ve made matters
unpleasant for himself; but he promptly saw that, by affecting to share
the captain's anxiety, he could at one and the same time inflict great
annoyance upon him and a large amount of unnecessary labour upon the
crew, or at least upon that portion of it which constituted the larboard
watch. Luckily for this watch it happened that they had to do deck duty
only from midnight until four o'clock a.m. on this particular night, so
Mr Bryce had only four hours in which to worry them. But during that
four hours he did it most thoroughly. His first act on taking charge of
the deck at midnight was to glance aloft, then he looked into the
binnacle, after which he walked forward and had a look for the _Southern
Cross_. That ship, or at least the ship which Captain Blyth averred to
be the _Southern Cross_, was just discernible, a faint dark blot upon
the star-lit sky; but in that imperfect light it was quite impossible to
say whether she was gaining or being gained upon. The chief-mate,
however, affected to believe the former, and exclaiming, loud enough for
the men to hear him:

"Tut, tut, this will never do! the stranger is walking away from us, and
the skipper will make a pretty fuss in the morning," he there and then
began forward with the flying-jib, and made the watch sweat up every
halliard throughout the ship, and the same with the sheets of the square
canvas. Then, the wind having hauled still further aft, a pull was
taken upon all the weather braces; the jib, staysail, and trysail sheets
were next eased up a trifle; and, finally, all three skysails were set,
only to be clewed up and furled again just before the expiration of the
watch. This kept the men pretty busy for the greater part of their four
hours on deck, highly exasperating them--which was what the mate
intended to do--and producing a general fit of grumbling among them, for
which he cared not one iota.

Whether Mr Bryce's excessive zeal was productive of good results or not
it is scarcely possible to say--the alterations he effected in the set
of the canvas were so trifling that, with the ship running off the wind,
it is probable they were not--but, be this as it may, the fact remains
that at daylight next morning the stranger, still ahead, had been neared
to within about four miles.

Captain Blyth, as might be expected, was on deck early that morning--
before, in fact, the watch had begun to wash down the decks--and,
observing that the