Arizona republican., 1899-02-24

most eross-grained, lopsidcd craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made more leeway than anything else, and turning round and round was the raaneuver she was best at. Even Ben Gum himself has admitted that she was '.queer to handle till you knew her way
 Certainly I did not knew her way. She turned in every direction but one, the one l was bound to go; the most part cf the time we were broadside On, and am very sure never should have made the ship at all but for tho tide. Isy good fortune, paddle as pleased, the tide was still sweeping me down; and there lay the ',Hisraaia!a" right in tha-rair way, hardly to be missed.
 First she loored before me like blot of something yet blaoEer than darkness. then her spara and hull be- gan Q take shape, and the next mo .-.ei.t as it seesald (for the further went tke brisher grew the current of the ebb), 1 was alongside her huwseT, and had laid hold-
 The nawser was as taut as q bow string-so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the bl2ckncss, the ripplin9 current bub bled and chattered like q little noun tain stream. One cut with my sea gully and the ''IIispaniola" would go drumming down the tide.
 So far so good: but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut hawser, suddenly cut, is thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to one, if 1 were so foolhardy as to cut the His paniola" from her anchor, I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water.
 This brought me to full stop, and if fortune had not again particularly favored me, I should have had to aban don my design. But the light airs which had begun blowing from the southeast and south had hauled round after nightfall into the southwest. Just while I was meditating, puff came. caught the "Hispaniola" and forced her up into the current; and. to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp, and the hand by which held it dip for a second under water.
 With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, opened it with my teeth, | and cut one strand after another, till i the vessel swung by two. Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when l the strain should be once more light ened by breath of wind.
 All this time I had heard the sound ! of loud voices from the cabin; but, to i say truth. my mind had been so en- tirely taken up with other thoughts that I had scarcely given ear. Now, ! however, when had nothing else to do, | I began to pay more heed.
 One recognized fer the cocIswain's. | Israel Hands, that had been Flnt's gunner in former days. The other was. of course, ms friend of the red night cap. Both men were plainly the worse of drink, and they were still drink ing; for, even while I was listening. one of them with a drunken cry opened the stern window and threw cut some thing, which l divined to be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that they were furiously angry Oaths flew like hailstoaes, and every now and then there came forth such an explosion as l thought was sure to end in blows. But each time the quarrel passed off, and the voices grum- bIed lower for awhile. until the next crisis came. and, in turn, passed away result.
 On shore, I could sec the glow of the great campfire burning warmly through the shore-sidc trees. Some one was singing. q dull old droning sailors song, with droop and q quaver at the end of every verse, and seemingly no end to if at all but the patience of the singer. I had heard it on the voyage more than once. and remembered these words:
 Put one man of the crew alive,
 What put to sea with seventy-1ive.'' And 1 thought it was a ditty rather too dolefuliy appropriate for q company that had met such cruel losses in the But, indeed, from what I saw, all these buccaneers were as cal !, lous as the sea they sailed on. z
 At last the breeze came; the schooner sidIed and drew nearer in the dark; ( felt the hawser slacllen once more. | and with q good, tough effort cut the ( last fibers through.
 The breeze had but little action on | the coracle. and 1 was almost instantly ! swept against the bows of the His | paniola." At the same time the schoon- ar began to turn upon her heel, spin ming slowly, end for end, across the current. I
 l wrought like fend, for I expected every moment to be swamped; and
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