r, cap'en," he cried, "giving me that fat one there,
the Colt revolver, last voyage when you thought there was going to be a
mutiny; and how you instructed me how to use it?"

"Oh, aye, I remember. I clean forgot, lad; this bother about the ship
has turned my head, I think," snorted he, not a bit angrily though.
"Well, take the same weapon again now, lad, as you're familiar with it;
and you, youngster, have you got any choice?"

"I'd like this one, sir," I replied, fixing on my original selection, as
he turned to me and asked this question, "if you'll let me have it. I
won't hurt it."

"No, I don't fancy ye will," he said, sniffing and chuckling and
twitching his nose. "I hope ye'll hurt some of those rascally pirates
with it, though."

The captain then opened another chest, a smaller iron one, which he also
dragged out from under his bunk, unlocking it with a heavy key he took
off a bunch which was hanging up on a nail over his writing-desk and
throwing back the lid.

This second receptacle, we soon discovered, contained a lot of
cartridges for the rifles, there being a hundred or more of various
sorts, some for the breech-loaders and some for the Enfields of the old-
fashioned regulation size. There were also a variety of smaller
cartridges for the revolvers, and "Old Jock" gave Tom and I each a
package of these latter for our weapons.

In the chest, likewise, were two or three large flasks of powder and a
lot of bullets loose, which the captain crammed into a leathern bag and
told us to take on the poop with the rifles, Tom and I carrying up a
couple each with the bag of bullets and powder-flasks and then returning
for the rest.

In our absence "Old Jock" had ferreted out from some other hiding-place
of his a couple of swords and a number of cutlasses, which he likewise
directed us to take up the companion, he assisting us; until, presently,
we had the whole armoury arranged on the top of the cabin skylight.

"Now, Mackay," said Captain Gillespie, blowing like a grampus after his
exertions, "take y'r choice, but I think that the two best shots in the
ship ought to have the Martini rifles; and if I were picking out the
picked marksmen--he! he! that's a joke, `picking' and `picked,' didn't
intend it though--I'd have chosen y'rself and the bosun!"

Of course we all laughed at his joke, as he had taken such pains to
point it out; and he was so pleased with it himself that it was some
time before he could s