The crew dursn't express their wonder aloud, though they knew he was no hand at steering, not to mention the mad agitation he was in, and they let him have his way when he headed the steamer for us, expecting that he merely wished to close us in order to speak; but when I put my helm down and the steamer passed, and they spied the general rounding his craft evidently to run us down, they threw themselves upon him to save their own lives as well as ours.

That was the sight I saw as the steamer rushed past.

A few moments after they had gone clear the poor old fellow was seized with an attack of apoplexy, which killed him right off, and thereupon they headed right away to England with the dead body aboard.
"What do you think of this for a yarn?
Would any one suppose such vengefulness could exist in a white-haired man that had known his seventieth birthday?
What did he want to go and try and drown me and my mates for?
_We_ weren't running away with the female party.

But the world's full of romantic capering, sir; and I tell you what it is--'tain't all fair sailing even in yachts, modest and pretty as the divarsion is.".