d bemoan his condition.

On the third night Mrs. Harbolt was later in retiring than usual, and it
was nearly midnight before the skipper, who had been indignantly waiting
for her to go, was able to get on deck and hold counsel with the mate.

"I've done what I could for you," said the latter, fishing a crust from
his pocket, which Harbolt took thankfully. "I've told her all the yarns
I could think of about people turning up after they was buried and the
like."

"What'd she say?" queried the skipper eagerly, between his bites.

"Told me not to talk like that," said the mate; "said it showed a want
o' trust in Providence to hint at such things. Then I told her what you
asked me about the locket, only I made it a bracelet worth ten pounds."

"That pleased her?" suggested the other hopefully.

The mate shook his head. "She said I was a born fool to believe you'd
been robbed of it," he replied. "She said what you'd done was to give it
to one o' them pore females. She's been going on frightful about it all
the afternoon--won't talk o' nothing else."

"I don't know what's to be done," groaned the skipper despondently. "I
shall be dead afore we get to port this wind holds. Go down and get me
something to eat George; I'm starving."

"Everything's locked up, as I told you afore," said the mate.

"As the master of this ship," said the skipper, drawing himself up,
"I order you to go down and get me something to eat. You can tell the
missus it's for you if she says anything."

"I'm hanged if I will," said the mate sturdily. "Why don't you go down
and have it out with her like a man? She can't eat you."

"I'm not going to," said the other shortly. "I'm a determined man, and
when I say a thing I mean it. It's going to be broken to her gradual, as
I said; I don't want her to be scared, poor thing."

"I know who'd be scared the most," murmured the mate.

The skipper looked at him fiercely, and then sat down wearily on the
hatches with his hands between his knees, rising, after a time, to get
the dipper and drink copiously from the water-cask. Then, replacing it
with a sigh, he bade the mate a surly good-night and went below.

To his dismay he found when he awoke in the morning that what little
wind there was had dropped in the night, and the billy-boy was just
rising and falling lazily on the water in a fashion most objectionable
to an empty stomach. It was the last straw, and he made things so
uncomfortable below that th