from the time that she had lifted her anchor, she was driven along with tremendous fury by the full power of a gale of wind. Still the hardy and experienced mariners who directed her movements, held her to the course that was necessary to their preservation, and still Griffith gave forth, when directed by their unknown pilot, those orders that turned her in the narrow channel where alone safety was to be found.

So far the performance of his duty appeared easy to the stranger, and he gave the required directions in those still, calm tones that formed so remarkable a contrast to the responsibility of his situation. But when the land was becoming dim in distance as well as darkness, and the agitated sea alone was to be discovered as it swept by them in foam, he broke in upon the monotonous roaring of the tempest with the sounds of his voice, seeming to shake off his apathy and rouse himself to the occasion.

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Now is the time to watch her closely, Mr. Griffith," he cried; "here we get the true tide and the real danger. Place the best quartermaster of your ship in those chains, and let an officer stand by him and see that he gives us the right water."

"I will take that office on myself," said the captain; "pass a light into the weather mainchains."

"Stand by your braces!" exclaimed the pilot, with startling quickness. "Heave away that lead!"

These preparations taught the crew to expect the crisis, and every officer and man stood in fearful silence at his assigned station, awaiting the issue of the trial. Even the quarter-master at the gun gave out his orders to the men at the wheel in deeper and hoarser tones than usual, as if anxious not to disturb the quiet and order of the vessel.

While this deep expectation pervaded the frigate, the piercing cry of the leadsman, as he called "By the mark seven," rose above the tempest, crossed over the decks, and appeared to pass away to leeward, borne on the blast like the warnings of some water-spirit.

Griffith seemed to emulate the coolness of the pilot in issuing the necessary orders to execute this manœuvre.

The vessel rose slowly from the inclined posi. tion into which she had been forced by the tempest, and the sails were shaking violently, as if to release themselves from their confinement while the ship stemmed the billows, when the well-known voice of the sailing master was heard shouting from the forecastle

"Breakers! breakers, dead ahead!"

This appalling sound seemed yet to be lingering about the ship when a second voice cried— "Breakers on our leebow!"

"We are in a bite of the shoals, Mr. Gray," cried the commander. "She loses her way;

perhaps an anchor might hold her." "Clear away that best bower!" shouted Griffith through his trumpet.

"Hold on!" cried the pilot, in a voice that reached the very hearts of all who heard him; "hold on everything."

The young man turned fiercely to the daring stranger who thus defied the discipline of his vessel, and at once demanded

"Who is it that dares to countermand my orders? Is it not enough that you run the ship into danger, but you must interfere to keep her there? If another word--"

"Peace, Mr. Griffith," interrupted the captain, bending from the rigging, his grey locks blowing about in the wind and adding a look of wildness to the haggard care that he exhibited by the light of his lantern. "Yield the trumpet to Mr. Gray; he alone can save us."

Griffith threw his speaking-trumpet on the deck, and, as he walked proudly away, muttered in bitterness of feeling

"Then all is lost indeed! and among the rest the foolish hopes with which I visited this coast."

There was, however, no time for reply. The ship had been rapidly running into the wind, and as the efforts of the crew were paralysed by the contradictory orders they had heard, she gradually lost her way and in a few seconds all her sails were taken aback.

Before the crew understood their situation the

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tinctly, and with a precision that showed him to be master of his profession. The helm was kept fast, the headyards swung up heavily against the wind, and the vessel was soon whirling round on her heel with a retrograde movement.

Griffith was too much of a seaman not to per. ceive that the pilot had seized, with a perception almost intuitive, the only method that promised to

extricate the vessel from her situation. He was young, impetuous, and proud-but he was also generous. Forgetting his resentment and his mortification, he rushed forward among the men, and by his presence and example added certainly to the experiment. The ship fell off slowly before the gale and bowed her yards nearly to the water, as she felt the blast pouring its fury on her broadside, while the surly waves beat violently against her stern, as if in reproach at departing from her usual manner of moving.

The voice of the pilot, however, was still heard, steady and calm, and yet so clear and high as to reach every ear; and the obedient seamen whirled the yards at his bidding, in despite of the tempest, as if they handled the toys of their childhood. When the ship had fallen off dead before the wind, her head-sails were shaken, her after-yards trimmed, and her helm shifted, before she had time to run upon the danger that had threatened as well to leeward as to windward. The beautiful fabric, obedient to her government, threw her bows up gracefully towards the wind again; and as her sails were trimmed, moved out from amongst the dangerous shoals in which she had been embayed, as steadily and swiftly as she had approached them.

