glow on the faces of the men, on the masts and sails, and even out upon
the sea.

The try-works consisted of two huge melting-pots fixed upon brick-work
fireplaces between the fore and main masts. While some of the men were
down in the blubber-room cutting the "blanket-pieces", as the largest
masses are called, others were pitching the smaller pieces on deck,
where they were seized by two men who stood near a block of wood,
called a "horse", with a mincing knife, to slash the junks so as to
make them melt easily. These were then thrown into the melting-pots by
one of the mates, who kept feeding the fires with such "scraps" of
blubber as remain after the oil is taken out. Once the fires were
fairly set agoing no other kind of fuel was required than "scraps" of
blubber. As the boiling oil rose it was baled into copper
cooling-tanks. It was the duty of two other men to dip it out of these
tanks into casks, which were then headed up by our cooper, and stowed
away in the hold.

As the night advanced the fires became redder and brighter by contrast,
the light shone and glittered on the bloody decks, and, as we plied our
dirty work, I could not help thinking, "what would my mother say, if
she could get a peep at me now?"

The ship's crew worked and slept by watches, for the fires were not
allowed to go out all night. About midnight I sat down on the windlass
to take a short rest, and began talking to one of the men, Fred Borders
by name. He was one of the quietest and most active men in the ship,
and, being quite a young man, not more than nineteen, he and I drew to
one another, and became very intimate.

"I think we're goin' to have a breeze, Bob," said he, as a sharp puff
of wind crossed the deck, driving the black smoke to leeward, and
making the fire flare up in the try-works.

"I hope it won't be a storm, then," said I, "for it will oblige us to
put out the fires."

Just then Tom Lokins came up, ordered Fred to go and attend to the
fires, sat down opposite to me on the windlass, and began to "lay down
the law" in regard to storms.

"You see, Bob Ledbury," said he, beginning to fill his pipe, "young
fellers like you don't know nothin' about the weather--'cause why?
you've got no experience. Now, I'll put you up to a dodge consarning
this very thing."

I never found out what was the dodge that Tom, in his wisdom, was to
have put me up to, for at that moment the captain came on deck, and
gave orders to fu