risk pace, singing one of those quick-time songs
with choruses to which the sailors sometimes work. The song they sang
was that very jolly one called "Leave her, Johnny." They made such a
noise with the chorus of this ditty that Mr. Jermyn was able to refresh
my memory in the message to be given to Mr. Blick.

The rain had ceased before we started. When we came into the square, we
saw that cressets, or big flaming port-fires, had been placed along
the wharf, to give light to some seamen who were rolling casks to the
barquentine. A little crowd of idlers had gathered about the workers to
watch them at their job; there may have been so many as twenty people
there. They stood in a pretty strong, but very unsteady light, by which
I could take stock of them. I looked carefully among them for the figure
of a young man in a grey Spanish hat; but he was certainly not there.
The barquentine had her sails loosed, but not hoisted. Some boats were
in the canal ahead, ready to tow her out. She had also laid out a
hawser, by which to heave herself out with her capstan. I could see at
a glance that she was at the point of sailing. As we came up the
plank-gangway which led to her deck we were delayed for a moment by a
seaman who was getting a cask aboard.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said to Mr. Jermyn. "I won't keep you waiting
long. This cask's about as heavy as nitre."

"What 'a' you got in that cask, Dick?" said the boatswain, who kept a
tally at the gangway.

"Nitre or bullets, I guess," said Dick, struggling to get the cask on to
the gang plank. "It's as heavy as it knows how."

"Give Dick a hand there," the boatswain ordered. A seaman who was
standing somewhere behind me came forward, jogging my elbow as he
passed. In a minute or two they had the cask aboard.

"It's red lead," said the boatswain, examining the marks upon it. "Sling
it down into the 'tweendecks."

After this little diversion, I was free to go down the gangway with
Mr. Jermyn. The captain received us in the cabin. He seemed to know my
"uncle Blick," as he called him, very well indeed. I somehow didn't like
the looks of the man; he had a bluff air; but it seemed to sit ill
upon him. He reminded me of the sort of farmer who stands well with his
parson or squire, while he tyrannizes over his labourers with all the
calculating cowardly cruelty of the mean mind. I did not take to Captain
Barlow, for all his affected joviality.

However, the ship was sailing. They sh