A moment of breathless astonishment succeeded the accomplishment of this nice manoeuvre, but there was no time for the usual expressions of surprise. The stranger still held the trumpet, and continued to lift his voice amid the howlings of the blast, whenever prudence or skill required any change in the management of the ship. For an hour longer there was a fearful struggle for their preservation, the channel becoming at each step more complicated, and the shoals thickening around the mariners on every side. The lead was cast rapidly, and the quick eye of the pilot seemed to pierce the darkness with a keenness of vision that exceeded human power. It was apparent to all in the vessel that they were under the guidance of one who understood the navigation thoroughly, and their exertions kept pace with their reviving confidence. Again and again the frigate appeared to be rushing blindly on shoals where the sea was covered with foam, and where destruction would have been as sudden as it was certain, when the clear voice of the stranger was heard warning them of the danger and inciting them to their duty. The vessel was implicitly yielded to his government; and during those anxious moments when she was dashing the waters aside, throwing the spray over her enormous yards, each ear would listen eagerly for those sounds that had obtained a command over the crew that can only be acquired under such circumstances by great steadiness and consummate skill. The ship was recovering from the inaction of changing her

course, in one of those critical tacks that she had made so often, when the pilot for the first time addressed the commander of the frigate, who still continued to superintend the all-important duty of the leadsman.

"Now is the pinch," he said, "and if the ship behaves well we are safe-but if otherwise, all we have yet done will be useless."

The veteran seaman whom he addressed left the chains at this portentous notice, and calling to his first lieutenant, required of the stranger an explanation of his warning.

"See you yon light on the southern headland ?” returned the pilot; "you may know it from the star near it-by its sinking at times in the ocean. Now observe the hom-moc, a little north of it, looking like a shadow in the horizon-'tis a hill far inland. If we keep that light open from the hill, we shall do well; but if not, we surely go to pieces." "Let us tack again!" exclaimed the lieutenant. The pilot shook his head as he replied—` "There is no more tacking or box-hauling to be done to-night. We have barely room to pass out of the shoals on this course; and if we can weather the Devil's Grip,' we clear their outermost point; but if not, as I said before, there is but one alternative."

"If we had beaten out the way we entered," exclaimed Griffith, "we should have done well."

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Say, also, if the tide would have let us do so," returned the pilot, calmly. "Gentlemen, we must be prompt; we have but a mile to go, and the ship appears to fly. That topsail is not enough to keep her up to the wind; we want both jib and mainsail."

""Tis a perilous thing to loosen canvas in such a tempest!" observed the doubtful captain.

"It must be done," returned the collected stranger; "we perish without it. See! the light already touches the edge of the hom-moc; the sea casts us to leeward!"

"It shall be done!" cried Griffith, seizing the trumpet from the hand of the pilot.

The orders of the lieutenant were executed almost as soon as issued, and everything being ready, the enormous folds of the mainsail were trusted loose to the blast. There was an instant when the result was doubtful; the tremendous threshing of the heavy sail seemed to bid defiance to all restraint, shaking the ship to her centre; but art and strength prevailed, and gradually the canvas was distended, and, bellying as it filled, was drawn down to its usual place by the power of a hundred men. The vessel yielded to this immense addition of force, and bowed before it like a reed bending to a breeze. But the success of the measure was announced by a joyful cry from the stranger that seemed to burst from his inmost soul.

"She feels it! she springs her luff! observe," he said, "the light opens from the hom-moc already: if she will only bear her canvas we shall go clear!" A report like that of a cannon interrupted his exclamation, and something resembling a white cloud was seen drifting before the wind from the head of the ship till it was driven in the gloom far to leeward.

""Tis the jib blown from the bolt-ropes," said the commander of the frigate. "This is no time to spread light duck-but the mainsail may stand it yet."

"The sail would laugh at a tornado," returned the lieutenant; "but the mast springs like a piece of steel."

"Silence all!" cried the pilot. men, we shall soon know our fate. luff you can!"

Now, gentleLet her luff

This warning effectually closed all discourse, and the hardy mariners, knowing that they had already done all in the power of man to ensure their safety, stood in breathless anxiety awaiting the result. At a short distance ahead of them the whole ocean was white with foam, and the waves, instead of rolling on in regular succession, appeared to be tossing about in mad gambols. A single streak of dark billows, not half a cable's length in width, could be discerned running into this chaos of water; but it was soon lost to the eye amid the confusion of the disturbed element. Along this narrow path the vessel moved more heavily than before, being brought so near the wind as to keep her sails touching. The pilot silently proceeded to the wheel, and with his own hands he undertook the steerage of the ship. No noise proceeded from the frigate to interrupt the horrid tumult of the ocean; and she entered the channel among the breakers with the silence of a desperate calmness. Twenty times as the foam rolled away to leeward the crew were on the eve of uttering their joy, as they supposed the vessel past the danger; but breaker after breaker would still heave up before them, following each other into the general mass, to check their exultation. Occasionally the fluttering of the sails would be heard; and when the looks of the startled seamen were turned to the wheel, they beheld the stranger grasping its spokes, with his quick eye glancing from the water to the canvas. At length the ship reached a point where she appeared to be rushing directly into the jaws of destruction, when suddenly her course was changed and her head receded rapidly from the wind. At the same instant the voice of the pilot was heard shouting

'Square away the yards!—in mainsail !"

