having to incur the very useless expense of supplying his place, or find boarding-house accommodations for the officers and crew.  If it be true, what I’ve hearn ’em say in the Mersey, the man doesn’t only suffer in his feelings by some sort of confinement they have, but the owners suffer in pocket.  But it may be, Skipper, and I’m inclined to think with you, our case is certainly deplorable enough to command pity instead of imprisonment.  The government must be found cutting a dirty figure on the national picture, that would ill-treat sailors who had suffered as much as our boys have.  I would hate to see Manuel shut up or ill-used.  He’s as brave a fellow as ever buckled at a handspike or rode a jib-boom.  Last night, while in the worst of the gale, he volunteered to take Higgins’s place, and, mounting the jib-boom, was several times buried in the sea; yet he held on like a bravo, and succeeded in cutting away the wreck.  I thought he was gone once or twice, and I own I never saw more peril at sea; but if he hadn’t effected it, the foot of the bowsprit would have strained her open in the eyes, and we’d all been sharks’-bait before this.  The fellow was nearly exhausted when he came on board; says I, its gone day with you, old fellow; but he come to in a little while, and went cheerily to work again,” continued Mr. Mate, who though pleased with the Captain’s determination to make the nearest port, seemed to dread that all would not be right in Charleston—­that the bar was a very intricate one—­water very shoal in the ship-channel, and though marked with three distinctive buoys, numbered according to their range, impossible to crops without a skilful pilot.  The mate plead a preference for Savannah, asserting, according to his own knowlege, that a ship of any draft could cross that bar at any time of tide, and that it was a better port for the transaction of business.

The Janson was headed for Charleston, the queen city of the sunny South, and, as may be expected from her disabled condition, made very slow progress on her course.  During the gale, her stores had become damaged, and on the third day before making Charleston light, Manuel Pereira came aft, and with a sad countenance reported that the last cask of good water was nearly out; that the others had all been stove during the gale, and what remained, so brackish that it was unfit for use.  From this time until their arrival at Charleston, they suffered those tortures of thirst, which only those who have endured them can estimate.

CHAPTER IV.

The Charleston police.