been blown out to sea and
lost its reckoning.

"Here's a Mother Carey's chicken come aboard!" cried Sam Weeks, making
for the poor tired thing to catch it. "I'll have it."

"Don't hurt it, it's a starling," I said. "Can't you see its nice shiny
black-and-green plumage, and its yellow bill like a blackbird? Leave
the poor little thing alone, it's tired to death."

"A starling! your grandmother!" he retorted, nettled at my speaking, and
bearing me a grudge still for what had recently occurred in the deck-
house. "A fine lot you know about birds, no doubt! I tell you I'll
catch it, and kill it too, if I like."

So saying, he made another grab at the little creature, which, just
fluttering off the rigging in time, managed for the moment to escape him
and perched on the backstay, when the cruel lad hove a marlin-spike at
it. He again missed the bird, however, and it then flew straight into
the bosom of my jacket as I stood in front of it, whistling to entice it
in that chirpy kissing way in which you hear starlings call to each
other, having learnt the way to do so from a boy at Westham.

Weeks was furious at my succeeding in the capture of the poor bird when
he had failed; although he would not understand that I had only coaxed
it to protect it from his violence. Poor little thing. I could feel
its little heart palpitating against mine as it rested safe within the
breast of my jacket, nestling close to my flannel shirt!

"Why, you've caught it yourself after all, you mean sneak!" he cried;
and thinking he was more of a match for me than he was for Tom Jerrold,
and could bully me easily, he made a dash at my jacket collar to tear it
open, exclaiming at the same time, "I will have it, I tell you. There!"

He made a wrong calculation, however, for, holding my right arm across
my chest so as to keep my jacket closed and protect the poor bird that
had sought my succour, I threw out my left hand; and so, as he rushed
towards me, my outstretched fist caught him clean between the eyes,
tumbling him backwards, as if he had been shot, on to the deck, where he
rolled over into a lot of water that had accumulated in the scuppers to
leeward--the pool in the scuppers washing forwards and then aft as the
ship rose and fell and heeled over to port on the wind freshening with
the approach of night.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

AT SEA.

"Hullo, Weeks!" cried Tom Jerrold, coming up at the moment and grinning
at him rolling in th