onsiderable stock of provisions was accumulated on the bank. This was
covered with tarpaulin, and heavy casks of salt junk were placed on the
corners and edges to keep it down.

"I'll tell ye wot it is, messmates," remarked Gurney, one day, as they
sat down round their wood fire to dine in front of their tent, "we're
purvisioned for six months at least, an' if the weather only keeps fine
I've no objection to remain wotiver."

"Maybe," said Briant, "ye'll have to remain that time whether ye object
or not."

"By no means, Paddy," retorted Gurney; "I could swum off to sea and be
drownded if I liked."

"No ye couldn't, avic," said Briant.

"Why not?" demanded Gurney.

"'Cause ye haven't the pluck," replied Phil.

"I'll pluck the nose off yer face," said Gurney, in affected anger.

"No ye won't," cried Phil, "'cause av ye do I'll spile the soup by
heavin' it all over ye."

"Oh!" exclaimed Gurney, with a look of horror, "listen to him,
messmates, he calls it `_soup_'--the nasty kettle o' dirty water! Well,
well, it's lucky we hain't got nothin' better to compare it with."

"But, I say, lads," interposed Jim Scroggles, seriously, "wot'll we do
if it comes on to blow a gale and blows away all our purvisions?"

"Ay, boys," cried Dick Barnes, "that 'ere's the question, as Hamlet
remarked to his grandfather's ghost; wot is to come on us supposin' it
comes on to blow sich a snorin' gale as'll blow the whole sandbank away,
carryin' us and our prog overboard along with it?"

"Wot's that there soup made of?" demanded Tim Rokens.

"Salt junk and peas," replied Nikel Sling.

"Ah! I thought there was somethin' else in it," said Tim, carelessly,
"for it seems to perdooce oncommon bad jokes in them wot eats of it."

"Now, Tim, don't you go for to be sorcostic, but tell us a story."

"Me tell a story? No, no, lads; there's Glynn Proctor, he's the boy for
you. Where is he?"

"He's aboard the wreck just now. The cap'n sent him for charts and
quadrants, and suchlike cooriosities. Come, Gurney, tell you one if Tim
won't. How wos it, now, that you so mistook yer trade as to come for to
go to sea?"

"I can't very well tell ye," answered Gurney, who, having finished
dinner, had lit his pipe, and was now extended at full length on the
sand, leaning on one arm. "Ye see, lads, I've had more or less to do
with the sea, I have, since ever I comed into this remarkable world--not
that I ever, to my knowledge, knew one less