d further off every moment! Oh, Dick, we're lost--
we're lost!"

"Now, don't 'ee, Master Bob, don't 'ee!" cried Dick, folding one of his
arms, like a mother, round the other's neck and drawing him towards him
to comfort him. "We ain't a bit lost yet, I tell 'ee, sure-ly. Why, we
ain't at sea as you says at all. We be ounly in the h'offin'
hereabouts."

This woke up Bob to argument.

"Only the offing, you say, Dick?" he replied, with some of his old
dogmatism as they drifted on and on, the ebb-tide that was bearing them
away on its bosom lapping against the sides of the boat with a
melancholy sound, though almost deadened by the oppressiveness of the
damp sea-fog. "Do you know how wide the Channel is `hereabouts,' as you
say?"

"No, Master Bob," said the other lad humbly. "I doesn't. I ain't no
scholard, as you knows."

"Then, I'll tell you," rejoined Bob triumphantly. "It must be nearly a
hundred miles wide here between the French and English coasts!"

Dick, however, was not abashed by this broad statement.

"That mebbe, Master Bob," he replied modestly, scratching the back of
his neck where one of his damp locks of hair tickled him at the moment.
"But, I heard the Cap'en say ounly t'other day as how there was so many
ships a-passing up and down as a boat adrift wer' bound to be sighted!"

"But, suppose a hundred ships passed us," said Bob, who would not be
comforted, in spite of all Dick's efforts. "Why, old chap, they
couldn't see us! The fog would prevent them!"

"Lor', so her would!" assented Dick, unable to gainsay this argument.
"I forgets that, I did, sure-ly!"

After a time, Bob's sobs ceased and he began to think of something else;
something that affected him, for the moment, even more strongly than his
fears.

"I'm awfully hungry, Dick," he said. "Have you got any more bread-and-
cheese left?"

"No, not a scrap," was the melancholy answer. "I giv' yer half, share
and share alike; and I've ate every crumb o' mine!"

"Isn't there anything in the locker?"

"Nothing, but the Cap'en's hatchet! Don't you bear in mind as how I
scrubbed her out afore we started?"

"Yes, so you did, I recollect," replied Bob moodily, his appetite being
well-nigh unbearable from its insatiable gnawing. "How do you feel,
Dick?"

"I feels as if I could eat the h'elephant we seed in the circus."

This made Bob laugh hysterically.

"I think I could, too," he said, between his paroxysms of laughter and