steamer? Mightn't she be a sailing
vessel!"

"Not with that white light at her foremast head. Sailing vessels
aren't allowed to show any above their side lights. Now go below and
eat your supper while I take her."

This eating alone was such an unpleasant feature of the cruise that, as
Cabot sat down to his solitary meal, he regretted having persuaded
White to leave David Gidge behind.

"I am afraid this going to sea shorthanded will prove a false economy
after all," he said to himself, thereby reaching a conclusion that has
been forced upon seafaring men since ships first sailed the ocean.

Finishing his supper as quickly as possible, Cabot rejoined his
companion, and begged him also to hurry that they might bear each other
company on deck.

"All right," agreed White, "only, of course, I shall be longer than you
were, for I have to wash and put away the dishes."

"Oh, bother the dishes!" exclaimed Cabot "Let them go till morning."

"Not much. We haven't any too many dishes as it is, nor a chance of
getting any more, and if I should leave them where they are we probably
wouldn't have any by morning. Besides, it wouldn't be tidy, and an
untidy ship is worse than an untidy house, because you can't get away
from it. But I won't be long."

True to his promise, White, bringing with him a heavy oilskin coat and
an armful of blankets, speedily rejoined his comrade, who was by this
time shivering in the chill night air.

"Put this on," said the young skipper, tendering Cabot the oilskin,
"and then I am going to ask you to stand first watch. I will roll up
in these blankets and sleep here on deck, so that you can get me up at
a moment's notice. You want to wake me at midnight, anyhow, when I
will take the morning watch."

"Very well," agreed Cabot resignedly. "I suppose you know what is best
to be done, but it seems to me that we are arranging for a very
lonesome cruise on regular Box and Cox lines."

As White had no knowledge of Box and Cox he did not reply to this
grumble, but, rolling up in his blankets until he resembled a huge
cocoon, almost instantly dropped asleep.

During the next four hours Cabot, shivering with cold and aching with
weariness, but never once allowing his tired eyes to close, remained at
his post. Through the black night, and over the still darker waters,
he guided the flying schooner according to the advice of the unstable
compass card that formed the only spot of light within