polishing
brass. When the sun rose the boys breakfasted.

The men of the _Mirabelle_ then went on with their various tasks, but
Amos went up to the Captain's bridge where he listened to Mr. Finney
and Captain Blizzard, and Chris went down to their cabin for an hour
or more.

Supposedly, Chris was studying lessons. This was only partially true,
for instead of sums, he was practising magic, in which he soon
attained a high degree of proficiency.

What he most enjoyed was turning himself into some small commonplace
creature to plague his friends on board--a mouse, one day, a flea the
next, a fly on the third. Quite naturally, no one suspected his
ability to adopt such fantastic disguises. So little did they
guess--he had one or two narrow escapes from being swatted or stamped
on.

It was Zachary Heigh whom Chris wanted to watch, and as a flea or a
fly he often rode about on Zachary's jacket listening and observing.
But it was not until the _Mirabelle_ had rounded Cape Horn one morning
that Chris, in the disguise of a fly, rode unnoticed on Zachary's
jacket when that sulky young man, after looking around to make sure
the others were all at work, slipped down to the sailor's quarters
below decks.

There he dragged out his sea chest, and from under his belongings
pulled out a second chest. Fitting a key to the lock, he lifted up the
lid. Chris, perched on his shoulder, peered over to see the contents.
They were disappointing--merely a gray powder carefully packed in a
piece of tarpaulin.

Wonder why it has to be kept so dry? Chris pondered, but Zachary was
already refolding the tarpaulin and locking the lid. In the next
moment, Zachary had uncovered a length of white coils. Then Chris
understood.

By golly! he exclaimed to himself, dynamite! Or gunpowder! And so
much! What's it for?

Zachary made no other disclosures of interest that day, but after that
Chris spent all the time he could, both day and night, watching the
young sailor. He was determined to discover if he could what Zachary
intended to do with the gunpowder.

It was hard for Chris not to be able to ask Mr. Wicker's advice and
not to have his master's superior knowledge to lean on. Yet had he
known it, it was just this lack which was making him quick witted and
more resourceful.

One night a short time after Zachary's uncovering of the gunpowder,
Chris noticed that Zachary remained on deck after the others had gone
to bed, and continued to sit wi