on the ship, and on them first.  But meantime the captain, with a shrewd guess at the general nature of the danger he could not see, had roared out, “Slack the main sheet!” The ship righted, and the port came flying to, and terror-stricken men breathed hard, up to their waists in water and floating boxes.  Grey barred the unlucky port, and went aft, drenched in body, and wrecked in mind, to report his own fault.  He found the captain looking grim as death.  He told him, almost crying, what he had done, and how he had miscalculated the power of the water.

Dodd looked and saw his distress.  “Let it be a lesson sir,” said he, sternly.  “How many ships have been lost by this in fair weather, and not a man saved to tell how the craft was fooled away?”

“Captain, bid me fling myself over the side, and I’ll do it.”

“Humph!  I’m afraid I can’t afford to lose a good officer for a fault he—­will—­never—­repeat.”

It blew hard all night and till twelve the next day.  The Agra showed her weak point:  she rolled abominably.  A dirty night came on.  At eight bells Mr. Grey touched by Dodd’s clemency, and brimful of zeal, reported a light in Mrs. Beresford’s cabin.  It had been put out as usual by the master-at-arms; but the refractory one had relighted it.

“Go and take it away,” said Dodd.

Soon screams were heard from the cabin.  “Oh! mercy! mercy!  I will not be drowned in the dark.”

Dodd, who had kept clear of her so long, went down and tried to reassure her.

“Oh, the tempest! the tempest!” she cried.  “AND TO BE DROWNED IN THE DARK!”

“Tempest?  It is blowing half a gale of wind; that is all.”

“Half a gale!  Ah, that is the way you always talk to us ladies.  Oh, pray give me my light, and send me a clergyman!”

Dodd took pity, and let her have her light, with a midshipman to watch it.  He even made her a hypocritical promise that, should there be one grain of danger, he would lie to; but said he must not make a foul wind of a fair one for a few lurches.  The Agra broke plenty of glass and crockery though with her fair wind and her lee lurches.

Wind down at noon next day, and a dead calm.

At two P.M. the weather cleared; the sun came out high in heaven’s centre; and a balmy breeze from the west.

At six twenty-five, the grand orb set calm and red, and the sea was gorgeous with miles and miles of great ruby dimples:  it was the first glowing smile of southern latitude.  The night stole on so soft, so clear, so balmy, all were loth to close their eyes on it:  the passengers lingered long on deck, watching the Great Bear dip, and the Southern Cross rise, and overhead a whole heaven of glorious stars most of us have never seen, and never shall see in this world.  No belching smoke obscured, no plunging paddles deafened; all was musical; the soft air sighing among the sails; the phosphorescent water bubbling