who is Mrs.Thompson, I should like to know?
Who wants her poking her nose here? Why did
she drive her husband away with her nagging,
and temper, and botheration? Tell her to mind
her own business. Pretty thing, indeed! Come,
dear, no nonsense; pack up my kit."

"But, Joe dear, there was your photograph
fell off the nail on Tuesday—that night I saw a
shooting star fall close to the docks, and it wasn't
sent for nothing. Don't go, Joe; don't go."

"Go I must, Jenny dear, and go I shall, so
don't make it painful, there's a good little
woman. Come, I'll go up with you now, and
kiss George and Lizzy. I won't wake them;
then we'll go and look out the shirts and things
for the chest. Keep a good heart; you know
I shall soon be back. I've got a nice captain,
and a smart first mate."

III.

"Why, Captain Thompson, who ever thought
to have found you here, and only quartermaster?"
said the purser, as he stood at the gangway of
the Shooting Star, watching the fresh provisions
brought in. "Well, I am sorry to see you so
reduced, sir, I am indeed. How was it?"

The quartermaster drew him on one side with
a rueful look. He was a purple, jolly, sottish-
looking man, with swollen features.

"It was the grog, Joe, as did it—all the
infernal grog," he said. " I lost my last ship, the
Red Star, and then everything went wrong;
but I've struck off drinking now, Joe; I wasn't
fit to have a ship, that's about it—lost myself,
too, Joe; and here I am with my hands in the
tar-bucket again, trying to do my dooty in that
station of life, as the Catechism used to say."

"And how do you like our captain and crew,
sir?" Pennant said, under his breath.

"Captain's as good a man as ever trod in shoe-
leather-- upright man, though he will have the
work done, but the crew ain't much, between
ourselves. Four of them first class, the rest
loafers and skulkers, wanting to emigrate,
picked up on the quays, half thieves, half
deserters, not worth their salt. They'll all run
when they get to Quebec. Then there's the
first mate, he's a nice nigger-driver, he is
bound for a bad port, I think. I wouldn't
trust him with a ship, that's all I can say,
unless it was a pirate ship, that he might get on
with, but he is smooth enough before the
captain—he takes care of that—curse him."

Just at that moment there came a shrill voice
screaming curses from the shore.

"Look alive, you skulkers there," it cried—
it was the mate's voice—" or I'll let you know.
We shan't be ready by Tuesday, if you don't
hurry. Not a drop of grog before the work's done,
mind that. I'll have no infernal grumbling
while I'm mate; and what are you doing there,
quartermaster, idling? Mr. Purser, see at once
if the stores are all in, and hand in the bills to
me to give to Captain Ritson."

The men, ragged, sullen fellows, worked
harder but cursed in an under breath.

The moment the captain came on board the
mate's manner entirely altered. He crouched
and whispered, and asked for orders, and spoke
to the men with punctilious quietude.

Cardew had some strange hold over the
captain, as the purser soon discovered; some money
matters; some threat, which he held over
Ritson's head, about his father's farm in
Cumberland; some power that the captain dreaded,
though he tried to appear cheerful, trusting,
and indifferent. At first tyrannical to the men,
Cardew had now begun to conciliate them in
every possible way, especially when Captain
Ritson was not on deck.

The purser was in his cabin, the twentieth
day after the Shooting Star had started. He
was head down at his accounts, and the luminous
green shade over the lamp threw a golden light
upon rows of figures and the red lines that
divided them. He was working silently, honest
zealous fellow that he was, when a low tap
came at the cabin door. He leaped off his seat
and opened the door; it was old Thompson, the
quartermaster, who shut it after him with a
suspicious care.

"Well, Thompson," said the purser, looking
up with an overworked and troubled expression,
"what is it?"

The quartermaster sat down with a hand on
either knee. "I tell you what it is, Mr.
Pennant, between you and me there's mischief
brewing."

"Thompson, you've been at the rum again,"
said the amazed purser, in a reproachful voice.

"No, Mr. Pennant, I haven't; no, I am
sober as the day I was born. Never you mind
how I learned what I am going to tell you.
There was a time when no one dared accuse
Jack Thompson of eavesdropping, without
getting an answer straight between the eyes,
and quick too; but now I'm a poor rascal no
one cares for; only fit to mend old rope and
patch sails, and I can stoop now to do things I
should have been ashamed of once, even if I
had done them, as I did this, for good."

There came at this moment a pert rap at the
door, and Harrison, the ship's boy, thrust in his
head.

"Well, what do you want?" said the purser,
in his sharp honest way.

"If you please, sir, there's an ice-fog coming
on, and Mr. Cardew says the men are to have
an extra glass of grog round as there will be
extra watches."

"Did Captain Ritson himself give the order?"

"No, sir; Mr. Cardew. Captain's been up
all night, and is gone to lie down."

"Tell Mr. Cardew, with my compliments,
that the captain told me yesterday never to
serve out rum without his special orders."

"Yes, sir." The boy left.

"Now, Mr. Quartermaster, let me know the
worst. I think—I suspect—it is something about
our first mate. This is going to be an unlucky
voyage, I can see. Let me hear the worst, quick,
that we may do something to stop the leak."

The quartermaster, a stolid man of Dutch
temperament, and by no means to be hurried,