to be played out, and
is of no use at all now."

"You are nearer right, Captain Scott, than perhaps you suppose; and to
be candid with you, I regard the Maud as very like an elephant on our
hands."

"Then I hope you will sell her," replied the young man, with something
like desperation in his manner. "For my part, I am entirely willing you
should do so, sir."

"It is plainly impracticable to make any use of her in the next six
months, except in harbor service, and we hardly need her for that,"
continued the commander. "I know that Louis and Morris do not wish to go
to sea in her again; and I suppose Felix would prefer to be where his
crony is."

"Cruising in the Maud is then decidedly a thing of the past," said
Scott, with a feeble attempt to laugh.

"Then, if I should find an opportunity to sell the Maud at Aden, you
will not be disappointed?" asked the captain, point-blank, looking
earnestly into the face of the young sailor.

"If we are not to use her as we did before"--

"That is utterly impracticable in the waters of the Indian Ocean; for
the perils I have suggested, to say nothing of typhoons and hurricanes,"
interposed the commander.

"Then I shall be perfectly satisfied to have her go," answered Scott.

"In the first typhoon or hurricane, and I expect to see such, we might
be obliged to cut her loose, and launch her into the boiling waters to
save the ship; for I find that she is too great a load to carry on our
promenade deck, and we have no other place for her. We have had no storm
to test the matter; if we had, she might have gone before this time. I
have already spoken to Uncle Moses and Mr. Woolridge about the matter,
and they not only consent, but insist, that the Maud be sold."

"I have nothing more to say, Captain Ringgold," said Scott rather
stiffly.

Then he told the young man about the terrors of the mothers, the grave
fears of Mr. Woolridge, who was a yachtsman, and was so confident that
the little steamer would have to be cast into the sea, that Scott was
somewhat mollified. He had made his reputation as a sailor, a navigator,
a brave fellow, on board of her, and to lose the Maud seemed like
destroying the ark which had brought him out of the floods of evil, and
made a man of him.

The wise commander had evidently saved him from a life of iniquity, and
the little steamer had been an effective agency in his hands in doing
the work. He was absolutely clear that it was not prudent for t