y were so hoarse that
they couldn't speak, and I felt queer to see their wild-eyed look and
the rush they made for the water that was put ready for them.

"Of course they had seen nothing of you, and that night everybody began
to look blank and talk in whispers, while I had something for supper,
Van, which didn't agree with me, and I never got a wink of sleep all
night.

"Next day was calm as ever, and we were slowly rolling on the swell; the
hammock rails were as hot as the bell, and the pitch was oozing out
everywhere. I quite spoilt a pair of hind leg sleeves with the tar,
going up to the masthead. My word, they were gummy."

"What had you been doing? Who mast-headed you?" asked Mark.

"Doing? Nothing. Nobody mast-headed me, only myself."

"What for?"

"Well, you are a lively sort of a chap to have for a messmate, Van.
That's gratitude, that is, for going up to look after you with the
glass. Now if it had been my case I should have said:--`Mark Vandean,
my most attached friend, I regret extremely that in your anxiety to gain
tidings of me and my boat, you should have brought the cloth of your
sit-downs into contact with the inspissated juice of the Norwegian fir,
to their destruction and conversion into sticking-plaister. My tailors
are Burns and Screw, Cork Street, Bond Street, London. Pray allow me to
present you with a new pair.'"

"Oh, Bob, what a tongue you have!"

"Lovely. But I say--inspissated juice is good, isn't it?"

"Do go on telling me, Bob. I'm too weak to stand banter. So you went
up to the masthead to look for me, old chap?"

"I did, my son, and pretty well lived up there--I mean died--it was so
hot. But there was nothing to see eastward but the dim hazy sea and
sky, though I watched for days and days."

"Days and days?" said Mark, wonderingly.

"Well, I'm not quite sure about how long it was, for the sun made me so
giddy. I had to lash myself to the mast, or I should have taken a dive
overboard; and my head grew muddly. But it was an awful long time. My
eye! how the men whistled!"

"For wind?"

"Yes; and the more they whistled the more it didn't come. Old Maitland
was in a taking, and it wasn't safe to speak to Staples. I say, Van,
old chap, he came right up to the cross-trees himself and told me I
didn't know how to use a spy-glass. He said the boat with you fellows
in lay just due east, and that he could make it out directly."

"And did he?"

"No; he just didn