almost as bad as a successful go with the gloves.  The Channel Squadron, flying the flag of the Duke of Edinburgh, entered Malta Harbour that year, and for some weeks the combined fleets lay moored alongside each other.  The Royal Admiral was a frequent visitor to our ship.  On one of these visits I had the experience of serving him with luncheon.  He was the guest of our skipper.  During the luncheon I handed him a note from his Flag Lieutenant.  A dealer in mummies had come aboard with some samples.  They were spread out on the quarter-deck.  The note related the facts, but the Queen’s son was not impressed, and said so.

[Illustration:  A Page from Mr. Irvine’s Diary.  Kept while serving on H.M.S. Alexandra]

“Tell him,” said he, “to go to ——­ Oh, wait a moment”; then he pencilled his reply on the back of a note and handed it to me.  When the Flag Lieutenant read it, he laughed, tore it up and handed the pieces to me.  The Duke’s reply read—­“He may go to the D——­ with the whole boiling.  A.”

Right off the coast of Sicily, we encountered a bit of rough water, and Commander Campbell, a seaman of the old school, took advantage of it for sail drill.

“Strike lower yards and top masts,” was the order, “and clear the decks for action!”

“Away aloft!” he roared, as the wind soughed through the rigging, and a moment later I heard—­“Bear out on the yard-arm!”

Something went wrong in the foretop that day, and its captain fell to the hatchway grating below.  I was standing a few feet from the spot, and it took me the best part of the day to sponge his blood out of my clothing.  We stopped the evolution for a day, and the following day another man was killed performing the same drill, and we buried them both that afternoon in the old cemetery at the base of Mt.  Etna.  At noon on the third day the ship was ordered to go through the same evolution.  Meantime a petty officer named Hicks had been promoted captain of the foretop.  He was one of the finest men in the ship.  He could dance a hornpipe, sing a good song, make a splendid showing with the gloves or single-sticks; was something of a wag, and when he laughed the deck trembled.  His promotion was not wholly a thing of joy, for the superstition of the sea gripped him tight.  He was the third man, and to most of us the number had an evil omen.  Within an hour after his promotion, the red flush had gone from his cheeks.  He was silent and managed to be alone most of the afternoon and evening of that day.  He had been a signal boy and was an expert in the language of flags and in flashing the electric light.  He was unable to sleep and passed most of the night on deck with the sentries.  It was noticed that he begged permission to “monkey” with the electric-light signalling apparatus aft on the poop.  When we began the sail drill the following day, the attention of every man on the ship was focused on the captain of the foretop, and at the order—­“Away