sailing in various directions, both near and far away.

Going straight to the captain with an air of good-humoured _sang froid_
which was peculiar to him, Foster said--

"Captain, don't you think I've had these bits of rope-yarn on my wrists
long enough? I'm not used, you see, to walking the deck without the use
of my hands; and a heavy lurch, as like as not, would send me slap into
the lee scuppers--sailor though I be. Besides, I won't jump overboard
without leave, you may rely upon that. Neither will I attempt,
single-handed, to fight your whole crew, so you needn't be afraid."

The stern Moor evidently understood part of this speech, and he was so
tickled with the last remark that his habitual gravity gave place to the
faintest flicker of a smile, while a twinkle gleamed for a moment in his
eye. Only for a moment, however. Pointing over the side, he bade his
prisoner "look."

Foster looked, and beheld in the far distance a three-masted vessel that
seemed to bear a strong resemblance to a British man-of-war.

"You promise," said the captain, "not shout or ro-ar."

"I promise," answered our middy, "neither to `Shout' nor `ro-ar'--for my
doing either, even though like a bull of Bashan, would be of no earthly
use at this distance."

"Inglesemans," said the captain, "niver brok the word!" After paying
this scarcely-deserved compliment he gave an order to a sailor who was
coiling up ropes near him, and the man at once proceeded to untie
Foster's bonds.

"My good fellow," said the midshipman, observing that his liberator was
the man whom he had knocked down the night before, "I'm sorry I had to
floor you, but it was impossible to help it, you know. An Englishman is
like a bull-dog. He won't suffer himself to be seized by the throat and
choked if he can help it!"

The Turk, who was evidently a renegade Briton, made no reply whatever to
this address; but, after casting the lashings loose, returned to his
former occupation.

Foster proceeded to thank the captain for his courtesy and make him
acquainted with the state of his appetite, but he was evidently not in a
conversational frame of mind. Before a few words had been spoken the
captain stopped him, and, pointing down the skylight, said, sharply--

"Brukfust! Go!"

Both look and tone admonished our hero to obey. He descended to the
cabin, therefore, without finishing his sentence, and there discovered
that "brukfust" consisted of two sea-biscuits an