you that I don't trust you. I've got very heavy responsibility on me,
and I don't know who you are no more than if you was a porpoise come
a-bouncin' up out of the sea. I don't want you and your skipper holdin'
no conversation with each other until I've got this matter settled to my
satisfaction, and then I can put you on board your vessel, and go ahead
on my course, or I can turn back, just whichever I make up my mind to
do. But until I make up my mind, I don't want no reports made from this
vessel to any other, and no matter what you say when you are hailin',
how do I know what you mean, and what sort of signals you've agreed on
between you?"

Shirley was obliged to accept the situation, and when Burke had ceased
to hail, he was allowed to go on deck. Then, after waving his hat to the
yacht,--which was now at a considerable distance, although within easy
range of a glass,--Shirley lighted his pipe, and walked up and down the
deck. He saw a good many things to interest him; but he spoke to no one,
and endeavored to assume the demeanor of one who was much interested in
his own affairs, and very little in what was going on about him.

But Shirley noticed a great many things which made a deep impression
upon him. The crew seemed to be composed of men not very well
disciplined, but exceedingly talkative, and although Shirley did not
understand French, he was now pretty sure that all the conversation he
heard was in that tongue. Then, again, the men did not appear to be very
well acquainted with the vessel--they frequently seemed to be looking
for things, the position of which they should have known. He could not
understand how men who had sailed on a vessel from Southampton should
show such a spirit of inquiry in regard to the internal arrangements of
the steamer. A boatswain, who was giving the orders to a number of men,
seemed more as if he were instructing a class in the nautical management
of a vessel than in giving the ordinary everyday orders which might be
expected on such a voyage as this. Once he saw the Captain come on deck
with a book in his hand, apparently a log-book, and he showed it to one
of the mates. These two stood turning over the leaves of the book as if
they had never seen it before, and wanted to find something which they
supposed to be in it.

It was not long after this that Shirley said to himself that he could
not understand how such a vessel, with such a cargo, could have been
sent out from Sou