ad become
an outfitter's drunken agent. The brave sailor had nourished him often
when on shore, and he, with the fluent tongue which his college had
trimmed for him, had led the girl to sin during her lover's absence.
Howsoever, they put off together to welcome him on his arrival, never
suspecting that their secret had been whispered to Robert Welsh
beforehand. Howsoever, Robert gave them hearty greeting, and down to the
cabin they went, and there sat drinking up to midnight.

'Three lost souls!' said the captain.

'See how they run,' Temple sang, half audibly, and flushed hot, ashamed
of himself.

''Twas I had to bear the news to his mother,' the captain pursued; 'and
it was a task, my lads, for I was then little more than your age, and the
glass was Robert's only fault, and he was my only brother.'

I offered my hand to the captain. He grasped it powerfully. 'That crew in
a boat, and wouldn't you know the devil'd be coxswain?' he called loudly,
and buried his face.

'No,' he said, looking up at us, 'I pray for no storm, but, by the Lord's
mercy, for a way to your hearts through fire or water. And now on deck,
my lads, while your beds are made up. Three blind things we verily are.'

Captain Welsh showed he was sharp of hearing. His allusion to the humming
of the tune of the mice gave Temple a fit of remorse, and he apologized.

'Ay,' said the captain, 'it is so; own it: frivolity's the fruit of that
training that's all for the flesh. But dip you into some o' my books on
my shelves here, and learn to see living man half skeleton, like life and
shadow, and never to living man need you pray forgiveness, my lad.'

By sheer force of character he gained the command of our respect. Though
we agreed on deck that he had bungled his story, it impressed us; we felt
less able to cope with him, and less willing to encounter a storm.

'We shall have one, of course,' Temple said, affecting resignation, with
a glance aloft.

I was superstitiously of the same opinion, and praised the vessel.

'Oh, Priscilla's the very name of a ship that founders with all hands and
sends a bottle on shore,' said Temple.

'There isn't a bottle on board,' said I; and this piece of nonsense
helped us to sleep off our gloom.

CHAPTER XIV

I MEET OLD FRIENDS

Notwithstanding the prognostications it pleased us to indulge, we had a
tolerably smooth voyage. On a clear cold Sunday morning we were sailing
between a foreign river's banks,