CAPTAIN BALAAM OF THE 'CORMORANT' (continued 2)

'Bunting, rum!' said Balaam, and Bunting, who was as white as spindrift with terror, brought it. Balaam went to sleep calmly, and left matters to Briggs and Creak. The worst having come to the worst, being left to themselves, they proved to be men. They had something to do and did it. They cut all the wreck adrift and rigged a proper sea-anchor and repaired damages as best they could. But they couldn't repair the damage done to the provisions. The whole of the front of the poop had been burst in by the sea, and a big hole driven by the mizzen-topmast into the deck right through the poop and main deck into the lazarette. Into that there went so much water that anything not in tins was unfit to eat. And now all the pork and beef, save that in the harness casks, was found to be rotten.

'Great Scott!' said Briggs. The crew of the Cormorant anticipated starvation and had huge appetites. But they bore up well. A day ahead is enough for men of the sea. Charlie Baker took hold of the boys and felt them all over to see if they were fat. The others thought it an admirable joke. The boys were not so sure that it was.

'Never mind, mates,' said Baker, 'a boy will go a long way, and we 'ave three! But I wonder 'ow the Scanderbeg is makin' it?'

There is something peculiarly diabolical at times in the way of the sea. It was a coincidence, though perhaps an ordinary one, that the poor Scanderbeg was just then wallowing at a sea-anchor a hundred miles to the south of them, with nothing but the stumps of her masts to show a rag on. But it was a far more extraordinary coincidence that her crew were in danger of starvation. As Captain Wood did not drink, his steward did. It seems necessary that some one shall at sea, and though it is usually the skipper, who has no one to control him, it excites no surprise to find that the steward does. This particular specimen of a hard-worked individual went into the lazarette with an uncovered candle, sampled some rum, which was forty over proof, and fell asleep to wake in a world where we are led to believe drink is scarce, though smoking is permitted. And the Scanderbeg was on fire just when the wind from the N.W. and a falling barometer announced the approach of a hurricane.

The fire was put out and the steward dragged out, but what with fire and smoke and water combined, the provisions he had charge of were no more likely to do their duty than he was. They put him overboard gloomily, and that night the hurricane fell on them and did its worst.

'Well,' said poor Captain Wood, 'I'm afraid the Cormorant will beat us this time!'

But he did not take to drink and camp in a wet bunk as Balaam did. He worked day and night with his two mates, and made some sort of a show with a jury rig inside of twenty-four hours. But he was very much troubled about the 'grub.' Ships are never over-provisioned, and even the stock of canned goods had been fired and fuzed.

'I'd give fifty pounds for a ton of biscuits,' said Wood.

It wasn't till they were under way again and doing nearly four knots an hour with the sou'wester behind them, that an idea struck him.

'By Jove,' said the skipper. He slapped his thigh and suddenly became cheerful. Mr. Boden, the chief mate, was very curious but did not express his curiosity.

'The old man has something in his mind,' he told the second greaser, Tom Hankin.

'I wish I had something in my stomach,' said Hankin.

And the skipper went below. When he came up he altered the course to E.N.E., and Boden having taken a squint at the chart, became much more cheerful. So did Hankin, though he tightened his belt. So did the crowd for'ard, though they tightened theirs.

And the next day they ran across the Cormorant in that almighty waste of grey storm.

'Blimy,' said the crew, 'maybe we'll get some toke from this 'ere 'ooker wot's 'ad the syme misforchune as ourselves. I wonder what she is?'

So did Wood, and when he found out he would have been much more than human if he had not been pleased, though he had not read La Rochefoucauld.

'She won't lick us into Melbourne after all,' said the skipper.

He hove the poor old Scanderbeg to under the lee of the Cormorant, and she lay wallowing comfortably under a rag of a faked-up trysail and the head of a staysail showing on her forestay. Wood bellowed to windward with a speaking-trumpet, 'Where's Captain Balaam?'

Poor Briggs was tired and cross and insubordinate in his mind.

'In his bunk,' came down the wind.

'Is he hurt?'

'Drunk, sir,' said the distant voice.

'What did he say?' asked Wood of his mate.

'He said Captain Balaam was drunk, sir.'

'Ah,' said the skipper. He asked no more about Balaam, but inquired if they could let him have some provisions. The answer he got was rather a blow. But it was not so much of a blow to him as the question had been to Briggs.

'We're starving already,' bellowed Briggs forlornly to the wind, and the sea and the wreck to loo'ard of him.

'When will you get sail on her, d' ye think?' asked Wood.

'To-morrow,' replied Briggs.

'Make for St. Paul,' said Wood; 'provisions are stored there, so I see in the Directory. We'll share 'em!'

'Thanks,' said the other speaking-trumpet. And then silence fell between these two partners of the sea in high misfortune.

'She's really not so badly crippled as we are,' said Wood.

And that was true; so true, that on the morrow the Cormorant crept out of the waste of tumbling seas and the gloom of the grey dawn and wallowed past them. Balaam was on deck dancing.

'Licking thunder out of you, you dog,' was his polite message of thanks to the Scanderbeg. 'Crippled or all ataunto, we can knock spots off of your old barge.'

'Oh, he's a gentleman,' said Wood. 'We won't reply.'

'I'm sorry he's likely to get to the island first, sir,' put in his mate. 'I'd not be surprised if he grabbed all there is to get, sir.'

'Oh no, surely,' said Wood. But though he said so, the notion bit into him and made him all the more anxious to get more sail on her. He worked with the men like one of them, and only slept two hours out of the twenty-four.

'He's a bully old man,' said his hungry crew: 'the best skipper we ever sailed with. Oh, but ain't we 'ungry!'

They were hungrier yet when they sighted the crater of St. Paul and rounded to on the north-east coast opposite the broken entrances to the inner crater harbour. They anchored in deep water, and so long as the wind stayed west of south were in perfect safety. But there was no Cormorant in sight.

'By Jove,' said Wood, 'she's missed it after all. I'm not surprised. Balaam's no navigator. Called me a dog, did he? Well, I've smelt my way here and he's out of it.'

The crew were joyful and excited. This was something new, something a little out of the way in the dull, dead monotony of sea-life, which as a rule is about as interesting as running a water-cart up and down a suburban road. The august and awful sea is only august and awful for those who have august minds. Seamen as a rule haven't; they have only awful language.

'Blow me tight,' said Bill Waite from Shadwell. 'I sye, this is a gyme! Sye, Tom, let's desert and live 'ere for hever and make a farm!'

'Oh, let's,' said his mate, Fred Day. 'If it's anythin' like the Canary Bird Islands, it'll be a fine farm for sulphur and cinders. What I want is the grub, and get out of it. Give me Sandridge and a pot of she-oak.'

They went ashore, pulling in through the crater entrance, and were surrounded by gloomy walls nearly a thousand feet high.

''Tain't exactly as bloomin' as the Isle of Man,' said Bill, 'at least not on a Benk 'oliday. Where's the grub, d'ye think?'

They found out where it was very soon. At least, they considered they were able to deduce from the facts in front of them where it was. The rude stone and lava hut in which it had been stored stared them almost in the face. But it was odd, they said, that the door was open.

When Mr. Briggs reached it he turned round and looked very much disturbed. So did the hut. It had been disturbed recently, and there wasn't as much as the smell of a biscuit left in it.

'The Cormorant has been here and taken it all,' said Briggs. You could have knocked the boat's crew down with much less than a belaying pin. They collapsed upon adjacent blocks of lava and said things not fit for publication except in realistic novels.

'The swine,' sighed Charlie Baker. 'Oh, ain't there nothin', sir?'

'Not a thing,' said the mate. He led the way back to the boat, and under the wondering eye of the skipper, which was just then glued to a telescope, they embarked and rowed back like a funeral procession.

'Captain Balaam has taken all the provisions, sir,' said the mate.

'All?'

'Every biscuit, sir.'

'Get the anchor up and make sail,' said the skipper. He went below, and when he came on deck again the Scanderbeg was standing out to sea.

'Muster the men aft, Mr. Briggs,' said Captain Wood. And when they came aft the old man addressed them. The pith of his address lay in the tail of it.

'We must catch the Cormorant,' he said. And the men said they would if human hands could get enough sail on their old wreck to catch the robber and scoundrel, then somewhere to the east of them. Men and mates and the skipper took their coats off. They clapped make-shift sails on every stay till the Scanderbeg looked like a laundry drying-yard. They got up another jurymast made of the fished halves of the main topmast. They made her four knots into five, into five and a quarter, into five and a half, and then they lay down at midnight and dreamed of eating.

They sighted the Cormorant ahead of them two days later.

'There she is, the thief,' said the men. As the weather was now finer and dry, they wetted their rags of canvas so that the sails held a little more wind; they rigged up more canvas yet by lacing it to the foot of their foresail, which did most of the work. They hung out their clothes to dry, and tied them so that the very shirts held wind.

'All right, my sons,' said the crowd of the Scanderbeg, 'wait till we catch you.'

They drew up with her at dark. The weather was moderating fast, the heavy sea went down rapidly: the wind fell light, and stars shone through the breaking canopy of clouds. The Scanderbeg drew up on the Cormorant's starboard quarter slowly. It was obvious that in her present trim she could out-sail the other vessel anyhow, and this in spite of the fact that Briggs had made good use of his spare topmast. The Scanderbeg had none. It had broken from its lashings, and gone overboard like a match out of an emptied pail when she was nearly under water and came up out of the smother like a diver.

The crew of the Scanderbeg were on the fo'c'slehead.

'Will he run aboard of 'em? By crimes, there'll be ructions,' said Bill Waite dancing. 'Oh, the miserable dogs; oh, the scum o' the seas; oh, the pirates!'

