yards, they leveled their heads like two telescopes on stands, and ran butt at each other like ram goats, and quite as odoriferous, making the welkin ring again as their flint-hard skulls cracked together. Finding each other invulnerable in this direction, they closed, and began scrambling and biting and kicking, and tumbling over and over in the sand; while the skipper and I stood by cheering them on, and nearly suffocated with laughter. They never once struck with their closed fists, I noticed; so they were not much hurt. It was great cry and little wool; and at length they got tired, and hauled off by mutual consent, finishing off as usual with an appeal to us-"beg one feepenny, massa!" "BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES." BY THOMAS SHERIDAN. [THOMAS SHERIDAN, elder brother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was born in Ireland, 1721; died 1788. He was educated at Westminster, and at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1742 he went on the stage; obtained celebrity as a tragedian; turned manager, then professor of elocution; subsequently became manager of Drury Lane Theater; later resumed his instructions in oratory. His principal works are an "Orthoëpical Dictionary of the English Language" and a "Life of Swift."] "BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES." Heard'st thou that dreadful roar? THE PILOT. BY JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. [JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: An American novelist; born at Burlington, N.J., September 15, 1789; died September 14, 1851, at Cooperstown, N. Y., whither his father had removed about 1790, it being then a wild frontier region. Cooper attended Yale College for three years, when he was expelled; shipped as a common sailor, and became a lieutenant in the navy. Later in life he visited Europe, and was United States consul at Lyons (1826-1829). Among his most popular novels are : "The Spy" (1821), "The Pilot," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Prairie," "The Red Rover," "The Bravo," "The Pathfinder,” "The Deerslayer," "Wing and Wing," "Wyandotte," and "Satanstoe." He also wrote a "Naval History of the United States" (1839), "Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers" (1846).] It has been already explained to the reader that there were threatening symptoms in the appearance of the weather to create serious forebodings of evil in the breast of a seaman. When removed from the shadows of the cliffs, the night was not so dark but objects could be discerned at some little distance, and in the eastern horizon there was a streak of fearful light impending over the gloomy waters, in which the swelling outline formed by the rising waves was becoming each moment more distinct, and consequently more alarming. Several dark clouds overhung the vessel, whose towering masts apparently propped the black vapor, while a few stars were seen twinkling, with a sickly flame, in the streak of clear sky that skirted the ocean. Still, light currents of air occasionally swept across the bay, bringing with them the fresh odor from the shore, but their flitting irregularity too surely foretold them to be the expiring breath of the land breeze. The roaring of the surf, as it rolled on the margin of the bay, produced a dull, monotonous sound, that was only interrupted, at times, by a hollow bellowing, as a larger wave than usual broke violently against some cavity in the rock. Everything, in short, united to render the scene gloomy and portentous, without creating instant terror, for the ship rose easily on the long billows, without even straightening the heavy cable that held her to her anchor. The higher officers were collected around the capstan, engaged in earnest discourse about their situation and prospects, while some of the oldest and most favored seamen would extend their short walk to the hallowed precincts of the quarterdeck, to catch, with greedy ears, the opinions that fell from |