earest cabin.

"Who's in here?"

"Me," said a small voice. Torps approached the bunk. "Who's
'me'--Georgina?"

"Yes. Goodnight, Mr. Mainwaring."

"Good night, shrimp," replied her idol, submitting to the valediction
of two skinny arms twined tightly round his neck. "Good night, and
sweet dreams. . . . No, I can't tell you stories to-night; it's much
too late. . . . Lie down and go to sleep."

In the next cabin, the sound of deep breathing showed that the small
occupant had passed into dreamland. It was Freckles. Jane remained
awake long enough to kiss his left eyebrow and was asleep the next
instant. White Bow also was asleep, and nearly all the remainder
drowsy. Cornelius James, clasping the First Lieutenant's sword,
however, remained wide-eyed. "I'm so firsty," he complained
plaintively.

"That's called Nemesis, my son," said Torps, and gave him to drink out
of the water-bottle. "Fank you," said Cornelius James, and sighed, as
children and dogs do after drinking.

"Good night, Corney. . . . Now you must go to sleep and dream of
bloaters. Oh, aren't you really sleepy? Well, if you shut your eyes
tight perhaps the dustman won't see you," and switched out the light.
As he was leaving a drowsy voice again spoke out of the darkness.

"What did the Buccaneer say when you nailed his nose to the flying
jibboom?"

"Please make me a good boy," replied Torps, somewhat at random.

"Oh, same's I do," said Cornelius James.

"More or less; isn't that sword very uncomfortable?"

But no answer came back, for Cornelius James, the hilt of the sword
grasped firmly in two small hands, had passed into the Valhalla of
Childhood.

VIII

THE MUMMERS

The sun had not long set, and its afterglow bathed the bay in pink
light. It was a land-locked harbour, and the surface of the water held
the reflections of the anchored Battle-fleet mirrored to its smallest
detail. So still was the evening that sounds travelled across the
water with peculiar acute distinctness.

On the quarter-deck of the end ship of the lee line a thousand men were
trying to talk in undertones, lighting and relighting pipes, rallying
their friends on distant points of vantage, and humming tunes under
their breath. The resultant sound was very much like what you would
hear if you placed your ear against a beehive on a summer day, only
magnified a million-fold.

The ship's company of a super-Dreadnought, and as many men from other