636 The Demon Ship. [DEC. 



consequently demoniacal, agency. She had sailed through fleets undis- 

 covered ; she had escaped from the fastest pursuers ; she had overtaken 

 the swiftest fugitives ; she had appeared where she was not expected, 

 and disappeared when even her very latitude and longitude seemed 

 calculable. One time, when she was deemed the scourge of the Levant, 

 she would fall on some secure and happy trading captain, whose careless 

 gaze fell on the rock of Gibraltar j at another, when Spanish cruizers were 

 confidently preparing for her capture off their own shores, her crew 

 were glutting their avarice, and gratifying their cruelty by seizing the 

 goods, and sinking the vessels of the Smyrna traders. In short, it 

 seemed as if ubiquity were an attribute of the Demon Ship. Her fearful 

 title had been first given by those who dreaded to become her victims ; 

 but she seemed not ill pleased by the appalling epithet ; and shortly, as 

 if in audacious adoption of the name she had acquired, shewed the word 

 DEMON in flaming letters on her stern. Some mariners went so far 

 as to say that a smell of brimstone, and a track of phosphoric light 

 marked for miles the pathway of her keel in the waves. Others declared 

 that she had the power, through her evil agents, of raising such a strange, 

 dense, and portentous mist in the atmosphere, as prevented her victims 

 from descrying her approach until they fell, as it were, into her very 

 jaws. To capture her seemed impossible ; she ever mastered her equals, 

 and eluded her superiors. Innumerable were the vessels that had left 

 different ports in the Mediterranean to disappear for ever. It seemed 

 the cruel practice of the Demon to sink her victims in their own vessels. 



The Demon Ship was talked of from the ports of the Levant to Gib- 

 raltar ; and no vessel held herself in secure waters until she had passed 

 the Straits. Of course such a pest to these seas was not to be quietly 

 suffered, so after having allowed her her full career for a somewhat 

 unaccountable time, several governments began to think of preparing to 

 put her down. To the surprise, however, of all, she seemed suddenly to 

 disappear from the Mediterranean. Some said that her crew, having 

 sold themselves to the father of all evil for a certain length of time, and 

 the period having probably expired, the desperadoes were now gone to 

 their own place, and the seas would consequently be clear again. Others 

 deemed that the Demon Ship had only retired for some deep purpose, 

 and would shortly reappear with more fearful power. 



Most of the trading vessels then about to quit the port of Valetta, had 

 requested, and obtained, convoy from a British frigate and sloop of war, 

 bound to Gibraltar and thence to England. So eager were all passen- 

 gers to sail under such protection, that I had some difficulty in obtaining 

 a berth in any of the holes and corners of the various fine fast-sailing 

 copper-bottomed brigs, whose cards offered such " excellent accommo- 

 dations for passengers." At length I went on board the " Elizabeth 

 Downs," a large three-masted British vessel, whose size made the sur- 

 rounding brigs dwindle into insignificance, and whose fresh-painted 

 sides seemed to foreshew the cleanliness and comfort that would be 

 found within. One little hen-pen of a cabin on deck alone remained at 

 the captain's disposal. However, I was fond of a cabin on deck, and 

 paid half my passage-money to the civil little captain, who testified much 

 regret that he could not offer me the " freedom of the quarter-deck" 

 (such was his expression), as the whole stern end of the vessel had been 

 taken by an English lady of quality who wished for privacy. He added, 

 with a becomingly awe-struck manner, that she was a dowager countess 



