"Oh, murder! Let me out!" gasped Captain Duff, as he scrambled for the companionway and a breath of outer air. "Of all the smells I ever smelled that's the worst!"
"What have you broken, Rick?" asked Bonny, anxiously, thrusting his head down the companionway. He had been curiously reading the unfamiliar labels on the various jars, pots, and bottles, and now fancied that his crew had slipped down the steep steps with some of these in his arms.
"Whew! but it's strong!" he continued, as the penetrating fumes greeted his nostrils. "Is it the truffles or the pate grass or the cheese?"
"I'm afraid," replied Alaric, sadly, as he slowly rose from the cabin floor and thrust a cautious hand into one of his hip pockets, "that it is a bottle of eau-de-Cologne."
"Cologne!" cried Bonny, incredulously, as he caught the word. "If these foreign kinds of grub are put up in Cologne, it's no wonder that I never heard of them before. Why, it's poison, that's what it is, and nothing less. Shall I heave the rest of the truck overboard, sir?"
"Hold on!" cried Alaric, emerging with rueful face from the cabin in time to catch this suggestion. "It isn't in them. It was in my pocket all by itself."
"I wish it had staid there, and you'd gone to Halifax with it afore ever ye brought the stuff aboard this ship!" thundered the Captain. "Avast, ye lubber! Don't come anigh me. Go out on the dock and air yourself."
So the unhappy lad, his clothing saturated with cologne, betook himself to the wharf, where, as he slowly walked up and down, filling the air with perfume, he carefully removed bits of broken glass from his moist pocket, and disgustedly flung them overboard.
While he was thus engaged, the first mate, under the Captain's personal supervision, was fumigating the cabin by burning in it a bunch of oakum over which was scattered a small quantity of tobacco. When the atmosphere of the place was thus so nearly restored to its normal condition that Captain Duff could again endure it, Bonny finished stowing the supplies, and then turned his attention to preparing supper.
Meanwhile Alaric had been joined in his lonely promenade by a stranger, who, with a curious expression on his face as he drew near the lad, changed his position so as to get on the windward side, and then began a conversation.