o saffron and rose overhead; and in the west, where fading
stars show, copper-hued clouds are working down to the horizon in track
of the night. Our dingy sails are cut out in seemly curves and glowing
colours against the deep of the sky; red-gold where the light strikes,
and deepest violet in the shadows. Blue smoke from the galley funnel
is wafted aft by the draught from the sails, and gives a kindly scent
to the air; there is no smell like that of wood fires in the pride of
the morning. This is a time to be awake and alive; a morning to be at
the wheel of a leaning ship.

Presently I am relieved for a few minutes that I may have my coffee.
Being the last man, I get a bo'sun's share of the grounds. To my
protests the cook gives scant heed.

"Ach, sure! Phwat are yez growlin' at? Sure, if ye'd been in my last
ship, yez wouldn't have none at all! Devil the coffee would yez get
till eight bells ov a marnin', an' tay at thatt, bedad!"

The 'doctor,' being Irish, is beyond argument, so I take my pannikin
along to our quarters to sift the grounds as best I can. There is
naught but dry ship's biscuit to put down with it, for it is well on in
the week--Thursday, indeed--and only Hansen among us can make his
week's rations last out beyond that; he was bred in the north. The
half-deck is in its usual hopeless disorder--stuffy and close and
dismal in the shuttered half-light. Four small ports give little air,
and sea clothes hanging everywhere crowd up the space. The beams,
blackened by tobacco smoke, are hacked and carved, covered by the
initials and remarks of bygone apprentices. Only the after one is kept
clear; there the Board of Trade inscription (slightly altered by some
inspiring genius), reads, "Certified to suffocate eight seamen." A
dismal hole on a bright morning! Happily, one has not far to go for a
breath of keen air. Ten minutes is my time, and I am back at the wheel
again.

The Mate is seated on the cabin skylight, smoking. This is his time to
consider the trim of the sails. It is no matter that the evening
before the gear was sweated up to the tautest of sailing trim; the wind
is unchanged, but morning shows wrinkles in the clew of the royals or a
sag in the foot of a topsail. Ropes give mysteriously, and this must
all be righted before the Old Man comes on deck. So he smokes
leisurely and considers the trim.

The day's work begins at half-past five. The Mate strikes three bells
himself,