equal, and everything goes by voting. They won't
have it any other way. It's lucky they didn't all want to be captains.
It's all right, anyway, because there's none of 'em knows anything about
navigation, and I'm the only one on board that _does_ know; so it comes
to the same thing as if they had elected _me_ captain. But of course
_they_ don't think of that. Not a word. I'll send 'em about their
business now, as soon as they've put on their uniforms."

"Well!" said Aunt Amanda, gasping. "I never in my life--!"

The thirteen captains and the twenty-three mates disappeared from the
deck in a hurry, and in a very few minutes reappeared. Each one of them
wore, in place of his blue overalls, a smart blue suit with brass
buttons and gold braid, and a jaunty blue cap with gold braid around it;
the mates having only nine instead of ten rows of braid around their
sleeves.

The Able Seaman led them aside, and after a few words with them returned
to his passengers.

"Everything's settled," said he. "Some of them are going below with
their dippers, and the rest of them are to look after handling the ship.
The navigation is left to me. We'll get along fine now, provided the
leaks don't get any worse."

Freddie wandered off by himself, to inspect the ship. He could walk very
well now, in spite of the roll of the ship, and he went everywhere. He
found himself finally on the after deck, leaning over the rail and
watching the wake of the ship boiling away so white and beautiful
behind. He was more and more delighted with this strange adventure. It
was too bad that Mr. Toby had forgotten to write the note to his mother,
but it couldn't be helped now, and they would sometime find a place
somewhere or other where they could post a letter. It was so entrancing
to be actually at sea on a ship, with the deck rising and falling, and
the wake boiling away behind, and land nowhere in sight, that it would
seem a pity ever to arrive at the Spanish Main; but the thought of
adventures there--! However, he was in no hurry to have the voyage over.

Aunt Amanda was sitting somewhere with a pile of sailors' socks in her
lap, perfectly contented. Mr. Hanlon was swinging his feet away up
yonder from the topmost yard of the second mast. The Churchwarden, Mr.
Punch, Toby, and the Sly Old Fox were engaged in an earnest discussion
in chairs beside the deck-house. The Old Codger with the Wooden Leg was
speaking confidentially in the ear of the twenty-f