----"When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say.
These are their reasons,--They are natural,
For, I believe they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon."
_Casca._
The reader will discover, by referring to the time consumed in the
foregoing events, that the Ariel, with her prize, did not anchor in the
bay already mentioned, until Griffith and his party had been for several
hours in the custody of their enemies. The supposed capture of the rebel
schooner was an incident that excited but little interest, and no
surprise, among a people who were accustomed to consider their seamen as
invincible; and Barnstable had not found it a difficult task to practise
his deception on the few rustics whom curiosity induced to venture
alongside the vessels
