approached me and said:

"You'll onderstand, of course, Mr. Barclay, that I, as master of this
yacht, sticks to her?"

"What!" cried I, "to be drowned?"

"I _sticks_ to her, sir," he repeated, with the emphasis of
irritability in his manner that was not at all wanting in respect
either. "I dorn't mean to say if it should come on to blow another
gale afore that there craft," indicating the ship, "receives ye, that I
wouldn't go too. But the weather's amoderating; it'll be tarning fine
afore long, and I'm agoing to sail the _Spitfire_ home."

"I hope, Caudel," said I, astonished by this resolution in him, "that
you'll not stick to her on my account. Let the wretched craft go
and--" I held the rest behind my teeth.

"No, sir. There'll be nothen to hurt in the leak if so be as the
weather gets better, and it's fast getting better as you can see.
What? Let a pretty little dandy craft like the _Spitfire_ go down
merely for the want of pumping? All of us men are agreed to stick to
her and carry her home."

Grace looked at me; I understood the meaning her eyes conveyed, and
exclaimed:

"The men will do as they please. They are plucky fellows, and if they
carry the yacht home, she shall be sold, and two-thirds of what she
fetches divided amongst them. But _I_ have had enough of her, and more
than enough of yachting. I must see you, my pet, safe on board some
ship that does not leak!"

"I could not live through another night in the _Spitfire_," she
exclaimed.

"No, miss, no," rumbled Caudel, soothingly; "nor would it be right and
proper that you should be asked to live through it. They'll be sending
for ye presently; though, of course, as the vessel's outward bound--"
here he ran his eyes slowly round the sea, "ye've got to consider that
onless she falls in soon with something that'll land you, why then, of
course, you both stand to have a longer spell of seafaring than Mr.
Barclay and me calculated upon when this here elopement was planned."

"Where is she bound to, I wonder?" I said, viewing the tall, noble
vessel, with a yearning to be aboard her with Grace at my side; the
desperate seas which still stormily tossed between her and us safely
traversed.

"To Australia, I allow," answered Caudel. "Them passengers ye sees
forrads and along the bulwark rail ain't of the sort that goes to
Chaney or the Hindies."

"We can't go to Australia, Herbert," said Grace, surveying me with
startled eyes.

"My dea