XXII.

"What cheer, Ben Bunting?" cried (when in full view Our new acquaintance) Torquil," Aught of new?" “Ey, ey,” quoth Ben, " not new, but news enow; A strange sail in the offing."-"Sail! and how? What! could you make her out? It cannot be; I've seen no rag of canvass on the sea."

"Belike," said Ben, you might not from the bay,
But from the bluff-head, where I watched to-day,
I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind

Was light and baffling."-" When the sun declin'd
Where lay she? had she anchored?"" No, but still
She bore down on us, till the wind grew still."
"Her flag?"—" I had no glass; but fore and aft,
Egad, she seemed a wicked-looking craft.”
"Armed?"—" I expect so;-sent on the look-out;-
'Tis time, belike, to put our helm about."
"About?-Whate'er may have us now in chace,
We'll make no running fight, for that were base;
We will die at our quarters, like true men.

"Ey, ey; for that, 'tis all the same to Ben."

"Does Christian know this?"-"Aye; he has piped all hands

To quarters. They are furbishing the stands

Of arms; and we have got some guns to bear,

And scaled them. You are wanted."—"That's but fair;
And if it were not, mine is not the soul
To leave my comrades helpless on the shoal.
My Neuha! ah! and must my fate pursue
Not me alone, but one so sweet and true?

But whatsoe'er betide, ah, Neuha! now
Unman me not; the hour will not allow

A tear; I am thine whatever intervenes!"

46

Right," quoth Ben, "that will do for the marines."*

* "That will do for the marines, but the sailors won't believe it," is an old saying; and one of the few fragments of former jealousies which still survive (in jest only) between these gallant services.

END OF CANTO II.

CANTO III.

I.

THE fight was o'er; the flashing through the gloom,
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,
Had ceased; and sulphury vapours upward driven
Had left the earth, and but polluted heaven:
The rattling roar which rung in every volley
Had left the echoes to their melancholy;

No more they shrieked their horror, boom for boom;
The strife was done, the vanquished had their doom;
The mutineers were crushed, dispersed, or ta'en,
Or lived to deem the happiest were the slain.
Few, few escaped, and these were hunted o'er
The isle they loved beyond their native shore.
No further home was their's, it seemed, on earth,
Once renegades to that which gave them birth;
Tracked like wild beasts, like them they sought the wild,
As to a mother's bosom flies the child;

But vainly wolves and lions seek their den,
And still more vainly, men escape from men.

11.

Beneath a rock whose jutting base protrudes
Far over ocean in his fiercest moods,
When scaling his enormous crag, the wave
Is hurled down headlong like the foremost brave,
And falls back on the foaming crowd behind,
Which fight beneath the banners of the wind,
But now at rest, a little remnant drew
Together, bleeding, thirsty, faiut and few;

D

But still their weapons in their hands, and still
With something of the pride of former will,
As men not all unused to meditate,

And strive much more than wonder at their fate.
Their present lot was what they had foreseen,
And dared as what was likely to have been;
Yet still the lingering hope, which deemed their lot
Not pardoned, but unsought for or forgot,
Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves
Might still be missed amidst the world of waves,
Had weaned their thoughts in part from what they saw
And felt the vengeance of their country's law.
Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won paradise,
No more could shield their virtue or their vice:
Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown
Back on themselves, their sins remained alone.
Proscribed even in their second country, they
Were lost; in vain the world before them lay;
All outlets seemed secured. Their new allies

Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice;
But what availed the club and spear and arm
Of Hercules, against the sulphury charm,
The magic of the thunder, which destroyed
The warrior ere his strength could be employed?
Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the grave
No less of human bravery than the brave!*
Their own scant numbers acted all the few
Against the many oft will dare and do,

* Archidamus, King of Sparta, and son of Agesilaus, when he saw a machine invented for the casting of stones and darts, exclaimed that it was the "Grave of Valour." The same story has been told of some knights on the first application of Gunpowder; but the original anecdote is in Plutarch.