is placed in a position
like this, without a superior officer over one, it is my duty to take
the command; and if I did as I should do, I ought to give orders to
'bout ship and make sail at once for the nearest port."

"That's quite right; and why don't you?"

"Well--er--I--er--that is--"

"Here, I say, old chap, don't be so cocky. What's the good of making a
windbag of yourself? I've only got to prick you, and where are you
then? You don't think you are going to frighten my dad with bluster, do
you?"

"Blus-ter, sir?"

"Yes, b-l-u-s-t-e-r. You can't call it anything else. I know how you
feel. Humbled like at being caught like this. I'm sorry for you."

"Sorry! Bah!"

"Well, I am, really; but, to tell the truth, I should be more sorry if
you could get away. It's rather jolly having you here. But you are a
bit grumpy this morning. Your head hurts you, doesn't it?"

"Hurts? Horrid! It is just as if somebody was trying to bore a hole in
my skull with a red-hot auger."

Poole sprang up, soaked a handkerchief with water, folded it into a
square patch, and laid it on the injured place, dealing as tenderly with
his patient as if his fingers were those of a woman, with the result
that the pain became dull and Fitz lay back in his bunk with his eyes
half-closed.

"Feel well enough to have a game of draughts?" said Poole, after a
pause.

"No; and you haven't got a board."

"But I have got a big card that I marked out myself, and blackened some
of the squares with ink."

"Where are your men?"

"Hanging up in that bag."

"Let's look."

Poole took a little canvas bag from the hook from which it hung and
turned out a very decent set of black and white pieces. "You didn't
make those?"

"Yes, I did."

"How did you get them so round?"

"Oh, I didn't do that. Chips lent me his little tenon-saw, and I cut
them all off a roller; he helped me to finish them up with sandpaper,
and told me what to soak half of them in to make them black."

The invalid began to be more and more interested in the neat set of
draughtsmen. "What did you soak them in--ink?" he asked. "No; guess
again."

"Oh, I can't guess. Ship's paint, perhaps, or tar."

"No; they wouldn't have looked neat like that. Vitriol--sulphuric
acid."

"What, had you got that sort of stuff on board the schooner?"

"The governor has in his big medicine-chest."

"And did that turn them black like this?"

"Yes; you just paint them ove