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thorities the despatches with which he was charged; and having so done, he then took out the letter entrusted to him by Nancy Corbett, and read the address. It was the same street in which lived the Frau Vandersloosh. This was awkward, as Vanslyperken did not want to be seen by her; but there was no help for it. He trusted to her not seeing him, and he proceeded thither: he ran down the numbers on the doors until he came to the right one, which was exactly opposite to the widow's house:-this was more unfortunate. He rang the bell; it was some time before the door was opened, and while he was standing there he could not help looking round to see if any one saw him. To his annoyance there stood the widow filling up her door with her broad frame, and Babette peeping over her shoulder. Mr. Vanslyperken, as there was only the canal and two narrow roads between them, could do no less than salute her, but she took no notice of him further than by continuing her stare. At last, upon a second pulling of the bell, the door opened, and on Mr. Vanslyperken saying that he had a letter for such an address, he was admitted, and the door immediately closed. He was ushered into a room, the window-panes of which were painted green, so that no one outside could look in, and found himself in the presence of a tall man, in a clerical dress, who motioned to him to sit down.

Vanslyperken delivered the letter, and then took a seat. The gentleman made a graceful bow, as if to ask permission to break the seal, and then opened the letter.

"Sir, I am obliged to you for charging yourself with these packets-infinitely obliged to you. You are in command of a sloop here, I believe."

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A king's cutter, sir," replied Vanslyperken, with importance; "I am Lieutenant Vanslyperken."

"I thank you, sir. I will take down your name. You expect, I presume, to be rewarded for this small service," continued the gentleman, with a bland smile.

"Why, she must have told him," thought Vanslyperken; who replied, with another smile, "that he certainly trusted that he should be."

Upon which reply, the other went to an escritoire, and taking out a bag, opened it and poured out a mass of gold, which made Vanslyperken's mouth water, but why he did so Vanslyperken did not give a thought, until, having counted out fifty pieces, the gentleman very gracefully put them into his hand, observing,

“A lieutenant's pay is not great, and we can afford to be generous. Will you oblige me by calling here before you sail for England, and I will beg you to take charge of a letter."

Vanslyperken was all amazement: he began to suspect what was the fact, but he had the gold in his hand, and for the life of him he could not have laid it down again on the table. It

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was too great a sacrifice, for it was his idol-his god. He therefore dropped it into his pocket, and promising to call before he sailed, bowed and took his leave. As he went out, there were the Frau Vandersloosh and Babette still watching him at the door, but Vanslyperken was in a state of agitation, and he hurried off as fast as he could. Had he known why they watched so earnestly, and what had occurred, his agitation would have been greater still. As soon as Mr. Vanslyperken had arrived on board, he hastened down into his cabin, and throwing the money down on the table, feasted his eyes with it, and remained for nearly half an hour in a state of deep cogitation, during which he often asked himself the question, whether he had not been a traitor to the king and country in whose pay he was employed. The answer that he gave to himself was anything but satisfactory: but the prospect of possessing the fair Portsmouth widow, and the gold displayed upon the table, were very satisfactory, and the balance was on the latter side; so Vanslyperken gradually recovered himself, and had risen from his chair to collect the gold and deposit it in a place of safety, when he was interrupted by a tap at the door. Hastily sweeping off the gold pieces, he cried, "Come in;" when who, to his surprise, should appear, in excellent condition and fresh as a peony, but the lost and almost forgotten Corporal Van Spitter, who, raising his hand to his forehead as usual, reported himself man-of-war fashion, "Vas come on board, Mynheer Vanslyperken." But as the corporal did not tell all the facts connected with his cruise in the jollyboat to Mr. Vanslyperken, for reasons which will hereafter appear, we shall reserve the narrative of what really did take place for another chapter.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN WHICH ARE NARRATED THE ADVENTURES WHICH TOOK
PLACE IN THE CORPORAL'S CRUISE IN THE JOLLY-BOAT.

