the voice, referring, in the latter
expression, no doubt, to our hero's juvenility.

Instead of speaking out, George Foster hit out, and the voice with the
lantern went down into the lee scuppers!

Then, the glare of the lantern being removed from his eyes, George saw,
by the light of the binnacle lamp, that his adversary, a savage-looking
Turk--at least in dress--was gathering himself up for a rush, and that
the steersman, a huge negro, was grinning from ear to ear.

"Go below!" said a deep stern voice in the Arabic tongue.

The effect of this order was to cause the Turk with the broken lantern
to change his mind, and retire with humility, while it solemnised the
negro steersman's face almost miraculously.

The speaker was the captain of the vessel; a man of grave demeanour,
herculean mould, and clothed in picturesque Eastern costume. Turning
with quiet politeness to Foster, he asked him in broken French how he
had come on board.

The youth explained in French quite as much broken as that of his
interrogator.

"D'you speak English?" he added.

To this the captain replied in English, still more shattered than his
French, that he could, "a ver' leetil," but that as he, (the youth), was
a prisoner, there would be no occasion for speech at all, the proper
attitude of a prisoner being that of absolute silence and obedience to
orders.

"A prisoner!" ejaculated Foster, on recovering from the first shock of
surprise. "Do you know that I am an officer in the Navy of his Majesty
the King of Great Britain?"

A gleam of satisfaction lighted up the swarthy features of the Turk for
a moment as he replied--

"Ver goot. Ransum all de more greater." As he spoke, a call from the
look-out at the bow of the vessel induced him to hurry forward.

At the same instant a slight hissing sound caused Foster to turn to the
steersman, whose black face was alive with intelligence, while an
indescribable hitch up of his chin seemed to beckon the youth to
approach with caution.

Foster perceived at once that the man wished his communication, whatever
it was, to be unobserved by any one; he therefore moved towards him as
if merely to glance at the compass.

"Massa," said the negro, without looking at Foster or changing a muscle
of his now stolid visage, "you's in a dreffle fix. Dis yer am a pirit.
But _I's_ not a pirit, bress you! I's wuss nor dat: I's a awrful
hyperkrite! an' I wants to give you good adwice. Wotiver you doos