ave known many a man who would rather walk twenty miles than sail one,
especially when the sea chops."

"I am very sure, sir," said school-master Cardly, "that there is
nothing to be said against the endurance and the courage of marines. We
all remember how they presented arms, and went down with the _Royal
George_."

The marine smiled.

"I suppose," said the blacksmith, "that you never had to do anything of
that sort?"

The stranger did not immediately answer, but sat looking into the fire.
Presently he said: "I have done things of nearly every sort, although
not exactly that; but I have thought my ship was going down with all on
board, and that's the next worst thing to going down, you know."

"And how was that?" inquired Fryker.

"Well," said the other, "it happened more times than I can tell you of,
or even remember. Yes," said he, meditatively, "more times than I can
remember."

"I am sure," said the school-master, "that we should all like to hear
some of your experiences."

The marine shrugged his shoulders. "These things," said he, "come to a
man, and then if he lives through them, they pass on, and he is ready
for the next streak of luck, good or bad. That's the way with us
followers of the sea, especially if we happen to be marines, and have
to bear, so to speak, the responsibility of two professions. But
sometimes a mischance or a disaster does fix itself upon a man's mind
so that he can tell about it if he is called upon; and just now there
comes to my mind a very odd thing which once happened to me, and I can
give you the points of that, if you like."

The three men assured him that they would very much like it, and the
two women looked as if they were of the same opinion.

Before he began the marine glanced about him, with a certain
good-natured wistfulness which might have indicated, to those who
understood the countenances of the sea-going classes, a desire to wet
his whistle; but if this expression were so intended it was thrown
away, for blacksmith Fryker took no spirits himself, nor furnished them
to anybody else. Giving up all hope in this direction, the marine took
a long pull at his pipe and began.

"It was in the winter of 1878 that I was on the Bay of Bengal, on my
way to Calcutta, and about five hundred miles distant from that city. I
was not on my own ship, but was returning from a leave of absence on an
American steamer from San Francisco to Calcutta, where my vessel, the
United