had the luck to save
the first lieutenant's life and so obtained his promotion, and how the
next prize they took was recaptured, but that he and a portion of the crew
again overcame the Moors. Then he related how he had had the good fortune
to obtain the command of a prize, with forty men and another midshipman
under him, and gave a vivid account of the adventures he had gone through
while cruising about in her.

"Well, well!" John Hammond said, when he brought his story to a
conclusion, "you have had goings-on. To think that a boy like you should
command a vessel and forty men, and should take three pirates."

"But the most awful part of it all," the old woman said, "is about them
black negroes that carried you off and were going to burn you alive. Lor',
I'll dream of it at nights."

"I hope not, missis," John said. "You dream more than enough now, and wake
me up with your jumps and starts, and give me a lot of trouble to pacify
you and convince you that you have only been dreaming. I am sorry, Will,
that you told us about those niggers. I know I'll have lots of trouble
over it. Generally all she has had to dream about has been that my boat
was sinking, or that the revenue officers had taken me and were going to
hang me; but that will be nothing to this 'ere negro business."

"They are terrible creatures these negroes, ain't they?" the old woman
said. "I have heard tell that they have horns and hoofs like the devil."

"No, no, mother, they are not so bad as that, and they don't have tails,
either. They are not good-looking men for all that, and they look
specially ugly when they are gathering firewood to make a bonfire of you."

"For goodness sake don't say more about them; it makes me all come over in
a sweat to think about them."

Just at this moment Tom Stevens came in and sat and chatted for some time.
Will asked him to come in again later and to bring with him a bottle of
the best spirits he could find in the village.

"I'll warrant I will get some good stuff," Tom said. "There are plenty of
kegs of the best hidden away in the village, and I think I know where to
lay my hand on one of them."

Will then went to the rectory and had a chat with Mr. Warden, who was
unaffectedly glad to see him.

"I never quite approved," he said, "of my daughter's hobby of educating
you, but I now see that she was perfectly right. I thought myself that at
best you would obtain some small clerkship, and that your life would