much flourish of
oratory brought the crowd up to the bar for a last drink and the
presentation of the flasks. The drinks were also seasoned, and soon
Murphy and Hennesey had a long hour's work in lifting the twenty-four
able seamen up to the bedrooms, to sleep until the express wagons came
to take them and their dunnage to the tug. They came at ten o'clock,
and the unconscious men were carried down with their grips and boxes,
and loaded in like so many bags of potatoes.

"It's done, Hennesey," said Murphy, as, perspiring and fatigued, he
fetched back into the barroom. "Now, Hennesey, let's you and me have a
drink, and we'll drink to the health and the happiness of Bucko Bill
Williams, the dog."

"Right," said Hennesey, going behind the bar and bringing out the
bottle and the glasses; "but we'll need to hurry, Murphy, for I've got
to go down wid the tug, ye know." As he spoke he passed his hand over
the glass he had placed for Murphy, and Murphy, glancing out through
the door at the departing express wagons, did not see.

But Hennesey had another express wagon in reserve, and when Murphy
sagged down and sought the nearest chair and table, too stupefied to
even wonder at his sleepiness, Hennesey called this wagon from the
corner and, with the help of the driver, bundled Murphy into it,
climbed in himself, and rode down to the dock and the waiting tug.

* * * * *

It was broad daylight when Murphy woke, in a forecastle bunk, with a
dull, dragging pain in his head which he knew from experience was the
after effects of a drug. He rolled out, noticing that each bunk held a
sleeping man, and, examining a few, recognized his boarders. The plan
had succeeded, but why was he there? Then he remembered that last
drink, and calling down silent curses upon Hennesey, went out on deck.

The big ship was plowing along before the wind with not a rag set
except the foretopmast-staysail and jib. Amidships was a man coiling up
ropes, at the wheel was another man, and pacing the top of the
after-house was Captain Williams, red-bearded, red-eyed, and truculent
of gesture and expression. These three bore marks of hard usage,
bruises, black eyes, swollen noses, and contusions. Murphy climbed the
forecastle deck and looked astern. The land was a thin line of blue on
the horizon.

He descended and went aft. The man coiling ropes, whom Murphy learned
later was the first mate, looked furtively at hi