g that bottle of fish soup as the skipper
fetched me down to swab up last night--that as went all over the
skipper's chart. Pore young chap! I'll go and smooth him down."

"What do you want?" cried Rodd angrily.

"Oh, nothing, sir. I only wanted to say I'm sorry I put your uncle out
about the island. I'm a bit deaf in one ear since I got hurt over that
fight, and I mis-underconstumbled him. He said, `There she is,' and I
thought he was talking about Bony's island, and he meant the brig."

"Well, suppose he did? There she is."

"Nay, sir; you take another look. That's a three-master, sir. Don't
you see?"

"Oh yes, I see now, Joe," said Rodd, who was rather ashamed of his
petulance to the man. "She was end on to us, and I didn't see the
mizzen. Why, she's in full sail!"

"Yes, sir, a regular crowd of canvas, topgallants and stunsles all up,
and if I haven't forgotten all about a man-of-war, that's what she is,
as we used to say, by the cut of her jib, which is a very sensible
remark, sir, as from here her jib's quite out of sight."

The doctor kept on deck till breakfast-time, sweeping the horizon with
his glass, while the skipper walked up and down with his long
mahogany-covered glass tucked under his left arm, and his hands very
deep down in his pockets, while his shoulders were hitched up to his
ears.

Then breakfast, with everything hot except the conduct of the occupants
of the cabin. This was almost icy, and hardly a word was spoken.

Up on deck again, with the schooner careening over to the pleasant
breeze, but no sign of the brig; but the three-masted vessel was
overhauling them fast, and before long a gun said, Heave to, in the very
emphatic monosyllable so well understood in the Royal Navy.

The skipper gave a glance at Uncle Paul with one eye, and that morning
it seemed if as he had been suddenly afflicted with a cast, for the
other eye turned outward and looked at Rodd.

Then he gave the order to the man at the wheel, who with a few turns of
the spokes ran the swift little vessel well up into the wind, her sails
began to flap, and she quietly settled down into a gentle rock upon the
beautifully rippled heaving sea. Then time went on, with the man-of-war
bearing down upon them rapidly, while the doctor stood scowling angrily
at the rock which had so much to do with the fate of nations standing
out more clearly in the sunlit air.

In due time a boat full of men was swung down from the d