BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” THE “REEFER OF ’76,” ETC. THE PRIVATEER. I remained but a short time in the Arrow after we sailed finally from the port of ——; for happening to fall in with and capture a rakish little schooner, Captain Smyth resolved to arm and send her forth to cruise against the enemy on her own account. A long Tom was accordingly mounted on a pivot amidships, a complement of men placed in her, and the command given to our second lieutenant, with myself for subordinate. Thus equipped, we parted company from our consort, who bore away for the north, while we were to cruise in the Windward Passage. For several days we met with no adventure. The weather was intensely sultry. He who has never witnessed a noontide calm on a tropical sea can have no idea of the stifling heat of such a situation. The sea is like molten brass; no breath of air is stirring; the atmosphere is dry and parched in the mouth, and the heavens hang over all their canopy of lurid fire, in the very centre of which burns with intense fierceness the meridian sun. The decks, the cabin, and the tops are alike stifling. The awnings may indeed afford a partial shelter from the vertical rays of the sun, but no breeze can be wooed down the eager windsail; while, wherever a stray beam steals to the deck through an opening in the canvass, the turpentine oozes out and boils in the heat, and the planks become as intolerable to the tread as if a furnace was beneath them. It was on one of the hottest days of the season, and about a fortnight after we parted from the Arrow, that we lay thus becalmed. The hour was high noon. I stood panting for breath by the weather railing, dressed in a thin jacket and without a cravat, feverishly looking out across the ocean to discern, if possible, a mist or cloud or other evidence of an approaching breeze. My watch was in vain. There was no ripple on the deep, but a long monotonous undulation heaved the surface of the water, which glittered far and near like a mirror in which the sun is reflected vertically, paining and almost blinding the gaze. The schooner lay motionless on the ocean, the shadow of her boom shivering in the wave, as the swell undulated along. Silence reigned on the decks. To a spectator at a distance, who could have beheld our motionless shadow in the water, we would have seemed an enchanted ship, hanging midway betwixt the sea and sky.