norance, whom
it was the sailor's duty to protect. Next to the sailor came the
soldier, as having some kindred employment; but at a very long
interval. Among sailors the British sailor,--that is, the British
fighting sailor,--was the only one really worthy of honour; and among
British sailors the officers on board H.M. gunboat the John Bright
were the happy few who had climbed to the top of the tree. Captain
Battleax he regarded as the sultan of the world; but he was the
sultan's vizier, and having the discipline of the ship altogether in
his own hands, was, to my thinking, its very master. I should have
said beforehand that a man of such sentiments and feelings was not at
all to my taste. Everything that he loved I have always hated, and
all that he despised I have revered. Nevertheless I became very fond
of him, and found in him an opponent to the Fixed Period that has
done more to shake my opinion than Crasweller with all his feelings,
or Sir Ferdinando with all his arguments. And this he effected by a
few curt words which I have found almost impossible to resist. "Come
this way, Mr President," he said. "Here is where you are to sleep;
and considering that it is only a ship, I think you'll find it fairly
comfortable." Anything more luxurious than the place assigned to me,
I could not have imagined on board ship. I afterwards learned that
the cabins had been designed for the use of a travelling admiral,
and I gathered from the fact that they were allotted to me an idea
that England intended to atone for the injury done to the country by
personal respect shown to the late President of the republic.

"I, at any rate, shall be comfortable while I am here. That in itself
is something. Nevertheless I have to feel that I am a prisoner."

"Not more so than anybody else on board," said the lieutenant.

"A guard of soldiers came up this morning to look after me. What
would that guard of soldiers have done supposing that I had run
away?"

"We should have had to wait till they had caught you. But nobody
conceived that to be possible. The President of a republic never runs
away in his own person. There will be a cup of tea in the officers'
mess-room at five o'clock. I will leave you till then, as you may
wish to employ yourself." I went up immediately afterwards on
deck, and looking back over the tafferel, could only just see the
glittering spires of Gladstonopolis in the distance.

Now was the time for thought. I found an