“They loaded us at last.  We shipped a crew.  Eight able seamen and two boys.  We hauled off one evening to the buoys at the dock-gates, ready to go out, and with a fair prospect of beginning the voyage next day.  Mrs. Beard was to start for home by a late train.  When the ship was fast we went to tea.  We sat rather silent through the meal—­Mahon, the old couple, and I. I finished first, and slipped away for a smoke, my cabin being in a deck-house just against the poop.  It was high water, blowing fresh with a drizzle; the double dock-gates were opened, and the steam colliers were going in and out in the darkness with their lights burning bright, a great plashing of propellers, rattling of winches, and a lot of hailing on the pier-heads.  I watched the procession of head-lights gliding high and of green lights gliding low in the night, when suddenly a red gleam flashed at me, vanished, came into view again, and remained.  The fore-end of a steamer loomed up close.  I shouted down the cabin, ‘Come up, quick!’ and then heard a startled voice saying afar in the dark, ‘Stop her, sir.’  A bell jingled.  Another voice cried warningly, ‘We are going right into that barque, sir.’  The answer to this was a gruff ‘All right,’ and the next thing was a heavy crash as the steamer struck a glancing blow with the bluff of her bow about our fore-rigging.  There was a moment of confusion, yelling, and running about.  Steam roared.  Then somebody was heard saying, ‘All clear, sir.’ . . .  ’Are you all right?’ asked the gruff voice.  I had jumped forward to see the damage, and hailed back, ‘I think so.’  ‘Easy astern,’ said the gruff voice.  A bell jingled.  ‘What steamer is that?’ screamed Mahon.  By that time she was no more to us than a bulky shadow maneuvering a little way off.  They shouted at us some name—­a woman’s name, Miranda or Melissa—­or some such thing.  ’This means another month in this beastly hole,’ said Mahon to me, as we peered with lamps about the splintered bulwarks and broken braces.  ‘But where’s the captain?’

“We had not heard or seen anything of him all that time.  We went aft to look.  A doleful voice arose hailing somewhere in the middle of the dock, ‘Judea ahoy!’. . .  How the devil did he get there? . . .  ‘Hallo!’ we shouted.  ‘I am adrift in our boat without oars,’ he cried.  A belated waterman offered his services, and Mahon struck a bargain with him for half-a-crown to tow our skipper alongside; but it was Mrs. Beard that came up the ladder first.  They had been floating about the dock in that mizzly cold rain for nearly an hour.  I was never so surprised in my life.