'Dry up, you ass,' said his mate. 'The skipper's goin' to 'ail 'er!'

'Cormorant, ahoy!' said Captain Wood, who came for'ard to the t'gallant fo'c'sle. 'Cormorant, ahoy!'

'Hallo!' said Briggs from the poop.

'What made you take all the provisions, Mr. Briggs?'

'The captain's orders, sir,' said poor Briggs, who was obviously ashamed of himself and his ship. 'I couldn't help it, sir.'

The two moving wrecks were now almost alongside.

'Clew up the foresail, Mr. Hankin,' said Captain Wood.

The sail was clewed up, and now the Cormorant drew a little ahead.

'I want to see Captain Balaam,' said Wood. 'Is he drunk now?'

The night was suddenly dark, and the figures of the speakers barely distinguishable. Nevertheless those on the fo'c'slehead of the Scanderbeg were aware that Briggs suddenly disappeared and was replaced by some one else.

'I'm not drunk, you swab,' hiccuped Captain Balaam. It was a very obvious misstatement on his part. 'I'm not drunk, you miserable howler. There warn't enough grub for one, let alone two, so I collared the lot.'

A voice was heard from his ship which contradicted him.

'That's a lie. There was plenty for both!'

Balaam left the poop hurriedly and was heard inquiring for the mutineer who dared to put his oar in at such a time. Every man jack on the main-deck protested it was not he.

'Very well,' said Balaam, 'when I find who it is, I'll hammer him flat, flat! I'll massacre him!'

He came back to the poop and resumed his talk with Wood.

'Not enough for two—hic—and if there was you shouldn't have it. I'll give you a bag of split peas!'

The men in the Scanderbeg groaned. They had been living on split peas for three days. Bill Waite signified what he thought of the offer by taking an iron belaying pin from the rail and throwing it at old Balaam. It was a good shot, but the distance was too great. It hit the rail of the Cormorant and fell into the sea.

'Split peas,' said Fred Day; 'oh, lor'! What'll our old man say to that?'

Wood was a gentleman, and he very rarely used bad language. There are times, however, when language to do any good to the user must be bad, and Wood told Balaam what he thought of him. He ran the Scanderbeg close up alongside until Balaam thought he was going to be boarded, and then addressed him. His crew roared with applause and hissed Balaam furiously. They called him every horrible thing they could think of, and Charlie Baker said 'Hear, hear' from the Cormorant's main-deck.

'It ain't our fault, maties,' he cried. 'Old Balaam's a cock-eyed blighter!'

But Wood roared, 'Silence fore and aft,' and spoke once more.

'Will you divide the provisions, Captain Balaam? I ask you for the last time.'

'I'll see you sunk, burnt, and destroyed and doubly damned if I will,' said Balaam. 'I 'ates you, and don't hown to no obligation to you. You never was polite nor friendly. Now you're repentin'. You may go to blazes by express. My name's Balaam. I'm captain of this ship, and don't take horders from a scientific lubber like you. I ain't drunk—hic—though you say so. I'm as sober as a missionary, quite sober—hic—and hif you incites my crew to mutiny I'll sue you for damages and justice in Melbourne. Mr. Briggs, make sail, crack on!'

He retired to a hencoop and sent for the steward.

'Bunting, gimme a drop o' brandy and gin mixed with a dash o' rum in it,' said Balaam.

It was his favourite drink.

But in the Scanderbeg Wood was talking to Mr. Boden.

'All right, Mr. Boden,' said he, 'set the foresail and let us draw ahead. I'll not put up with this. We shall be starving in reality in three days. We'll get even as soon as ever the sea goes down.'

And somehow it got to the men for'ard that the situation was not to last. They ate pease pudding with loathing and smoked heavily.

'We relies on the old man,' they said. 'Oh, what a blighter old Balaam is.'

They kept a mile or two ahead of the Cormorant all that day, and when night fell again the sea was fairly calm and the sky clear.

'We've got three boats fit to go over the side,' said the skipper to Boden. 'Get 'em ready, and now it's dark you can have 'em swung out. Belaying pins will do.'

What belaying pins would do for soon appeared, when the skipper had the men mustered aft.

'Men,' he said, 'all the food which should have been divided is now on board the Cormorant, Captain Balaam, who is no gentleman——'

'He ain't no seaman neither, sir,' said Bill Waite. The others told him to dry up, and he subsided, blushing at his own audacity.

'And I propose to board his vessel and compel him to divide it.'

'Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!' said the crowd. 'Oh, ain't this somethin' like!'

'If there is any resistance,' went on Wood, 'it must be put down. For that purpose each of you will take a belaying pin, but you will leave your knives behind. In half an hour I shall shorten sail and man the boats. You will all keep silence. I shall go with you myself to see that no unnecessary violence is used. Mr. Hankin, you will remain on board with two of the boys.'

As there were three boys it is unnecessary to state that there was an almost immediate fight to see who were to stay. Both who did were much more damaged next morning than the victim who went.

At midnight the foresail was clewed up and a few more of the make-shift sails furled. The boats were lowered safely, and in ten minutes the Scanderbeg was only manned by a sorry second mate and two sore boys. The vessel moved off slowly into the starry darkness, looking like a huge house-boat converted into a laundry. To the westward the Cormorant loomed darkly. She grew slowly as they waited in perfect silence.

'This will be a lesson to Balaam,' said Captain Wood across the quiet sea to Boden. 'I hope, I sincerely hope, that he is not drunk, Mr. Boden!'

'Gosh, we're pirates of the deep,' said Waite, and the men in his boat chuckled.

'Silence in your boat, Waite,' said the skipper. And as the Cormorant drew nearer and nearer the boats divided. The skipper's boat and Waite's lay ready to board her on the starboard side. Boden was to rush her on the port. Now they heard the very lip of the seas against her bows. Her broken spars stood up against the sky. They heard a voice aft. Some one struck one bell on board of her. The man on the look-out sleepily said that it was 'All well!' And now her bows were above them. They pulled a stroke and her sides loomed high.

'Hook on,' said the skipper, and before the Cormorant knew it she was seized by what Waite called 'the pirates of the deep.'

'She's ours,' said Waite as he jumped on deck and found no one to oppose him. In half a minute there wasn't a soul in the boats, which promptly went adrift. Mr. Briggs, who was the officer of the watch, was an unreluctant prisoner in the hands of Captain Wood.

'I couldn't stand it, you see,' said Wood, as he shook hands.

'I ain't a bit surprised,' replied Briggs; 'in fact, I rather reckoned you'd not put up with it.'

'Fetch up Balaam,' said Wood. And Balaam was brought up. By this time the two crews, who were no longer jealous of each other, were standing together on the main deck on the friendliest terms.

'You're our prisoners,' said Waite cheerfully. And the crew of the Cormorant laughed, while Balaam bellowed like a bull on the poop.

'It's piracy, rank piracy,' roared Balaam, as he struggled in the grasp of Boden and his enemy, the skipper of the Scanderbeg. 'This is piracy, and you'll be 'ung for it!'

They slammed him down upon a hencoop with considerable violence.

'Dry up, you old thief,' said Boden. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself. If you don't stop kicking I'll land you on the jaw.'

He shook Balaam till his teeth chattered and he called on Mr. Briggs for help. Briggs turned his back to him and walked to the rail on the port side of the poop.

'We've come for those provisions, Captain Balaam,' said Wood, 'and we mean to have them.'

'You're a pirate,' said Balaam thickly, 'oh, you're a pirate.'

'And you're a miserable, cowardly thief,' replied Wood. 'I don't propose to argue with you. Mr. Boden, when we come up alongside the Scanderbeg, shorten sail and we'll wait till daylight.'

'You're givin' orders in my ship,' said Balaam. 'Oh, this is horrid, it's a nightmare; it ain't real! I must be dreamin'!'

He yelled horribly, and it took three men to hold him. One of them was his own second mate, who hated him venomously.

'If you make much more row, sir,' said Creak, 'they'll put you over the side. I heard 'em say so!'

'Did they, Mr. Creak?' whispered Balaam.

'They did,' said Creak.

'This is horrid, Creak. Oh, Creak, am I dreamin'? Pinch me, so's I shall know.'

And Creak gave him a nip that drew a shriek from him.

'You've took a piece out, confound you,' said Balaam.

'I'm very sorry, sir,' said the second greaser, with a pleased smile. 'But you ain't dreamin', and the pirates down on the main-deck are very savage against you. I'd give up the grub quickly.'

'Would you?' asked Balaam.

'I would, sir,' said Creak. 'Paddle whispered to me just now that they had fixed it up to hang you, and Captain Wood too if he objected.'

And Balaam, whose sobriety was returning under the stress, lost his courage as his alcohol evaporated.

'I'd beg their pardon, if I was you,' said Creak. 'It's horrid being hung.'

'Yes, yes,' said Balaam. 'Tell 'em they can have the grub quite quiet. I'd—I'd like to go below. Creak, I feel cold.'

And Creak was allowed to lead him to his cabin. When he got there, he locked himself in, and piled all his possessions against the door. He fell into his bunk shivering, and when he slept he dreamed horrible dreams, which were the offspring of terror and alcohol. He sobbed and said, 'Nobody loves me!' He came near to seeing rats.

And in the meantime the two vessels lay alongside within a cable's length of each other, while Waite and Boden used one of the Cormorant's boats to pick up their own. The cook of the Cormorant was busy in the galley, and the crew of the Scanderbeg ate a square meal the first time for ten days.

'This is much better than split peas,' said Bill Waite. 'I shall loathe peas all my life. I don't know which I despise most, Balaam or pease pudding. Mates, it must be a horrid thing to have such a skipper as Balaam.'

