d, as the hawser was passed through a ring at the
bow, I needed but a knife to complete the business. But I had no knife,
for a search in my pockets proved that I had been relieved of all my
valuables and trifles; and I knew that another way must be found, and
that ingenuity alone would help me. So I sat thinking; and all the long
afternoon--I knew it was afternoon, as I saw the sun sinking in the
horizon and heard the bells, moreover--I examined such devices as came
to me, only to reject them and to seek for others.

Towards the second bell in the second "dog" there was a change in the
monotony of the scene. I heard an order to heave the barque to, and
presently I made haste to put the ropes back in their places and to
await the happening. I felt all motion cease, and then someone hauling
at the hawser, so that the jolly-boat was pulled against the side of
the bigger ship; and, looking up, I saw half-a-dozen of Black's gang
watching me from the quarter-deck. Then a ladder was put over the
bulwark, and Four-Eyes himself cried out not in an unkindly tone--

"Gi-me the soop, bhoys, and let's get it in him; begorra, the divil 'll
have him afore the skipper if it's no mate you're givin' him!"

He came down the ladder with a great can of steaming stuff; and the sea
having fallen away with the sun to a dead calm, he stepped off the
ladder to the stern seat, and then bent over me. But I saw this only,
that he had a knife in his belt; and I made up my mind in a moment to
get it from him.

"The young 'un from Paris," he cried, as he took a long look at me,
"and near to axin' for a priest, by the houly saints; but I was tellin'
ye to stop where ye was, and it's no thanks ye were giving me. Bedad,
and a pretty place ye're going to, sorr, at your own wish--the divil
knows what's the end av it--but sup a bit, for it's fastin' ye are by
the luk av ye, and long gone at that!"

Kindly words he gave me; and he held to the rope with one hand while he
put the can of hot stuff to my lips with the other. I drank half of it
with great gulps, feeling the warmth spread through my body to my very
toes as the broth went down; and a great hope consoled me, for I had
his knife, having snatched it from him when first he stooped, and it
lay in the tarpaulin beneath me. The good luck of the theft made me
quick to empty the pot of gravy; and when I had returned the can,
Four-Eyes went over the side again, and the yacht moved onward lazily
in the