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The story goes, that Countess Fanny sent her husband to Captain Kirby, at the emperor's request, to inquire his name; and on hearing it, she struck her hands on her bosom, telling his Majesty he saw there the bravest man in the king's dominions; which the emperor scarce crediting, and observing that the man must be, then, a superhuman being to be so distinguished in a nation of the brave, Countess Fanny related the well-known tale of Captain Kirby and the shipful of mutineers; and how when not a man of them stood by him, and he in the service of the first insurgent State of Spanish America, to save his ship from being taken over to the enemy, he blew her up, fifteen miles from land: and so he got to shore swimming and floating alternately, and was called Old Sky-high by English sailors, any number of whom could always be had to sail under Buccaneer Kirby.

All that this Water-devil gets to eat is what happens to come swimmin' or sailin' along where he can reach it, and it doesn't matter to him whether it's a shark, or a porpoise, or a shipful of people, and when he takes a grab of anything, that thing never gets away.

I thought of my shipful from Great Britain with a feeling of despair. They had come 3000 miles, and yet not far enough. Hard times bowed them out of the Clyde, and stood to welcome them at Sandy Hook. Where were they to go? Pennsylvania, Maine, Iowa, Kansas?

She sinned as little as any young lady in Florence against the superstitions of society; but though she would not now have done a skirt-dance before a shipful of people, she did not afflict herself about her past errors. She put on the world, but she wore it simply and in most matters unconsciously.

Strong man was Frolle, and stark man in mood; and his boast he had made, before all his people, and he might not for much shame disgrace himself; quit his bold bragging that he had said in the burgh. For if Frolle, who was King in France, had it known, that Arthur would grant him that he had yearned, he would not have done it for a shipful of gold!

Maria herself was equally grateful. Van Duyk would have freighted a shipful of presents to Rupert's friends in England, but the latter would not hear of it. He insisted, however, on sending a pipe of magnificent old Burgundy for the colonel's drinking; while Maria sent a stomacher of antique workmanship, with valuable gems, to Madame Holliday. No adventure marked their homeward journey.

I had been warned when setting out that a shipful of goods would not take me past Nkulu. This was soon confirmed. On the evening after arrival I had directed my interpreter to sound the "bush- kings" touching the expense of a march to Nsundi.

At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's rashness, and denouncing the shortsighted timidity of the Martians. So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want of animal food. "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear."

I thought of my shipful from Great Britain with a feeling of despair. They had come 3,000 miles, and yet not far enough. Hard times bowed them out of the Clyde, and stood to welcome them at Sandy Hook. Where were they to go? Pennsylvania, Maine, Iowa, Kansas?

Here were the Müllers and most of their relatives and fellow-villagers. Frank Schuber was among them, and was chosen steward for the whole shipful. At last they were all off. But instead of a summer's they were now to encounter a winter's sea, and to meet it weakened and wasted by sickness and destitution.