you
will give me your word not to do it."

Farquarson jumped to his feet, gripped the hand of the captain in a
sailorly fashion, and said--

"On my Masonic honour, I swear never to breathe again what you have
warned me against, and I'm glad you told me. I might innocently have
got you into a nasty mess. It never struck me when I was bawling out
to you that there was danger. But between ourselves, it was a bit
thick your dashing out of the 'impregnable port,' as they called it,
and expectin' to get off scot-free, I have often spun long twisters
about it, and you can bet it was always made attractive."

"I feel sure you would do that, Farquarson, as you were always a good
story-teller."

This encouraging flattery switched his mind with eager interest on to
a subject quite irrelevant to the one which had engaged their
attention so long.

"Yes," said he, with a self-satisfied smile, "that's true. But talking
about yarns, you remember when I was with Milburn's, running to
Hamburg? The old gentleman asked me to take a few overmen a trip. They
belonged to some mine he was interested in. By the time we got
outside, and got the decks cleared up, it was dark, and the watch was
set. The look-out man went on to the topgallant forecastle, and I was
walking from side to side of the bridge when one of the miners came
running up, and in great excitement he said--

"'Captain, for God's sake gan doon to the cabin and pacify them!
They're playin' nap, and they've faalen oot amang theirselves, and
there's fair almighty hell gannin' on. Aa's sure if ye divvent get
them pacified ther'll be morder!'

"'My good man,' I said,'I cannot leave the bridge.'

"'Ye canna' leave the bridge! What for, then?'

"'Because,' I said, 'I must keep a look-out and see that that man on
the forecastle-head does the same. If he were to see me leave the
bridge, the chances are he would get careless and sit down and go to
sleep, and we might run into something, and probably sink ourselves or
somebody else and lose a lot of lives.'

"By this time I heard loud voices and awful oaths coming from the
after-end of the ship, so says I, 'This must be put a stop to, but I
cannot leave here without somebody takin' my place. You must take it,
and walk across and across as I am doing, so that that fellow on the
look-out will think it's me.'

"'Aa'm not pertikler what aa dee, mister, if ye ony get thor
differences settled before ye come up. Aa nivor heerd sic s