or cleaning himself; no brush, or comb, or soap, or clean linen;
and even his sleep seemed unrefreshful when the waking brought no change
in his condition. And then the whole life of the ship was odious to him.
His sense of refinement was exquisitely keen, and now to be called Bill,
and kicked and cuffed about by these gross-minded men, and to hear their
rough, coarse, drunken talk, and sometimes endure their still, more
intolerable familiarities, filled him with deeply-seated loathing.

His whole soul rebelled and revolted from them all, and, seeing his
fastidious pride, not one of them showed him the least glimpse of open
kindness, though he observed that one of them did seem to pity him
in heart.

Things grew worse and worse. The perils which he had to endure at first,
when ordered about the rigging, were what affected him least; he longed
for death, and often contemplated flinging himself into those cold deep
waves which he gazed on daily over the vessel's side. Hope was the only
thing which supported him. He had heard from one of the crew that the
vessel would be back in not more than six weeks, and he made a deeply
seated resolve to escape the very first day that they again anchored in
an English harbor.

The homeward voyage was even more intolerable, for the cattle on board
greatly increased the amount of necessary menial and disgusting work
which fell to his snare, as well as made the atmosphere of the close
little schooner twice as poisonous as before. And to add to his
miseries, his relations with the crew got more and more unfavorable, and
began to reach their climax.

One night the sailor who occupied the hammock next to his heard him
winding up his watch. This he always did in the dark, as secretly and
silently as he could, and never looked at it, except when no one could
observe him; while, during the day, he kept both watch and chain
concealed in his trousers.

Next morning the man made proposals to him to sell the watch, and tried
by every species of threat and promise to extort it from him. But the
watch had been his mother's gift, and he was resolute never to part with
it into such hands.

"Very well, you young shaver, I shall tell the skipper and he'll soon
get it out of you as your footing, depend on it."

The fellow was as good as his word, and the skipper demanded the watch
as pay for Eric's feed, for he maintained that he'd done no work, and
was perfectly useless. Eric, grown desperate, s