ng-shed,
deep in the discussion of their usual subject--the perils and pains of
Arctic exploration, when you have little food in your wallet and not too
much in your stomach.

"But you has lots of things when you gets there--hams and flitches and
oranges and things--hasn't you?" said Martin.

"Never a ha'p'orth," said Tommy. "Nothing but glory. You just takes your
Alping stock and your sleeping sack and your bit o' biscuit and away you
go over crevaxes deeper nor Martha's gullet and mountains higher nor
Mount Blank and never think o' nothing but doing something that nobody's
never done before. My goodness, yes, boy, that's the way of it when
you're out asploring. 'Glory's waiting for me' says you, and on you go."

At that great word I saw Martin's blue eyes glisten like the sea when
the sun is shining on it; and then, seeing me for the first time, he
turned back to old Tommy and said:

"I s'pose you lets women go with you when you're out asploring--women
and girls?"

"Never a woman," said Tommy.

"Not never--not if they're stunners?" said Martin.

"Well," says Tommy, glancing down at me, while his starboard eye
twinkled, "I won't say never--not if they're stunners."

Next day Martin, attended by William Rufus, arrived at our house with a
big corn sack on his shoulder, a long broom-handle in his hand, a
lemonade bottle half filled with milk, a large sea biscuit and a small
Union Jack which came from the confectioner's on the occasion of his
last birthday.

"Glory's waiting for me--come along, shipmate," he said in a mysterious
whisper, and without a word of inquiry, I obeyed.

He gave me the biscuit and I put it in the pocket of my frock, and the
bottle of milk, and I tied it to my belt, and then off we went, with the
dog bounding before us.

I knew he was going to the sea, and my heart was in my mouth, for of all
the things I was afraid of I feared the sea most--a terror born with me,
perhaps, on the fearful night of my birth. But I had to live up to the
character I had given myself when Martin became my brother, and the one
dread of my life was that, finding me as timid as other girls, he might
want me no more.

We reached the sea by a little bay, called Murphy's Mouth, which had a
mud cabin that stood back to the cliff and a small boat that was moored
to a post on the shore. Both belonged to Tommy the Mate, who was a
"widow man" living alone, and therefore there were none to see us when
we launched the