sailor's whispering voices any longer nor any grunting from the
pigs; although we kept our ears on the alert. "I fancy, though, they
were up to something, from a remark I heard just now when I passed by
the fo'c's'le as the starboard watch were having their tea."

"What was that?" I asked. "Did they speak of doing anything?"

"No-o," replied Tom hesitatingly, as if he did not quite like telling me
all he knew, being afraid perhaps of my informing Mr Mackay, from the
latter and I being now known to be close friends albeit I was only an
apprentice and he the first mate. "I only heard them joking about that
beastly marmalade the skipper has palmed off on them, and us, too, worse
luck, in lieu of our proper rations of salt junk; and one of them said
he'd `like to swap all his lot for the voyage for a good square meal of
roast pork,' that's all."

"Why, any of us might have said that," cried I laughing, and not seeing
any harm in the observation. "I'm sure I would not object to a change
of diet."

Later on in the evening, though, what Tom had related was brought back
to me with much point; for, a curious circumstance occurred shortly
after "four bells," when it was beginning to get dark after sunset, the
night closing in so rapidly.

The captain was then on the poop talking to Mr Saunders about something
or other in which they both seemed deeply interested, the one sniffing
and twitching his long nose about, and the other wagging his red beard
as he moved his jaws in talking. I was just above their heads in the
mizzen-top, my favourite retreat of an evening, whither I had taken up a
book to read, although I could barely distinguish the print by this
time, daylight had disappeared so quickly on the sun's sinking in the
deep astern; when, all at once, a violent squealing and grunting broke
out from the long-boat, sufficient for more than a herd of porkers all
in their last agony, instead of its coming from one or even all three of
the pigs Captain Gillespie had stowed there, fattening them up until he
thought them big enough to kill for the table.

"Who the dickens is that troubling my pigs?" roared the captain,
clutching hold of the brass rail of the poop in front of him, and
squinting forwards as well as he could in the dim light to where the
clew of the main-sail just lifting disclosed the fore part of the deck-
house with the long-boat on top. "None of your sky-larking there, d'ye
hear? Leave 'em alone!"

B