et takes the adventure joyously. It is the first time she has
experienced mutiny, but she is such a thorough sea-woman that she appears
like an old hand at the game. She leaves the deck to the mate and me;
but, still acknowledging his leadership, she has taken charge below and
entirely manages the commissary, the cooking, and the sleeping
arrangements. We still keep our old quarters, and she has bedded the new-
comers in the big after-room with blankets issued from the slop-chest.

In a way, from the standpoint of her personal welfare, the mutiny is the
best thing that could have happened to her. It has taken her mind off
her father and filled her waking hours with work to do. This afternoon,
standing above the open booby-hatch, I heard her laugh ring out as in the
old days coming down the Atlantic. Yes, and she hums snatches of songs
under her breath as she works. In the second dog-watch this evening,
after Mr. Pike had finished dinner and joined us on the poop, she told
him that if he did not soon re-rig his phonograph she was going to start
in on the piano. The reason she advanced was the psychological effect
such sounds of revelry would have on the starving mutineers.

* * * * *

The days pass, and nothing of moment happens. We get nowhere. The
_Elsinore_, without the steadying of her canvas, rolls emptily and drifts
a lunatic course. Sometimes she is bow on to the wind, and at other
times she is directly before it; but at all times she is circling vaguely
and hesitantly to get somewhere else than where she is. As an
illustration, at daylight this morning she came up into the wind as if
endeavouring to go about. In the course of half an hour she worked off
till the wind was directly abeam. In another half hour she was back into
the wind. Not until evening did she manage to get the wind on her port
bow; but when she did, she immediately paid off, accomplished the
complete circle in an hour, and recommenced her morning tactics of trying
to get into the wind.

And there is nothing for us to do save hold the poop against the attack
that is never made. Mr. Pike, more from force of habit than anything
else, takes his regular observations and works up the _Elsinore's_
position. This noon she was eight miles east of yesterday's position,
yet to-day's position, in longitude, was within a mile of where she was
four days ago. On the other hand she invariably makes nothing at the
rate of seven or eight mile