e
ladder to stand his watch, and the cook set for the "second half."

It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs, with a shake
and a yawn. It ate till it could eat no more; and then Manuel filled
his pipe with some terrible tobacco, crotched himself between the
pawl-post and a forward bunk, cocked his feet up on the table, and
smiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke. Dan lay at length in
his bunk, wrestling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped accordion, whose tunes
went up and down with the pitching of the _We're Here_. The cook, his
shoulders against the locker where he kept the fried pies (Dan was fond
of fried pies), peeled potatoes, with one eye on the stove in event of
too much water finding its way down the pipe; and the general smell and
smother were past all description.

Harvey considered affairs, wondered that he was not deathly sick, and
crawled into his bunk again, as the softest and safest place, while Dan
struck up, "I don't want to play in your yard," as accurately as the
wild jerks allowed.

"How long is this for?" Harvey asked of Manuel.

"Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl. Perhaps
to-night. Perhaps two days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?"

"I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn't seem to upset
me now--much."

"That is because we make you fisherman, these days. If I was you, when
I come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for my good
luck."

"Give who?"

"To be sure--the Virgin of our Church on the Hill. She is very good to
fishermen all the time. That is why so few of us Portugee men ever are
drowned."

"You're a Roman Catholic, then?"

"I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist,
then? Eh, wha-at? I always give candles--two, three more when I come to
Gloucester. The good Virgin she never forgets me, Manuel."

"I don't sense it that way," Tom Platt put in from his bunk, his
scarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe.
"It stands to reason the sea's the sea; and you'll get jest about
what's goin', candles or kerosene, fer that matter."

"'Tis a mighty good thing," said Long Jack, "to have a frind at coort,
though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years back I was crew
to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid a
northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. The ould man was
dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iv