They had shipped on board the Queer Fish at the Boston docks, and it was only upon the occasion of the first sickness of the pseudo-cabin-boy that her sex was revealed to the physician, and, through him, to the captain. The reasons which induced the lady to assume the disguise of a sailor may have been known to the captain or doctor, but they never transpired among the crew. In consequence of this we had many preposterous rumors afloat--strange stories wherein cruel parents, inexorable step-mothers, crimes committed on land, and other wild theories as to the history of the lovers, whose lives were so mysterious, and whose deaths were so melancholy and strange. But, however wild the stories may have been, and however far from the real history of the lovers, we held their memory dear and sacred. And while we remembered with gentle kindness the gentle disposition of Roddy Prinn, our recollections of our pretty little cabin-boy, Willie Warner, were mixed up with purity and sweetness. CHAPTER XIII. THE VOLCANO. We must have been still fifty miles from our destination, when the bright and continued light to the northward made it evident that the volcanic mountain of the Sandwich Islands was in active operation. No one was especially apprehensive of this, for chances to witness volcanoes are not to be met with every day in the year. As night came on, the light to the northward became more and more vivid, and as we neared the islands, we could hear the roar of the volcano, resembling the rumble of distant thunder. We drew within ten knots of the scene, and then came to anchor on a coral foundation--in water about twelve fathoms deep. The scene of a great volcano, in process of eruption, is an event to be remembered throughout one's immortality. Words can but faintly express its grandeur, its terrible splendor. The painter's brush is powerless here, even if wielded by the hand of genius. The noise of the eruption was terrible as we cast anchor, and the waves were running high, although there was but little wind. From this circumstance we judged that the eruption was accompanied by an earthquake of no ordinary character. Imagine to yourselves a lofty mountain-peak, surrounded by many others of lesser hight and magnitude, piled around, with their clothing of dark and somber trees. Then fancy this central peak to become an instrument for flooding the world with the original fire, and you may have some faint conception of the grandeur of the scene we witnessed. The stars, except at the horizon's edge, were completely dimmed by the mighty effulgence of the blazing peak, or blotted out by the dense volumes of smoke which drifted in the light breeze between the sea and the heavens like a pall for the world.