CORPORAL VAN SPITTER, so soon as he had expended all his breath in shouting for help, sat down with such a flop of despair on the thwart of the boat, as very nearly to swamp it. As it was, the water poured in over the starboard gunwale, until the boat was filled up to his ankles. This alarmed him still more, and he remained mute as a stock-fish for a quarter of an hour, during which he was swept away by the tide until he was unable to discover the lights on shore. The wind freshened, and the water became more rough; the night was dark as pitch, and the corporal skimmed along before the wind and tide. "A tousand tyfels!" at last muttered the corporal, as the

searching blast crept round his fat sides, and made him shiver. Gust succeeded gust, and, at last, the corporal's teeth chattered with the cold: he raised his feet out of the water at the bottom of the boat, for his feet were like ice, but in so doing, the weight of his body being above the centre of gravity, the boat careened over, and with a “Mein Gott!" he hastily replaced them in the cold water. And now a shower of rain and sleet came down upon the unprotected body of the corporal, which added to his misery, to his fear, and to his despair.

"Where am I?" muttered he: "what will become of me? Ah, mein Gott! twenty tousand tyfels—what had I to do in a boat-I, Corporal Van Spitter?" and then he was again silent for nearly half an hour. The wind shifted to the northward, and the rain cleared up, but it was only to make the corporal suffer more, for the freezing blast poured upon his wet clothes, and he felt chilled to the very centre of his vitals. His whole body trembled convulsively; he was frozen to the thwart, yet there was no appearance of daylight coming; and the corporal now abandoned himself to utter hopelessness and desperation, and commenced praying. He attempted the Lord's Prayer in Dutch, but could get no further than "art in heaven," for the rest, from disuse, had quite escaped the corporal's memory. He tried to recollect something else, but was equally unsuccessful; at last, he made up a sad mixture of swearing and praying.

"Mein Gott-a hundred tousand tyfels-gut Gott-twenty hundred tousand tyfels! Ah, Gott of mercy-million of tyfels! holy Gott Jesus!-twenty millions of tyfels-Gott for dam, I die of cold!" Such were the ejaculations of the corporal, allowing about ten minutes to intervene between each, during which the wind blew more freshly, the waves rose, and the boat was whirled away.

But the corporal's miseries were to be prolonged; the floodtime of water was now spent, and the ebb commenced flowing against the wind and sea. This created what is called boiling water, that is, a contest between the wind forcing the waves one way, and the tide checking them the other, which makes the waves to lose their run, and they rise, and dance, and bubble into points. The consequence was, that the boat, as she was borne down by the tide against them, shipped a sea every moment, which the wind threw against the carcase of the corporal, who was now quite exhausted with more than four hours' exposure to a wintry night, the temperature being nearly down to zero. All the corporal's stoicism was gone: he talked wildly, crouched and gibbered in his fear, when he was suddenly roused by a heavy shock. He raised his head, which had sunk upon his chest, and beheld something close to him, and to the gunwale of the boat. It was a thin, tall figure, holding out his two arms at right angles, and apparently stooping over him. It was just in the position that Smallbones lay on

the forecastle of the cutter on that day morning, when he was about to keel-haul him, and the corporal, in his state of mental and bodily depression, was certain that it was the ghost of the poor lad whom he had so often tortured. Terror raised his hair erect-his mouth was wide open-he could not speak-he tried to analyse it, but a wave dashed in his face-his eyes and mouth were filled with salt water, and the corporal threw himself down on the thwarts of the boat, quite regardless whether it went to the bottom or not: there he lay, half groaning, half praying, with his hands to his eyes, and his huge nether proportion raised in the air, every limb trembling with blended cold and fright. One hour more, and there would have been nothing but corporal parts of Corporal Spitter.

The reason why the last movement of the corporal did not swamp the boat was, simply, that it was aground on one of the flats; and the figure which had alarmed the conscience-stricken corporal was nothing more than the outside beacon of a weir for catching fish, being a thin post with a cross bar to it, certainly not unlike Smallbones in figure, supposing him to have put his arms in that position.

