ising up and down.

"I tell you what it is," said Tom Tully on the evening of Hilary's
escape, as the men were all grouped together in the forecastle enjoying
a smoke and a yarn or two, "it strikes me as we're doing a wonderful lot
o' good upon this here station. What do you say, Jack Brown?"

"Wonderful!" said the boatswain, falling into the speaker's sarcastic
vein.

"Ah!" said Chips, "we shall never get all our prize-money spent, boys."

"No," said the corporal of marines, "never. I say, speaking as a
orsifer, oughtn't we to have another one in place of Master Leigh?"

"No," said Tom Tully. "We couldn't get another like he."

"That's a true word, Tommy," said Billy Waters, who did not often agree
with the big sailor. "We couldn't get another now he's lost."

"But that's all werry well," said Chips; "but it won't do. If I lost my
adze or caulking-hammer overboard, I must have another, mustn't I?" No
one answered, and he continued:

"If you lost the rammer of the big gun, Billy Waters, or the corporal
here hadn't got his bayonet, he'd want a new one; so why shouldn't we
have a new orsifer?"

"Don't know," said Billy Waters gruffly; and as the carpenter looked at
each in turn, the men all shook their heads, and then they all smoked in
silence.

"I wishes as we could find him again," said Tom Tully; "and as he'd
chuck the skipper overboard, or send him afloat in the dinghy, and
command the cutter hisself, and I don't kear who tells the luff as I
said it."

"No one ain't going to tell on you, Tommy," said Billy Waters
reprovingly; for the big sailor had looked defiantly round, and ended by
staring him defiantly in the face. "We all wishes as the young chap
could be found, and that he was back aboard; and I think as it ought to
be all reported and another expedition sent."

There was a growl of approval at this as there had been before when
similar ideas were promulgated; but the lieutenant sat in his cabin, and
nothing was done.

The lights were burning brightly, and as it was a dead calm the anchor
had been let go, so that the cutter should not be swept along the coast
by the racing tide. The night had come on very dark since the moon had
set, and the watch scanned the surface of the sea in an idle mood, that
task being soon done, for there was very little sea visible to scan,
and, coming to the conclusion that it was a night when they would be
able to watch just as well with their ears, they made