ill dance with Kate, and Tom will dance with Sall,

When we're all back from South Amerikee.'

So it went to its quaint air; and the watch below lingered and listened
by the forward door, and Uncle Ned was to be seen in the moonlight
nodding time; and Herrick smiled at the wheel, his anxieties a while
forgotten. Song followed song; another cork exploded; there were voices
raised, as though the pair in the cabin were in disagreement; and
presently it seemed the breach was healed; for it was now the voice of
Huish that struck up, to the captain's accompaniment--

'Up in a balloon, boys,

Up in a balloon,

All among the little stars

And round about the moon.'

A wave of nausea overcame Herrick at the wheel. He wondered why the air,
the words (which were yet written with a certain knack), and the voice
and accent of the singer, should all jar his spirit like a file on a
man's teeth. He sickened at the thought of his two comrades drinking
away their reason upon stolen wine, quarrelling and hiccupping and
waking up, while the doors of the prison yawned for them in the near
future. 'Shall I have sold my honour for nothing?' he thought; and
a heat of rage and resolution glowed in his bosom--rage against his
comrades--resolution to carry through this business if it might be
carried; pluck profit out of shame, since the shame at least was now
inevitable; and come home, home from South America--how did the song
go?--'with his pockets full of money':

'O honey, with our pockets full of money,

We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay:'

so the words ran in his head; and the honey took on visible form, the
quay rose before him and he knew it for the lamplit Embankment, and
he saw the lights of Battersea bridge bestride the sullen river. All
through the remainder of his trick, he stood entranced, reviewing the
past. He had been always true to his love, but not always sedulous
to recall her. In the growing calamity of his life, she had swum
more distant, like the moon in mist. The letter of farewell, the
dishonourable hope that had surprised and corrupted him in his distress,
the changed scene, the sea, the night and the music--all stirred him
to the roots of manhood. 'I WILL win her,' he thought, and ground his
teeth. 'Fair or foul, what matters if I win her?'

'Fo' bell, matey. I think um fo' bell'--he was suddenly recalled by
these words in the voice of Uncle Ned.

'Look in