ing gone along the lee side. Medley, however, who had come with the
rest, took me down below and made me shift into a dry suit of his
clothing. He then persuaded Domingo to mix a fresh pudding, which he
took to the cook to boil, so that I was saved from the captain's anger,
which would have fallen on my head had it not been forthcoming at
dinner-time.

On his return to the half-deck, Medley said to me, "Now, Jack, let us
thank our merciful Father in heaven that you have been preserved from
the greatest danger you were ever in during your life. Had the cook not
been looking your way in another moment of time you would have been
overboard, and it would have been impossible to pick you up."

I was willing to do as he proposed, and no one being below we knelt down
by the side of our bunks, and I prayed more earnestly than I had ever
prayed before. We were just about to rise from our knees when I heard
Dan Hogan's voice exclaim, "Arrah now, you young psalm singers, what new
trick are you after?"

"Not a new trick, but an old custom, Dan," answered Medley, boldly
confronting him. "If your life had just been saved I hope that you
would thank God for it, otherwise I should say that you were a very
ungrateful fellow."

"I'm shut up," answered Hogan, and taking the article he had come for he
returned on deck.

I expected that he would tell the men how he had found us employed, but
I could not discover that he had spoken about it to any one, and after
that he appeared to treat Medley with more respect than heretofore.
When a person is doing a right thing the proper way is to confront his
opponent boldly.

All this time we were suffering from the bitter cold, the sleet and
snow, the long, long hours of darkness with seldom a gleam from the sun
during the short period he was above the horizon. At length, the
weather moderating, we again stood on our course to the westward.

About five weeks after we first sighted the Horn we managed to weather
it, and finally steering northward with a favourable breeze soon ran
into a more temperate atmosphere than we had enjoyed for many a day.

CHAPTER THREE.

We were now fairly in the Pacific. I have said little about our crew.
There were some good men, not a few indifferent ones, and others as bad
as could be. Dan Hogan was not by a long way the worst. It required
the greatest strictness and vigilance on the part of the officers to
keep them in order. Medley and I kept p