down by the
footlights, and thrown himself into attitude to deliver the speech of
manly defiance which provokes the Wicked Lieutenant to descend into
the waist of the ship and receive the well-merited weight of the
hero's fist. The hero, with one foot planted on a coil of real rope
and one arm supporting the half-inanimate form of his Susan, in
deference to stage convention faced the audience, while with his
other arm uplifted he invoked vengeance upon the oppressor, who
scowled down from the quarterdeck rail.

"Hear me, kyind Heaven!" declaimed Tom Taffrail, "for Heaven at least
is my witness, that beneath the tar-stained shirt of a British sailor
there may beat the heart of a _Man_!"--

As a matter of fact, Mr. Sturge was clothed in a clean blue and white
striped shirt, with socks to match, white duck trousers no less
immaculate, with a huge glittering brass buckle on the front of his
belt, two buckles of smaller size but similar pattern on his polished
dancing shoes, and wore his hair in a natty pigtail tied with
cherry-coloured ribbon.

--"Hear and judge betwixt me and yonder tyrant! Let the storm off
Pernambuco declare who first sprang to the foretop and thence aloft
to strike t'gallant yards while the good ship _Poseidon_ careened
before its hurricane rage! Ay, and when the main topm'st went
smack-smooth by the board, who was it slid like lightning to the deck
and, with hands yet glowing from the halliards, plucked forth axe and
hewed the wreckage clear? But a truce to these reminders! 'Twas my
duty, and, as a seaman, I did it!"

Here, having laid his tender burden so that her back rested against
the coil of real rope, Mr. Sturge executed the opening steps of a
hornpipe, and advancing to the footlights, stood swaying with crossed
arms while the orchestra performed the prelude to his most celebrated
song.

At this point Mr. Jope, who for some seconds had been breathing hard
at the back of the Major's neck, clutched his comrade by the arm.

"You 'eard that, Bill?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Ay," answered Bill Adams. "He slipped down from the t'gallant yards
by the halliards."

"Would ye mind pinchin' me?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere; in the fleshy part of the ham for choice; not too
vigorous, but just to make sure. He come down by the halliards.
_Which_ halliards?"

"Signal halliards, belike. Damme, why not? Aboard a vessel with the
decks laid ath'artships--"

"An' the maintopm'st went smack-