nd and keep your eye on
Jackman," he added, as he trotted off.

Derrick's new and exalted position relieved him of a great deal of the
drudgery he had previously performed, but it kept him on the continual
spring, and burdened him with fresh responsibilities; for it was
necessary that he should be all over the ship at once, so to speak. All
the details of the daily life on board passed under his supervision; all
the multitudinous cares, disputes, arrangements, were referred to him;
and, strangely enough, though most of the men in the company must have
envied him, their envy was not accompanied by ill-feeling, for Derrick's
value was admitted by all of them.

One of the first things he did was to rearrange the women's and
children's quarters, and render them more comfortable, for which the
benefited ones blessed him and loved him all the more intensely. Then he
set to work to cleanse the ship, which during the spell of bad weather
had become almost unendurable. The crew, and some of the company,
grumbled at the increased work and Derrick's drastic regulations, but
they all enjoyed the results of his despotism.

Derrick had less time than before to spend in friendly interchanges with
those who had become attached to him, and the two girls, Isabel and
Alice, watched him wistfully as he moved rapidly within their sight, and
hungered for a word, a smile; and presently they taught the children,
when they were with them, to waylay him, and had to be content with the
scraps of kindness which fell from the children's table.

Fortunately for Derrick's _regime_, the weather continued fine, and
three weeks later the _Angelica_, much battered and straining still most
piteously in every plate, was steaming up the La Plata river to Buenos
Ayres.

The disembarkation shall not be described. Several times during it
Derrick wondered how Noah had managed the same business.

CHAPTER XI

The two days that followed their arrival seemed to Derrick to be a
succession of hours born of delirium and nurtured by frenzy. Mr.
Bloxford, still in his preposterous fur coat, was everywhere at once,
and waving his hands as usual; Derrick, who had begun by shouting, soon
became hoarse, and discovered why it was that Mr. Bloxford relied, on
such occasions, entirely on gesture.

Derrick followed his example as well as he could, and by dint of
expressive pantomime, and sometimes forcible persuasion with a fist
which had acquired an astonishi