great piece of salt beef, was brought down. This time there were no
abstentions. As the evening wore on fresh batches of prisoners were
brought in, until, by midnight, the number was raised to fifty. Many of
them had been seriously knocked about in their capture, and Jack, who
had persuaded his friend the sailor to bring down three or four more
buckets of salt water, did his best, by bathing and bandaging their
wounds, to put them at their ease.

In the morning he could see who were his companions in misfortune. Many
of them he knew by sight as loafers on the wharves and as troublesome or
riotous characters. Three or four were men of different type. There were
two or three respectable mechanics--men who had had, at various times,
drawn upon them the dislikes of the great men of the town by insisting
on their rights; and there were two idle young fellows of a higher
class, who had vexed their friends beyond endurance.

Presently the officer in charge of the recruiting party, who had now
come on board, came down into the hold. He was at once assailed with a
storm of curses and angry remonstrances.

"Look here, my lads," he said, raising his hand for silence, "it is of
no use your going on like this, and I warn you that the sooner you make
up your minds that you have got to serve her majesty the better for
you, because that you have got to do it is certain. You have all been
impressed according to act of parliament, and there is no getting out
of it. It's your own fault that you got those hard knocks that I see the
marks of, and you will get more if you give any more trouble. Now, those
who choose to agree at once to serve her majesty can come on deck."

Jack at once stepped forward.

"I am ready to serve, sir," he said.

"That's right," the officer replied heartily; "you are a lad of spirit,
I can see, and will make a good soldier. You look young yet, but that's
all in your favor; you will be a sergeant at an age when others are
learning their recruit drill. Now, who's the next?"

Some half dozen of the others followed Jack's example, but the rest were
still too sore and angry to be willing to do anything voluntarily.

Jack leaped lightly up on deck and looked round; the cutter was already
under weigh, and with a gentle breeze was running along the smooth
surface of Southampton waters; the ivy covered ruins of Netley Abbey
were abreast of them, and behind was the shipping of the port.

"Well, young un," an old se