ding his head on with both his hands.

"Save me! save me from that she-fiend! She is possessed with a legion!
She has broken my nose--torn out half my hair!--and I'm sure I have none
to spare! Here she comes! Stand by me, gentlemen both! Satanas, I defy
thee!" And Jack ensconced himself behind the pair, as Ayacanora whirled
upon deck like a very Maenad, and, seeing Amyas, stopped short.

"If you had defied Satan down below there," said Cary, with a laugh, "I
suspect he wouldn't have broken out on you so boldly, Master Jack."

"I am innocent--innocent as the babe unborn! Oh! Mr. Cary! this is too
bad of you, sir!" quoth Jack indignantly, while Amyas asked what was the
matter.

"He looked at me," said she, sturdily.

"Well, a cat may look at a king."

"But he sha'n't look at Ayacanora. Nobody shall but you, or I'll kill
him!"

In vain Jack protested his innocence of having even looked at her. The
fancy (and I verily believe it was nothing more) had taken possession of
her. She refused to return below to her lesson. Jack went off grumbling,
minus his hair, and wore a black eye for a week after.

"At all events," quoth Cary, re-lighting his cigar, "it's a fault on the
right side."

"God give me grace, or it may be one on the wrong side for me."

"He will, old heart-of-oak!" said Cary, laying his arm around Amyas's
neck, to the evident disgust of Ayacanora, who went off to the side,
got a fishing-line, and began amusing herself therewith, while the ship
slipped on quietly and silently as ever, save when Ayacanora laughed and
clapped her hands at the flying-fish scudding from the bonitos. At last,
tired of doing nothing, she went forward to the poop-rail to listen to
John Squire the armorer, who sat tinkering a headpiece, and humming a
song, mutato nomine, concerning his native place--

"Oh, Bideford is a pleasant place, it shines where it stands,
And the more I look upon it, the more my heart it warms;
For there are fair young lasses, in rows upon the quay,
To welcome gallant mariners, when they come home from say."

"'Tis Sunderland, John Squire, to the song, and not Bidevor," said his
mate.

"Well, Bidevor's so good as Sunderland any day, for all there's
no say-coals there blacking a place about; and makes just so good
harmonies, Tommy Hamblyn--

"Oh, if I was a herring, to swim the ocean o'er,
Or if I was a say-dove, to fly unto the shoor,
To fly unto my true love, a wa