he mate.

"You've been wanting to handle this craft a long time," said the skipper
fiercely. "You could ha' got rid of him if you'd wanted to. He's no
business down my cabin."

"I tried everything I could think of," asseverated the mate.

"Well, he's come down on my ship without being asked," said the skipper
fiercely, "and, damme, he can stay there. Cast off."

"But," said the mate, "s'pose--"

"Cast off," repeated the skipper. "He's come on my ship, and I'll give
him a trip free."

"And where are you and the mate to sleep?" inquired the cook, who was a
man of pessimistic turn of mind, and given to forebodings.

"In your bunks," said the skipper brutally. "Cast off there."

The men obeyed, grinning, and the schooner was soon threading her way
in the darkness down the river, the skipper listening somewhat nervously
for the first intimation of his captive's awakening.

He listened in vain that night, for the prisoner made no sign, but at
six o'clock in the morning, when the _Fearless_, coming within sight of
the Nore, began to dance like a cork upon the waters, the mate reported
hollow groans from the cabin.

"Let him groan," said the skipper briefly, "as holler as he likes."

"Well, I'll just go down and see how he is," said the mate.

"You stay where you are," said the skipper sharply.

"Well, but you ain't going to starve the man?"

"Nothing to do with me," said the skipper ferociously; "if a man likes
to come down and stay in my cabin, that's his business. I'm not supposed
to know he's there; and if I like to lock my cabin up and sleep in
a foc'sle what's got more fleas in it than ten other foc'sles put
together, and what smells worse than ten foc'sles rolled into one,
that's my business."

"Yes, but I don't want to berth for'ard too," grumbled the other. "He
can't touch me. I can go and sleep in my berth."

"You'll do what I wish, my lad," said the skipper.

"I'm the mate," said the other darkly.

"And I'm the master," said the other; "if the master of a ship can stay
down the foc'sle, I'm sure a tuppeny-ha'penny mate can."

"The men don't like it," objected the mate.

"Damn the men," said the skipper politely, "and as to starving the chap,
there's a water-bottle full o' water in my state-room, to say nothing of
a jug, and a bag o' biscuits under the table."

The mate walked off whistling, and the skipper, by no means so easy in
his mind as he pretended to be, began to consider ways and mean