heart, when he seems almost irresponsible for his act and his deed.  The captain stood on the weather side of the deck.  Sideways on an unoccupied line with him, was the opening of the lee-gangway, where the side-ladders were suspended in port.  Nothing but a slight bit of sinnate-stuff served to rail in this opening, which was cut down to a level with the captain’s feet, showing the far sea beyond.  Fernando stood a little to windward of him, and, though Captain Snipes was a large, powerful man, it was quite certain that a sudden rush against him, along the slanting deck, would infallibly pitch him headforemost into the ocean, though he who rushed must needs go over with him.  The young American’s blood seemed clotting in his veins; he felt icy cold at the tips of his fingers, and a dimness was before his eyes; but through that dimness, the boatswain’s-mate, scourge in hand, loomed like a giant, and Captain Snipes and the blue sea, seen through the opening at the gangway, showed with an awful vividness.  He was never able to analyze his heart, though it then stood still within him; but the thing that swayed him to his purpose was not altogether the thought that Captain Snipes was about to degrade him, and that he had taken an oath within his soul that he should not.  No; he felt his manhood so bottomless within him, that no word, no blow, no scourge of Captain Snipe’s could cut deep enough for that.  He but clung to an instinct in him,—­the instinct diffused through all animated nature, the same that prompts the worm to turn under the heel.  Locking souls with him, he meant to drag Captain Snipes from this earthly tribunal of his, to that of Jehovah, and let Him decide between them.  No other way could he escape the scourge.

“To the gratings, sir!” cried Captain Snipes.  “Do you hear?”

Fernando’s eye measured the distance between him and the sea, and he was gathering himself together for the fatal spring—­

“Captain Snipes,” said a voice advancing from the crowd.  Every eye turned to see who spoke.  It was the remarkably handsome and gentlemanly gunner, Hugh St. Mark, who was scarcely ever known to break the silence, and all were amazed that he should do so now.  “I know that man,” said St. Mark, touching his cap, and speaking in a mild, firm, but extremely deferential manner, “and I know that he would not be found absent from his station, if he knew where it was.”

This speech was almost unprecedented.  Never before had a marine dared to speak to the captain of a frigate in behalf of a seaman at the mast; but there was something unostentatiously forcible and commanding in St. Mark’s manner.  He had once saved the captain’s life, when a French boarder was about to slay him.  Then the corporal, emboldened by St. Mark’s audacity, put in a good word.  Terrence, who had been promoted to a small office, poured forth a torrent of eloquence, and, almost before he knew it, Fernando was free.  As he was going to his quarters, his brain in a whirl, he heard Job the cook say: