, and
are not the common kind of ship boys. I am sure that my brother
would not brook such conduct, and I warn you that, if any complaint
again on this head reaches me, I shall lay it before him."

With angry mutterings, the armorer went below.

"We have earned a bitter foe," Ned said to his friends, "and we had
best keep our eyes well open. There is very little of the lion
about Master Taunton. He is strong, indeed; but if it be true that
the lion has a noble heart, and fights his foes openly, methinks he
resembles rather the tiger, who is prone to leap suddenly upon his
enemies."

"Yes, indeed, he looked dark enough," Gerald said, "as he went
below; and if looks could have killed us, we should not be standing
here alive, at present."

"It is not force that we need fear now, but that he will do us some
foul turn; at all events, we are now forewarned, and if he plays us
a scurvy trick it will be our own faults."

For several days the voyage went on quietly, and without adventure.
They passed at a distance the Portuguese Isle of Madeira, lying
like a cloud on the sea. The weather now had become warm and very
fair, a steady wind blew, and the two barks kept along at a good
pace.

All sorts of creatures, strange to the boys, were to be seen in the
sea. Sometimes there was a spout of a distant whale. Thousands of
flying fish darted from the water, driven thence by the pursuit of
their enemies beneath; while huge flocks of gulls and other birds
hovered over the sea, chasing the flying fish, or pouncing down
upon the shoals of small fry; whose splashings whitened the surface
of the water, as if a sandbank had laid below it.

Gradually, as the time went on, the heat increased. Many of the
crew found themselves unable to sleep below, for in those days
there was but little thought of ventilation. The boys were among
these, for the heat and the confinement were, to them, especially
irksome.

One day the wind had fallen almost to a calm, and the small boat
had been lowered, to enable the carpenter to do some repair to the
ship's side, where a seam leaked somewhat, when the waves were
high. When night came on, and all was quiet, Ned proposed to the
others that they should slip down the rope over the stern into the
boat which was towing behind; where they could sleep undisturbed by
the tramp of the sentry, or the call to pull at ropes and trim
sails.

The idea was considered a capital one, and the boys slid down into