bedda mughieri! Eccu, la bidizza!" That
ball-dress was made in Paris by--But you never heard of him,
Sicilian Vicenzu ... "Che bella sposina!" Her betrothal ring
will not come off, Giuseppe; but the delicate bone snaps easily:
your oyster-knife can sever the tendon ... "Guardate! chi bedda
picciota!" Over her heart you will find it, Valentino--the
locket held by that fine Swiss chain of woven hair--"Caya manan!"

And it is not your quadroon bondsmaid, sweet lady, who now
disrobes you so roughly; those Malay hands are less deft than
hers,--but she slumbers very far away from you, and may not be