flirted with the captain; she laughed merrily at Meunier's poetry and Leary's rhodomontade; she patronised Jack Manly; she coquetted with Loraine in the most outrageous manner, and he was always lying at her feet on deck, and playing the part of Mercutio in love. But to Tom Jones she was always frank and sisterly and easy.

"She'll never care a bit for me," soliloquised that young gentleman. "I'm too old-I'm too stupid. Those fellows, with their chaff and their poetry, take all the wind out of my sails. Confound it! If I were ashore, I might tear myself away from her; but I can't well jump overboard and swim to Patagonia. No; I'll marry that child whatever happens. By Jove! I wonder whether we could get married on board? There's the parson coming up the companion; I'll ask him. No, I won't; he'll think I'm cracked besides, I'd better ask Miranda first. Faith, I'll smoke a pipe, and consider the question. Miranda! Lovely name,— but not half so lovely as she is.”

Tom Jones, having smoked his pipe, went below in search of champagne.

CHAPTER VII.

CROSSING THE LINE.

"Oh! the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They flourish best of all in the North Countrie."

"WE shall cross the line about four this afternoon," said Captain Grainger, on the 20th of June, to his passengers; "and please don't give any of the seamen anything to drink, for they always get as much as is good for them."

"I suppose we may have a glass of champagne ourselves," said Harold Tachbrook, "eh, Captain? Only it will make your thirsty sailors thirstier still if they see us at it. When, in my boyhood, I studied geography, those wonderful lines on the maps always used to puzzle me; and the equator especially was a mystery. I wondered how ships could get

over it."

"I think we shall manage that part of the business," said the captain. "I have passed the line a good many times, and never saw it yet."

Well, then, we'll have the champagne," said Tachbrook, laughing. “We'll drink to such of our old friends in England as are likely to remember us. Tom, my boy, go and make the steward send me up some of the right stuff, and plenty of ice. I know there's some ice left, and one can't do without it under the line.”

"Let me share in the festive entertainment," said Neoptolemus Wilson, who had joined the group.

"Thanks," said Harold, "but I am President of Ecuador on this occasion."

"I can't drink to any old friends in England, papa," said Miranda. My childish acquaint

ances are all sharks and whales and sea-serpents and stormy petrels. 'Health and long life to the great sea-serpent!' will be my toast."

Afternoon came, and the Captain caused the moment of crossing the equator to be notified by a discharge of half-a-dozen small brass

cannon-dogs that could bark, but that could not bite very hard. And then our friends enjoyed their champagne-half-a-dozen bottles decanted at once in a mighty gold jug, embossed all over with figures of flying nymphs and pursuing deities, which the Captain had found in his early days among a heap of other antique rarities that had belonged to buc

caneers.

"This is a grand jug," quoth the poet Cincinnatus," heavy to lift and hard to drain. Tell us all about your finding it, Captain; it will be a capital yarn for the equator."

"I've got the story in verse somewhere," said Grainger, "done years ago by a friend of mine, who thought himself a poet, and was wrong. If I can find it, will anybody read it ?"

Leary, of course, offered at once, and the Captain went to find the MS. It was on very yellow paper, and in the crabbedest of writing; but Leary dauntlessly undertook his task.

So, as the great gold cup went round, while the steamship clove its way through the turbid current that discoloured the sea from the

mouths of the mighty Amazon, eloquent Leary rose and read—

"It was only a merry corvette that rode the South Pacific sea; But the man who held that craft in hand was brave

Lieutenant Lee.

And when he was told of slaves and gold in Arequipa Bay, And when there came a spy of fame to show the difficult

way,

'I'll hang those rascally buccaneers by their ugly necks,'

said he.

"O how soft was the summer air when the little Firefly

crept

Under the low green woodland shores where the villanous

pirates slept,

Under the heavy fringes of foliage, fruit, and flower,

Where safe, as they deemed, the scoundrels enjoyed their holiday hour;

And they drank good wine from stolen cups, and their luckless captives wept.

"In she paddled-the Firefly.

find;

The channel was hard to

As if to the heart of a forest it seemed to wind and wind; But right was the guide; he knew the tide; he had been there a slave:

He longed to see the pirates in conquered agony rave— Came the delight that very night for which he had prayed and pined.

Quietly lay the Firefly under the great trees, where
Never the water rippled, nor soft winds stirred the air;
Never a whisper we uttered, but watched them, lazy as
swine,

Swinging in easy hammocks, while white girls served them. wine.

"Tis your very last day,' said Lee to himself; 'drink on, and never spare.'