ne another
pretty quickly, with the result that in his explanations Aleck had to
include a good deal of his own personal life, after which he did not
scruple to ask his companion a little about his own on board ship.

"I say," said Aleck, at last, "isn't it droll?"

"Droll!" groaned the midshipman. "What, being shut up here?"

"No, no; our meeting as we did in Rockabie harbour, and what took place
with the boys. I never expected to see you again, and now here have I
found you out, a prisoner, chained by the leg, and in ever so short a
time you and I have grown to be quite friends."

"Yes," said the midshipman, drawing a deep breath. "I didn't like you
the first time we met."

"And I didn't like you," said Aleck, laughing. "I thought you were
stuck-up and consequential. I say, I wish Tom Bodger were here!"

"What, that wooden-legged rase sailor?"

"Yes."

"What good could he do--a cripple like that?"

"Cripple! Oh, I never thought of him as a cripple. He's as clever as
clever. There isn't anything he won't try to do. I was thinking that
if he were here he'd be scheming some plan or another to get rid of the
chain about your leg."

"Hah!" sighed the midshipman, "but he isn't here. I say!"

"Well?"

"Hadn't you better have another candle to light--that one's nearly
burned down?"

"I've got one quite ready, lying out here on the stone."

"Hah! That's right," said the prisoner. "It's so horrible to be in the
dark."

"Oh, no; not when you've got company."

"But be quite ready. It might go out quickly."

"Well, if it did, I know where the flint and steel are."

"You couldn't find them in the dark."

"Oh, couldn't I? I kept an eye on everything Master Eben did."

"I say, do you think he will come back?"

"Yes; he's sure to, unless some of the cutter's men catch him and carry
him off."

"Ah! and you think, then, that he wouldn't speak, out of spite, and
leave us here to starve?" cried the middy, excitedly.

"No, I don't," said Aleck; "I don't think anything of the sort. Don't
you be ready to take fright."

"I've been shut up in this place so long," said the middy,
apologetically, "and it has made me as weak and nervous as a girl."

"Well, try not to be," said Aleck. "Look here; there's nothing like
seeing the worst of things and treating them in a common-sense way.
Now, suppose such a thing did happen as that Eben Megg did not come
back--what then?"

"We should be starved to dea