In which some new characters appear on the stage, although the corporal is not to be heard of.

The loss of the boat was reported by Obadiah Coble at daylight, and Mr Vanslyperken immediately went on deck with his spy-glass to ascertain if he could distinguish the corporal coming down with the last of the ebb-tide but he was nowhere to be seen.  Mr Vanslyperken went to the mast-head and surveyed in every direction, but he could neither see anything like the boat or Corporal Van Spitter.  His anxiety betrayed to the men that he was a party to the corporal’s proceedings, and they whispered among themselves.  At last Mr Vanslyperken came down on deck, and desired Corporal Van Spitter to be sent to him.  Of course, it was soon reported to him that Corporal Van Spitter was nowhere to be found, and Mr Vanslyperken pretended to be much astonished.  As the lieutenant took it for granted that the boat had been swept out with the ebb, he determined to get under weigh in pursuance of his orders, pick up the corporal, if he could find him, and then proceed to Portsmouth, which was the port of his destination.  Smallbones attended his master, and was so unusually active that the suspicious Mr Vanslyperken immediately decided that he had had a finger in the business; but he took no notice, resolving in his own mind that Smallbones should some day or another be adrift himself as the corporal was, but with this difference, that there should be no search made after him.  As soon as the men had finished their breakfasts, the cutter was got under weigh and proceeded to sea.  During the whole day Vanslyperken cruised in the Zuyder Zee looking for the boat, but without success, and at last he unwillingly shaped his course for England, much puzzled and perplexed, as now he had no one to act as his steward to whom he could confide, or by whose arrangements he could continue to defraud the ship’s company; and, farther, he was obliged to put off for the present all idea of punishing Jemmy Ducks, for, without the corporal, the marines were afraid to move a step in defiance of the ship’s company.  The consequence was, that the three days that they were at sea, Mr Vanslyperken confined himself altogether to his cabin, for he was not without some fears for his own safety.  On his arrival at Portsmouth, he delivered his letters to the admiral, and received orders to return to his cruising ground after the smugglers as soon as he had replaced his lost boat.

We have observed that Mr Vanslyperken had no relations on this side of the water; but in saying that, we referred to the epoch that he was in the service previous to the accession of King William.  Since that, and about a year from the time we are now writing about, he had brought over his mother, whom he had not, till the peace, seen for years, and had established her in a small apartment in that part of the town now known by the name of the Halfway Houses.  The old woman lived upon a small pension allowed by the