f, but much dirtier, who appeared at the companion-hatch;
"here's a lad for you. You had better keep an eye on him, as maybe he
will change his mind, and run off again. Go aboard, boy," he added,
turning to Peter, "Jim will look after you, and show you what you have
got to do."

The captain went into the town, and old Jim, who proved to be the mate,
took charge of Peter.

Old Jim asked him several questions. The answers which Peter gave
appeared to satisfy him.

Peter inquired the captain's name.

"Captain Hawkes; and our brig is the _Polly_," answered Jim. "You won't
find a finer craft between this and `No man's land,' if you know where
that is."

Peter saw that she was the largest vessel in the harbour, and so readily
believed what the mate said.

The old man asked him if he was hungry, and Peter acknowledging; that
such was the case, he took him down into the cabin, and after giving him
some bread and ham, offered him a tumbler of rum and water. Peter, who
had never tasted spirits, said he would rather not take the rum, whereon
old Jim laughed at him and drank it himself.

"We shall all get under weigh with the evening tide if the wind holds
fair, for it's off the land you see, and will take us out of the
harbour," he observed. "You had better lie down till then on the locker
and get some sleep, for may be you will find your first night at sea
rather strange to you."

"Where is the vessel going to?" asked Peter, who fully expected to be
told that it was to the Holy Land, or India, or some of the few other
distant countries of which he had heard.

"We are bound to Newcastle first to take in coals, and it's more than I
can tell you where we shall go after that."

"Is Newcastle in a far-off country?" asked Peter.

"It's a good bit from here," said old Jim; "and if you want to be a
sailor, you will have a fair chance of learning before the voyage is
out, and so take my advice and don't trouble yourself about the matter.
Do as I tell you, just lie down--you would have slept all the sounder if
you had taken the grog, though."

Old Jim was afraid, perhaps, that Peter would get talking to the rest of
the crew, and hear something about Captain Hawkes which might induce him
to go on shore again, the last boy having run from the ship, though
shoeless and penniless, rather than endure the treatment he had
received.

Peter, not suspecting old Jim's motive, sat down on the locker in the
cabin. Not feeling