"Don't you think," said Morgan the mate, "that the adventure is almost foolhardy?"
"It is risky enough, I daresay; but really, Morgan, my dear fellow, I hate the idea of going back home without having accomplished something out of the common."
And so, after some further conversation of an after-dinner style, the ascent was determined on.
This was Saturday night, and as usual wives and sweethearts were toasted, for Captain Talbot was a man who dearly loved to keep up old customs.
So after a hearty supper of sea-pie the men got up a dance, Frank and the man who played the clarionet forming, as usual, the chief portion of the band.
Old Pen was in grand form to-night, and his antics, as he danced and whirled around with little Johnnie Shingles, were laughable in the extreme. It would be impossible to say that Pen tripped it--
"On the light fantastic toe".
For his feet were about as broad and flat as a couple of kippered herrings, but he made the best use of them he could, and no one could have done more.
After the dance the chief yarn-spinners assembled in a wide circle around the galley fire. Frank and Conal made two of the party, with noble Vike in the rear.
It hardly would have needed the rum that the cabin steward dealt out to make these good fellows happy to-night or to cause them to spin short yarns and sing, so jolly were they to know the ship was homeward bound--