Kneeling on W. Greatbatch, sc high-backed and curioustry. carved chair, which he leaned over pulpst fashion, was seen of Fleetwood. LONDON, RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREFT COMMING DUBLIN, BELL & BRADI UTE, LDINBURGH, THE BUCCANEER. 4 TALE NEW YORK MRS. S. C. HALL. Stay! methinks I see BEN JONSON. REVISED BY THE AUTHOR. LONDON: ARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET: BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH; J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.. THE BUCCANEER. CHAPTER I. With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength, DRYDEN. It was between the hours of ten and twelve on a fine night of February, in the year sixteen hundred and fifty-six, that three men moored a light skiff in a small bay, overshadowed by the heavy and sombre rocks that distinguish the Isle of Shepey from other parts along the coast of Kent, the white cliffs of which present an aspect at once so cheerful and so peculiar to the shores of Britain. The quiet sea seemed, in the 'murky light, like a dense and motionless mass, save when the gathering clouds passed from the brow of the waning moon, and permitted its beams to repose in silver lines on its undulating bosom. It was difficult to account for the motive that could have induced any mariner to land upon so unpropitious a spot, hemmed in as it was on every side, and apparently affording no outlet but that by which they had entered - the trackless and illimitable ocean. Without a moment's deliberation, however, the steersman, who had guided his boat into the creek, sprang lightly to the shore: another followed; while the third, folding himself in the capacious cloak his leader had thrown off, resumed his place, as if resolved to take his rest, at least for a time. "Little doubt of our having foul weather, master," obseryed the younger of the two, in a half querulous, half positive tone, as standing on a huge bank of sea-weed, he regarded first the heavens, and then the earth, with the scrutinising gaze of one accustomed to pry into their mysteries. His companion B |