For upwards of an hour did the corporal lie reversed, when the day dawned, and the boat had been left high and dry upon the flat. The fishermen came down to examine their weir, and see what was their success, when they discovered the boat with its contents. At first they could not imagine what it was, for they could perceive nothing but the capacious round of the corporal, which rose up in the air, but, by degrees, they made out that there was a head and feet attached to it, and they contrived, with the united efforts of four men, to raise him up, and discovered that life was not yet extinct. They poured a little schnappes into his mouth, and he recovered so far as to open his eyes; and they having brought down with them two little carts drawn by dogs, they put the corporal into one, covered him up, and yoking all the dogs to the one cart, for the usual train could not move so heavy a weight, two of them escorted him up to their huts, while the others threw the fish caught into the cart which remained, and took possession of the boat. The fishermen's wives, perceiving the cart so heavily laden, imagined, as it approached the huts, that there had been unusual success, and were not a little disappointed when they found that, instead of several bushels of fine fish, they had only caught a corporal of marines; but they were kind-hearted, for they had known misery; and Van Spitter was put into a bed, and covered up with all the blankets they could collect, and very soon was able to drink some warm soup offered to him. It was not, however, till long past noon that the corporal was able to narrate what had taken place.

"Will your lieutenant pay us for saving you and bringing him his boat ?" demanded the men.

Now, it must be observed, that a great revolution had taken

place in the corporal's feelings since the horror and sufferings of the night. He felt hatred towards Vanslyperken, and goodwill towards those whom he had treated unkindly. The supernatural appearance of Smallbones, in which he still believed, and which appeared to him as a warning-what he had suffered from cold and exhaustion, which by him was considered as a punishment for his treatment of the poor lad but the morning before-had changed the heart of Corporal Van Spitter; so he replied in Dutch,

"He will give you nothing, good people, not even a glass of schnappes, I tell you candidly-so keep the boat if you wishI will not say a word about it, except that it is lost. He is not likely to see it again. Besides, you can alter it, and paint it.'

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This very generous present of his Majesty's property by the corporal was very agreeable to the fishermen, as it amply repaid them for all their trouble. The corporal put on his clothes, and ate a hearty meal, was freely supplied with spirits, and went to bed quite recovered. The next morning, the fishermen took him down to Amsterdam in their own boat, when Van Spitter discovered that the Yungfrau had sailed: this was very puzzling, and Corporal Van Spitter did not know what to do. After some cogitation, it occurred to him that, for Vanslyperken's sake, he might be well received at the Lust Haus by Widow Vandersloosh, little imagining how much at a discount was his lieutenant in that quarter.

To the Frau Vandersloosh accordingly he repaired, and the first person he met was Babette, who, finding that the corporal was a Dutchman, and belonging to the Yungfrau, and who presumed that he had always felt the same ill-will towards Vanslyperken and Snarleyyow as did the rest of the ship's company, immediately entered into a narrative of the conduct of Snarleyyow on the preceding night, the anger of her mistress, and every other circumstance with which the reader is already acquainted. Corporal Van Spitter thus fortunately found out how matters stood previous to his introduction to the widow. He expatiated upon his sufferings, upon the indifference of his lieutenant, in sailing, as to what had become of him, and fully persuaded Babette not only that he was inimical, which now certainly he was, but that he always had been so, to Mr. Vanslyperken. Babette, who was always ready to retail news, went up to the widow, and amused her, as she dressed her, with the corporal's adventures; and the widow felt an interest in, before she had seen, Corporal Van Spitter, from the account of his "moving accidents by flood and field."

But if prepossessed in his favour before she saw him, what did she feel when she first beheld the substantial proportions of Corporal Van Spitter! There she beheld the beau ideal of her imagination-the very object of her widow's dreams-the

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