gth to raise my hand for a salute.

I fear it was this that pleased him, and made him stop; and we couldn't
help looking at him. His hat was a little set back for the heat, his
black triangular feet were in the third position of dancing. He smiled.

There was an explosive sound to my right. I knew what it meant. Dennis
had "burst."

And then I never felt less like laughing in my life. Visions of
insubordination, disrespect, mutiny, flogging, and black-hole, rushed
through my head, and I had serious thoughts of falling on my knees
before the insulted pilot. With unfeigned gratitude I record that he
was as magnanimous as he was magnificent. He took no revenge, except in
words. What he said was,

"Me one coloured gentleman. You one dam mean white trash ob common
sailor. YAH!"

And with unimpaired dignity he descended the ladder and was rowed away
over the prismatic waters. And Alister and I turned round to look for
Dennis, and found him sitting in the scuppers, wiping the laughter-tears
out of his thick eyelashes.

There was something fateful about that evening, which was perhaps what
made the air so heavy. If I had been keeping the log, I should have made
the following entry: "Captain got drunk. A ring round the moon. Alister
and Dennis quarrelsome."

I saw the ring round the moon when I was rowing the captain and the mate
back from one of the islands, where they had been ashore. Alfonso
afterwards pointed it out to me and said, "Tell you, Jack, I'm glad dis
ole tub in harbour now!" from which I concluded that it was an omen of
bad weather.

Alister and Dennis were still sparring. I began to think we'd better
stretch a rope and let them have it out with their fists, but I could
not make out that there was anything to fight about except that Alister
had accused Dennis of playing the fool, and Dennis had said that
Alister was about as good company as a grave-digger. I felt very
feverish and said so, on which they both began to apologize, and we all
turned in for some sleep.

Next day we were the best of friends, and we got leave to go ashore for
a few hours. We were anchored in Grassy Bay, off Ireland Island--that
is, off the island where the hulks are, and where the school-master
spent those ten long years. Alister and Dennis wanted to take a boat and
make for Harrington Sound, a very beautiful land-locked sheet of water,
with one narrow entrance through which the tide rushes like a mill-race,
but when they hea