eagerly.

"All right, then, sir," said the skipper coolly; "I am sailing under the
doctor's orders, and if he's willing, I'm your man."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

A SHIP SURGEON.

"Well, Mr Rodd, sir," said Captain Chubb, as he and the lad stood
watching the regular dip of oars in the brig's two boats as they glided
back over the tranquil sea to where their vessel lay motionless in the
calm. "Well, Mr Rodd, sir, don't you wish you'd been born a
Frenchman?"

"No," cried the boy sharply. "I am thankful I was born English."

"And so you ought to be, my lad. Of all the crackbrained, sentimental,
outrageous chaps I ever met there's none of them comes up to a
Frenchman."

"Oh, you are too bad, Captain Chubb."

"Too bad, eh? Why, aren't they always kicking up a dust and making
revolutions, cutting off their kings' and queens' heads, and then going
to war with all the world, with their Napoleons and Bonapartes and all
the rest of them? Call themselves men!"

"Why, you are as bad as uncle," cried Rodd merrily. "You and he ought
to be always the best of friends. But, if you speak fairly you must own
that they are very gallant men."

"Gallant men!" cried the skipper scornfully. "I don't call them men. I
call them monkeys! Men! Butchers, as cut off the head of their
beautiful Queen Mary What-you-may-call-it, and then after shedding blood
like that, sending no end of poor women who never did them a bit of harm
to that guillotine. I'd be ashamed of myself, Mr Rodd, to take their
part."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Rodd warmly. "I say that the Count and his son
have proved themselves to be very brave fellows. Why, you owned as much
yourself about the way in which they escaped with the brig."

"Oh, that was right enough," grumbled the skipper.

"I am not going to deny," continued Rodd, "that there are plenty of
horrible wretches amongst the French. And that Revolution was awful;
but haven't we plenty of bad men amongst the English?"

The skipper chuckled.

"Well, yes, we have had some pretty tidy ones, if you come to read your
histories. But I don't know so much about those chaps being brave. It
was a very clever bit of seamanship, mind you, that taking the brig out
in the teeth of the storm with hardly room to tack. I am not a bad
pilot in my way when I like to try, but I will be honest over it; I
daren't have tried that job. It was a very clean thing. But look here,
my lad. It's no use for you to