difference between a capful of wind in the Channel, and a gale off
the Cape, as there is between a newborn baby and me."

"Do they last long, generally?"

"Last! Why they goes on for weeks. There ain't no end to them. I've
wondered sometimes to myself where all the wind comes from, and
where it goes to, onlass it works round and round."

"But it does work round and round, Bill?"

"Ay, when you are near the centre of it. Why, lad, in three hours I
have gone round the compass three times, with the wind dead aft all
the time; but that's only when you are near the centre. When you
ain't it blows straight, and I have known vessels run for days--ay,
for weeks--with the wind blowing all the time in the same quarter.
Some have been blown down right to the edge of the ice, south. I
have been among the icebergs myself, two or three times, and I
guess that many a ship has laid her bones down in the ice fields
there, and no news ever come back home as to what's come to them;
and what makes it worse is as we have convicts on board."

"What difference does that make, Bill?"

"It don't make no difference, as long as all goes straight and
fair. I have heard, in course, of risings; but that's only when
either the guard are very careless, or the men is so bad treated
that they gets desperate, and is ready to die on the off chance of
getting free. So far we ain't had no trouble with them. The ship is
kept liberal, and the poor wretches ain't cheated out of the
rations as government allows them. The officer in charge seems a
good sort, and there's no knocking of them about, needless; so
there ain't no fear of trouble, as long as things go square. But
when things goes wrong, and a vessel gets cast away or anything of
that kind, then there's well-nigh sure to be trouble. The convicts
seize their opportunity, and it ain't scarce in human nature for
them not to take it, and then there ain't no saying what will
happen."

"Why, what a croaker you are, Bill! I didn't expect that from you."

"I ain't no croaker, Reuben, but I knows what I knows. I have been
through a job like that I am telling you of, once; and I don't want
to do it again. I will tell you about it, some day. I ain't saying
as I expect any such thing will happen, on board the Paramatta. God
forbid. She's a tight ship, and she's got as good officers and crew
as ever I sailed with. She has as good a chance as ever a ship had;
but when I sees that 'ere sort of sky in these