considerable water even in quiet weather.  From our exercise on deck we generally returned below drenched to the skin, but glad to even pay that price for two hours of fresh air, and an opportunity to gaze about at sea and sky.  There was little else to witness, for in all the long voyage we encountered but one vessel in that desolate ocean, a French armed corvette, fairly bristling with guns, which ran in close enough to hail us, but seemed satisfied to permit us to pass unvisited.  I clung to the rail and watched its white sails disappear until they resembled the wings of gulls, feeling more than ever conscious of our helplessness.  There were few among the prisoners I had any desire to companion with—­only two, as I recall now—­a law clerk from Sussex, a rather bright young fellow, but full of strange notions, and an older man, who had seen service in Flanders.  We messed together, and pledged mutual friendship in the new land, a pledge not destined to be fulfilled, as I never again saw nor heard of the former after we went ashore, and the last glimpse I had of the older man was as he was being loaded into a cart bound for some interior plantation.  God grant they both lived, and became again free men.

How those sodden hours and days dragged!  How long were those black nights, in which I lay sleepless, listening to indescribable noises, and breathing the rank, poisonous air.  The short time passed on deck was my only solace, and yet even there I found little to interest, except a continuous new hope.  We were herded well forward, a rope dividing us from the main deck, which space the passengers aft used as a promenade.  Here, between the foremast and the cabin, someone was strolling idly about most of the time, or lounging along the rail out of the sun.  In time I came to recognize them all by sight, and learned, in one way or another, something of their characteristics, and purpose in taking this voyage.  They were not an unusual lot, the majority planters from the Colonies homeward bound, with occasionally a new emigrant about to try for fortune beyond seas, together with one or two naval officers.  There were only three women aboard, a fat dowager, the young lady I had noticed at embarkation, and her colored maid.  Many of the days were pleasant, with quiet sea and bright sunshine, and the younger woman must have passed hours on deck during so long and tedious a voyage.  Yet it chanced I saw almost nothing of her.  I heard her presence on board discussed several times by others of our company, but it somehow chanced that during my time in the open she was usually below.  Indeed I gained but one glimpse of the lady in the first two weeks at sea, and then only as we were being ordered down to our quarters for the night.  Just as I was approaching the hatch to descend, she appeared from within the cabin, accompanied by the middle-aged planter, and the two advanced toward the rail.  The younger gallant, who was standing there alone, saw them the moment they emerged, and