And arrive she did, that tempest-tossed, crippled, ice-bound, and half-burned little craft, after roaming over an extent of ocean that would have made up half a dozen ordinary sea voyages.  It was, in truth, the schooner so well known to the reader, that was now settling away her mainsail and jib, as she kept off, under her fore-topsail alone, towards the wharf, on which every human being who could, with any show of propriety, be there at such a moment, was now collected, in a curious and excited crowd.  Altogether, including boys and females, there must have been not less than a hundred persons on that wharf; and among them were most of the anxious relatives who were in attendance on the vessel’s owner, in his last hours.  By a transition that was natural enough, perhaps, under the circumstances, they had transferred their interest in the deacon to this schooner, which they looked upon as an inanimate portion of an investment that would soon have little that was animate about it.

Baiting Joe was a sort of oracle, in such circumstances.  He had passed his youth at sea, having often doubled the Horn, and was known to possess a very respectable amount of knowledge on the subject of vessels of all sorts and sizes, rig and qualities.  He was now consulted by all who could get near him, as a matter of course, and his opinions were received as res adjudicata, as the lawyers have it.

“That’s the boat,” said Joe, affecting to call the Sea Lion by a diminutive, as a proof of regard; “yes, that’s the craft, herself; but she is wonderfully deep in the water!  I never seed a schooner of her tonnage, come in from a v’y’ge, with her scuppers so near awash.  Don’t you think, Jim, there must be suthin’ heavier than skins, in her hold, to bring her down so low in the water?”

Jim was another loafer, who lived by taking clams, oysters, fish, and the other treasures of the surrounding bays.  He was by no means as bigh authority as Baiting Joe; still he was always authority on a wharf.

“I never seed the like on’t,” answered Jim.  “That schooner must ha’ made most of her passage under water.  She’s as deep as one of our coasters comin’ in with a load o’ brick!”

“She’s deep; but not as deep as a craft I once made a cruise in.  I was aboard of the first of Uncle Sam’s gun-boats, that crossed the pond to Gibraltar.  When we got in, it made the Mediterranean stare, I can tell you!  We had furrin officers aboard us, the whull time, lookin’ about, and wonderin’, as they called it, if we wasn’t amphibbies.”

“What’s that?” demanded Jim, rather hastily.  “There’s no sich rope in the ship.”