ight; for I enjoyed
the strains of the jolly air played as much as Corporal Macan, as well
as the steady tramp of the marines and after-guard round the capstan,
the men stamping on the deck in time to the music, as if they would
smash through the planking.

"Go and tell Mr Jellaby," said he, "to shorten in to two shackles."

"Ay, ay, sir."

With which response to Commander Nesbitt's order, I sprang down the
after-hatchway on to the main deck, proceeding thence below to where old
"Joe" and his topmen were working.

Of course I gave the lieutenant the mandate with which I had been
charged; but I remaining, boylike, to watch what was going on, the
commander not having told me to return immediately, though I ought to
have done so.

The capstan, however, was spun round so merrily by the marines while the
nippers, in the hands of the active seamen, passed so freely; that, ere
I knew how far the task had progressed, so as to be able to report to
the commander the state of things, Mr Jellaby suddenly sang out
"Belay!"

Instantly, the word being passed by the boatswain's mates as before, so
that the order reached the lieutenant in charge of the working party at
the capstan above almost as soon as Mr Jellaby sang out from the lower
deck forward, the music stopped suddenly, as if the drummer and fifer
had both been shot on the spot.

With it, too, ceased the monotonous tramp, tramp, tramp of the men above
our heads, which sounded through the thickness of the deck like a band
of Ethiopian minstrels dancing a flap dance and marching "round the
mulberry bush" afterwards, to "show their muscle," as is the wont of
these negro "entertainers," so-called!

"You may go up now to the commander," said Mr Jellaby to me, as a
polite hint to be off, "and tell him that the second shackle's just
inside our hawse."

"Very good, sir," I replied, moving away as the blacksmith went to put
the slip on the cable to secure it from running out until we were ready
to weigh anchor later on. "I'll tell him at once, sir."

"All right," said Commander Nesbitt, when I reached the poop and
repeated Mr Jellaby's message, the import of which he already knew from
the stoppage of all movement below, and the report of the boatswain from
the forecastle that the anchor was "a short stay apeak"; when, advancing
to the rail, he called out in a louder key, "Bosun's mate, pipe the
hands to breakfast!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

BELOW IN THE GUNROOM.

"Well!