, and had a long weather-beaten, rather
melancholy-looking face. Not that he was melancholy; the form of his
features made him look so. It is better, however, to look melancholy
than to have facetious features, which always appear to be on a broad
grin. A strong contrast to both of them was found in our third officer,
Samuel Melgrove. He was a man with strongly-marked, rather coarse
features, with red hair and complexion. One might have expected to hear
only the roughest tones come out of such a mouth as he possessed; but,
instead, he spoke in a soft, somewhat mincing manner, and prided himself
on his gentlemanly style and volubility. He could, however, speak loud
and rough enough in case of necessity. If called on suddenly to shorten
sail, no one could make himself better heard. The mates on board a
merchantman have the same sort of duty as the lieutenants of a
man-of-war, with the addition of having to attend to the stowing of the
cargo and stores. We had also a surgeon, who was a good naturalist and
a very scientific man--Mr David McRitchie. He evidently at first
looked with very grave suspicion on Gerard and me, as if we were only
waiting our opportunity to play him some trick; and when he left his
cabin he always locked the door, lest we should get in and do some
mischief; but such an idea was, I must say, very far from my thoughts,
and even Gerard respected him too much to wish to annoy him. How to
convince him of this seemed a difficulty. Gerard undertook to assure
him.

"Mr McRitchie," said he one day abruptly to him, "I daresay that you
think me a young jackanapes, whose only thought is how he can do most
harm in the world. Now, sir, you are mistaken; all I want is that you
will impart some of your knowledge to Harry and me; but, understand,
whether you do that or not, Harry and I will make it a point of honour
not to do you any injury by word, look, or deed."

"Oh, I never--Well, well, you are good boys, and I perfectly trust you,"
stuttered out the doctor, completely taken by surprise. "I shall be
glad, too, to give you all the information in my power; and I hope, in
the course of the voyage, we may have many interesting subjects to see
and talk about." I was sure that Mr McRitchie would faithfully keep
his word.

We had three other somewhat important personages on board who were
characters in their way--Richard Fleming the boatswain, James Pincott
the carpenter, and Thomas Veal the captain'