“Pilots sometimes lose ships as well as save them,” said Griffith: “know you the man well, Captain Munson, who holds all our lives in his keeping, and so coolly as if he cared but little for the venture?” “Mr. Griffith, I do know him; he is, in my opinion, both competent and faithful. Thus much I tell you, to relieve your anxiety; more you must not ask;--but is there not a shift of wind?” “God forbid!” exclaimed his lieutenant; “if that northeaster catches us within the shoals, our case will be desperate indeed!” The heavy rolling of the vessel caused an occasional expansion, and as sudden a reaction, in their sails, which left the oldest seaman in the ship in doubt which way the currents of air were passing, or whether there existed any that were not created by the flapping of their own canvas. The head of the ship, however, began to fall off from the sea, and notwithstanding the darkness, it soon became apparent that she was driving in, bodily, towards the shore. During these few minutes of gloomy doubt, Griffith, by one of those sudden revulsions of the mind that connect the opposite extremes of feeling, lost his animated anxiety, and elapsed into the listless apathy that so often came over him, even in the most critical moments of trial and danger. He was standing with one elbow resting on his capstan, shading his eyes from the light of the battle-lantern that stood near him with one hand, when he felt a gentle pressure of the other, that recalled his recollection. Looking affectionately, though still recklessly, at the boy who stood at his side, he said: “Dull music, Mr. Merry.” “So dull, sir, that I can't dance to it,” returned the midshipman. “Nor do I believe there is a man in the ship who would not rather hear 'The girl I left behind me,' than those execrable sounds.” “What sounds, boy? The ship is as quiet as the Quaker meeting in the Jerseys, before your good old grandfather used to break the charm of silence with his sonorous voice.” “Ah! laugh at my peaceable blood, if thou wilt, Mr. Griffith,” said the arch youngster, “but remember, there is a mixture of it in all sorts of veins. I wish I could hear one of the old gentleman's chants now, sir; I could always sleep to them, like a gull in the surf. But he that sleeps to-night, with that lullaby, will make a nap of it.” “Sounds! I hear no sounds, boy, but the flapping aloft; even that pilot, who struts the quarter-deck like an admiral, has nothing to say.” “Is not that a sound to open a seaman's ear?” “It is in truth a heavy roll of the surf, lad, but the night air carries it heavily to our ears. Know you not the sounds of the surf yet, younker?” “I know it too well, Mr. Griffith, and do not wish to know it better. How fast are we tumbling in towards that surf, sir?” “I think we hold our own,” said Griffith, rousing again; “though we had better anchor. Luff, fellow, luff--you are broadside to the sea!”