om of the sea, among the stars and cuttles,
waiting for the day of judgment!

"'Oh, Captain McNabbins, and Mate Govery,' he cries, 'the hand of the
Lord hath sent me down to keep you company down here. I never would 'a
done it, captain, hard as you was on me, if only I had knowed how dark
and cold and shivery it would be down here. I cut the plank out; I'll
not lie; no lies is any good down here, with the fingers of the deep
things pointing to me, and the black devil's wings coming over me--but
a score of years agone it were, and never no one dreamed of it--oh, pull
away, pull! for God's sake, pull!--the wet woman and the three innocent
babbies crawling over me like congers!'

"This was the shadows of our legs, your honor, from good Mother Tapsy's
candle; for she was in a dreadful way by this time about her reputation
and her weeds, and come down with her tongue upon the lot of us. 'Enter
all them names upon the log,' says I to Bob, for he writeth like a
scholar. But Bob says, 'Hold hard, dad; now or never.' And with that,
down he goeth on the deck himself, and wriggleth up to Rickon through
the weeds, with a hiss like a great sea-snake, and grippeth him. 'Name
of ship, you sinner!' cried Bob, in his deep voice, like Old Nick
a-hailing from a sepulchre. 'Golconda, of Calcutta,' says the fellow,
with a groan as seemed to come out of the whites of his eyes; and down
goes his head again, enough to split a cat-head. And that was the last
of him we heard that night.

"Well, now, captain, you scarcely would believe, but although my nob is
so much older of the pair, and white where his is as black as any coal,
Bob's it was as first throwed the painter up, for a-hitching of this
drifty to the starn of your consarns. And it never come across him till
the locker was run out, and the two of us pulling longer faces than
our legs is. Then Bob, by the mercy of the Lord, like Peter, found them
guineas in the corner of his swab--some puts it round their necks, and
some into their pockets; I never heard of such a thing till chaps run
soft and watery--and so we come to this here place to change the air
and the breeding, and spin this yarn to your honor's honor, as hath a
liberal twist in it; and then to take orders, and draw rations, and any
'rears of pay fallen due, after all dibs gone in your service; and for
Bob to tip a stave in the Minister."

"You have done wisely and well in coming here," said Mr, Mordacks,
cheerfully; "but we