out for
shipwreck next day, and so on, port to port. Ship-surgeons, as well as
all other officers, weren't ordained to follow after cambric skirts and
lace handkerchiefs at sea. Believe me or not as you like, but, for a man
having work to do, woman, lovely woman, is rocks. Now, I suppose you'll
think I'm insolent, for I'm younger than you are, Marmion, but you know
what a rough-and-tumble fellow I am, and you'll not mind."

"Well, Hungerford," I said, "to what does this lead?"

"To Number 116 Intermediate, for one thing. It's letting off steam for
another. I tell you, Marmion, these big ships are too big. There are
those canvas boats. They won't work; you can't get them together. You
couldn't launch one in an hour. And as for the use of the others, the
lascars would melt like snow in any real danger. There's about one
decent boat's crew on the ship, that's all. There! I've unburdened
myself; I feel better."

Presently he added, with a shake of the head: "See here: now-a-days we
trust too much to machinery and chance, and not enough to skill of hand
and brain stuff. I'd like to show you some of the crews I've had in the
Pacific and the China Sea--but I'm at it again! I'll now come, Marmion,
to the real reason why I brought you here.... Number 116 Intermediate
is under the weather; I found him fainting in the passage. I helped
him into his cabin. He said he'd been to you to get medicine, and you'd
given him some. Now, the strange part of the business is, I know him. He
didn't remember me, however--perhaps because he didn't get a good look
at me. Coincidence is a strange thing. I can point to a dozen in my
short life, every one as remarkable, if not as startling, as this. Here,
I'll spin you a yarn:

"It happened four years ago. I had no moustache then, was fat like a
whale, and first mate on the 'Dancing Kate', a pearler in the Indian
Ocean, between Java and Australia. That was sailing, mind you--real
seamanship, no bally nonsense; a fight every weather, interesting
all round. If it wasn't a deadly calm, it was a typhoon; if it wasn't
either, it was want of food and water. I've seen us with pearls on board
worth a thousand quid, and not a drop of water nor three square meals
in the caboose. But that was life for men and not Miss Nancys. If
they weren't saints, they were sailors, afraid of nothing but God
Almighty--and they do respect Him, even when they curse the winds and
the sea. Well, one day we were lying in the