and felt slightly
uncomfortable.

"If she goes down in mid-channel," said he, "it strikes me that the
submarines will get the best of it, 'cause it don't seem to me that
you're able to swim eight or ten miles at a stretch."

"We have a boat, Billy, we have a boat, my smart boy."

Mr Jones accompanied this remark with a wink and a slight poke with his
thumb in the smart boy's side, which, however, did not seem to have the
effect of reassuring Billy, for he continued to raise various
objections, such as the improbability of the sloop giving them time to
get into a boat when she took it into her head to go down, and the
likelihood of their reaching the land in the event of such a disaster
occurring during a gale or even a stiff breeze. To all of which Mr
Jones replied that he might make his mind easy, because he (Jones) knew
well what he was about, and would manage the thing cleverly.

"Now, Billy, here's the lesson that you've got to learn. Besides
remembering everything that I have told you, and only answering
questions in the way that I have partly explained, and will explain more
fully at another time, you will take particular note that we left the
Thames to-day all right with a full cargo--Jim Welton bein' master, and
one passenger bein' aboard, whom we agreed to put ashore at Ramsgate.
That you heard me say the vessel and cargo were insured for 300 pounds,
but were worth more, and that I said I hoped to make a quick voyage over
and back. Besides all this, Billy, boy, you'll keep a sharp look-out,
and won't be surprised if I should teach you to steer, and get the
others on board to go below. If you should observe me do anything while
you are steering, or should hear any noises, you'll be so busy with the
tiller and the compass that you'll forget all about _that_, and never be
able to answer any questions about such things at all. Have I made all
that quite plain to you?"

"Yes, captain; hall right."

Billy had taken to styling his new employer captain, and Mr Jones did
not object.

"Well, go for'ard and take a nap. I shall want you to-night perhaps; it
may be not till to-morrow night."

The small boy went forward, as he was bid, and, leaning over the bulwark
of the Nora, watched for a long time the rippling foam that curled from
her bows and slid quietly along her black hull, but Billy's thoughts
were not, like his eyes, fixed upon the foam. For the first time in his
life, perhaps, the foundling outc