of his men had at the last minute,
to Jack's great satisfaction, been drafted into the regiment, and
accompanied them on their voyage.

"Ay, they are a rough lot," the sergeant said in answer to an
observation of Jack as to the grumbling of the men after they had been
at sea a few days; "but what can you expect when you take men from their
homes against their will, pick out the worst characters in each town,
make up their number with jail birds, and then pack them off to sea
before they have got into shape? There's nothing tries men more than a
sea voyage. Here they are packed up as close as herrings, with scarcely
room to move about, with nothing to do, and with food which a dog
would turn up his nose to eat. Naturally they get talking together, and
grumbling over their wrongs till they work themselves up.

"I wish the voyage was over. It wouldn't matter if we had a good steady
old crew, but more than half of them have been pressed; many of them are
landsmen who have been carried off just as you were. No doubt they would
all fight toughly enough if a Frenchman hove in view, but the captain
couldn't rely on them in a row on board. As long as the fleet keeps
together it's all right enough. Here are nine vessels, and no one on
board one knows what's going on in the others, but if the captain of
any one of them were to hoist a signal that a mutiny had broken out on
board, the others would be round her with their portholes opened ready
to give her a dose of round shot in no time."

"But you don't think that it is really likely that we shall have any
trouble, sergeant?"

"There won't be any trouble if, as I am telling you, the weather holds
fine and the fleet keeps together; but if there's a gale and the ships
get scattered, no one can't say what might come of it."

"I can't think how they could be so mad as to get up a mutiny," Jack
said; "why, even supposing they did take the ship, what would they do
with it?"

"Them's questions as has been asked before, my lad, and there's sense
and reason in them, but you knows as well as I that there's many a craft
sailing the seas under the black flag. There isn't a ship as puts to sea
but what has half a dozen hands on board who have been in slavers, and
who are full of tales of islands where everything grows without the
trouble of putting a spade in the ground, where all sorts of strange
fruit can be had for the picking, and where the natives are glad enough
to be servants or