idges were
fixed and the gun was handled. It was very simple, and I picked the
whole thing up in a few minutes, the weapon being to so large an extent
automatic. Finally every piece was loaded, ten rounds for each were
brought on deck, the covers were put on, and the hands were piped down.

It was my eight hours in that night; and by this time it had come to be
a regular custom and a recognised thing for me to dine in the saloon on
such occasions, that is to say, every other night, the arrangement with
regard to Kennedy being similar, so that he and I dined in the saloon on
alternate nights, the doctor, the purser, and the two engineers forming
the other guests. Thus as soon as our exercise with the guns was over I
rushed off below, took a tepid bath, and then dressed for dinner,
completing my preparations just in time to respond to the second bugle
call. There was some disposition to make merry over Kennedy's "scare",
as the boy Julius would persist in designating it; but as the lad was
the only one who seemed to regard the matter purely from the jocular
point of view, the conversation was soon steered in another and more
agreeable direction, and we spent a very pleasant evening, breaking up
shortly after ten o'clock.

Before retiring to my cabin I went up on deck to take a look round. It
was a most glorious night, still a breathless calm, the heavens
perfectly clear, save for a low cloud bank hanging over the land, the
stars shining brilliantly, and a half-moon shedding a soft, mysterious
radiance upon the scene powerful enough to enable us to distinguish with
tolerable clearness the nearer islands and some half a dozen craft lying
becalmed within two miles of us, inshore. The moon would set about
midnight; yet even then we should still have the stars, if the night
remained clear.

Kennedy was seated in a deck chair, with a powerful night glass reposing
upon his knees, when I went up on the poop; and he informed me that
although he had been keeping a careful watch upon matters inshore, he
had seen nothing whatever of a suspicious character.

"But then," he explained, "I didn't expect to. If those Malays are as
'cute as I take them to be, and are cherishing designs against us, you
may bet your bottom dollar that they'll be careful not to do anything
that would appear to us in the least suspicious. I may be a fool, but
things look almost too quiet, ashore there, to be wholly satisfactory to
me. I would rath