Instantly the quiet of the morning was broken; sleepers sprang up and rubbed their eyes, the men below rushed wildly up the hatchway, the cook came tearing out of his own private den, flourishing a soup-ladle in one hand and his tormentors in the other, the steward came tumbling up with a lump of dough in his fist that he had forgot to throw down in his haste, and the captain bolted up from the cabin without his hat.
"Where away ?" cried he, with more than his usual energy.
"Right off the starboard beam, sir." "Square the yards! Look alive, my hearties," was the next order; for although the calm sea was like a sheet of glass, a light air, just sufficient to fill our top-gallant sails, enabled us to creep through the water.
"Hurrah!" shouted the men as we sprang to obey.
"What does she look like ?" roared the captain.
"A big ship, sir, I think," replied the lookout: "but I can only just make out the top of her main t-gallan' s'l."-- (Sailors scorn to speak of _top-gallant sails_.) Gradually, one by one, the white sails of the stranger rose up like cloudlets out of the sea, and our hearts beat high with hope and expectation as we beheld the towering canvas of a full-rigged ship rise slowly into view.
"Show our colours," said the captain.
In a moment the Union Jack of Old England was waving at the mast-head in the gentle breeze, and we watched anxiously for a reply.

The stranger was polite; his colours flew up a moment after, and displayed the Stripes and Stars of America.
"A Yankee!" exclaimed some of the men in a tone of slight disappointment.
I may remark, that our disappointment arose simply from the fact that there was no chance, as we supposed, of getting news from "home" out of a ship that must have sailed last from America.

For the rest, we cared not whether they were Yankees or Britons--they were men who could speak the English tongue, that was enough for us.
"Never mind, boys," cried one, "we'll have a jolly gam; that's a fact." "So we will," said another, "and I'll get news of my mad Irish cousin, Terrence O'Flannagan, who went out to seek his fortin in Ameriky with two shillin's and a broken knife in his pocket, and it's been said he's got into a government situation o' some sort connected with the jails--whether as captain or leftenant o' police, or turnkey, I'm not rightly sure." "More likely as a life-tenant of one of the cells," observed Bill Blunt, laughing.
"Don't speak ill of a better man than yerself behind his back," retorted the owner of the Irish cousin.
"Stand by to lower the jolly-boat," cried the captain.
"Aye, aye, sir." "Lower away!" In a few minutes we were leaping over the calm sea in the direction of the strange ship, for the breeze had died down, and we were too eager to meet with new faces, and to hear the sound of new voices, to wait for the wind.
To our joy we found that the Yankee had had a gam (as I have already said) with an English ship a few days before, so we returned to our vessel loaded with old newspapers from England, having invited the captain and crew of the Yankee to come aboard of us and spend the day.
While preparation was being made for the reception of our friends, we got hold of two of the old newspapers, and Tom Lokins seized one, while Bill Blunt got the other, and both men sat down on the windlass to retail the news to a crowd of eager men who tried hard to listen to both at once, and so could make nothing out of either.
"Hold hard, Tom Lokins," cried one.

"What's that you say about the Emperor, Bill ?" "The Emperor of Roosia," said Bill Blunt, reading slowly, and with difficulty, "is--stop a bit, messmates, wot can this word be ?--the Emperor of Roosia is----" "Blowed up with gunpowder, and shattered to a thousand pieces," said Tom Lokins, raising his voice with excitement, as he read from _his_ paper an account of the blowing up of a mountain fortress in India.
"Oh! come, I say, one at a time, if you please," cried a harpooner; "a feller can't git a word of sense out of sich a jumble." "Come, messmates," cried two or three voices, as Tom stopped suddenly, and looked hard at the paper, "go ahead! wot have ye got there that makes ye look as wise as an owl?
Has war been and broke out with the French ?" "I do believe he's readin' the births, marriages, and deaths," said one of the men, peeping over Tom's shoulder.
"Read 'em out, then, can't ye ?" cried another.
"I say, Bill Blunt, I think this consarns _you_," cried Tom: "isn't your sweetheart's name Susan Croft ?" "That's a fact," said Bill, looking up from his paper, "and who has got a word to say agin the prettiest lass in all Liverpool ?" "Nobody's got a word to say against her," replied Tom; "but she's married, that's all." Bill Blunt leaped up as if he had been shot, and the blood rushed to his face, as he seized the paper, and tried to find the place.
"Where is it, Tom?
let me see it with my own two eyes.

Oh, here it is!" The poor man's face grew paler and paler as he read the following words:-- "Married at Liverpool, on the 5th inst., by the Rev.Charles Manson, Edward Gordon, Esq., to Susan, youngest daughter of Admiral Croft----" A perfect roar of laughter drowned the remainder of the sentence.
"Well done, Bill Blunt--Mister Blunt, we'll have to call him hereafter," said Tom, with a grim smile; "I had no notion you thought so much o' yourself as to aim at an admiral's daughter." "All right, my hearties, chaff away!" said Bill, fetching a deep sigh of relief, while a broad grin played on his weather-beaten visage.
"There's _two_ Susan Crofts, that's all; but I wouldn't give _my_ Susan for all the admirals' daughters that ever walked in shoe-leather." "Hallo! here come the Yankees," cried the captain, coming on deck at that moment.
Our newspapers were thrown down at once, and we prepared to receive our guests, who, we could see, had just put off from their ship in two boats.