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officers were married according to the statutes of the land, which merely required the affirmation before witnesses to render it perfectly binding in all its obligations.

Since the first establishment of the colony, a bonâ fide chaplain had been added to its members; and the day after Ramsay's landing, this gentleman re-solemnized the marriage of our hero with Angela.

Nothing in this place struck them with more surprise than the respectable rank of life, accomplishments, and personal beauty of many of the officers' wives. Sent out from England, France, and Hol and, to the colonies, where their arrival was eagerly expected by their families, they had been captured on the road, and a reasonable time having been allowed for their grief, they soon perceived that misfortune had thrust upon them one of her severest trials —that in all probability it was to last for life—and that if they wished to get rid of the importunities of a host of suitors, they had no other alternative than to select the least disagreeable as a husband, at once a lord and a shield.

This irreparable step once taken, their simple lives, and the indulgent kindness of those to whom they were linked, gradually enabled them to bear up against their remembrances, and, in many cases, to enjoy as much happiness as falls to the lot of humanity.

This, then, was the first class on the island; the inferior was composed of the various artisans, who, having been kidnapped on the high seas, were compelled to follow their different callings, for their own support and the benefit of the community. The mutineers themselves formed a distinct caste, and lived in the citadel, whose guns commanded both the hamlet of the officers on sufferance, and the houses of the tradespeople.

The fertility of the island had long since proved perfectly adequate to supply all the wants of this strange colony; and scarcely a luxury was to be named that had not been captured on one occasion or another, during its passage from Europe to the colonial possessions of the European States.

All the laws had been framed by the corporal, submitted to the opinion of the mutineers in grand conclave, and, after such alterations as their fancy demanded, were cofirmed, and returned to Mynheer for execution.

The same masterly and worldly-wise spirit pervaded one and all of these institutions; and the more Ramsay studied them, the more utterly surprised did he feel at

their emanating from the quarter to which they owed their origin-the more completely was he at a loss to know where that genius for sway had first learned to develope itself.

Every baneful tendency of the multitude seemed made so completely to play-the one upon the other—as to produce such a perfect balance of the whole, that scarcely the vilest passion in the human heart but was made to serve some purpose conducing to the general good.

An instance on a trivial scale will exemplify this fact. Amidst such a set of lawless men offences would clearly make numerous punishments necessary, and yet extremely difficult to be carried into execution.

Taking advantage of that base disposition which all mankind possess, to tyrannise over each other, the corporal had allotted as the most frequent of punishments, that of a cobbing at the hands of more or less of the community, as the case might be. Thus instead of an offender ever escaping from the weakness of the executive, every man was on the look-out against his neighbour; and, like a chase or hunt, the punishment of an individual transgressor gave amusement to the community, and flattered them with the substance of power, whereas they only possessed the vilest of its shadows.

In point of beauty, nothing could exceed the great variety of rich and lovely scenery in all directions, varying indeed very little in its features from that of Lonelee; and when no danger threatened, and the prospects of the mutineers had seemed bright and unclouded, shooting, fishing, and hunting gave all the pleasures to the male part of the population, which the softer sex found in a rising family, or the charms of music: for harpsichords, pianos, harps, flutes, and fiddles, had all been variously found among the Flying Dutchman's captures.

But Ramsay's chief delight was his restoration to the society of his old and valued friend the surgeon, who, having survived the memorable fight with the Alcibiades, had steadfastly refused every solicitation to join the mutineers. He was married to a beautiful girl, who had imagined herself on her passage out to join her father, a colonel in the English army, living in one of the West India islands. Perfectly happy in his choice, Dolichus expressed himself supremely indifferent whether he ever left the island or not, till the rising tears in his wife's eyes made him qualify his marvellous resignation with a sequent-" Except that."

N*

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Woe wait the tongue that gives to slander's gale
Falsehood's frail bark, 'neath truth's unsullied sail.

SOME days having passed since the arrival of the Flying Dutchman at her anchorage, and the blockade being steadfastly maintained, Mynheer began to consider what was likely to be the result. If human art or ingenuity could in any way compass the capture of the island he knew his countrymen too well to doubt it would be done; and, with all his daring, he foresaw that sooner or later the resistless force and resources of a great kingdom's navy must prevail against his small number of men, however desperate in their courage, or guarded in their fortifications.

