t
inevitable object--a snake, or a toad. And she turned away without
further words, and descended to the cabin. Swope watched her departure
with a half smile parting his beard and mustache. Oh, how I longed to
be able to wipe that sneer from his mouth with my clenched fist!

CHAPTER VII

The Cockney relieved me at the wheel, at one bell, when the mates
turned the crowd to after a short half hour for dinner. Oh, what a
changed Cockney from yestereve! He came slinking meekly along the lee
side of the poop. When he took over the wheel he had hardly spirit
enough in him to mumble over the directions I gave him. His eyes were
puffed half closed, and his lips were cut and swollen. Gone was the
swanking, swaggering Cockney who had paraded before the Swede's bar.
Instead there was only this cowed, miserable sailorman taking over the
wheel. That Cockney had suffered a cruel double cross when he drank of
the black bottle, and was hoisted over the _Golden Bough's_ rail.
Yesterday he was a great man, the "Knitting Swede's" chief bully, with
the hard seafare behind him, and with unlimited rum, and an easy, if
rascally, shore life ahead of him. To-day he was just a shell-back
outward bound, with a sore head and a bruised body; a fellow sufferer
in the foc'sle of a dreaded ship, mere dirt beneath the officers' feet.
Such a fall! Keenly as I had disliked the man yesterday, to-day I was
sorry for him. The more sorry because I felt that the Jocose Swede had
come near having me as the butt of his little joke, instead of Cockney.

I scurried forward, intent upon dinner. I drew my whack from the
Chinaman in the gallery, and bolted it down in the empty foc'sle. It
was a miserable repast, a dish of ill-cooked lobscouse, and a pannikin
of muddy coffee, and I reflected glumly that I had joined a hungry ship
as well as a hot one.

I finished the last of that mysterious stew, and then filled and
lighted my pipe. I felt sure I would be allowed the half hour dinner
spell the rest of the crowd had enjoyed, and I relaxed and puffed
contentedly, determined to enjoy my respite to the last minute. For
the sounds from the deck indicated a lively afternoon for all hands.
But something occurred to interrupt my cherished "Smoke O," something
that caused me to sit up suddenly and stiffly on the bench, while my
pipe fell unheeded from my slackened mouth, and an unpleasant prickle
ran over my scalp and down my spine.

I have already