than they have to be in penal servitude.  It is ghastly, and yet what can we do?  I have no mawkish sentiment, but I could have cried over one fellow.  His finger was broken, and then blood-poisoning set in.  Up to the collar-bone his arm is discoloured, and the glands are blackish-blue here and there.  He smiled as he put out his hand, and he said, ’He du hurt, sir.  I’ve had hardly an hour’s sleep since the first breeze, and, when I du get over, I fare to feel as if cats and dogs and fish and things was bitin’.’  Then I asked him if he had stuck to work.  Yes; he had helped to haul as late as this last midnight.  Now he’s gone back, and I must see him, at any price, to-morrow, or I cannot save that arm.  I couldn’t hurry like a butcher, and so there will be many a man in pain this night.”

Marion Dearsley was deeply stirred.  “I wish I could go round with you to-morrow and search out any bad cases.”

“I must tell you that, so far as I can see, almost every conceivable kind of accident happens during a violent gale—­everything, from death to a black eye.  But, all the same, I wish you could come with me.”

Blair burst into his jolly laugh; he was such a droll dog was Blair, and he would have his joke, and he would set up sometimes, as a sly rascal, don’t you know—­though he was the tenderest and kindest of beings.

“This is what your fine scheme has come to, is it?  Oh!  I see a grand chance for the novel-writers.”

Oh, Blair was indeed a knowing customer.  He made Ferrier look a little foolish; but the ladies knew him, Tom Lennard adored him, and the grand, calm Marion smiled gently on him.  In the case of any other man it would have seemed like sacrilege to talk of a sentimental flirtation before that young woman; but then she sometimes called him Uncle John and sometimes Mr. Blair, according to the company they were in; so what would you have?

After tea came the men’s time for smoking; the bitter night was thick with stars; the rime lay on the bulwarks, and, when the moon came out, the vessel was like a ghostly fabric.  Ferrier took charge of the two girls, and Tom entertained the elder ladies with voluminous oratory.

The surgeon was uneasy; the sudden splendour of the moon was lost on him, and he only thought of her as he might of a street lamp.

“I’m glad the moon has come, Miss Dearsley.  If there is no chance of her clouding over, I shall ask the skipper to slip us into the thick of the fleet, and I’ll take the boat.”

“You are very good to take the risk after that dreadful time.”

“I’m afraid I only follow a professional instinct.  One thing is certain, I shall stay out here for the winter and do what I can.”

Girls are tied by conventions; they cannot even express admiration in fitting language; they may giggle or cackle so that every ripple of laughter and every turn of a phrase sounds nauseously insincere.  Marion Dearsley durst not talk frankly with this fine fellow, but she said enough.