o put your
hand on in any emergency whatever. I could not wait for that. Out beyond
soundings the big seas were racing westward and calling me, albatrosses
hovered motionless, expectant of a comrade, and a thousand islands
held each of them a fresh adventure, stored up, hidden away, awaiting
production, expressly saved for me. We were humming, close-hauled, down
the Channel, spray in the eyes and the shrouds thrilling musically, in
much less time than the average man would have taken to transfer his
Gladstone bag and his rugs from the train to a sheltered place on the
promenade-deck of the tame daily steamer.

So long as we were in pilotage I stuck manfully to the wheel. The
undertaking was mine, and with it all its responsibilities, and there
was some tricky steering to be done as we sped by headland and bay, ere
we breasted the great seas outside and the land fell away behind us. But
as soon as the Atlantic had opened out I began to feel that it would
be rather nice to take tea by myself in my own cabin, and it therefore
became necessary to invent a comrade or two, to take their turn at the
wheel.

This was easy enough. A friend or two of my own age, from among the
boys I knew; a friend or two from characters in the books I knew; and
a friend or two from No-man's-land, where every fellow's a born sailor;
and the crew was complete. I addressed them on the poop, divided them
into watches, gave instructions I should be summoned on the first sign
of pirates, whales, or Frenchmen, and retired below to a well-earned
spell of relaxation.

That was the right sort of cabin that I stepped into, shutting the door
behind me with a click. Of course, fire-arms were the first thing I
looked for, and there they were, sure enough, in their racks, dozens of
'em--double-barrelled guns, and repeating-rifles, and long pistols,
and shiny plated revolvers. I rang up the steward and ordered tea, with
scones, and jam in its native pots--none of your finicking shallow glass
dishes; and, when properly streaked with jam, and blown out with tea, I
went through the armoury, clicked the rifles and revolvers, tested the
edges of the cutlasses with my thumb, and filled the cartridge-belts
chock-full. Everything was there, and of the best quality, just as if I
had spent a whole fortnight knocking about Plymouth and ordering things.
Clearly, if this cruise came to grief, it would not be for want of
equipment.

Just as I was beginning on the locker