ened.

"Well," said I, with a bit of a shiver, and hugging myself in my
pea-coat, "I'm cold and tired, and going to bed, so good-night, and God
keep you wide awake," and down I went, and ten minutes later was
snugged away in my coffin of a bunk sound asleep, and snoring at the
top of my pipes, I don't doubt.

Next morning when I went on deck after nine hours of solid slumber, I
at once directed my eyes over the rail in search of the Isle of Wight,
but there was nothing to be seen but a grey drizzle, a weeping wall of
slate-coloured haze that formed a sky of its own and drooped to within
a mile or so of the yacht. The sea was an ugly sallowish green, and
you saw the billows come tumbling in froth from under the vaporous
margin of the horizon as though each surge was formed there, and there
was nothing but blackness and space beyond. The yacht's canvas was
discoloured with saturation; drops of water were blowing from her
rigging; there was a sobbing of a gutter-like sort in her lee scuppers,
and the figures of the men glistening in oilskins completed the
melancholy appearance of the little _Spitfire_. Caudel was below, but
the man named Dick Files was at the helm, an intelligent young fellow
without any portion of Job Crew's surliness, and he answered the
questions I put.

We had made capital way throughout the night he told me, and if the
weather were clear, St. Catherine's Point would show abreast of us.

"There's no doubt about Caudel knowing where he is?" said I, with a
glance at the blind grey atmosphere that sometimes swept in little
puffs of cloudy damp through the rigging, like fragments of vapour torn
out of some compacted body.

"Oh, no, sir, Mr. Caudel knows where he is," answered the man. "We
picked up and passed a small cutter out of Portsmouth about
three-quarters of an hour ago, sir, and he told us where we were."

"Has this sail been kept on the yacht all night?" said I, looking up at
the wide spread of mainsail and gaff topsail.

"All night, sir. The run's averaged eight knots. Night hand equal to
steam, sir."

"Well, you will all need to keep a bright look-out in this sort of
thickness. How far off can you see?"

The man stared, and blinked, and mused, and then said he allowed about
a mile and a quarter.

"Room enough," said I. "But mind your big mail boats out of
Southampton! There are German skippers amongst them who would drive
through the devil himself sooner than lose five minu