aimed the good-natured Irishman, "sure an' the poor
baste's hurt, and, by your lave, cap'en, I'll go down and say what's the
matther."

"Do," said Captain Dinks; but ere he could get out the word, the mate,
taking his consent for granted, had caught hold of the hatchway coamings
with his powerful hands and swung himself down on to the lower deck;
reaching up afterwards for the lantern, which the captain handed him,
and then disappearing from view as he dived amongst the heterogeneous
mass of boxes and casks, and bales of goods, mingled with articles of
all sorts, with which the place was crammed.

After a moment's absence, he came back beneath the hatchway.

"Plaze, git a blanket or two out of one of the cabins, cap'en, to hoist
him up," said he; "the unlucky beggar sames to be injured badly, and I
think his ribs are stove in, besides a heavy box having fallen on his
leg. He hasn't got such a chape passage this toime as he expected; for
he has been more'n half suffocated in the flour hogshead where he first
stowed himself away; and, begorrah, to look at him now, with his black
face all whitened, like a duchess powthered for a ball, and his woolly
hid, and the blood all over him, as if he had been basted wid a
shillelagh at Donnybrook Fair, why, his own mother wouldn't know him.
It's small blame to that fool of a steward to be afther taking him for
somethin' onnatural, sure!"

While the mate had been giving this explanation of the stowaway's
condition Captain Dinks had not been idle.

With an agility of which none would have thought him capable, looking at
his thick-set and rather stout figure, he had rushed in a second to his
own cabin, which was near aft; and, dragging out a couple of railway
rugs and a coil of rope had pitched them below to the Irishman,
concluding his operations by jumping down alongside him, to aid in
releasing the injured man from his perilous position--telling the
passenger as he quitted him to "sing out" for assistance.

"Steward!" shouted Mr Meldrum up the companion, in obedience to the
captain's injunction; but never a bit did that worthy stir in response,
nor did the ringing of a hand-bell, which the passenger saw in one of
the swing-trays above the cuddy table expedite the recalcitrant
functionary's movements, albeit it brought others to Mr Meldrum's aid.

"What is the matter, papa dear?" said a tall, graceful, nice-looking
girl, of some eighteen summers, as she emerged from the state