n a bass undertone '_Ferndale_ there!' A feeble and dismal sound,
something in the nature of a buzzing groan, answered from behind the
bulwarks.

"I distinguished vaguely an irregular round knob, of wood, perhaps,
resting on the rail. It did not move in the least; but as another broken-
down buzz like a still fainter echo of the first dismal sound proceeded
from it I concluded it must be the head of the ship-keeper. The stalwart
constable jeered in a mock-official manner.

"Second officer coming to join. Move yourself a bit."

"The truth of the statement touched me in the pit of the stomach (you
know that's the spot where emotion gets home on a man) for it was borne
upon me that really and truly I was nothing but a second officer of a
ship just like any other second officer, to that constable. I was moved
by this solid evidence of my new dignity. Only his tone offended me.
Nevertheless I gave him the tip he was looking for. Thereupon he lost
all interest in me, humorous or otherwise, and walked away driving
sternly before him the honest Ted, who went off grumbling to himself like
a hungry ogre, and his horrible dumb little pal in the soldier's coat,
who, from first to last, never emitted the slightest sound.

"It was very dark on the quarter deck of the _Ferndale_ between the deep
bulwarks overshadowed by the break of the poop and frowned upon by the
front of the warehouse. I plumped down on to my chest near the after
hatch as if my legs had been jerked from under me. I felt suddenly very
tired and languid. The ship-keeper, whom I could hardly make out hung
over the capstan in a fit of weak pitiful coughing. He gasped out very
low 'Oh! dear! Oh! dear!' and struggled for breath so long that I got up
alarmed and irresolute.

"I've been took like this since last Christmas twelvemonth. It ain't
nothing."

"He seemed a hundred years old at least. I never saw him properly
because he was gone ashore and out of sight when I came on deck in the
morning; but he gave me the notion of the feeblest creature that ever
breathed. His voice was thin like the buzzing of a mosquito. As it
would have been cruel to demand assistance from such a shadowy wreck I
went to work myself, dragging my chest along a pitch-black passage under
the poop deck, while he sighed and moaned around me as if my exertions
were more than his weakness could stand. At last as I banged pretty
heavily against the bulkheads he warned me in his