t you went to work to larn
your duties. Zulu!"

The last word caused a woolly head to protrude from the after hatchway,
revealing a youth about twice the size of Billy. Having some drops of
black blood in him this lad had been styled Zulu--and, being a handy
fellow, had been made cook.

"Here, take this boy below," said the skipper, "and teach him
something--anything you like, so long as you keep him at work. No
idlers allowed on board, you know."

"Yes, sar," said Zulu.

Billy was delighted to obey. He was naturally a smart, active fellow,
and not only willing, but proud, to submit to discipline. He descended
a short ladder into the little cabin with which he had become
acquainted, as a visitor, when the smack was in port on former
occasions. With Zulu he was also acquainted, that youth having been for
some time in his father's service.

"Kin you do cookin'?" asked Zulu with a grin that revealed an unusually
large cavern full of glistening teeth, mingled with more than an average
allowance of tongue and gums.

"Oh! I say," remonstrated Billy, "it's growed bigger than ever!"

Zulu expanded his mouth to its utmost, and shut his eyes in enjoyment of
the complimentary joke.

"Oh course it hab," he said on recovering; "I's 'bliged to eat so much
at sea dat de mout gits wider ebery trip. Dat leetle hole what you've
got in your face 'll git so big as mine fore long, Billy. Den you be
like some ob de leetle fishes we catch--all mout and no body worth
mentioning. But you no tell me yit: Kin you do cookin'?"

"Oh yes, I can manage a Yarmouth bloater," replied Billy.

"But," said Zulu, "kin you cook a 'tater widout makin' him's outside all
of a mush, an' him's inside same so as a stone?"

Instead of answering, Billy sat down on the settle which ran round the
cabin and looked up at his dark friend very solemnly.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Zulu.

"There--there's something wrong wi' me," said Billy, with a faint
attempt to smile as he became rather pale.

Seeing this, his friend quietly put a bucket beside him.

"I say, Zulu," observed the poor boy with a desperate attempt at
pleasantry, "I wonder what's up."

"Des nuffin' up yit but he won't be long," replied the young cook with a
look full of sympathy.

It would be unjust to our little hero to proceed further. This being,
as we have said, his first trip to sea, he naturally found himself,
after an hour or two, stretched out in one of the bunks which surro