ong as easily as could be, and if the Yankee
captain didn't have the cheek directly after to load a little swivel gun
he had on board, and fire at us over the stern, as if he were laughing
at us.

"Then I saw Maitland give old Staples such a savage look, and go down
into his cabin."

"Well?" said Mark.

"Oh no, it wasn't, old chap; it was ill. There we were regularly
becalmed, and if the wind didn't keep along astern of the schooner and
carry her right away, till she was hull down, and then by degrees we
lost sight of her sails, and the game was up."

"Then you didn't take her?" cried Mark.

"Take her? How could we take her when we were becalmed?"

"And the Yankee skipper got right away?"

"Right away, a robber; and took the prize-money we had so honestly
earned along with him. All that trouble for nothing; and what was
worse, we couldn't come in search of you, for it fell about the deadest
calm I ever saw in all my experience at sea, and that isn't saying much,
is it, Van?"

"Oh!" ejaculated Mark, "how horrible! You ought to have caught her,
Bob."

"That's right jump on me just as if I didn't do my best."

"Go on now, and tell me the rest," said Mark sadly. "Not that it is of
much consequence. I know you picked us up."

"Oh, well, I may as well tell you, though, as you say, it was of no
consequence whatever. Government could have afforded a new first and
second cutter and tackle; men are plentiful; and as to officers, there's
any number in stock."

"Don't chaff, Bob. Tell me, there's a good chap. You came on then in
search of us as soon as you knew that you couldn't catch the schooner."

"No, we didn't. How could we without a breath of wind? All we did was
to lie there and roast and roll on the big swell, with Maitland savage
at losing the schooner, and fidgeting to death about the two absent
boats. I heard him talking to Staples.

"`A great error, Staples,' he said. `I had no business to leave the
poor fellows behind without any provisions in case of accident, and I
ought to have known better.'

"All that day we had the horizon swept with glasses in the hope of
seeing you fellows come rowing after us, but it was getting close to
night before the man at the masthead shouted that a boat was in sight,
and I went up aloft to make out if it was you. But it wasn't, old chap.
It was Ramsey with the second cutter, and the poor chaps' faces were
awful as they were hauled up to the davits. The