The storm roared loud at midnight, With sleet, and wind, and rain; The struggling ship tossed wildly On the rocky coast of Spain: When suddenly the captain cried— ‘Oh God, my wife is dead!’ Upon the topmast gleamed a light— The Light of Beachy Head! * * * * * Two score of years went slowly by, And again the storm-blast blew, Old Richard King, with long grey hair, Spake cheerily to the crew. ‘Oh look aloft, my gallant boys, There’s hope within our sight, A kindly spirit watches us— There’s Nelly’s Beacon Light!’ But as he spoke, the Beacon Came floating through the air, The captain knew the sign—he knelt In thanksgiving and prayer. The tempest swept him from the deck, But as he sunk like lead, Above his forehead shone the light Which gleamed from Beachy Head! And still in time of tempest Does Nelly’s Beacon burn, Sometimes it shines aloft to cheer, Sometimes alow to warn; But it reads us all this lesson— True love is never dead, The symbol shines on every sea That shone from Beachy Head! CHAPTER XVIII. A KNAVE OF THE CREW PLAYING WITH COGGED DICE IS KEEL-HAULED. Four days after leaving the reefs, we saw land ahead, and presently were running in amid the clusters of the Samballas Isles. On every side of us, these rich islands flung, as it were, their masses of foliage into the sea; bushes clothing the rocks where such existed, and at other points thick mangrove woods, the stems of the trees often covered with oysters, growing far into the water. These forests appeared to swarm with birds and beasts. We heard the loud screams of thousands of unknown fowls resounding from the woods; and often, as we skirted the shore, watching places where the trees did not grow thick, we descried troops of monkeys going chattering along, or herds of peccary and deer, breaking through the bushes. Sea-birds also abounded. Great clouds of plovers flew, wheeling and circling along the shore, and the white sandy beaches and the sea were dotted with turtles basking in the sun, or lazily sleeping on the top of the smooth water. The Samballas Islands are thinly inhabited by scattered tribes of Indians, who subsist by hunting and fishing, and are very willing to aid as guides or pilots to the English and French privateers who put in here; so that the first canoe which we saw made directly towards us, and the two Indians who guided it came on board very readily, and were treated with brandy and wine, much to their satisfaction. From them we learned that several privateers had been lately in these islands, to careen and provision; and that the Spaniards from Porto Bello and Carthagena, had sent a fleet of armadilloes, as they are called, being small vessels of war, which had swept all the channels between the islands, and had captured one