ere's a town; a boat will row us there in
half-an-hour. Then we can wash, too. I've got an idea nothing's clean
here. And confound these fellows for not having the civility to tell us
they were going to start!'

We were rather angry, a little amused, not in the least alarmed at
our position. A sailor, to whom we applied for an introduction to the
captain, said he was busy. Another gave us a similar reply, with a
monstrous grimace which was beyond our comprehension. The sailor Joe was
nowhere to be seen. None of the sailors appeared willing to listen to
us, though they stopped as they were running by to lend half an ear to
what we had to say. Some particular movement was going on in the ship.
Temple was the first to observe that the steamtug was casting us loose,
and cried he, 'She'll take us on board and back to London Bridge. Let's
hail her.' He sang out, 'Whoop! ahoy!' I meanwhile had caught sight of
Joe.

'Well, young gentleman!' he accosted me, and he hoped I had slept well.
My courteous request to him to bid the tug stand by to take us on board,
only caused him to wear a look of awful gravity. 'You're such a deuce
of a sleeper,' he said. 'You see, we had to be off early to make up for
forty hours lost by that there fog. I tried to wake you both; no good;
so I let you snore away. We took up our captain mid-way down the river,
and now you're in his hands, and he'll do what he likes with you, and
that 's a fact, and my opinion is you 'll see a foreign shore before
you're in the arms of your family again.'

At these words I had the horrible sensation of being caged, and worse,
transported into the bargain.

I insisted on seeing the captain. A big bright round moon was dancing
over the vessel's bowsprit, and this, together with the tug thumping
into the distance, and the land receding, gave me--coming on my
wrath--suffocating emotions.

No difficulties were presented in my way. I was led up to a broad man in
a pilot-coat, who stood square, and looked by the bend of his eyebrows
as if he were always making head against a gale. He nodded to my
respectful salute. 'Cabin,' he said, and turned his back to me.

I addressed him, 'Excuse me, I want to go on shore, captain. I must and
will go! I am here by some accident; you have accidentally overlooked me
here. I wish to treat you like a gentleman, but I won't be detained.'

Joe spoke a word to the captain, who kept his back as broad to me as a
school-slate for geograph