vere kick in the ribs. Bunks rose sulkily, and with a
terrible imprecation advised the skipper "not to try that again"; to
which the skipper retorted, that if his orders were not obeyed more
sharply, he would not only try it again, but he would "chuck him
overboard besides."

Having applied a rope's-end to the shoulders of one of the other
sleepers, he repeated his orders to ease off the sheets, as the wind was
fair, and staggered back to his place at the helm.

"Why, I do believe it is a sou'-wester," he muttered to himself,
attempting in vain to read the compass.

It was in reality north-east, but Jager's intellects were muddled; he
made it out to be south-west and steered accordingly, almost straight
before it. The three men who formed the crew of the little vessel were
so angry at the treatment they had received, that they neither cared nor
knew how the ship's head lay. A thick mist came down about the same
time, and veiled the lights which would otherwise have soon revealed the
fact that the skipper had made a mistake.

"Why, wot on airth ails the compass?" muttered Jager, bending forward
intently to gaze at the instrument, which, to his eye, seemed to point
in all directions at once; "come, I'll have another pull at the b-bottle
to steady me."

He grasped the bottle to carry out this intention, but in doing so
thrust the helm down inadvertently. The schooner came up to the wind at
once, and as the wind had freshened to a stiff breeze and a great deal
of canvas was set, she heeled violently over to starboard. The skipper
was pitched into the lee scuppers, and the case-bottle of rum was
shivered to atoms before he had time to taste a drop.

"Mind your helm!" roared Bunks, savagely. "D'ye want to send us to the
bottom?"

The man sprang to the helm, and accompanied his remark with several
fierce oaths, which need not be repeated, but which had the effect of
rousing Jager's anger to such a pitch, that he jumped up and hit the
sailor a heavy blow on the face.

"I'll stop your swearin', I will," he cried, preparing to repeat the
blow, but the man stepped aside and walked forward, leaving his
commander alone on the quarter-deck.

Bunks, who was a small but active man, was a favourite with the other
two men who constituted the crew of the "Butterfly," and both of whom
were strong-limbed fellows. Their anger at seeing him treated thus
savagely knew no bounds. They had long been at deadly feud with Jager.