plunging it down again continued its rapid course.  When it neared us to within a mile, we were so alarmed that we all ran down below.  The animal came to the ship, and rearing its body more than half way out of the water, so that if our masts had been standing, his head would have been as high as our topsail-yards, looked down on deck.  He then lowered his great diamond-shaped head, and thrusting it down the hatchway, seized one of the men in his teeth, plunged into the sea and disappeared.

We were all horror-struck, for we expected his reappearance, and had no means of securing ourselves below, every grating and skylight having been washed overboard in the hurricane.  The old gentleman was more alarmed than the rest.  He sent for me and said,

“I did look forward to once more seeing my relations in France, but that hope is now abandoned.  My name is Fonseca, I am a younger brother of a noble family of that name, and I intended, if not to enrich my brother, at least to endow his daughter with the wealth I have brought with me.  Should my fears be verified, I trust to your honour for the performance of my request.  It is, to deliver this casket, which is of great value, into the hand of either one or the other.  Here is a letter with their address, and here is the key; the remainder of my property on board, if saved, in case of my death, is yours, and here is a voucher for you to show in case of necessity.”

I took the casket, but did not tell him that I was the husband of his niece—­as he might have disinherited her for having married so much below her rank in life.  The old gentleman was right in his supposition, the serpent returned in the afternoon, and seizing him as he had the sailor, in the morning, again, plunged into the sea; and so he continued bearing two or three off every day, until I was the only one left.  On the eighth day he had taken off the last but me, and I knew that my fate must be decided in the evening; for large as he was, he could penetrate every part of the ship, and could draw you to him, when you were many feet distant, by sucking in his breath.

There happened to be two casks, of a material lately invented in England, which we were taking to France on trial; during the hurricane, one had burst, and the stench proceeding from it was intolerable.  Although it had gradually evaporated, I perceived that whenever the serpent approached any thing that had been defiled with it, he immediately turned away, as if the smell was as unbearable to him as it was to us.  I don’t know what it was composed of, but the English called it coal tar.  It struck me that I might save myself my means of this offensive composition.  I knocked out the head of the remaining cask, and arming myself with a broom dipped in it, I jumped into the cask which contained the remainder, and awaited my fate with anxiety.  The serpent came; as usual, forced his head and part of his body down the hatchway, perceived me, and with