ain. There was no reply;
only Herrick's shoulders heaved, so that the table was shaken. 'Take
some more of this. Here, drink this. I order you to. Don't start crying
when you're out of the wood.'

'I'm not crying,' said Herrick, raising his face and showing his dry
eyes. 'It's worse than crying. It's the horror of that grave that we've
escaped from.'

'Come now, you tackle your soup; that'll fix you,' said Davis kindly.
'I told you you were all broken up. You couldn't have stood out another
week.'

'That's the dreadful part of it!' cried Herrick. 'Another week and I'd
have murdered someone for a dollar! God! and I know that? And I'm still
living? It's some beastly dream.'

'Quietly, quietly! Quietly does it, my son. Take your pea soup. Food,
that's what you want,' said Davis.

The soup strengthened and quieted Herrick's nerves; another glass of
wine, and a piece of pickled pork and fried banana completed what the
soup began; and he was able once more to look the captain in the face.

'I didn't know I was so much run down,' he said.

'Well,' said Davis, 'you were as steady as a rock all day: now you've
had a little lunch, you'll be as steady as a rock again.'

'Yes,'was the reply, 'I'm steady enough now, but I'm a queer kind of a
first officer.'

'Shucks!' cried the captain. 'You've only got to mind the ship's course,
and keep your slate to half a point. A babby could do that, let alone
a college graduate like you. There ain't nothing TO sailoring, when you
come to look it in the face. And now we'll go and put her about. Bring
the slate; we'll have to start our dead reckoning right away.'

The distance run since the departure was read off the log by the
binnacle light and entered on the slate.

'Ready about,' said the captain. 'Give me the wheel, White Man, and you
stand by the mainsheet. Boom tackle, Mr Hay, please, and then you can
jump forward and attend head sails.'

'Ay, ay, sir,' responded Herrick.

'All clear forward?' asked Davis.

'All clear, sir.'

'Hard a-lee!' cried the captain. 'Haul in your slack as she comes,' he
called to Huish. 'Haul in your slack, put your back into it; keep your
feet out of the coils.' A sudden blow sent Huish flat along the deck,
and the captain was in his place. 'Pick yourself up and keep the wheel
hard over!' he roared. 'You wooden fool, you wanted to get killed, I
guess. Draw the jib,' he cried a moment later; and then to Huish, 'Give
me the wheel again, and see