“She’s gone, clean gone!” murmured the bewildered captain.

“Clean as a whistle,” said the mate.  “The new hands must ha’ run away with her.”

Then the bereaved captain raised his voice, and pronounced a pathetic and beautiful eulogy upon the departed vessel, somewhat marred by an appendix in which he consigned the new hands, their heirs, and descendants, to everlasting perdition.

“Ahoy!” said the waterman, who was getting tired of the business, addressing a grimy-looking seaman hanging meditatively over the side of a schooner.  “Where’s the Mary Ann?”

“Went away at half-past one this morning,” was the reply.

“‘Cos here’s the cap’n an’ the mate,” said the waterman, indicating the forlorn couple with a bob of his head.

“My eyes!” said the man, “I s’pose the cook’s in charge then.  We was to have gone too, but our old man hasn’t turned up.”

Quickly the news spread amongst the craft in the tier, and many and various were the suggestions shouted to the bewildered couple from the different decks.  At last, just as the captain had ordered the waterman to return to the shore, he was startled by a loud cry from the mate.

“Look there!” he shouted.

The captain looked.  Fifty or sixty yards away, a small shamefaced-looking schooner, so it appeared to his excited imagination, was slowly approaching them.  A minute later a shout went up from the other craft as she took in sail and bore slowly down upon them.  Then a small boat put off to the buoy, and the Mary Ann was slowly warped into the place she had left ten hours before.

But while all this was going on, she was boarded by her captain and mate.  They were met by Captain Bing, supported by his mate, who had hastily pushed off from the Smiling Jane to the assistance of his chief.  In the two leading features before mentioned he was not unlike the mate of the Mary Ann, and much stress was laid upon this fact by the unfortunate Bing in his explanation.  So much so, in fact, that both the mates got restless; the skipper, who was a plain man, and given to calling a spade a spade, using the word “pimply” with what seemed to them unnecessary iteration.

It is possible that the interview might have lasted for hours had not Bing suddenly changed his tactics and begun to throw out dark hints about standing a dinner ashore, and settling it over a friendly glass.  The face of the Mary Ann’s captain began to clear, and, as Bing proceeded from generalities to details, a soft smile played over his expressive features.  It was reflected in the faces of the mates, who by these means showed clearly that they understood the table was to be laid for four.

At this happy turn of affairs Bing himself smiled, and a little while later a ship’s boat containing four boon companions put off from the Mary Ann and made for the shore.  Of what afterwards ensued there is no distinct record, beyond what may be gleaned from the fact that the quartette turned up at midnight arm-in-arm, and affectionately refused to be separated—­even to enter the ship’s boat, which was waiting for them.  The sailors were at first rather nonplussed, but by dint of much coaxing and argument broke up the party, and rowing them to their respective vessels, put them carefully to bed.