Lady of mine! 
    More light and swift than thou, none thread the sea,
    With surer keel, or steadier on its path;
    We brave each waste of ocean-mystery,
    And laugh to hear the howling tempest’s wrath! 
                    For we are thine!

                    My brigantine! 
    Trust to the mystic power that points thy way,
    Trust to the eye that pierces from afar,
    Trust the red meteors that around thee play,
    And fearless trust the sea-green lady’s star;
                    Thou bark divine!

“He often sings thus,” whispered the boy, when the song was ended; “for they say, the sea-green lady loves music that tells of the ocean, and of her power.—­Hark! he has bid me enter.”

“He did but touch the strings of the guitar, again, boy.”

“’Tis his signal, when the weather is fair.  When we have the whistling of the wind, and the roar of the water, then he has a louder call.”

Ludlow would have gladly listened longer; but the boy opened a door, and, pointing the way to those he conducted, he silently vanished himself, behind a curtain.

The visiters, more particularly the young commander of the Coquette, found new subjects of admiration and wonder, on entering the main cabin of the brigantine.  The apartment, considering the size of the vessel, was spacious and high.  It received light from a couple of windows in the stern, and it was evident that two smaller rooms, one on each of the quarters, shared with it in this advantage.  The space between these state-rooms, as they are called in nautical language, necessarily formed a deep alcove, which might be separated from the outer portion of the cabin, by a curtain of crimson damask, that now hung in festoons from a beam fashioned into a gilded cornice.  A luxuriously-looking pile of cushions, covered with red morocco, lay along the transom, in the manner of an eastern divan; and against the bulk-head of each state-room, stood an agrippina of mahogany, that was lined with the same material.  Neat and tasteful cases for books were suspended, here and there; and the guitar which had so lately been used, lay on a small table of some precious wood, that occupied the centre of the alcove.  There were also other implements, like those which occupy the leisure of a cultivated but perhaps an effeminate rather than a vigorous mind, scattered around, some evidently long neglected, and others appearing to have been more recently in favor.

The outer portion of the cabin was furnished in a similar style, though it contained many more of the articles that ordinarily belong to domestic economy.  It had its agrippina, its piles of cushions, its chairs of beautiful wood, its cases for books, and its neglected instruments, intermixed with fixtures of a more solid and permanent appearance, which were arranged to meet the violent motion that was often unavoidable in so