be serious, wisely left him all the credit of
this lucky turn of affairs. Mr. Jope, who ranked next to the Captain
and First Officer on the ship's executive, and actually ruled her
during their indisposition, exacted no work from his prisoners; but
was content to admire them from a distance--as, indeed, did the rest
of the crew--retiring from time to time behind convenient shelters to
hide their indecorous mirth. During the afternoon it may be said
that Mr. Sturge's troupe had the deck aft of the forecastle to
themselves. Being unacquainted with naval usage, they roamed the
poop indifferently with the main deck, no man forbidding them, while
Captain Crang and Mr. Wapshott slumbered below; the one of set
purpose, in the hope of recapturing through the gates of horn, if not
the complete data of last night's imbroglio, at least sufficient for
a plausible defence; the other under the influence of sedatives
administered by the Doctor.

"I should soon get used to this life, d'ye know?" announced Mr.
Sturge, approaching the Major with a jaunty, almost extra-nautical
step, and clapping him, seaman fashion, on the shoulder.

It was the hour of sunset. The _Vesuvius_, bowling along merrily, a
bare three miles off Berry Head, had opened the warm red-sandstone
cliffs of Torbay; and the Major, leaning over the larboard bulwark,
gazed on the slowly moving shore in gloomy abstraction. He had been
less fortunate than Mr. Sturge in his encounter with the Captain,
whom he had interrupted in the act of retiring to slumber.

"One moment, sir," he had begun, confidently enough. "The
accomplished _artiste_ to whose representations you have been good
enough to listen, has told you--so far as he is concerned--the simple
truth. To a certain extent I can corroborate him. But I beg you to
understand that he and I--if I may employ a nautical phrase--are not
in the same boat."

"Who the devil may _you_ be?" Captain Crang interposed.

"That, sir," answered the Major with dignity, "is precisely what I
propose to explain. By an accident I find myself without a
visiting-card; but my name, sir, is Hymen--Major Hymen, sir--of the
Troy Volunteer Artillery (better known to you, perhaps, as the
Gallants), and Chief Magistrate of that ancient and picturesque
little borough."

Captain Crang stared at him for a moment with lowered brows and jaw
working as if it chewed the cud of his wrath.

"Look here," he replied. "You're the funny man of t