r the vessel, and often
entirely over our heads, and the men were lashed to their posts to
prevent being washed away.

But the stranger still lay on the water casks, kicking his heels and
whistling his infernal tune, always the same. He wasn't washed away nor
moved by the action of the water; indeed, we heartily hoped and expected
to see both him and the water cask floated overboard at every minute;
but, as the captain said,--

"Confound the binnacle! the old water tub seems as if it were screwed on
to the deck, and won't move off and he on the top of it."

There was a strong inclination to throw him overboard, and the men
conversed in low whispers, and came round the captain, saying,--

"We have come, captain, to ask you what you think of this strange man
who has come so mysteriously on board?"

"I can't tell what to think, lads; he's past thinking about--he's
something above my comprehension altogether, I promise you."

"Well, then, we are thinking much of the same thing, captain."

"What do you mean?"

"That he ain't exactly one of our sort."

"No, he's no sailor, certainly; and yet, for a land lubber, he's about
as rum a customer as ever I met with."

"So he is, sir."

"He stands salt water well; and I must say that I couldn't lay a top of
those water casks in that style very well."

"Nor nobody amongst us, sir."

"Well, then, he's in nobody's way, it he?--nobody wants to take his
berth, I suppose?"

The men looked at each other somewhat blank; they didn't understand the
meaning at all--far from it; and the idea of any one's wanting to take
the stranger's place on the water casks was so outrageously ludicrous,
that at any other time they would have considered it a devilish good
joke and have never ceased laughing at it.

He paused some minutes, and then one of them said,--

"It isn't that we envy him his berth, captain, 'cause nobody else could
live there for a moment. Any one amongst us that had been there would
have been washed overboard a thousand times over."

"So they would," said the captain.

"Well, sir, he's more than us."

"Very likely; but how can I help that?"

"We think he's the main cause of all this racket in the heavens--the
storm and hurricane; and that, in short, if he remains much longer we
shall all sink."

"I am sorry for it. I don't think we are in any danger, and had the
strange being any power to prevent it, he would assuredly do so, lest he
got drowned."

"But we