I felt as if something was strangling me; my blood rushed to my head, and a dread of I knew not what sickened my very soul. A death-like stupor pervaded my faculties; but I was aroused from this state by the voice of the marine shouting “A man overboard! a man overboard!” The truth flashed upon my mind, and as the ship rounded-to (for the helm was instantly put down) I ran to the lee cat-head,[9] and saw the dark body as it sank in the gurgling eddy which the plunge had made. Yes, it was Tom Brookes, and he never rose again. Some heavy shot were missing from the place where he had been confined, and these he had no doubt concealed about his person to facilitate the work of destruction. Poor Tom, the waters closed above his head, and who can read his doom! [9] A piece of timber projecting from the bows, by which the anchor is hoisted up for security. May my young readers learn, from his untimely end, to temper judgment with mercy; and if power should ever be placed in their hands, to receive it as a sacred deposit for which they must render an account. May they use, but not abuse it; for a day is coming when the oppressor and the oppressed will meet before the same tribunal; when the individuals of whom I have been writing will stand with them at the bar of Omnipotence, and hear the sentence of that Judge from whose tribunal there is no appeal! DADDY DAVY, THE NEGRO. “A negro has a soul, an please your honour, said the corporal, (_doubtingly_.) I am not much versed, corporal, said my Uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me.” STERNE. “I have now no written memorandums of the storms, the battles, the scenes which I have witnessed; no description of the beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, the ice-bound rocks of Greenland, the burning regions of the torrid zone, or the mild and salubrious climate of the Rio de la Plata. In my youth I trusted to a retentive memory, little thinking that time and the cares of the world would obliterate the recollection of past events.” Such was the apostrophe of my worthy grandfather, a veteran captain in his Majesty’s navy, one winter evening, when a little orphan in my seventh year I climbed upon his knee (which he always called one of his timbers) and begged very hard that he would tell me some pretty story. The candles were not yet lighted in the parlour; but the glowing fire sent forth its red blaze, and its cheering heat seemed ten times more grateful from a heavy fall of snow, which was rapidly collecting in piles of fleecy whiteness on the lawn.