eer,' 'Captain Kidd's Last Voyage.'"

He sat down on the cabin skylight and began turning them over, and,
picking out certain gems of phraseology, read them aloud to the skipper.
The latter listened at first with scorn and then with impatience.

"I can't make head or tail out of what you're reading, George," he said
snappishly. "Who was Rudolph? Read straight ahead."

Thus urged, the mate, leaning forward so that his listener might hear
better, read steadily through a serial in the first three numbers. The
third instalment left Rudolph swimming in a race with three sharks and
a boat-load of cannibals; and the joint efforts of both men failed to
discover the other numbers.

"Just wot I should 'ave expected of 'im," said the skipper, as the mate
returned from a fruitless search in the boy's chest. "I'll make him a
bit more orderly on this ship. Go an' lock them other things up in your
drawer, George. He's not to 'ave 'em again."

The schooner was getting into open water now, and began to feel it.
In front of them was the blue sea, dotted with white sails and
funnels belching smoke, speeding from England to worlds of romance and
adventure. Something of the kind the cook said to Ralph, and urged
him to get up and look for himself. He also, with the best intentions,
discussed the restorative properties of fat pork from a medical point of
view.

The next few days the boy divided between seasickness and work, the
latter being the skipper's great remedy for piratical yearnings. Three
or four times he received a mild drubbing, and what was worse than the
drubbing, had to give an answer in the affirmative to the skipper's
inquiry as to whether he felt in a more wholesome frame of mind. On the
fifth morning they stood in towards Fairhaven, and to his great joy he
saw treess and houses again.

They stayed at Fairhaven just long enough to put out a small portion of
their cargo. Ralph, stripped to his shirt and trousers, having to work
in the hold with the rest, and proceeded to Lowport, a little place some
thirty miles distant, to put out their powder.

It was evening before they arrived, and, the tide being out, anchored in
the mouth of the river on which the town stands.

"Git in about four o'clock," said the skipper to the mate, as he looked
over the side towards the little cluster of houses on the shore. "Do you
feel better now I've knocked some o' that nonsense out o' you, boy?"

"Much better, sir," said Ralph respec