cold tea. Let it go;
something went wrong, and the consequences were these.

A wall of water, looming high above her mainyard, came rushing and
booming along, dark, terrible, opaque. For a moment I saw it curling
overhead, and would have cried out, I believe, had there been time; but
a midshipman, a mere child, slipped up before me, and caught hold of my
legs, while I tried to catch his collar. Then I heard the skipper roar
out, in that hoarse throaty voice that seamen use when excited. "Hold
on, the sea's aboard," and then a stunning, blinding rush of water
buried us altogether. The Sultan was on her beamends, and what was
more, seemed inclined to stay there, so that I, holding on by the
bulwarks, saw the sea seething and boiling almost beneath my feet,
which were swinging clear off the deck.

But the midshipman sung out that she was righting again, which she did
rather quicker than was desirable, bringing every loose article on deck
down to our side again with a rush. A useless, thundering, four-pounder
gun, of which terrible implements of war we carried six, came plunging
across from the other side of the deck, and went crashing through the
bulwarks, out into the sea, within two feet of my legs.

"I think," I said, trying to persuade myself that I was not frightened,
"I think I shall go into the cuddy."

That was not very easy to do. I reached the door, and got hold of the
handle, and, watching my opportunity, slipped dexterously in, and
making a plunge, came against the surgeon, who, seated on a camp-stool,
was playing piquette, and overthrew him into a corner.

"Repique, by jingo," shouted Sam Buckley, who was the surgeon's
opponent. "See what a capital thing it is to have an old friend like
Hamlyn, to come in and knock your opponent down just at the right
moment."

"And papa was losing, too, Uncle Jeff," added a handsome lad, about
fifteen, who was leaning over Sam's shoulder.

"What are they doing to you, Doctor?" said Alice Buckley, NEE
Brentwood, coming out of a cabin, and supporting herself to a seat by
her husband and son.

"Why," replied the surgeon, "Hamlyn knocked me down just in a moment of
victory, but his nefarious project has failed, for I have kept
possession of my cards. Play, Buckley."

Let us give a glance at the group which is assembled beneath the swing
lamp in the reeling cabin. The wife and son are both leaning over the
father's shoulder, and the three faces are together. Sam is abo