The men of the Cormorant said it was horrid.

'He's a cock-eyed blighter,' said Tom Paddle, 'and I most willingly would see you pirates 'ang him. And as for the grub we parts with, what belongs to you comes without grudgin'.'

It was very handsome of Tom Paddle. But he was known to be generous even when he was sober. He helped to transfer the provisions to the Scanderbeg with the heartiest good-will. When the transhipment was made, all the officers of both vessels breakfasted on board the Cormorant, while Balaam lay in his bunk hungry, not daring to call for anything.

'I know Wood will 'ang me,' he whimpered. Without brandy, he had to believe it.

'While I am a pirate, Mr. Briggs,' said Captain Wood pleasantly, 'I may as well carry it out. Can you spare me a coil of three-inch manilla?'

'With pleasure,' said Briggs. 'Is there anything else, sir?'

'What do you say, Mr. Boden?' asked Wood.

'I think we could do with half a dozen stunsail booms,' said Boden.

'I rather want them myself,' said Briggs anxiously.

But Wood was a good pirate, and did not weaken.

'I think we want them more than you do,' said Wood with firmness. And he got them. Briggs was sore, but said nothing.

'Is there anything else you would like?' he asked with some natural bitterness.

'Yes,' said Wood, 'I think we'll take all Balaam's sea-stock of liquor. It will do him good.'

'I haven't the least objection to that,' said Briggs.

And half an hour afterwards the Scanderbeg made sail, and forged slowly ahead of the Cormorant on her way to Albany.

'We'll report you,' said Wood.

But when he was nearly out of sight, old Balaam pulled down his fortifications and came on deck, looking like a man who by a miracle has shaved what are known as the 'jimjams.' He sat down and wailed for Bunting.

'Yes, sir,' said Bunting.

'I think I'll have some brandy and gin with a dash of rum in it,' said Balaam.

The steward looked at Mr. Briggs and grinned.

'If you please, sir, you can't, them pirates took it all,' said Bunting.

JACK-ALL-ALONE

As it happened, I was the only passenger in the steamship Hindoo, and I found little entertainment in the company of her officers. The skipper was said never to open his mouth except upon Sundays, when he preached furiously to the assembled crowd and promised them hell as a reward for their labours on the deep sea. He was a religious maniac, much in favour with the owners because he combined religion with honesty and an unequalled degree of meanness about stores. He was little, and of a pallor that no sun could touch. He carried a hymn-book in his breast-pocket, and loose snuff in a side one. I found no comfort in him, and even less in the two mates. They were much married men with large families, and were subdued by the fear of losing their billets. They hung together and abused the skipper, and took no interest in the sea or any of its works. They pined for inland farms, where they would have been pelicans in a dry desert. I turned to the crew, and by dint of giving them tobacco and occasional nips of liquor overcame their distrust and shyness. For even though I had once been a seaman, that time was so far away that I had lost all look of it. And even when they knew it, they took it for granted I had been an officer, which put me out of their range. It was only my loneliness and my low cunning with rare whisky that made me free of their company, and at last loosened their tongues. I often sat with them in the dog-watches and set them yarning when I could by yarning myself. But only one story that I heard remains in my memory. It remains, not so much by its strangeness as by the strange way it was told, and the difficulty I had in getting it told at all. It was one of the younger seamen that put me on the tracks of the man who had it to tell.

'Why don't you try old Silent for a yarn, sir?' he said one day, when I was on the fo'castlehead with him on the look-out; 'he that says nought could say a lot. He might open up with you. With us he's as close as a water-tight compartment. But they do say in this vessel that he came out of one ship the honly survivor.'

What can one do on board a lonely steamer where there is no one to talk to and nothing to read, and there are so many unoccupied hours in front of one? The days were grey, the sea was grey, and as flat as last year's news. I set out yarn-hunting, and went for old Silent as they called him. I went for him warily. To ask him a question would be to cheat oneself of any expectation. I ceased to attempt to talk with him. But having fallen into his mood, I added to the compliment by giving him more tobacco on the quiet than I gave any one else. I called him into my deck cabin, and gave him a drink of whisky without a word. He drank it without a word, wiped his lips, scraped a sort of bow, and withdrew.

He was a melancholy man, downcast, ragged-bearded, with a glazed, yellow skin on his face, and shining scales upon the backs of his hands. His teeth were black with tobacco-chewing. His ears had been pierced for earrings, though he wore none. His eyes were deep-set, black; his mouth was a mere slit, his ears large and outstanding, like a couple of stunsails. He was obviously strong even yet. But he assuredly bore the marks of certain disastrous hours upon him, and his nerves betrayed him at times. I saw his hand shake when he lifted the drink to his lips.

'You've been through something, my friend,' I said to myself. 'I wonder what it is. It's not only "D.T."'

Life to my mind is a series of fights, and one is mostly knocked out. I could see that old Silent had been knocked out. Well, so had I, many a time, and his gloomy face appealed to me as a man of like disasters to myself. I saw (ay, and see) so many who seem to have no kind of insight into things. They are mere children, and one pities them as one does young recruits going to war. I've known men to die without suspecting it. For the most part, men live without suspecting any of the dangers, traps, pitfalls, and disasters that surround them. There was an uneasy alertness at times in this old seaman's eye which suggested that he knew Death was close at hand. I watched him keenly enough, for I had a great curiosity about him. What was the story of this poor inhabitant of this strange globe? What had he in common with those who see through illusion, who can pierce the hollow earth and see the fires, who can foretell storms, who can scent immediate and irremediable death?

This was folly, no doubt. I was in a bad state of mind, and had disaster behind me, and the shadow of it before me. There have been hours in many a man's life when the thought that he could end it was his only comfort. Without being in that state, my frame of mind was not wholly enviable, and I wanted some kind of help that I could not find. What was it that sent me to old Silent, if not the intuition that he had known worse than I?

We talked at last, at midnight, for I had found the clue to his heart in some inscrutable way beyond my knowledge. Perhaps he saw something in me that invited confidence. Oddly enough, strangers have often enough opened their hearts to me, when I least expected it. There is some deep necessity of confession in men's hearts, and in speech they compel sympathy—or at least they can plead their own cause.

''Tis a black night, sir,' said the old man, whose real name was Gilby, ''tis a black enough night.'

He was on the look-out, and it was the first hour after midnight. I climbed up and stood beside him close against the windlass, which looked in the dark like a stiff, distorted corpse covered with merciful canvas. The heavens were low and there was not one star visible. Wind there was none, and the sea was a dulled plate of pale dark steel. What air blew on the fo'castlehead we made ourselves. The cargo derricks on their platforms held watch with us: they looked diabolical and all alert. Under the straight stem of the Hindoo the sea hissed lightly like water escaping from a cock. The vibration of the engines was muffled for'ard; but it beat like a steady pulse.

'Ay, it's a very dark night,' I answered, as I stood alongside him in the very eyes of her.

I glanced up at the mast-head light, and what glow came to me blinded me still more. But the light was a kind of comfort. And so were the side lights. One could believe with the Chinese that a vessel might see with painted eyes on the bow. Neither of us spoke a word for full ten minutes.

'You've been a seaman, sir?' he asked presently.

'Twenty years ago.'

I went back twenty years, and was no more than a boy. Now was my 'Twenty Years After.' My old companions were dead or lost in the years.

'Twenty years you say, sir?'

There was something strange in his voice, an eagerness, a sharp pain.

'Full twenty,' I answered, dreaming.

'When I was young it seemed as if a man would forget anything in twenty years, sir.'

There were things one couldn't forget. I knew that, and I knew that here was an unforgetful heart of pain. My curiosity seemed most unworthy, and I was ashamed of it. But the old man spoke, and I knew he was not old.

'It's yesterday, sir,' he said in a low voice, 'and this very night in November—twenty years ago! A dark night enough, and yet a strange light in it. Did you ever play Jack-all-alone at sea, sir? was you ever by yourself at sea? That's the terror of the sea, sir. A sticky, wet, clammy terror. For we've mates in ships, even if we don't speak. Have you ever felt the big sea and the sky, sir, spread out and spread over for you alone?'

I had spent one night at sea alone in the English Channel in the fine but foolhardy game of single-handed sailing. He brought it back to me now, and I sat in a little fifteen-foot cutter-rigged open boat in a great and gorgeous calm to the south and east of Dungeness Point. At sunset the wind failed, and left me at the will of the tides. For a long hour the golden west was a wonder of fine colour, and the sky overhead a most heavenly pale blue. The low coast towards Romney was a faint dark line, submerged in the sea. Elms ashore looked like massed shipping; a church-tower was dark against the sunset. Dungeness light glared over me, and I drifted on the last of the north-west curve of the tide into its red sector shining like blood on the lip of the moving water. An infinite and most infinitely deep silence oppressed and purified me. This was the purification of the ancient and immortal tragedy of the sea. I sat in a red flood and the day died. The piety of the great darkness buried the earth. Till midnight came I was alone and was nothing; a mere fleck of foam; I was all things; I was the world itself. Then a great fishing-smack drifted to me. I spoke to a dim shadow in the heavy shadow of great sails that hung motionless. I lost that voice again in the drifting of the tide and in a faint light air. Then at last the dawn broke, and the winking lights of land died down and the day and the land arose, and I was no longer alone.

'I knew it for a night,' I said. It is the rarest thing for any seaman to know. In this was his disastrous story. 'How did it happen to you? Would it hurt you to tell me, or would it help?'

There was no more unworthy curiosity in me, and that I was purified of it he must have felt. For this was a man who could feel and remember. God's great gift of forgetfulness is mostly given to the highest and to the lowest only. I drifted for a moment on my own sea of memory, and when I came back I heard him speaking. Those who have been long silent come some day to an hour of strange and easy speech.

