Farquarson jumped to his feet, gripped the hand of the captain in a sailorly fashion, and said—
"On my Masonic honour, I swear never to breathe again what you have warned me against, and I'm glad you told me. I might innocently have got you into a nasty mess. It never struck me when I was bawling out to you that there was danger. But between ourselves, it was a bit thick your dashing out of the 'impregnable port,' as they called it, and expectin' to get off scot-free, I have often spun long twisters about it, and you can bet it was always made attractive."
"I feel sure you would do that, Farquarson, as you were always a good story-teller."
This encouraging flattery switched his mind with eager interest on to a subject quite irrelevant to the one which had engaged their attention so long.
"Yes," said he, with a self-satisfied smile, "that's true. But talking about yarns, you remember when I was with Milburn's, running to Hamburg? The old gentleman asked me to take a few overmen a trip. They belonged to some mine he was interested in. By the time we got outside, and got the decks cleared up, it was dark, and the watch was set. The look-out man went on to the topgallant forecastle, and I was walking from side to side of the bridge when one of the miners came running up, and in great excitement he said—
"'Captain, for God's sake gan doon to the cabin and pacify them! They're playin' nap, and they've faalen oot amang theirselves, and there's fair almighty hell gannin' on. Aa's sure if ye divvent get them pacified ther'll be morder!'
"'My good man,' I said,'I cannot leave the bridge.'
"'Ye canna' leave the bridge! What for, then?'
"'Because,' I said, 'I must keep a look-out and see that that man on the forecastle-head does the same. If he were to see me leave the bridge, the chances are he would get careless and sit down and go to sleep, and we might run into something, and probably sink ourselves or somebody else and lose a lot of lives.'
"By this time I heard loud voices and awful oaths coming from the after-end of the ship, so says I, 'This must be put a stop to, but I cannot leave here without somebody takin' my place. You must take it, and walk across and across as I am doing, so that that fellow on the look-out will think it's me.'