“Shut your dead-lights, you young jackanapes,” growled the old boatswain, by no means pleased with such a salutation, “and keep your tongue for cheering against the enemy: you’ll have enough of it to do yet before you turn in. Avast! there! I say,” he continued, perceiving that the youngster was about to interrupt him, “go to your post, or I’ll report you, you young whelp. None of your blarney, as your thick-tongued Irish messmate would say—away with you.” When Hinton’s ire was up the safest plan was to retreat, for he would brook no retort unless from the captain or lieutenant. Over the young reefers, especially those who were in disfavor with him, he domineered with a rod of iron. The youngster who had forgotten for a moment, in the elation of his first victory, the awe in which he held the boatswain, was recalled by these words to a sense of the authority of the old tar, and he shrunk accordingly away, disdaining to reply. “Ay! go, you varmint,” chuckled Hinton, as the reefer walked to his post, “and give none of your long shore palaver to a man who had learned before you were born to hold his tongue before an enemy as his first duty. Isn’t it so, Mr. Cavendish?” I was a great favorite of the old fellow, and always made a point of humoring him, so I nodded an assent to his remark, although I was tempted to ask him how long since he had forgotten this important duty of silence. I restrained, however, my question, and the smile which would fain have preceded it: and listened for several minutes in return for this complaisance to a long philippic on the part of the old fellow, against what he chose to call the almost universal presumption of midshipmen. From this tirade, however, the boatswain condescended to exempt me. How long he would have dilated upon this favorite subject, I know not; but, at this moment, a hail came out of the gloom ahead, and every eye was instantly attracted in the direction from which the voice proceeded. “Ship ahoy!” shouted a herculean voice, “what craft is that?” The tone of the speaker betrayed a latent suspicion that all was not right with us. Indeed he must have been so close to us in our late encounter with the merchantman, that he necessarily heard many things to awaken his doubts. As he spoke, too, the tall figure of a heavy craft loomed out from the obscurity, and while we were yet speculating as to the answer the captain would make, a dozen lanterns flashing through as many open port-holes, revealed that our neighbor was a man-of-war. “What ship is that?” thundered the voice again, “answer, or I’ll fire into you!” Our dauntless captain waved his hand for the batteries to be unmasked, and springing into the mizzen rigging, while a neighboring battle-lantern now disclosed to the night, flung its light full upon his form, he shouted in an equally stentorian voice— “This is the Aurora—commissioned by the good commonwealth of——”