propose is certainly very easy; but why should you risk
your life for Captain Delmar?"

"Why, did you not offer to do it just now for the honour of the service?
I have that feeling, and moreover wish to serve Captain Delmar, who has
been my patron. What's the life of a midshipman worth, even if I were
to fall?--nothing."

"That's true enough," replied the master bluntly; and then correcting
himself, he added, "that is, midshipmen in general; but I think you may
be worth something by-and-by. However, Keene, I do think, on the whole,
it's a very good plan; and if the Captain is not better to-morrow, we
will then consider it more seriously. I have an idea that you are more
likely to pin the fellow than the captain, who, although as brave a man
as can be, he has not, I believe, fired twenty pistols in his life.
Good night; and I hardly need say we must keep our secret."

"Never fear, sir. Good night."

I went to my hammock, quite overjoyed at the half-consent given by the
master to my proposition. It would give me such a claim on Captain
Delmar, if I survived; and if I fell, at all events he would cherish my
memory; but as for falling, I felt sure that I should not. I had a
presentiment (probably no more than the buoyant hope of youth) that I
should be the victor. At all events, I went to sleep very soundly, and
did not wake until I was roused up by the quartermaster on the following
morning.

After breakfast the master requested a boat to be manned, and we went on
shore. On our arrival at the house, we found the surgeon in great
anxiety: the captain was in a state of delirium, and the fever was at
the highest.

"How is he?" demanded the master.

"More likely to go out of the world himself than to send another out of
it," replied the surgeon. "He cannot well be worse, and that is all
that I can say. He has been raving all night, and I have been obliged
to take nearly two pounds of blood from him; and, Mr Keene," continued
the surgeon, "he talks a great deal of you and other persons. You may
go in to him, if you please; for I have as much as possible kept the
servants away--they will talk."

"Bob Cross is down below, sir," replied I: "he is the safest man to wait
upon him."

"I agree with you, Keene--send for him, and he shall remain at his
bedside."

The master then spoke with the surgeon, and communicated my proposition;
and the surgeon replied, "Well, from what I have learned this night,
there is