The story also of the singular appearance they had met at sea was making a deep impression on that relay of the mutineers who, having been left at home, had not even seen it. Abject superstitious fears seemed to be usurping the place of reason.

The prisoners whom they had recently captured, and who, when no punishment seemed at hand, entered willingly enough into the ranks of the rebels, were now suddenly touched with a late remorse and misgiving, as to whether they had acted altogether rightly, whether they had not been taken in by false descriptions of future joys, and whether, if they were to rise on their captors and brother desperadoes, the British government ought not to forgive them their backslidings.

When Mynheer, with scorn and anger which he could ill conceal, watched these deep workings of the human heart, he saw how much was effected by the prestige of a name; what is the real value of our fellow creatures' sense of public honour; and how invariably mutiny and rebellion tend to the ultimate destruction of the rebelling party, and the restoration of the power attempted to be thrown off.

Still there was the lion in his heart. He would die at bay-" at least, with harness on his back,”—while a crowd

of less mighty spirits slain by his hand, and hovering round, should accompany his grim shade to Hades.

Prepared as he was, however, for a violent and bloody end, it was no part of his creed not to postpone this to the utmost, and, if possible, to evade it altogether. Yet, after racking his imagination through many a restless night, he could devise no mode of driving off the blockaders save one; and as long as the island continued to be invested by the British, he saw no possibility of quenching fear in the breasts of those whose minds were so much less impenetrable than his own-no surety, that at any moment insurrection might not burst forth, and himself and fellow leaders be given to the yardarm.

His last resource was to try the effect of superstitious fear on the enemy. It is true, his mind misgave him that it would be in vain; still it was but the trial, and he only regretted that he had not been allowed to make it at his entry.

Great was the resistance offered to this plan; but at last, by the combined force of reproaches, promised promotion, and rewards, and the strenuous exertion of all the authority he still possessed, he contrived to muster a crew from those who had been left at the last sailing to guard the island.

Taking advantage of a gale which had for a few hours blown the blockading squadron off the island, Mynheer bore away to execute his purpose, cheering those he left behind him with the assurance, that even if all failed, he would, despite of a thousand blockading ships, make good his entrance at returning, and then, at the worst, they could leave behind them their prisoners; and carrying off their wives and children, give the enemy a second and similar slip, and sail to find some fresh place of refuge and stronghold.

When Mynheer said this, he thought, and with great reason, that he had given to those left behind an additional hope for the future, and stimulus to do their best. But never was sentence uttered that might not be perverted. The Flying Dutchman had scarcely cleared the coral reefs, when the disaffected of his men on shore gave out that it was his intention never to return to them-that the allusion to some fresh island was a mere blind to deceive them, and rather a revelation of what was passing in his own mind, than a true exposition of his future plans-in short, that he had already sailed to discover this fresh retreat for himself, and commence piracy on a new score,

having previously abandoned his old friends to their fate. The degree of probability in this tale gave it rapid circulation, and inclined many to become believers. The confusion thus produced might baffle any mere spectator to conceive.

The houses of the mutineers, which were built nearly on the crest of their citadel, surrounded, as we have already described, the public square, and here the wives of those men who had just sailed, and whose ship was still in sight, congregated together, bewailing and lamenting their cruel fate, filling the air with cries and imprecations, and insisting that the Flying Dutchman should be recalled.

At any other moment the ridiculous nature of this vain command would only have raised a laugh; now it was scarcely heeded amid the more portentous storming of those who considered themselves betrayed.

Mustapha, Cresswell, and Herbert, were all left behind in command. After vainly endeavouring to persuade their credulous and infuriated comrades that such a step was unlike the fearless character of their leader, they summoned a general council to investigate into the truth of the report.

By thus turning the public wrath and attention into a legitimate channel, they were enabled to maintain rule, which, without some such step, might have been in a few minutes wrested from them, even if nothing worse befel.

After much stormy discussion and incessant recrimination, the report was traced to three men, who, not suspecting what was in store for them, confessed to having had no better foundation for raising it than mere belief and suspicion.

But these were fatal grounds for them. The punishment was put to the general verdict. The furious and agitated minds of the mutineers seemed to find an outlet in this opportunity for vengeance. Death was the sentence given by acclamation. The delegates, convinced of the necessity of some severe example to prop their tottering power, declined any interference on the side of mercy; and in half an hour the ill-fated trio, pierced by fifty balls, lay two feet deep beneath the sands of the sea-shore.

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