y Castle_.
Either it was not considered necessary that soldiers should sleep or
else, perhaps, that they were not at all particular. Anyhow there were
worse places than hard decks to sleep on. Mac and Smoky scorned the
fuggy atmosphere of the lower decks, and proceeded to select a breezy
spot on the after boat-deck. They loosened the canvas cover of a
lifeboat, levelled oars and other prominent obstacles, and disposed
their scanty bedding to the best possible advantage on this uneven
ground. The experiment was not altogether an unqualified success and
minor disadvantages made themselves apparent during the passage of the
night. The oars were rigid and uneven, and the breeze and the cold
penetrated from both above and below. Still they stuck it out, and for
the most part slept.

The following day fled by speedily and uneventfully. All gear was
overhauled and guards were mounted; spare time was passed in gambling.
Those who had money wanted to get rid of it. It was of no more value;
in the future it counted for nothing, so large stakes were won and
lost. Mac refrained from this indulgence, not that he was a
conscientious objector, but, alas, he had no piastres wherewith to
beguile the hours. His last two had been burst in one wild rapture on
indigestible cake at the ship's canteen.

That night Mac was detailed for ship's guard. His duty it was to stand
at the starboard quarter alongside a life-buoy, which he was to hurl at
any fool of a trooper who unwittingly fell overboard. He was to report
speedily of such affairs as submarines, fires and so forth.

During the long night watches, he forgot, more or less, all about his
duty, and meditatively regarded the whirling wave as it seethed away
into the darkness. All was silence, except for the mumble, mumble,
mumble of the propellers. They were in the AEgean Archipelago and
islands passed in an unbroken procession of indistinct shadows. Mac's
thoughts were far away, and he was thinking of just such a night off
Pelorus Sound, when a "Wake up, old sport! Time's up!" brought him
suddenly to the present. He found Smoky had made a comfortable
"possie" underneath two lifeboats and was sleeping soundly. He
muttered only a few protesting groans on being shoved into his own
share of the possie; and soon Mac had joined his cobber in the sound
undisturbed slumber of an ordinary trooper.

The next day passed in much the same manner; but, alas, the night--Mac
and Smo