“Heaven keep you, young gentleman! These are strange questions, to come from one who is fresh off the sea, to a man that has done no more than look at it from the land, these five-and-twenty years. According to my memory, sir, you will keep the ship about south until you are clear of the islands; and then you must make your calculations according to the wind, in order not to get into the Gulf, where, you know, the stream will be setting you one way, while your orders say, ‘Go another.’” “Luff! mind your luff, sir!” cried the pilot, in a stern voice, to the man at the helm; “luff you can; on no account go to leeward of the slaver!” Both Wilder and the publican started, as if they found something alarming in the name of the vessel just alluded to; and the former pointed to the skiff, as he said,— “Unless you wish to go to sea with us, Mr Joram, it is time your boat held its master.” “Ay, ay, I see you are fairly under way, and I must leave you, however much I like your company,” returned the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor,’ bustling over the side, and getting into his skiff in the best manner he could. “Well, boys, a good time to ye; a plenty of wind, and of the right sort; a safe passage out, and a quick return. Cast off.” His order was obeyed; the light skiff, no longer impelled by the ship, immediately deviated from its course; and, after making a little circuit, it became stationary, while the mass of the vessel passed on, with the steadiness of an elephant from whose back a butterfly had just taken its flight. Wilder followed the boat with his eyes, for a moment; but his thoughts were recalled by the voice of the pilot, who again called, from the forward part of the ship,— “Let the light sails lift a little, boy; let her lift keep every inch you can, or you’ll not weather the slaver. Luff, I say, sir; luff.” “The slaver!” muttered our adventurer, hastening to a part of the ship whence he could command a view of that important, and to him doubly interesting ship; “ay, the slaver! it may be difficult, indeed to weather upon the slaver!” He had unconsciously placed himself near Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude; the latter of whom was leaning on the rail of the quarter-deck, regarding the strange vessel at anchor, with a pleasure far from unnatural to her years and sex. “You may laugh at me, and call me fickle, and perhaps credulous, dear Mrs Wyllys,” the unsuspecting girl cried, just as Wilder had taken the foregoing position, “but I wish we were well out of this ‘Royal Caroline,’ and that our passage was to be made in yonder beautiful ship!” “It is indeed a beautiful ship!” returned Wyllys; “but I know not that it would be safer, or more comfortable, than the one we are in.” “With what symmetry and order the ropes are arranged! and how like a bird it floats upon the water!”