g of his eyes--"hope she will, and give me a chance. Her
majestic widowship owes me a brig, and that's a fine one."

Mr. Todd had never been known to smile, but at this speech he lifted
one eyebrow and turned his saturnine face full at his superior, inquiry
written upon every line of it. Captain Swarth was musing, however, and
said no more; so the mate, knowing better than to attempt probing his
mind, swung his long figure down the poop-ladder, and went forward to
harass the men--which, in their opinion, was all he was good for.

According to his mood, Mr. Todd's speech was choicest English or the
cosmopolitan, technical slang of the sea, mingled with wonderful
profanity. But one habit of his early days he never dropped: he wore,
in the hottest weather, and in storm and battle, the black frock and
choker of the clerical profession. Standing now with one foot on the
fore-hatch, waving his long arms and objurgating the scowling men at
the pumps, he might easily have seemed, to any one beyond the reach of
his language, to be a clergyman exhorting them. Captain Swarth watched
him with an amused look on his sunburnt face, and muttered: "Good man,
every inch of him, but he can't handle men." Then he called him aft.

"Angel," he said, "we made a mistake in cutting the ports; we can't
catch anything afloat that sees them, so we'll have to pass for a
peaceable craft until we can drift close enough to board something. I
think the brig'll be back this way, too. Get out some old tarpaulins
and cover up the ports. Paint them, if you can, the color of the sides,
and you might coil some lines over the rail, as though to dry. Then you
can break out cargo and strike the guns down the main-hatch."

Three days later, with Cape St. Roque a black line to the westward, a
round shot across her bows brought the old vessel--minus the black
emblem now, and outwardly respectable--up to the wind, with maintopsail
aback, while Captain Swarth and a dozen of his men--equally respectable
in the nondescript rig of the merchant sailor--watched the approach of
an English brig of war. Mr. Todd and the rest of the crew were below
hatches with the guns.

The brig came down the wind like a graceful bird--a splendid craft,
black, shiny, and shipshape, five guns to a side, brass-bound officers
on her quarter-deck, blue-jackets darting about her white deck and up
aloft, a homeward-bound pennant trailing from her main-truck, and at
her gaff-end a British ens