elow.

"Very well done, lad," the sailor said approvingly. "You would make
a good sailor, in time, if you took to a seafaring life. There's
not one in ten as would get up there, the first time of going
aloft. You don't feel giddy, do you?"

"No," Reuben replied, "I don't think I feel giddy, but I feel a
strange shaky feeling in my legs."

"That will soon pass off," the sailor said. "You look at them hills
behind the town, and the forts and works up there. Don't think
about the deck of the vessel, or anything, but just as if you were
sitting in a chair, watching the hills."

Reuben did as the sailor instructed him and, as he did so, the
feeling of which he was before conscious passed completely away.

"I feel all right now," he said, after sitting quietly for a few
minutes.

"All right, then; down we go. Don't look below, but just keep your
eyes in front of you, and never leave go of one grip till you make
sure of the next."

Five minutes later he stood on the deck.

"Well done, my lad, for the first time," the first mate said, as
Reuben put his foot on the deck "I have had my eye on you. I
shouldn't have let you go beyond the top, at the first trial; but I
didn't think you would go higher, till you were fairly up,
otherwise I should have hailed you from the deck.

"You ought not to have taken him up above the top, Bill. If he had
lost his head, it would have been all up with him."

"I could see he wasn't going to lose his head. Trust me for not
leading a young hand into danger. He was a little flustrated, when
he got into the top; but after he had sat down a bit, his breath
come quiet and regular again, and I could see there was no chance
of his nerve going."

The next morning, soon after daybreak, the dockyard boats began to
row alongside, with grey-coated convicts. Reuben watched them as
they came on board, with a sort of fascination with their closely
cut hair, bullet heads, and evil faces. Although he had no doubt
that the repulsive expression was due partly to the close-cut hair
and shaved faces, and their hideous garb, he could scarcely repress
a shudder as he looked at them. In some faces an expression of
brutal ferocity was dominant. Others had a shifty, cunning look, no
less repulsive.

There were a few good-humoured faces, one or two so different from
the others, that Reuben wondered whether they were innocent victims
of circumstances, as he had so nearly been. Not till now did he
quite reali