g, the poor fellow's face growing more puckered every moment.

"Dessay you were a prince when you was over yonder; now you're a
foremast man. Well, ups and downs in life we see, Soup old chap. Mebbe
I shall be a prince some day. Ah, well, you're not a bad sort, and I'm
glad you haven't got flogged."

Meanwhile Mark was talking to Tom Fillot about the culprits.

"Then you think I ought to have punished them, Tom?" said Mark.

"Well, sir," said Tom, rubbing one ear, "I do and don't, sir. What's to
be done with chaps like that, as don't know no better?"

"Exactly," cried Mark. "They fought for us as well as they could."

"They have, sir, and it ain't as if they'd had a twelvemonth of the
first luff to drill 'em into shape. But, bless your 'art, sir, if they
had they mightn't have been able to fight agin sleep. Able seamen can't
always do it, so what's to be expected of a regular black just picked
out of a slaver's hold?"

"That will do, then," said Mark. "You have helped me so that I didn't
like you to think I went against your advice."

"Don't you be afeared of that, sir," cried Tom. "I give you my bit of
advice for you as a gentleman and a scholard, to see if it's worth
taking. Well, sir, what about the prisoners now?"

"I think they must be safe this time, Tom," said Mark, walking back to
the cask, and giving a pull at it, to find it as solid as so much iron.

"Well, sir, that's what I think; but don't you trust 'em. They mean to
get out and take the schooner again."

"And we mean that they shan't, Tom," said Mark, merrily; "and as we have
the strongest position, we must win."

"That's it, sir; so if you'll give me the watch there by the fo'c'sle
hatch, I'll promise you I won't go to sleep."

"Take the watch, then," said Mark; and then suddenly, "Why, what does
that mean?"

For just then the prisoners began in chorus to whistle an American air,
accompanying it with a rhythmic clapping of hands.

Then the sound ended as quickly as it had begun, and there was a hearty
burst of laughter.

"Merry, eh?" said Tom Fillot. "Well, there's no harm in that."

They listened in the darkness, and one man with a musical voice began a
plantation ditty, his companions breaking in with a roaring chorus at
the end of every verse, clapping their hands and stamping their feet,
ending by one of the party starting up and breaking into a kind of jig
or hornpipe, evidently keeping it up till he was tired, when, wi