ship and plenty of sea room there is no need to be afraid;
but when you are wet through for a week at a spell, and the galley-fires
can't be kept going, there is very little comfort in it."

The wind changed next day to the west, and by evening was blowing hard.
A good deal of the canvas was taken off, and the ship edged further away
from land; but after blowing strongly the wind abated again, and the
next day the _Wild Wave_ passed Cape St. Vincent and headed for the
Straits of Gibraltar. As the wind still held from the west they made a
rapid run, and in ten days after passing St. Vincent dropped anchor in
the harbour of Alexandria.

The next day the captain said to Jim Tucker, "You three lads can go
ashore after dinner to-day. There is nothing particular for you to do on
board, and it is well to get a view of these foreign towns while you
can. When you once get to be mates you will not have much chance to do
so, for then you will have to be looking after the loading and unloading
of the cargo. Come off before gun-fire. There are about as cut-throat a
lot of thieves in Alexandria as in any port on the Mediterranean, and
that is saying a good deal."

"It is quite possible that there will be trouble here before long," Mr.
Hoare remarked at dinner.

"I saw something in the paper about it," Mr. Alston, the third mate,
said; "but I did not trouble to read through the accounts. What is it
all about?"

"There has been a sort of peaceable revolution," Mr. Hoare said. "The
colonels of the regiments in Cairo, headed by a general named Arabi
Pasha, mutinied, and the viceroy had to give way to them."

"What did they mutiny about?" the third mate asked.

"Well, in the first place they wanted privileges for the army, and in
the second place they wanted a lot of Europeans who hold berths to be
dismissed, and the government to be entirely in the hands of natives. It
is a sort of national movement, with the army at the head of it; and the
viceroy, although still nominally the ruler of Egypt, is in fact little
more than a cipher in the hands of Arabi and the colonels. They say the
French are at the bottom of it, and it is likely enough. They have
always been jealous of our influence in Egypt. However, I do not
suppose we shall interfere in the matter, unless they break regularly
out and ill-treat Europeans, and threaten to seize the canal or
something of that sort."

After dinner the three boys landed together in a boat. Half