here we
are on board your ship will you tell us what you mean to do with us?'

He now said bluntly, 'I will.'

'You'll behave like a man of honour,' said I, and to that he cried
vehemently, 'I will.'

'Well, then,' said I, 'call out the boat, if you please; we're anxious to
be home.'

'So you shall!' the captain shouted, 'and per ship--my barque Priscilla;
and better men than you left, or I 'm no Christian.'

Temple said briskly, 'Thank you, captain.'

'You may wait awhile with that, my lad,' he answered; and, to our
astonishment, recommended us to go and clean our faces and prepare to
drink some tea at his table.

'Thank you very much, captain, we'll do that when we 're on shore,' said
we.

'You'll have black figure-heads and empty gizzards, then, by that time,'
he remarked. We beheld him turning over the leaves of a Bible.

Now, this sight of the Bible gave me a sense of personal security, and a
notion of hypocrisy in his conduct as well; and perceiving that we had
conjectured falsely as to his meaning to cast us on shore per ship, his
barque Priscilla, I burst out in great heat, 'What! we are prisoners? You
dare to detain us?'

Temple chimed in, in a similar strain. Fairly enraged, we flung at him
without anything of what I thought eloquence.

The captain ruminated up and down the columns of his Bible.

I was stung to feel that we were like two small terriers baiting a huge
mild bull. At last he said, 'The story of the Prodigal Son.'

'Oh!' groaned Temple, at the mention of this worn-out old fellow, who has
gone in harness to tracts ever since he ate the fatted calf.

But the captain never heeded his interruption.

'Young gentlemen, I've finished it while you 've been barking at me. If I
'd had him early in life on board my vessel, I hope I'm not presumptuous
in saying--the Lord forgive me if I be so!--I'd have stopped his downward
career--ay, so!--with a trip in the right direction. The Lord, young
gentlemen, has not thrown you into my hands for no purpose whatsoever.
Thank him on your knees to-night, and thank Joseph Double, my mate, when
you rise, for he was the instrument of saving you from bad company. If
this was a vessel where you 'd hear an oath or smell the smell of liquor,
I 'd have let you run when there was terra firma within stone's throw. I
came on board, I found you both asleep, with those marks of dissipation
round your eyes, and I swore--in the Lord's name, mind you--I'd help
pluck