"And if some lightning tearing through the clouds were added?"

"Yes, that would most undoubtedly increase the effect; but go on with your story."

"I knew Phil to be an artful dodger, and was determined not to be foiled by a mere trick, so I laid hold of a lantern and closely examined the walls and flooring. My investigation was successful, for just under the coffin I detected traces of a trap-door."

"'Well, my good woman, what have you got down there?" inquired the lieutenant.

"'Is it underground, ye mane, yer honor? divil a hail's there, if it isn't the rats.'

"'Well, just remove the coffin a little aside; we shall see if we cannot pepper some of the rats for you.'

"Here the old woman appealed to a vast number of saints, and protested against Kathleen's remains being disturbed. The lieutenant, however, grew tired of this farce, and ordered the coffin to be shifted. A sailor accordingly laid hold of each end.

"'Blazes!' said one, 'here is a body that weighs.'

"'Perhaps,' said the other, 'the coffin is lined with lead.'

"The trap-door was drawn up, and the lieutenant, pistol in hand, descended alone.

"'Now, my lads,' said he, addressing some invisible personages, 'we know you are here, and I call upon you to yield in the King's name--resistance is useless, the house is surrounded, and we are in force, so you had better give in without more ado.'

"No answer was returned to this exordium; but we heard the murmuring of muffled voices, as if the rapscallions were deliberating. I now descended with my lamp, followed by some of the seamen, and beheld my friends of the night before either stretched on the ground or propped up against the walls, like a lot of mummies in an Egyptian tomb.

"They were handcuffed one by one, pushed or hauled up the stairs, and then tied to one another in a line. When we had secured the whole lot of them in this way--

"'Lieutenant,' said I, winking, 'will you permit me to send a ball into that coffin?'

"'Please yourself about that, young man,' said he.

"Here the old woman recommenced howling again and called upon all the saints in the calendar to punish us for my sacrilegious design.

"'Shoot a dead body,' said I, 'where's the harm?' Besides, what is that salt there for?'

"'To keep away evil spirits,' was the reply.

"'Very well,' said I, 'my pistol will scare them away as well.' Then, cocking it with a loud clink, I presented it slowly at the coffin."

"The lid all at once flew off--the salt-was thrown on the ground with a crash--the defunct suddenly returned from the other world in perfect health, and sat half upright in his bier. I did not recognize the individual at first, but, on closer inspection, found him to be my communicative companion of the preceding night--the horse-stealer of the 'Molly Bawn;' and, being a stout young fellow, he was harnessed to the others, and we commenced our march to the boats."

"You do not appear to have had much trouble in effecting the capture,"

remarked Fritz.

"No; the men were unarmed, and were nearly all intoxicated. You never saw such a troop; scarcely one of them could walk straight; they assumed all sorts of figures; the file of prisoners was just like a bar of music, it was a string of quavers, crotchets, and zig-zags.

Luckily, it was late at night, else we might have had the village about our ears, and, instead of flakes of snow and screeching weathercocks, we might have had a shower of dead cats and rotten eggs.

Probably a rescue might have been attempted; at all events, we might have calculated on a volley of brickbats on our way to the boats.

There would have been no end of commotion, uproar, confusion, and hubbub, possibly smashed noses, blackened eyes, broken beads--"

"Holloa, Willis!"

"You said just now that a little colouring was necessary."

"Certainly; but the privilege ought not to be abused. Besides, broken heads and smashed faces are the realities, and not the accessories of the picture."

"Oh, I see. If it is night, the moon should be introduced; and if it is day, the sun--and so on?"

"Of course; and, if the circumstances are of a pleasing nature, you must leave horrors and terrors on your pallette; change gusts into zephyrs, snow into roses and violets, and the weathercocks into golden vanes glittering in the sunshine."

"I understand."

"You want to color a popular outbreak, do you not?"

"Yes."

"Then you should introduce a tempest howling, the waves roaring, the lightning flashing, and discord raging in the air as well as on the earth."

"Well, to continue my story. Although it was midnight, the disturbance began to wake up the villagers, and a crowd was collecting, so we hurried off our prisoners to the boats as speedily as we could. Some five and twenty able bodied men were thus added to his Majesty's fleet. The object of our visit to the Irish coast was accomplished, and the _Norfolk_ continued her voyage to the West Indies. Now you know what is meant by the word _pressed_, and likewise the nautical signification of the word _press-gang_."

"And you say that Bill Stubbs has been trapped on board this ship by such means?"

"Yes, at New Orleans."

"According to your story, then, that does not say very much in his favor?"

"No, not a great deal; still, that proves nothing--the fact of his calling himself Bob is a worse feature. A man does not generally change his name without having good, or rather bad, reasons for it."

"What appears to me," remarked Fritz, "as the most singular feature of your press-gang adventure is, that you are alive to tell it."

"Why so?"

"Because I think it ought to end thus: 'The victims of the press-gang strangled Willis a few days after,'"

"Aye, aye, but you do not know what a sailor is; our recruits had not been a fortnight at sea before they entirely forgot the trick I had played them."

Just as Willis concluded his narrative, the man at the mast-head called out, "Sail ho!"

"Where away?" bawled the captain.

"Right a-head," replied the voice.

The _Hoboken_ had hitherto pursued her voyage uninterruptedly, and the Yankee captain now prepared to signalize himself by a capture.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A SEA FIGHT--ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S--THE BOUDEUSE.