reakfast like a poodle dog.'

Chapter 5. THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE

The ship's head was laid to clear Eimeo to the north, and the captain
sat down in the cabin, with a chart, a ruler, and an epitome.

'East a half no'the,' said he, raising his face from his labours. 'Mr
Hay, you'll have to watch your dead reckoning; I want every yard she
makes on every hair's-breadth of a course. I'm going to knock a hole
right straight through the Paumotus, and that's always a near touch.
Now, if this South East Trade ever blew out of the S.E., which it don't,
we might hope to lie within half a point of our course. Say we lie
within a point of it. That'll just about weather Fakarava. Yes, sir,
that's what we've got to do, if we tack for it. Brings us through this
slush of little islands in the cleanest place: see?' And he showed
where his ruler intersected the wide-lying labyrinth of the Dangerous
Archipelago. 'I wish it was night, and I could put her about right now;
we're losing time and easting. Well, we'll do our best. And if we don't
fetch Peru, we'll bring up to Ecuador. All one, I guess. Depreciated
dollars down, and no questions asked. A remarkable fine institootion,
the South American don.'

Tahiti was already some way astern, the Diadem rising from among broken
mountains--Eimeo was already close aboard, and stood black and strange
against the golden splendour of the west--when the captain took his
departure from the two islands, and the patent log was set.

Some twenty minutes later, Sally Day, who was continually leaving
the wheel to peer in at the cabin clock, announced in a shrill cry
'Fo'bell,' and the cook was to be seen carrying the soup into the cabin.

'I guess I'll sit down and have a pick with you,' said Davis to Herrick.
'By the time I've done, it'll be dark, and we'll clap the hooker on the
wind for South America.'

In the cabin at one corner of the table, immediately below the lamp, and
on the lee side of a bottle of champagne, sat Huish. 'What's this? Where
did that come from?' asked the captain.

'It's fizz, and it came from the after-'old, if you want to know,' said
Huish, and drained his mug.

'This'll never do,' exclaimed Davis, the merchant seaman's horror of
breaking into cargo showing incongruously forth on board that stolen
ship. 'There was never any good came of games like that.'

'You byby!' said Huish. 'A fellow would think (to 'ear him) we were
on the square! And look 'ere, you've put thi