'I and my brothers——'

I heard his voice catch on the word and get over it with a bitter jar, as a vessel might slide over a shoal in uncharted waters. Yet he knew those waters of Marah well.

'We was in a rotten old steamer, sir, them and me. Jack was my elder, and a fine big chap, good as gold, and as brave and strong as a lion; a real seaman, such as one don't meet nowadays. He mostly sailed in windjammers, but he was one of those that like to see things, and he had a fancy to potter round the Mediterranean once in a way. He'd read a lot at sea one passage in a Green's ship that had a fair pile of books in her for the crowd for'ard, and he'd a fancy to see Italy and Greece. He'd talk by the hour of old Romans, and a strange character that was at Syracuse some time back; I disremember his name, but he was for science and arithmetic; and he knew the name of a score of Roman emperors quite pat; and he said once when we was at the port of Athens that a hill plain to be seen was the home of the gods in the days before Christianity came to the fore. He was a first-class man at whatever he took to, that he was, and might have been high up if he'd had a chance to be properly eddicated. And Billy, my young brother, was a fine boy of quite another guess sort. He cared for nothing but fun, and he was good-looking, and a rare youngster with his dooks. I've seen him down a Dutchman twice his weight, and do it laughing. He was bright as the day, sir, bright as sunlight, and there we was, the three of us, in this rotten old tramp, built in the year one of steamships, and much the shape and size of a biscuit-tin, and not much to her that was better material. And so we mucked about the Mediterranean looking for cargo, like the sea-tramps we was, and every time it blew a capful of wind we had to turn her nose to it and keep bobbing. For if there was any kind of a sea on the beam, she'd roll so cruel that our hearts was in our mouths. And Billy's joke was always the old sea-joke that she had rolled right over in the night, and done it so quick that no one knew it. But, I own, she put the fear of God into most of us, and some of us got that narvous, we couldn't sit quiet unless there was a flat calm, and her just joggin' on ahead like an old hay-wagon. We went down from Barcelona with some sort of truck to Constant, and there Jack did talk a lot about emperors, and he was pleased as Punch to see things, saying that history grew rank thereabouts; and he would ask the old skipper about things dead and gone thousands of years, so that the old man, never liking to own he wasn't chock-a-block with knowledge, used to fidget like one o'clock, and get that cross with dodging 'twas a game to hear him. And then we went humping up the Black Sea, and brought out wheat from Ibrail, and we got stuck down at Sulina, and lightered her clear and had a holy time, so that Jack said making history in the wheat trade was no joke. And we came out from Constant for home. But home we never got, sir, and to say the truth, I've never been home since, and never shall go. Do you know the Mediterranean, sir?'

Did I know it? Even as he talked I had been thinking of Crete on our starboard beam at night, and of Etna right ahead at dawn, and the white cities of the Straits, of lava-bound Catania, of old historic Syracuse, of the sickle-shaped harbour of Messina, of high Taormina, and the day breaking in the hollows of the grey Calabrian hills. Then smoking Stromboli, a cinder peak of the seas. And afterwards singing, roaring Naples and atmospheric Capri sunk in sweet blue air. Oh, did I know it?

'Ay, I know it.'

'We came up with Sicily, and went in by the Straits to drop some truck or another at Messina, and then out again to the north, and when we were near alongside Volcano, it was looking bad and grey and hard as it does when a levanter threatens. The sea got up, and it was short and steep and hard, sir. And for a while we battered among the islands and Volcano smoking and, I dessay, Stromboli too, but the smother of the weather was too thick to see it. And I was on the lookout, as I am now, and Jack he was relieved at the wheel as I came up on the fo'c'slehead. He laughed up at me, and said, "This top-heavy old hay-wagon will be doin' a roll directly." And just as he went below, the skipper, who was as afraid of her as he had a right to be, turned her about and put her nose into the wind. There she stayed, uneasy and sawin' with her 'ead like a swell carriage-'orse. And they just went ahead with the old scrap-engines, and stayed so, reckoning to ride the gale out. And she rode it right enough till night, and we three brothers 'ad supper and passed our jokes. And poor Billy was as bright a kid as ever—oh, I can think of things 'e said now.'

He stopped speaking for a moment and dashed his fist on the rail.

'By God, it's twenty years ago, sir,' he said choking. 'And old Volcano's smoking yet, like a giant's pipe in the dark, puff and glow, puff and glow. And that man-drowning tank we was in lies a thousand fathoms deep to the west of Volcano.'

He didn't speak for a while, and when he did his voice was calmer.

'Don't think, sir, that I'd ha' complained of the common fortunes of the sea. Men are drowned, they go overboard, silent it may be, or they drop from aloft howling awful, and in the smother of a wreck when the sea's a wild beast, it's the lot of men to go. I've seen fire at sea, sir, and death in many shapes, sudden and slow, killing and fever. But the way my brothers died—why, sir, I held their hands and couldn't save 'em, held their hands and could see their faces. Jack-all-alone, seamen say! I was Jack-all-alone, while they cried out to me!

'You can reckon, sir, that such a craft, such a rotten, shaky, scrap-heap hooker, such a thing that oughtn't to have been outside a river, wasn't over well found. And those that had the finding of 'er 'ad to make a bit of stealage. 'Alf the skippers and engineers of such takes their lives in their 'ands not for the pay, but for the bit of a make. And yet I'd not think it possible for the engineer to 'ave bin in the oil racket that came out that night. They was short of oil in Constant, and got some aboard from a rotten Levantine Greek with a Harmenian for partner, and it was bad oil enough, to be sure. But the worst was that some o' the drums was a quarter oil and the rest water. And I, being on deck after supper, caught on to what the chief engineer said to our skipper. He came up running, and went on the bridge.

'"Cap'en, most o' that oil was water, and the oil's that bad the bearin's are overwarm. Can't I stop 'er?"

'"Stop 'er!" says the old man. I knew that voice; 'e was that narvous of his old tank. "Why, man, if we stop 'er, she'll roll over!"

'The seas was 'eavy, my word, considering where we was. She plunged and shook and creaked like a kicked tin can.

'"I'm edgin' of 'er in under Volcano," says the skipper. "I want more steam, not less."

'"By God, you can't 'ave it," said the engineer, as desperate as you like.

'"Play the 'ose on your blasted bearin's," pipes the skipper, with a voice like a bosun's whistle.

'"I'm playin' it," says the other.

'"Then you know what to do," squeaks the old man.

'And the engineer comes down tearin' 'is very beard. And I was took with a kind of a shiver, which was curious seeing that mostly sailormen never gives a damn what 'appens till the worst opens its mouth for 'em. I went down into the fo'c'sle and looked at Jack fast asleep, and Billy under 'im. There was only four of us for'ard, and they two was the starboard watch. That was the last time I saw more of 'em than their 'ands. I went on deck again, never wakin' 'em. And then I 'eard the engineer on deck again.

'"I'll 'ave to stop my engines," he cried, "or if I don't they'll stop theirselves. There's three bearin's sizzling, and the white metal's running, and the engine-room's full o' steam from the 'ose playin' on 'em."

'"You can't stop," said the skipper. And the wind blew like a blast out of a pipe; it squealed, and she stopped a'most dead.

'"Give us a quarter of an hour," says the old man, and he puts the second mate alongside of him. "Call the 'ands, and rig up a sea-anchor."

'And that was too late, for there was a crack below, and a man screamed, and the engineer bolted for his hole. But the engines stopped right there, and the nose of 'er paid off, and she lay in the trough of the sea, and rolled once, and rolled twice. And she went over to windward till you'd 'ear everything crack, and then she rolled to loo'ard. Would she ever stop! I see the old man slide away down the bridge, squealin', and the second mate pitched off his feet, and I gave a yell and climbed up on the weather rail, and old Volcano glared red over us to the nor'ard. And she was crank, and was never meant for the sea, and she 'ad 'eavy useless spars and derricks that overweighted 'er, and her grain was in bulk, and not too much of it. And the wind got hold of her, and she never stopped. I 'eard the old man yell again, and the sea rose up against him, and the sleeping mate was screamin' in his berth with a jammed door. And then I was Jack-all-alone, scramblin' with bleedin' fingers up a rotten wet iron slope, and I stopped when I 'ad 'old of 'er very keel. And then I 'eard an awful rip and a tearing, and a boom under my feet, and I reckoned the 'ole of 'er engines dropped through her deck, and may be the boilers exploded, for she gave a 'eave on the sea that made me sick, and I 'ung on with my nails, and I found myself cryin' out "Billy" and "Jack," and I was mad that hour. Ay, I was mad, and I beat upon the black and weedy iron of the plates underneath me. I was warm to think I was saved, and I was a coward, and I shook and trembled and nigh slipped off as the old scow wallowed. 'Twas most 'orrible to be 'earin' warm and livin' men speakin' one moment, to be among 'em, and them talkin', and to see the warm light, and to 'ear the thump, thump, of the engines, and the crackin' and creakin' of the old Red Star, and then to be all alone, Jack-all-alone, sailing 'and in 'and with death, 'ove up not on an 'alf tide rock as the thing beneath me looked, but a rotten old steamer turned turtle, and like to slip away from me any moment. And as I 'owled to myself, and saw the white water run up and lip at me like open-mouthed sharks, I saw the red light of Volcano away high up, and the light was like the wink of a light'ouse blinded in a fog. And the sight of the land, or where the land was, maddened me, and I cried like a child with weakness. 'Twas most 'orrible, sir, and weakness took me so, that I slipped and nigh lost 'old of the keel. But I climbed up again desperate, and findin' a bolt worked out, I 'itched my belt to it and 'ung on.

'And then I 'eard a sound that made my 'eart stop beatin'. 'Twas as if some one was usin' an 'ammer on iron, and I knew that there was some one alive inside of the Red Star, cooped up under 'er keel and shut into a tomb. And I cried, "You can't get out, you can't get out, mates!" so that my voice made me afraid. For 'twas a scream and like no voice I'd ever 'eard. But I scrambled along the keel and came to where the 'ammerin' was, and then I knew that they was Jack or Billy, or maybe both, and I beat with my fists on the plates, and I bled, but didn't know it, and I prayed all the plates was as rotten as we believed. But they wasn't that bad, and they was iron and iron bolted, and I'd nought but a knife, and what they was workin' with inside I couldn't tell. And they was in foul 'eavy air, and in the blackest dark. I prayed and I cursed, and I beat again, and some one 'eard, for they knocked three times regular and three times again, and to answer I beat with the 'eft of my knife. And then they worked awful, and there was bitter times when they rested, and in all the cold of the Levanter and the wetness of the flyin' spray I sweated like a bull, and then I was as cold as ice. And in an 'our or more, there was some sign that what they did was tellin' on the plate they worked on. For all of a sudden I 'eard a strange sound like the 'issing of steam blowin' off. 'Twas the compressed air inside that kept the wreck afloat comin' sharp out of a bit of a crack. And I knew that every second she'd sink more and more, and I seemed to see that unless the plate came off quick, they only die the quicker for tryin' to escape. And I called to 'em, but they 'eard nothin', only knowin' that a man was above 'em. And I got my knife under the plate and the blade broke. I worked sobbin', and all the time I was talkin'. 'Twas madness, plain and to be 'eard, and then I felt a smash into the iron, and the end of a splice bar came through it, and the air screamed up under me, and I knocked again three times, and they knocked three times, and I screamed out, "Billy! Jack!" and the poor chaps 'eard me. Jack's voice came to me like a voice out o' the grave, thin and eager, and all of a scream—

'"Tom—Tom!"

'That was me! Oh, the sea at my cold feet, and the sound of the wind and the red pulsin' of Volcano, and the round 'ump of the Red Star 'ove out o' the sea like the bulk of a dead whale, and under me my brothers. There's brothers don't love each other!

'I screamed—

'"Work—work!"

'And the sea crawled up to me, or so it seemed, and the thick air spurted up at me that was their life. And they broke out a bit more, and 'twas an 'ole a man's 'and could come through. And they stopped, so that I cried again to 'em. I 'eard Jack plain.

'"I'm about done, lad!"

'"Where's Billy?"

'I beat on cold and jagged iron.

'"He's here," said Jack, "but the air's too bad for him."

'I bade him give me the bar, and I worked outside like a mad one. But they'd struck the only rotten spot, and I couldn't get edge or claws of the bar under the plate. "The water's risin'," said Jack. He put 'is poor 'and out, and I took it. Sir, I didn't think there was a God then! And the sea lipped at me, and the Red Star wallowed, and there was red on the edge of the lipping waves from a big glare of Volcano.

'"I've no purchase to get an 'old out 'ere," I said. And still the 'ot thick air came up, foul as could be. And Jack took the bar and dropped it. There's a strange weakness comes over one breathin' such air. I 'eard 'is voice again—

'"The bar's deep in water, I can't feel it."

'Then 'e lifted Billy, and Billy put 'is 'and out.

"She's sinkin', Tom," said Billy. 'E spoke like a chap in a dream, and the water was to my feet as I sat across the keel. And I felt the boy's strength give, and I 'eld 'is 'and tight. But neither him nor Jack spoke again, and the boy struggled dreadful. And presently 'er bows was deeper than 'er stern, and I felt water inside of 'er, and I knew they was dead. And I 'ad an 'old of the boy's 'and, and me cryin' and shriekin' out I don't know what. Then 'e slipped away, and I was all awash, and I floated off and took 'old of a big bit of gratin', and the old Red Star 'eaved up 'er stern a bit and then went down. And I lay till dawn on the gratin', no sensible man, but crazy, and old Volcano winked at me like a red flare in a fog. And I dreamed of sailin' in a ship with Jack captain as 'e meant to be some day, being given to larnin', and at daybreak a fishin' craft took me into Messina.'

I walked the deck of the fo'c'slehead with him for many long silent minutes. Then some one struck two bells aft, and he struck it on the big bell at the break of the fo'c'slehead. Then he walked for'ard alone. He called to me after a minute.

'Do you see a light on the port bow, sir?' he asked me.

'I see it, Gilby.'

'That's Volcano, sir.'

He reported it to the officer on the bridge.

THE MUTINOUS CONDUCT OF MRS. RYDER

Although Watchett of the Battle-Axe, and Ryder of the Star of the South, were cousins, there was no great love lost between them, and all unprejudiced observers declared that this lack of mutual admiration was in no way due to Captain Ryder. That they remained friends at all was owing largely to his infinite good-nature and to the further fact that Mrs. Ryder pitied Mrs. Watchett.

'I wonder she goes to sea with him at all,' she said. 'If you were one-quarter as horrid as your cousin, Will, I should never go to sea till you came ashore.'

But she always went to sea with Will Ryder. It was their great delight to be together, and there were few men, married or single, who did not take a certain pleasure in seeing how fond they were of each other. He was a typical seaman of the best kind; he had a fine voice for singing, and for hailing the fore-topsail yard; his eyes were as blue as forget-me-nots, and his skin was as clear as the air on the Cordilleras, which peeped at them over the tops of the barren hills which surround the Bay of Valparaiso. And Mrs. Ryder was just the kind of wife for a man who was somewhat inclined to take things easily. If she was as pretty as a peach, she had, like the peach, something inside which was not altogether soft. Her brown eyes could turn black; she had resolution and courage.

'You shall not put up with it,' was a favourite expression on her tongue. And there were times, to use his own expression, when she made sail when he would have shortened it. In that sense she was certainly capable of 'carrying on.'

Both vessels were barques of about 1100 tons register, and if the Star of the South had about twenty tons to the good in size she was rather harder to work. It is the nature of ships to develop in certain ways, and though both of these barques were sister ships, it is always certain that sister ships are never quite alike. But as they belonged to the same port of London, and were owned by two branches of the same family, all of whose money was divided up in 64ths, according to the common rule with ships, they were rivals and rival beauties. But, unlike the more respectable ladies who owned them, both the vessels were fast, and it was a sore point of honour with Ryder and Watchett to prove their own the faster.

'If she only worked it a little easier I could lick his head off,' said Ryder sadly.

But there was the rub. The Star of the South needed more 'beef' in her than the Battle-Axe. She wasn't so quick in stays. By the time Ryder yelled, 'Let go and haul,' the Battle-Axe was gathering headway on a fresh tack.

'And instead of having two more hands than we are allowed, we are two short,' said his wife bitterly. 'If I were you, Will, I'd take these Greeks.'

'Not by an entire jugful,' replied Captain Ryder. 'I remember the Lennie and the Caswell, my dear. I never knew Valparaiso so bare of men.'

'And we're sailing to-morrow,' said Connie Ryder angrily, 'and you've betted him a hundred pounds we shall dock before him. It's too bad. I wonder whether he'd give us another day?'

But Ryder shook his head.

'And you've known him for years! He's spending that money in his mind.'

'But not on his wife, Will,' said Mrs. Ryder. 'If we win I'm to have it.'

'I'd give him twenty to let me off,' said Ryder.

But Connie Ryder went on board the Battle-Axe to see if she could not induce her husband's cousin to forgo the advantage he had already gained before sailing. She found him dark and grim, and as hard as adamant.

'A bet's a bet, and business is business,' said Watchett. 'We app'inted to-morrow, and bar lying out a gale from the north with two anchors down, and cables out to the bitter end, I'll sail.'

His wife, who was as meek as milk, suggested humbly that it would be more interesting if he waited.

'I ain't in this for interest. I'm in it for capital,' said Watchett, grinning gloomily. 'The more like a dead certainty it looks the better I shall be pleased.'

Mrs. Ryder darkened.

'I don't think you're a sportsman,' said she rather curtly.

'I ain't,' retorted Watchett, 'I'm a seaman, and him that'd go to sea for sport would go to hell for pastime. You can tell Bill I'll give him ten per cent. discount for cash now.'

As Mrs. Ryder knew that he never called her husband 'Bill' unless he desired to be more or less offensive, she showed unmistakable signs of temper.

'If I ever get half a chance to make you sorry, I will,' she said.

'Let it go at that,' said Watchett sulkily. 'I got on all right with Bill before you took to going to sea with him.'

'He was too soft with you,' said Bill's wife.

'And a deal softer with you than I'd be,' said Watchett.

'Oh, please, please don't,' cried Mary Watchett in great distress.

'I thought you were a gentleman,' said Connie Ryder.

'Not you,' replied Watchett, 'you never, and you know it. I'm not one, and never hankered to be. I'm rough and tough, and a seaman of the old school. I'm no sea dandy. I'm Jack Watchett, as plain as you like.'

'You're much plainer than I like,' retorted his cousin's wife; 'very much plainer.'

And though she kissed Mary Watchett, she wondered greatly how any woman could kiss Mary Watchett's husband.

'If I ever get a chance,' she said. 'But there, how can I?'

She wept a little out of pure anger as she returned to the Star of the South. When she got on board she found the mate and second mate standing by the gangway.

'Is there no chance of those men, Mr. Semple?'

'No more than if it was the year '49, and this was San Francisco,' said the mate, who was a hoary-headed old sea-dog, a great deal more like the old school than 'plain Jack Watchett.'

