might
cruise twenty years and not find the match of it. And suppose another
ship came in to-night? Everything's possible! And the difficulty is
this Dobbs. He's as drunk as a marine. How can we trust him? We ain't
insured--worse luck!"

"Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the channel?"
suggested Carthew. "If he tallied at all with the chart, and didn't fall
out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk it."

"Well, all's risk here," returned the captain. "Take the wheel yourself,
and stand by. Mind, if there's two orders, follow mine, not his. Set the
cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the two others at the main sheet,
and see they don't sit on it." With that he called the pilot; they
swarmed aloft in the fore rigging, and presently after there was bawled
down the welcome order to ease sheets and fill away.

At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the anchor was let
go.

The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of
fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand pounds' worth
of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most
required. And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself
the man to make the best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he
walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the
lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy
surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was
called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot,
and yet bright as lighted matches.

"Come out here, boys," he said; and when they were some way off
among the palms, "I hold twenty-four," he added in a voice scarcely
recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable game of cribbage.

"What do you mean?" asked Tommy.

"I've sold the trade," answered Wicks; "or, rather, I've sold only
some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the flour and
biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four months! By God,
it's as good as stolen!"

"My word!" cried Hemstead.

"But what have you sold it for?" gasped Carthew, the captain's almost
insane excitement shaking his nerve.

"Let me tell it my own way," cried Wicks, loosening his neck. "Let me
get at it gradual, or I'll explode. I've not only sold it, boys, I've
wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco