once a week. It wasn't a good
custom, perhaps, but it was a custom. Captain Sol never once thought of
breaking that custom, but he gave each man a very little, and then they
had their dinner.

And, after they had finished their dinner, the sailors who had been on
deck in the morning went down into the hold and the sailors who had been
in the hold in the morning stayed on deck. But the mates had to go down,
and sometimes Captain Sol was in the hold and sometimes he was on deck.
For he wanted to see for himself how the work was being done.

They put the heaviest things they had left next to those great, heavy
things that were stowed in the middle of the ship at the very bottom.
And they kept lowering down the heaviest things that they had on deck,
and the sailors who were in the hold stowed them. They packed them very
tightly, so that, no matter how much the ship should pitch and toss and
roll, the cargo should not get loose. For it is a very bad thing for the
cargo to shift, and a ship might be lost if its cargo shifted, in a
storm. It is only in a storm that such a thing is likely to happen.

At last they had lowered the last bale and the last box that they had on
deck, and they had been stowed. And the men who were in the hold called
out for more, and the men on deck said that there wasn't any more. The
mates were surprised, for there was some room left in the hold that
there hadn't been the way the cargo was stowed at first. And the mates
came up, and the sailors came up, and they were just dripping wet.

And Captain Sol thanked the men for working so willingly all day, and he
said that he thought that they would all be glad because the ship would
ride easier, after this, and wouldn't take in so much water; and it
would be much easier to handle sail in rough weather. And he said that
he supposed they thought they ought to have a little more rum. He was
going to serve it out to them, but he warned them that it would be a
very little.

And, at that, the men all roared out, and Captain Sol went to the
quarter deck and stood by the railing that divided it from the rest of
the ship. He had a jug beside him. And the men came up, with their tin
cups in their hands, and they held their cups up high, one at a time.
And Captain Sol poured a very little rum into each cup, and the man with
the cup went forward.

But, while Captain Sol was doing that, there was one sailor near the
middle of the ship who felt as if he would