'Why doesna' the captain take the Greeks, ma'am?' asked M'Gill, the second mate, who had been almost long enough out of Scotland to forget his own language.

'Because he doesn't like any but Englishmen,' said Connie Ryder.

'And Scotch, of course,' she added, as she saw M'Gill's jaw fall a little. 'I've been trying to get Captain Watchett to give us another day.'

'All our ship and cargo to a paper bag of beans, he didn't,' said Semple.

'I—I hate him,' cried Connie Ryder, as she entered the cabin.

'She's as keen as mustard, as red pepper,' said Semple. 'If she'd been a man she'd have made a seaman.'

'I've never sailed wi' a skeeper's wife before,' said M'Gill, who had shipped in the Star of the South a week before, in place of the second mate, who had been given his discharge for drunkenness; 'is she at all interferin', Mr. Semple?'

Old Semple nodded.

'She interferes some, and it would be an obstinate cook that disputed with her. She made a revolution in the galley, my word, when she first came on board. Some would say she cockered the crew over much, but I was long enough in the fo'c'sle not to forget that even a hog of a man don't do best on hog-wash,' which was a marvellous concession on the part of any of the afterguard of any ship, seeing how the notion persists among owners, and even among officers, that the worse men are treated the better they work.

'She seems a comfortable ship,' owned M'Gill.

And so every one on board of her allowed.

'Though she is a bit of a heart-breaker to handle,' said the men for'ard. 'But for that she be a daisy. And to think that the bally Battle-Axe goes about like a racing yacht.'

It made them sore to think of it. But it also made the men on board their rival sore to think how comfortable the Star of the South was in all other respects.

'The "old man" 'ere makes up for any ease wiv w'ich we ploughs the briny seas,' declared Bill Gribbs, who was a Cockney of the purest water, with a turn for reciting poetry and playing the concertina. 'For two pins I'd desert. I'm too merry for old Watchett. I'll make a new chanty for 'im speshul, exteree speshul, same as I did for the cook comin' out.'

'And it took the "doctor" the best part of a month to get over it and do the 'ash 'alf proper agin,' said the rest of the crowd sadly. 'Poetry and music will be your undoin', Gribbs. It don't pay us for'ard to guy them as is aft.'

'And didn't the "old man" stop my playin' my concertina on Sundays?' asked Gribbs. 'And all because I don't know no 'ymn tunes. As they says out 'ere, it tires me to think of it. I'll be gettin' even wiv 'im some day. I'll commit susancide and 'aunt 'im. 'Owsever, wot's the odds, for "it's 'ome, deary, 'ome; it's 'ome I wish to be," and we're sailin' in the mawnin'!'

Owing to the fact that the Battle-Axe's crowd was sulky, the Star of the South got her anchor out of the ground and stood to the north-west to round Point Angelos a good ten minutes before Watchett's vessel was under way.

'That's good,' said Connie Ryder. 'I know they're a sulky lot by now in the Battle-Axe. And our men work like dears.'

It was with difficulty she kept from tailing on to the braces as they jammed the Star close up to weather the Point. For the wind was drawing down the coast from the nor'ard, and Valparaiso harbour faces due north. She was glad when they rounded the Point and squared away, for if there was any real difference in the sailing qualities of the rival barques, the Star was best with the wind free and the Battle-Axe when she was on a bowline.

'And with any real luck,' said Mrs. Ryder, 'we may have a good, fair wind all the way till we cross the Line.'

It was so far ahead to consider the North-East Trades, which meant such mighty long stretches on a wind that she declined to think of them.

'We're doing very well, Will,' she said to her husband when the starboard watch went below, and the routine of the passage home commenced.

'It's early days,' replied Will Ryder. 'I fancy the Battle-Axe is in her best trim for a wind astern.'

But Mrs. Ryder didn't believe it.

'And if she is, she mayn't be so good when it comes to beating.'

She knew what she was talking about, and spoke good sense.

'It's going to be luck,' said Ryder. 'If either of us get a good slant that the other misses, the last will be out of it. But I wish I'd had those other two hands. The Star wants beef on the braces. Mr. Semple, as soon as possible see all the parrals greased and the blocks running as free as you can make 'em.'

And Semple did his best, as the crew did. But Mrs. Ryder had her doubts as to whether her husband was doing his. For once he seemed to think failure was a foregone conclusion.

'I think it must be his liver,' said Mrs. Ryder. 'I'll see to that at once.'

But instead of looking up the medicine-chest she came across the Pacific Directory.

'I never thought of that,' she said. 'He's never done it: now he shall.'

She took the big book down and read one part of it eagerly.

'I don't see why not,' she decided; and she went to her husband with the request that he should run through Magellan's Straits when he came to it.

'Not for dollars,' said Will Ryder. 'When I'm skipper of a Pacific Navigation boat I'll take you through, but not till then.'

'But look at all you cut off,' urged his wife, 'if you get through.'

'And how you are cut off if you don't,' retorted Ryder. 'When I was an apprentice I went through in fine weather for the Straits, and I'd rather drive a 'bus down Fleet Street in a fog than try it.'

She said he had very little enterprise, and pouted.

'Suppose the Battle-Axe does it?'

Ryder declined to suppose it.

'John wouldn't try it if you guarantee the weather. I know him.'

'You never take my advice,' said his wife.

'I love you too much,' replied Will Ryder. He put his arm about her, but she was cross, and pushed him away.

'This is mutiny,' said the captain, smiling.

'Well, I feel mutinous,' retorted Connie. 'I wanted you to steal two of your cousin's men and you wouldn't. I'm sure they would have come for what the Battle-Axe owed them. And you wouldn't. And now I want to go through the Straits and you won't. The very, very next time that I want to do anything I shall do it without asking you. Why did you bet a hundred pounds if you weren't prepared to try to win it?'

'We'll win yet,' said the skipper, cheerfully. 'We've only just started.'

The two vessels kept company right down to the Horn, and there, between Ildefonso Island and the Diego Ramirez Islands, the Star of the South lost sight of her sister and rival in a dark sou'westerly gale. With the wind astern when they squared away with Cape Horn frowning to the nor'west, the Star was a shooting star, as they said for'ard.

'If we could on'y carry a gale like this right to the Line we'd 'ave a pull over the Battle-Axe, ma'am,' said Silas Bagge, an old fo'c'sle-man, who was Mrs. Ryder's favourite among all the crew. He was a magnificent old chap, with a long white beard, which he wore tucked inside a guernsey, except in fine weather.

'But we can't; there'll be the Trades,' said the captain's wife dolorously.

'I've picked up the sou'east Trade blowin' a gale, ma'am, before now,' said Bagge; 'years ago, in '74 or thereabouts, I was in the Secunderabad, and we crossed the Line bound south, doing eleven close-'auled, and we carried 'em to 27° south latitude. There's times when it is difficult to say where the Trades begin south, too. Mebbe we'll be chased by such a gale as this nigh up to 30° south.'

'It's hoping too much,' said Mrs. Ryder.

'Hope till ye bust, ma'am,' said Silas Bagge. 'Nothin''s lost till it's won. If we can only get out of the doldrums without breakin' our hearts working the ship, there's no knowing what'll 'appen. 'Twas a pity we didn't get them other two 'ands, though.'

And there she agreed with him.

'Me and Bob Condy could 'ave got Gribbs and Tidewell out of the Battle-Axe as easy as eat,' said Silas regretfully. ''Twas a lost hopportunity, and there you are!'

The honourable conduct of his skipper in vetoing this little game seemed no more than foolishness to Bagge.

'When we comes to the Hequator, and it's "square away" and "brace up" every five minutes till one's 'ands are raw, 'twill be a grief to every mother's son aboard,' said Bagge, as he touched his cap and went for'ard.

But now the Star of the South went booming on the outside of the Falklands with a gale that drew into the sou'-sou'-west and howled after her. She scooped up the seas at times and dipped her nose into them, and threw them apart and wallowed. The men were happy, for the fo'c'sle didn't leak, and the galley-fire was kept going every night to dry their clothes. At midnight every man got a mug of cocoa, and those that rose up called Mrs. Ryder blessed, and those that lay down agreed with them. The Star was a happy ship. There was no rule against playing the concertina on a Sunday in her fo'c'sle, and the men were not reduced to playing 'blind swaps' with their oldest rags for amusement as they were in the Battle-Axe. And yet every man in the Star knew his time for growling was coming on with every pitch and scend of the sea.

''Oly sailor, buy a knife and 'ave a shackle to it,' said Bob Condy, who was the lightest-hearted of a happy crowd, 'but when we're p'intin' all round the compass in the doldrums, won't my pore 'ands suffer! I've a notion we'll go through the 'orse latitoods flyin'. We're carryin' a good gale, and she'll draw into the eastward by and by.'

And there he was right, for they picked up the Trades in nearly 30° south, with only a few days of a light and variable breeze, and the Trades were good.

'But where's the Battle-Axe?' asked Mrs. Ryder. She kept a bright look-out for her, and deeply regretted that her petticoats prevented her going aloft to search the horizon for John Watchett. She rubbed her hands in hope.

'I do believe, Will, that we must be ahead of him,' she declared after the South-East Trade had been steady on the Star's starboard beam for a week.

'Not much ahead,' replied Will.

And just then Bob Condy, who was aloft on the fore-t'gallant yard cutting off old seizings and putting on new ones, hailed the deck.

'There's a sail on the port beam, sir.'

'Take a glass aloft and have a look at her, Mr. M'Gill,' said the skipper. 'No, never mind; I'll go myself, as you've never seen the Battle-Axe at sea. I know the cut of her jib and no mistake.'

