'No, you have not mistaken,' said I; 'Miss Nielsen and I have now for some days been fellow-sufferers, and, for acquaintance's sake, she wishes her berth to be near mine!'

This I said soothingly, for I thought the skipper's brow looked a little clouded.

'Be it so,' said he, with a bland flourish of both hands: 'meanwhile, madam, such conveniences as my cabin affords are at your service for immediate use.'

She hesitated, but on meeting my eye seemed immediately to catch what was in my mind, and, smiling prettily, she thanked him, and went at once to his cabin.

'The fact is, sir,' said he nasally, dragging at the wristband of his shirt and looking at his nails, 'man at the best is but a very selfish animal, and cruelly neglectful of the comfort and happiness of women. Pardon my frankness: your charming companion has been exposed for several days to the horrors of what was really no better than an open boat. What more natural than that she should wish to adjust her hair and take a peep at herself in a looking-glass? And yet'—here he smiled profoundly—'the suggestion that she should withdraw did not come from you.'

'The kindness of your reception of us,' I answered, 'assured me that you would do everything that is necessary.'

'Quite so,' he answered; 'and now, Mr. Tregarthen, I dare say a brush-up will comfort you too. You will find all that you require in Mr. Jones's cabin.'

I thanked him, and at once entered the berth, hardly knowing as yet whether to be amused or astonished by the singular character of this long-whiskered, blandly smiling, and, as I might fairly believe, religious sea-captain.

There was a little window in the berth that looked on to the quarter-deck. On peering through it I spied Abraham and Jacob with their arms buried to the elbow in their breeches' pockets, leaning, with dogged mien, in the true loafing, lounging, 'longshore posture, against the side of the caboose or galley. The whole ship's company seemed to have gathered about them. I counted nine men. There was a rusty tinge in the atmosphere that gave me a tolerable sight of all those people. It was the first dog-watch, when the men would be free to hang about the decks and smoke and talk. The coloured sailors formed a group, in that dull hectic light, to dwell upon the memory—one with a yellow sou'-wester, another with a soldier's forage-cap on his head, a third in a straw hat, along with divers scarecrow-like costumes of dungaree and coarse canvas jumpers—here a jacket resembling an evening-dress coat that had been robbed of its tails, there a pair of flapping skirts, a red wool comforter, half-wellington boots, old shoes, and I know not what besides.

The man that had been pointed out to me as 'boss'—to employ Captain Bunting's term—was addressing the two boatmen as I looked. He was talking in a low voice, and not the slightest growl of his accents reached me. Now and again he would smite his hands and act as though betrayed by temper into a sudden vehement delivery, from which he swiftly recovered himself, so to speak, with an eager look aft at the poop-deck, where, I might suppose, the mate stood watching them, or where, at all events, he would certainly be walking, on the look-out. While he addressed the boatmen, the others stood doggedly looking on, all, apparently, intent upon the countenances of our Deal friends, whose attitude was one of contemptuous inattention.