“Fool!” said the Captain, softly, “I don’t mean that.  If you can’t take a star, can you keep a watch?”

“Well, as to that, Captain,” said I, half shocked and half amused at his strange questionings, “I never take my own out in a crowd.  It’s one of DENT’s best, given me by my aunt, and I’ve had it for nigh upon—­”

But the Captain had left me, and was at that moment engaged on his after-supper occupation of jockeying a lee yard-arm, while the first mate, Mr. SOWSTER, was doing his best to keep up with his rough commanding officer by dangling to windward on the flemish horse, which, as it was touched in the wind and gone in the forelegs, stumbled violently over the buttery hatchway and hurled its venturesome rider into the hold.

CHAPTER II.

On the following morning we were all sitting in the palatial saloon of the Marlinspike.  We were all there, all the characters, that is to say, necessary for the completion of a first class three-volume ocean novel.  On my right sat the cayenne-peppery Indian Colonel, a small man with a fierce face and a tight collar, who roars like a bull and says, “Zounds, Sir,” on the slightest provocation.  Opposite to him was his wife, a Roman-nosed lady, with an imperious manner, and a Colonel-subduing way of curling her lip.  On my left was the funny man.  As usual he was of a sea-green colour, and might be expected at any moment to stagger to a porthole and call faintly for the steward.  Further down the table sat two young nincompoops, brought on board specially in order that they might fulfil their destiny, and fill out my story, by falling in love with the fluffy-haired English girl who was sitting between them, and pouting equally and simultaneously at both.  There was also the stout German who talks about “de sturm und der vafes.”  And beside him was the statuesque English beauty, whose eyes are of the rich blackness of the tropic sky, whose voice has a large assortment of sudden notes of haughtiness, while the studied insolence of her manner first freezes her victims and then incontinently and inconsistently scorches them.  Eventually her proud spirit will be tamed, probably by a storm, or a ship-wreck, or by ten days in an open boat.  I shall then secure your love, my peerless ARAMINTA, and you will marry me and turn out as soft and gentle as the moss-rose which now nestles in your raven tresses.  The Colonel was speaking.

“Zounds, Sir!” he was saying.  “I don’t know what you mean by effects.  All mine are on board.  What do you say, Mr. TUGLEY?” he went on, looking at me with a look full of corkscrews and broken glass, while his choleric face showed of a purple hue under the effort of utterance.

“Well, Colonel,” I replied, in an off-hand way, so as not to irritate him, “I keep my best effects here;” and, so saying, I produced my note-book, and tapped it significantly.  “What, for instance, do you say to this?”