n the afternoon, and meanwhile the occupants of the forecastle
were sent below to snatch a few hours' rest in preparation for the
coming night, during which Dick Maitland had an opportunity to become
better acquainted with his messmates. For a wonder these proved to be
without exception British, consisting of two Irishmen, five Scotchmen,
and one Welshman, while the rest were English. There was nothing very
remarkable about any of them, they were all just ordinary average
sailormen, but it did not take Dick very long to make up his mind that,
with the possible exception of the carpenter, and Barrett, the A.B. who
had been his companion and instructor aloft during the morning, the five
Scotchmen were the pick of the bunch. But all hands seemed to be very
decent fellows in their own rough way, now that they had had time to
recover from their previous day's debauch, and manifested a distinct
disposition to be friendly toward the young greenhorn whom they found in
their midst, especially as they had already had an opportunity to see
that the greenhorn's greenness was not of such a character as to entail
upon them very much extra work.

The afternoon was well advanced when at length the passengers, seventeen
in number, came off to the ship; and the moment that they and their
baggage were embarked the anchor was hove up, the tug once more came
alongside and took the towrope, and the _Concordia_ proceeded upon her
voyage, the hope being freely expressed, both fore and aft, that there
would be no more anchoring until the ship should have arrived under the
shadow, so to speak, of Natal Bluff. As soon as the ship was fairly
under way, and the anchor at the cathead, the chief and second mates
picked the watches, and Dick, to his satisfaction, found himself picked
by Mr Sutcliffe as a member of that officer's watch.

As the ship drew down toward the lower reaches of the river she met a
slight breeze breathing out from the north-east, to which she spread,
first, her fore-and-aft canvas, and, later on, her square sails, so that
by the time of her arrival off Deal, near midnight, she was practically
independent of the tug, which at that point cast her off. Here also the
pilot left her, taking with him a goodly packet of letters from the
passengers to their friends ashore; and the _Concordia_, spreading her
studding-sails, swept on into the broadening waters of the English
Channel. With the other letters went one from Dick to his