d furling the sail. Then he straightened and swept the sea
with keen, puckered eyes. It was a scrutiny that was rewarded. Ahead,
across the horizon sky, floated a dark smudge, like the smoke-trail of
a steamer, and beneath it was a black speck. It was no ship, but land,
he knew. It was the expected landfall, the volcanic island, there
ahead, and he, of all of the ship's company, first perceived it from
his lofty perch.

He sent the welcome hail to the deck below----

"Land ho!"

He leaned over the lee yard-arm, grasped a back-stay, and commenced a
rapid and precipitous descent to the deck. A few months before, he
would have descended laboriously and fearfully by way of the shrouds;
sliding down a backstay would then have rubbed his palms raw, and
visited giddiness upon him. But now his hands were rope calloused, and
his wits height proof. He was now the equal, for agility and daring,
with any man on the ship. He had won, without much trouble, a seaman's
niche on the ship.

In truth, Martin was to the life born, and he took to the sea like a
duck to water. He won quickly through the inevitable series of mishaps
that rubbed the greenhorn mark away; and he gleefully measured his
progress by his ever-growing ability to outpull, outclimb, and outdare
the polyglot denizens of the brigantine's forecastle.

He had expert coaching to urge his education on apace. He knew the
many ropes and their various offices before he was two weeks on board;
and he was able to move about aloft, by day or night, quite fearlessly.
By the end of the first month he was standing his regular wheel trick.
And, as the weeks passed, he gained more than a cursory knowledge of
the leverages and wind surfaces that controlled and propelled his
little floating world.

He applied himself earnestly to master his new craft. It was the life
he had lusted for, and the mere physical spaciousness of his new
outlook was a delight. He contrasted it with his former city-cramped,
office-ridden existence.

He rejoiced openly as each day lengthened the distance between him and
his former slavery. On the very first day he had mounted to the deck
to commence work, the morning after the meeting in the cabin, he had
enacted a ceremony that, to his own rollicking mind, placed a definite
period to his old life. He came on deck bravely bedecked in his new
slop-chest clothes, a suit of shiny, unstained dungarees.

He held carefully in his hands a black