money and could play it properly. It was the same in New Orleans, in
Galveston. I came to California. This is my fifth voyage. I had a hard
time getting these three interested, and spent all my little store of
money before they signed the agreement. They were very mean. Advance
any money to me! The very idea of it was preposterous. Though I bided
my time, ran up a comfortable hotel bill, and, at the very last, ordered
my own generous assortment of liquors and cigars and charged the bill to
the schooner. Such a to-do! All three of them raged and all but tore
their hair . . . and mime. They said it could not be. I fell promptly
sick. I told them they got on my nerves and made me sick. The more they
raged, the sicker I got. Then they gave in. As promptly I grew better.
And here we are, out of water and heading soon most likely for the
Marquesas to fill our barrels. Then they will return and try for it
again!"

"You think so, sir?"

"I shall remember even more important data, steward," the Ancient Mariner
smiled. "Without doubt they will return. Oh, I know them well. They
are meagre, narrow, grasping fools."

"Fools! all fools! a ship of fools!" Dag Daughtry exulted; repeating what
he had expressed in the hold, as he bored the last barrel, listened to
the good water gurgling away into the bilge, and chuckled over his
discovery of the Ancient Mariner on the same lay as his own.

CHAPTER XIV

Early next morning, the morning watch of sailors, whose custom was to
fetch the day's supply of water for the galley and cabin, discovered that
the barrels were empty. Mr. Jackson was so alarmed that he immediately
called Captain Doane, and not many minutes elapsed ere Captain Doane had
routed out Grimshaw and Nishikanta to tell them the disaster.

Breakfast was an excitement shared in peculiarly by the Ancient Mariner
and Dag Daughtry, while the trio of partners raged and bewailed. Captain
Doane particularly wailed. Simon Nishikanta was fiendish in his
descriptions of whatever miscreant had done the deed and of how he should
be made to suffer for it, while Grimshaw clenched and repeatedly clenched
his great hands as if throttling some throat.

"I remember, it was in forty-seven--nay, forty-six--yes, forty-six," the
Ancient Mariner chattered. "It was a similar and worse predicament. It
was in the longboat, sixteen of us. We ran on Glister Reef. So named it
was after our pretty little craft disco