a peel, fell
awk'ardly, broke his right leg, had to go to the hospital, and I had to
look round in a hurry for somebody to take his place. Got a chap that
looked all right; but we hadn't been to sea above forty-eight hours when
he made a bad break--got so tarnation drunk that I couldn't get him out
of his bunk for a night and a day. And a'ter that he kept on soakin' on
the sly--though where he got the liquor from I couldn't find out to save
my life--until things come to such a pass that if it hadn't been that I
was in such a tarnation hurry I'd have put in somewhere and fired him.
Wisht I had, now. But I didn't; and the end of it was that he went
crazy, jumped overboard, and was drowned, one dark night when we'd been
out just three weeks.

"Now, my proposition is this. You look real smart, and are a good
navigator, while I'm short of a mate. If you care to accept the
position I'll sign ye on at the same rate of pay--namely, thirty dollars
a month--that the other chap was gettin'. Now, what d'ye say?"

"But I don't even know yet where you are bound for, or what is the
probable duration of the voyage," I objected. "Naturally I should like
to know these particulars before binding myself."

"Sure," agreed the skipper, in nowise offended at my apparent
hesitation. "Well then," he continued, "I'm boun' for a certain spot in
the Pacific, for a certain very partic'lar reason: and if you agree to
sign on I'll tell ye the reason, and just exactly where the spot is; but
if you don't sign on it won't matter to you where I'm goin', or what I'm
out after. That's one of the reasons for this here v'yage. T'other is
to trade off a lot of truck what I've got down below, for sandalwood.
And when I've got a full cargo of the wood I propose to go on to Canton,
sell it, and buy tea with the proceeds; said tea to be sold in due
course at New York, where the v'yage will end. And I reckon that the
trip'll run into all of eight or nine months."

"And a jolly fine trip it will be," remarked Cunningham. "I wish I had
your chance, Temple; I would take it like a shot."

"You don't say?" remarked the skipper, eyeing Cunningham earnestly.
"But then, you see, you ain't a sailor," he observed.

"No, that is very true," returned Cunningham. "By profession I am a
civil engineer. But I am also a keen yachtsman; and I know something
more than the rudiments of navigation. But of course," he added
hastily, "I have not the qualifications w