So Will Ryder went up on the main top-gallant yard, and with his leg astride of the yard took a squint to loo'ard. He shut up the glass so quick that his wife knew at once that the distant sail was the Battle-Axe. As he came down slowly he nodded to her.

'It is?'

'Rather,' said Ryder. 'I'm sorry we've no stunsails. We're carrying all we've got and all we can.'

'And to think he's as good as we were on our own point of sailing,' said his wife with the most visible vexation. 'Can't you do anything to make her go faster, Will?'

And when Will said he couldn't, unless he got out and pushed, Mrs. Ryder sat on a hen-coop and very nearly cried. For if the Battle-Axe had done so well up to this she would do better in the dead regions of the Line, and the Star would do much worse. There the want of a few more hands would tell. The Star was no good at catching 'cat's-paws' short-handed. She worked like an unoiled gate.

'If I'd only done what Silas Bagge wanted,' she said, 'we'd have been all right. To think that the want of a couple of hands should make all the difference!'

It was cruelly hard, but when vessels are under-manned at any time, less than their complement means 'pull devil pull baker,' with the devil best at the tug of war.

For days there was nothing to choose between the vessels, save that the unusual strength of the Trades gave the Star a trifling advantage. Every night Watchett took in his royals. This Ryder declined to do, though he often expected them to take themselves in.

'What did I say, ma'am,' said old Bagge. 'I told you it could blow quite 'eavy in its way in the South-East Trades.'

And thus it happened that what the Star lost by day she pulled up by night. And presently the Battle-Axe edged up closer, and at last was within hailing distance. Watchett stood on his poop with a speaking-trumpet, and roared in sombre triumph.

'I'm as good as you this trip on your best p'int, Ryder!'

'Tell him to go to—to—thunder,' said Mrs. Ryder angrily. Nevertheless, she waved her handkerchief to her enemy's wife, who was standing by 'plain Jack Watchett.'

'You've done mighty well,' said Ryder in his turn, 'but it isn't over yet.'

Jack Watchett intimated that he thought it was. He offered to double the bet. He also undertook to sail round the Star of the South in a light wind. He offered to tow her, and made himself so disagreeable that Mrs. Ryder, who knew what became a lady, went below to prevent herself snatching the speaking-trumpet from her husband and saying things for which she would be sorry afterwards. But Ryder, though he was by no means a saint, kept his temper, and only replied with chaff, which was much more offensive to Watchett than bad language.

'And don't be too sure,' he added. 'I may do you yet.'

'Not you,' said Watchett, 'I'm cocksure.'

They sailed in company for a week, and gradually as the Trade lessened in driving power the Battle-Axe drew ahead inch by inch. And as she did Mrs. Ryder's appetite failed; she looked thin and ill.

'Don't feel it so much, chickabiddy,' said her husband.

'I can't help it,' sobbed Connie. 'I hate your cousin. Oh Will, if you'd only let me entice those two men from him. Bagge was sure that Gribbs and Tidewell would have come.'

'It wouldn't have been fair,' said Ryder.

'I—I w—wanted to win,' replied Connie, 'and it'll be calm directly, and you know what that means.'

It was calm directly, and very soon every one knew what it meant. For it was a real fat streak of a calm that both vessels ran into. And as luck would have it, the Battle-Axe, which was by now almost hull down to the nor'ard, got into it first. The Star of the South carried the wind with her till she was within a mile of her rival. For a whole day they pointed their jibbooms alternately at Africa and South America, to the North Pole and the South. What little breeze there was after that day took them further still into an absolute area of no wind at all.

'This is the flattest calm I ever saw,' said Ryder. 'In such a calm as this he has no advantage.'

They boxed the compass for the best part of a week, and lay and cooked in a sun that made the deck seams bubble. At night the air was as hot as it had been by day. The men lay on deck, on the deck-house, on the fo'c'sle-head.

'This is a bally scorcher,' said the crews of both ships. 'Let's whistle!'

They whistled feebly, but the god of the winds had gone a journey, or was as fast asleep as Dagon. And day by day the two vessels drifted together. At last they had to lower the boats and tow them apart. Watchett was very sick with the whole meteorology of the universe, and being a whole-souled man incapable of more than one animosity at a time, he found no time to spare from damning a heaven of brass to damn Ryder. At the end of the week he even hailed the Star and offered to come on board and bring his wife.

'I don't want him,' said Connie Ryder. 'I won't have him.'

And as she said this she jumped as if a pin had been stuck into her.

'What's the matter?' asked her husband.

'Nothing,' said Connie. 'But let him come!'

She went for'ard to interview the cook, so she said. But she really went to interview Silas Bagge. When she came back she found Watchett and his wife on board. If she was a little stiff with Watchett he never noticed it. As a matter of fact the whims and fads and tempers of a woman were of no more account than the growling of the men for'ard. He was too much engaged in cursing the weather to pay her any attention.

'This licks me,' he said, 'in a week we ain't moved: we're stuck. 'Ow long will it last, Bill?'

'It looks as if it might last for ever,' replied Ryder. 'We've struck a bad streak.'

The women had tea and the men drank whisky and water. Although Watchett didn't know it, two of his hands left the boat and were given something to eat in the galley by Mrs. Ryder's orders. It was Bagge who conveyed the invitation with the connivance of the mate, for whom the word of the captain's wife was law.

''Ave some marmalade and butter,' said Bagge. 'Does they feed you good in the Battle-Axe, Gribbs?'

'Hog-wash,' said Gribbs with his mouth full. 'Ain't it, Tidewell?'

Tidewell, who was a youngster of a good middle-class family, who had gone to sea as an apprentice and run from his ship, agreed with many bitter words.

'As I told you, we lives like fightin'-cocks 'ere,' said Bagge. 'When you're full to the back teeth, we'll 'ave your mates up. We likes to feed the pore and 'ungry, don't we, doctor?'

The cook, to whom Bagge had confided something, said he did his best, his humble best.

'The Star's an 'appy ship,' he added. 'We know what your ship is.'

The other two men came up in their turn and were filled with tea and biscuit and butter and marmalade till they smiled.

'This is like home,' said Wat Crampe, who was from Newcastle.

'It wass petter, much petter,' said Evan Evans; 'and ass for the captain's wife, she iss a lady, whateffer.'

That evening Ryder and his wife returned the call, and were rowed to the Battle-Axe by Bagge, Bob Condy, and two more of the men. Bagge and Condy went into the fo'c'sle. They lost no time in blaspheming the Battle-Axe, and in lauding their own ship.

'This 'ere's a stinkin' 'ooker, mates,' said Silas Bagge; 'why, our fo'c'sle is a lady's droring-room compared with it. And as for the grub, ask them as came on board us this afternoon. What d 'ye say, Gribbs?'

'Toppin',' said Gribbs; 'it's spiled my happetite 'ere.'

'It wass good,' said the Welshman, 'it wass good, whateffer.'

Bagge took Billy Gribbs aside on the deck and had a talk with him.

'Oh Lord!' said Gribbs, 'eh, what?'

'Straight talk,' replied Silas, 'she said so.'

'Do you mean it?'

'Do I mean it?' returned Silas with unutterable scorn. 'In course I mean it. It will sarve them right as it sarves right.'

Gribbs held on to the rail and laughed till he ached.

'It's the rummest notion I ever 'eard tell on.'

'Not so rummy!'

'Wot!' cried Gribbs, 'not so rummy? Well, it ain't so rummy, I'm jiggered. I'll think of it.'

'Do it, and tell your mate Tidewell.'

'If I tell Ned, 'e'll do it for sure. 'E's the biggest joker 'ere!'

'Then tell him,' said Silas.

That evening Ned Tidewell and Billy Gribbs acted in a very strange way on board the Battle-Axe. Without any obvious reason they kept on bursting into violent fits of laughter.

'The poor blokes is gone dotty from the 'eat,' said the pitying crowd. 'We've 'eard of such before.'

'Why shouldn't I laugh?' asked Gribbs. 'I'm laughin' because I'm a pore silly sailorman, and my life ain't worth livin'. If I'd died early I'd ha' bin saved a pile o' trouble. I was thinkin' of my father's green fields as I looked over the side this afternoon.'

'Was you, really?' asked the oldest man on board, 'then you take my advice quick and go and ask the skipper for a real good workin' pill of the largest size.'

'Wot for?' asked Gribbs.

'Because you hobvus got a calentoor,' said the old fo'c'sleman. 'And chaps as gets a calentoor jumps overboard. Oh, but that's well known at sea by them as knows anythin'.'

But Gribbs laughed.

'The worst is as it's catchin',' said his adviser anxiously, 'it's fatally catchin'. 'I've 'eard of crews doin' it one hafter the hother till there warn't no one left. In 'eat it was and in calm.'

'Gammon,' said Gribbs. But he was observed to sigh.

'Are you 'ot in your 'ead?' asked the anxious and ancient one.

'I feels a little 'ot and rummy,' said Gribbs; 'but what I chiefly feels is a desire to eat grass.'

The old man groaned.

'Then it's got you. Mates, we ought to tie Gribbs up, or lock him in the sail-locker, or 'is clothes will be auctioned off before long.'

But Gribbs kicked at that, and just then eight bells struck.

'I'm turnin' in,' said Gribbs, 'and I'm all right.'

But at six bells in the first watch he was missing, as was discovered by old Brooks, the authority on calentures. He waked up Ned Tidewell, who was extraordinarily fast asleep.

'Where's Gribbs?'

'Not in my bunk,' returned Ned, who with Gribbs was one of the few who still dossed in the fo'c'sle.