A general burst from the crew echoed, "Square away the yards!" and quick as thought the frigate seen gliding along the channel before the wind. The eye had hardly time to dwell on the foam which seemed like clouds driving in the heavens,

was

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and directly the gallant vessel issued from her perils and rose and fell on the heavy waves of the sea.

The seamen were yet drawing long breaths, and gazing about them like men recovered from a trance, when Griffith approached the man who had so successfully conducted them through their perils. The lieutenant grasped the hand of the other as he said

"You have this night proved yourself a faithful pilot, and such a seaman as the world cannot equal." The pressure of the hand was warmly returned by the unknown mariner, who replied

"I am no stranger to the seas, and I may yet find my grave in them. But you too have deceived me: you have acted nobly, young man, and Congress

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Why, Congress is fortunate if it has many such ships as this," said the stranger coldly, walking away toward the commander.

Griffith gazed after him a moment in surprise; but as his duty required his attention, other thoughts soon engaged his mind.

The vessel was pronounced to be in safety. The gale was heavy and increasing, but there was a clear sea before them; and as she slowly stretched out into the bosom of the ocean, preparations were made for her security during its continuance. Before midnight everything was in order. A gun from the Ariel soon announced the safety of the schooner also, which had gone out by another and an easier channel that the frigate had not dared to attempt; when the commander directed the usual watch to be set and the remainder of the crew to seek their necessary repose.

The captain withdrew with the mysterious pilot to his own cabin. Griffith gave his last order; and, renewing his charge to the officer entrusted with the care of the vessel, he wished him a pleasant watch, and sought the refreshment of his own cot. For an hour the young lieutenant lay musing on the events of the day. The remark of Barnstable would occur to him, in connection with the singular comment of the boy; and then his thoughts would recur to the pilot, who, takon from the hostile shores of Britain, and with her accent on his tongue, had served them so faithfully and so well. He remembered the anxiety of Captain Munson to procure this stranger, at the very hazard from which they had just been relieved, and puzzled himself with conjecturing why a pilot was to be sought at such a risk. The dashing of the billows against the side of the ship, the creaking of guns and bulkheads, with the roaring of the tempest, became gradually less and less distinct, until nature yielded to necessity, and the young man sank into the deep sleep of a seaman.

ALL grim, and soil'd, and brown with tan, I saw a strong one, in his wrath, Smiting the godless shrines of man Along his path.

The Church, beneath her trembling dome, Essay'd in vain her ghostly charm. Wealth shook within his gilded home

'Twas but the ruin of the bad,

The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had
Was living still.

Calm grew the brows of him I fear'd;
The frown which awed me pass'd away,
And left behind a smile which cheer'd
Like breaking day.

The grain grew green on battle-plains,

O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow; The slave stood forging from his chains

The spade and plough.

Where frown'd the fort, pavilions gay,

And cottage windows, flower-entwined,
Look'd out upon the peaceful bay,
And hills behind.

Through vine-wreath'd cups with wine once red,
The lights on brimming crystal fell;
Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head
And mossy rill.

Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope,
Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams stray'd;
And with the idle gallows.rope

The young child play'd.

Where the doom'd victim in his cell
Had counted o'er the weary hours,
Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,
Came crown'd with flowers.

Grown wiser for the lesson given,

I fear no longer, for I know

That, where the share is deepest driven
The best fruits grow.

The outworn rite, the old abuse,

The pious fraud transparent grown;
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone-

These wait their doom from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.

Ah, backward-looking son of Time,
The new is old, the old is new;
The cycle of a change sublime
Still sweeping through.

So wisely taught the Indian seer;
Destroying Seva, forming Braham,
Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear,
Are one, the same.

As idly as in that old day

Thou mournest, did thy sires repine; So, in his time, thy child grown grey, Shall sigh for thine.

Yet, not the less for them or thou

The eternal step of progress beats
To the great anthem, calm and slow,
Which God repeats.

Take heart, the waster builds again,
A charmed life old Goodness hath;
The tares may perish; but the grain
Is not for death.

God works in all things; all obey

His first propulsion from the night. Oh, wake and watch, the world is grey With morning light.