“You may hand him this statement of our force, Mr Ark; for, as he is a reasonable man, he will see the advantage it gives us,” said the Captain, after having exhausted his manifold and often repeated instructions.  “I think you may promise him indemnity for the past, provided he comply with all my conditions; at all events, you will say that no influence shall be spared to get a complete whitewashing for himself at least.  God bless you, boy!  Take care to say nothing of the damages we received in the affair of March last; for—­ay—­for the equinox was blowing heavy at the time, you know.  Adieu! and success attend you!”

The boat shoved off from the side of the vessel as he ended, and in a few moments the listening Wilder was borne far beyond the sound of any further words of advisement.  Our adventurer had sufficient time to reflect on the extraordinary situation in which he now found himself, during the row to the still distant ship.  Once or twice, slight and uneasy glimmerings of distrust, concerning the prudence of the step he was taking, beset his mind; though a recollection of the lofty feeling of the man in whom he confided ever presented itself in sufficient season to prevent the apprehension from gaining any undue ascendency.  Notwithstanding the delicacy of his situation, that characteristic interest in his profession, which is rarely dormant in the bosom of a thorough-bred seaman, was strongly stimulated as he approached the vessel of the Rover.  The perfect symmetry of her spars the graceful heavings and settings of the whole fabric is it rode, like a marine bird, on the long, regular swells of the trades, and the graceful inclinations of the tapering masts, as they waved across the blue canopy, which was interlaced by all the tracery of her complicated tackle, was not lost on an eye that knew no less how to prize the order of the whole than to admire the beauty of the object itself.  There is a high and exquisite taste, which the seaman attains in the study of a machine that all have united to commend, which may be likened to the sensibilities that the artist acquires by close and long contemplation of the noblest monuments of antiquity.  It teaches him to detect those imperfections which would escape any less instructed eye; and it heightens the pleasure with which a ship at sea is gazed at, by enabling the mind to keep even pace with the enjoyment of the senses.  It is this powerful (and to a landsman incomprehensible) charm that forms the secret tie which binds the mariner so closely to his vessel, and which often leads him to prize her qualities as one would esteem the virtues of a friend, and almost to be equally enamoured of the fair proportions of his ship and of those of his mistress.  Other men may have their different inanimate subjects of admiration; but none of their feelings so thoroughly enter into the composition of the being as the affection which the mariner comes, in time, to feel for his vessel.  It is his home, his theme