'Then 'e's gone overboard for sartin,' said Brooks in great alarm; 'there was the look of it in 'is eye, and in yours, too, youngster. These long calms is fataler than scurvy. I'll go aft and report it.'

He reported it to Mr. Seleucus Thoms, the second mate, who came for'ard and roused the scattered watch below from the deck-house and t'gallant fo'c'sle. When all hands were mustered it was certain that Gribbs was missing.

'This is a terrible catastrophe,' said Seleucus Thoms, who had a weakness for fine language derived from his rare Christian name, of which he was extremely proud; 'my name is not Seleucus Thoms if he hasn't gone overboard.'

''E was most rampagious with laughter in the second dog-watch, sir,' put in old Brooks. 'And 'e talked of green fields, the which I 've 'eard is a werry fatal symptom of calentoor.'

'Humph,' said Mr. Thoms, 'there's something in that.'

And when he went for'ard old Brooks was 'as proud as a dog with two tails.' Though he usually spent the second dog-watch daily in proving that Thoms was no sailor, this endorsement of his theory flattered him greatly.

'I've been mistook in the second,' he said, as Thoms went aft. 'He's got 'orse sense, after all. I shouldn't be surprised if 'e'd make a sailor some day.'

And Thoms reported the catastrophe to Watchett.

'Drowned himself,' roared the captain; 'drowned himself. And who's responsible if you ain't?'

He came on deck in a great rage and scanty pyjamas and mustered the crew aft, and raved at them for full ten minutes as if it were their fault. When he had relieved his mind he asked if there was any one who could throw light on the matter, and old Brooks was shoved to the front. He explained his views on calentures.

'Never 'eard of 'em,' said Watchett.

'And I thinks, sir, as Tidewell 'ere 'as the symptoms.'

'I haven't,' said Tidewell indignantly.

'Wild laughin' is a known symptom, sir, and Tidewell was laughin' 'orrid in the second dog-watch,' insisted Brooks. 'I'd put 'im in irons, sir.'

But Watchett was not prepared to go so far in prophylaxis.

'If any of you 'as any more symptoms, I'll flog 'im and take the consequences,' he declared. He went below again unhappily, for he wasn't quite a brute after all.

'This is a mighty unpleasant thing,' he said to poor Mrs. Watchett, who cried when she heard the news. 'It's a mighty unfortunate affair. Gribbs was the smartest man in the whole crowd, and worth two of the others.'

But still the great and terrible calm lasted and the morning was as hot as yesterday, and the sea shone like polished brass and lapped faintly like heavy oil against the glowing iron of the sister barques. At dawn, which came up like a swiftly opening flower out of the fertile east, the vessels were just too far apart for hailing, and Watchett signalled the news to the Star of the South.

'Lost a man overboard!' said Ryder, 'that's strange. I wish to heavens we'd found him.'

When he told his wife she seemed extraordinarily callous.

'Serves him right,' she said.

And it was wonderful how the crew of the Star took the news. They had never seemed so cheerful. They grinned when Watchett came aboard.

'This is an 'orrid circumstance,' said Watchett. 'I never lost a man before, not even when I was wrecked in the Violet. And this a dead calm!'

'Your men aren't happy,' said Mrs. Ryder. 'And you don't try to make 'em. If I give you three seven-pound tins of marmalade and some butter, will you serve it out to them?'

But Watchett shook his head angrily.

'I'll not cocker no men up,' he declared; 'not if they all goes overboard and leaves me and the missis to take 'er home. And what's marmalade against 'eat like this?'

He mopped a melancholy brow and sighed.

'It will help them to keep from gloomy thoughts,' said Mrs. Ryder. 'The Star of the South is a home for our men.'

'And two run in Valparaiso,' retorted Watchett, 'and I lost on'y one.'

He took a drink with his cousin, and went back on board the Battle-Axe, and put the horrid day through in getting a deal of unnecessary work done. And still no flaw of lightest air marred the mirror of the quiet seas. Early in the first watch the boats were lowered again to tow the vessels apart. At midnight, when the watch below came aft and answered to their names in the deep shadow of the moonless tropic night, Ned Tidewell did not answer to his name.

'Tidewell!' cried Thoms angrily and anxiously.

And still there was no answer but a groan from old Brooks.

'Wot did I tell you?' he demanded. 'I seed it in 'is eye.'

They searched the Battle-Axe from stem to stern; they overhauled the sails in the sail-locker; they hunted with a lantern in the fore-peak; they even went aloft to the fore- and main-tops, where once or twice some one who sought for coolness where no coolness could be found went up into what they jocosely called the 'attic.' But Ned had lost the number of his mess.

'More clothes for sale,' said the melancholy crew, as they looked at each other suspiciously. ''Oo'll be the next?'

Brooks declared to the other fo'c'sleman that the next would be Wat Crampe or Taffy, as they called the Welshman.

'There's an awful 'orrid look of the deep, dark knowledge o' death in their faces,' declared old Brooks. 'They thinks of the peace of it and the quiet, and smiles secret!'

Next morning Watchett hailed the Star and told the latest dreadful news. And at the end he added, in a truly pathetic roar: 'Send me them tins o' marmalade aboard. And the butter.'

And when Mrs. Ryder superintended the steward's work getting these stores out of the lazarette, she smiled very strangely. She said to her husband—

'If he loses another hand or two the Battle-Axe will be no easy ship to work, Will.'

'I wouldn't have believed the matter of a hundred pounds would have made you so hard,' said Ryder. And Connie Ryder pouted mutinously, and her pout ran off into a wicked and most charming smile.

'I'm not thinking so much of the money as of our ship being beaten,' she said.

And poor Watchett was now beginning to think the same of his ship. Like most vessels the Battle-Axe required a certain number of men to work her easily, and her luck lay in the number allowed being the number necessary. With two hands gone amissing she would not be much superior to the Star in easiness of handling, and if more went, a week of baffling winds now, or later when the North-East Trade died out, might give the Star a pull which nothing but an easterly wind from the chops of the Channel to Dover could hope to make up. He began to dance attendance on his crew as if they were patients and he their doctor. And the curious thing was that they all began to feel ill at once, so ill that they could not work in the sun. A certain uneasy terror got hold of them; they dreaded to look over the side lest in place of an oily sea they should look down on grass and daisies.

'Daisies draws a man, and buttercups draws a man,' said old Brooks.

'Don't,' said Crampe with a snigger, 'you make me feel that I must pick buttercups or die.'

'Do you now?' asked Brooks; 'do you now?'

And he sneaked aft to the skipper, who was turning all ways as if he were wondering where windward was.

'I'm very uneasy about Crampe, sir,' he said with a scrape as he crawled up the port poop-ladder. ''Is mind is set on buttercups.'

'The devil it is,' cried Watchett, and going down on the main-deck he called Crampe out.

'What's this I 'ears about you 'ankerin' after buttercups?' he demanded very anxiously.

'I did feel as if I'd like to see one, sir,' said Crampe.

'Don't let me 'ear of it again,' began Watchett angrily, but he pulled himself up with an ill grace, 'but there, go in and lie down, and you needn't come on deck in your watch. I can't afford to lose no more mad fools. And you shall 'ave butter instead of buttercups.'

'And marmalade, sir?' suggested Crampe. 'Marmalade is yellow too; yellow as buttercups.'

'Say the word agin and I'll knock you flat,' said the skipper. But nevertheless he sent the whole crowd marmalade and butter at four bells in the first dog-watch.

'Ho, but it iss fine,' said 'Efan Efans.' 'Thiss iss goot grup whateffer and moreover, yess!'

'They scoffs the like in the Star day in and day out,' said Crampe. 'If I can't roll on grass I'd like to be in her.'

And that night both Crampe and Evans disappeared.

'I believes I 'eard a splash soon after six bells,' said old Brooks. 'Mates, this is most 'orrid. I feels as if I should be drawed overboard by a mermaid in spite of myself.'

And Watchett went raving crazy. He blasphemed his mate till the man was ready to jump overboard too. He turned on Thoms and slanged him until the second greaser walked to the port rail of the poop and discharged a number of silent curses which would have done credit to the skipper of a barge, if they had been spoken aloud.

'At dark, lock the lot up in the fo'c'sle,' said Watchett, 'and not a soul comes out till daylight. If this goes on longer we'll stick in the doldrums till the Day of Judgment.'

Ryder came on board the Battle-Axe as soon as the latest news was signalled to him. Mrs. Ryder declined to go, but she gave him a timely piece of advice.

'Don't let him off the bet, Will, or I'll never forgive you.'

'I won't do that,' said her husband hastily, as if he hadn't been thinking of doing it.

'And if he asks for a man or two, you know we're short-handed already?'

'Tell me something I don't know,' said Ryder a trifle crossly. Even his sweet temper suffered in 115° in the shade.

'I dare say I could,' said his wife when he was in his boat. 'I dare say I could.'

Watchett received his cousin with an air of gloom that would have struck a damp on anything anywhere but the Equator.

'This is a terrible business,' he said. 'I never 'eard of anything like it. Every night a man, and last night two!'

Ryder was naturally very much cut up about it, and said so.

'Will you have some more marmalade?' he asked anxiously.

'Marmalade don't work,' said Watchett sadly. 'It don't work worth a cent, nor does butter. I'd give five pounds for some green cabbage.'

A brilliant idea struck Ryder.

'Why don't you paint her green, all the inside of the rail and the boats?'

'She'd be a holy show, like a blasted timber-droghing Swede,' said Watchett with great distaste. 'But d'ye think it'd work?'

'You might try,' replied Ryder.

'And now you've got the bulge on me,' sighed Watchett, 'with two 'ands missin' from both watches she'll be as 'ard in the mouth as your Star. You might let me off that bet, Bill.'