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“What am I to do?” groaned the skipper, too depressed even to resent his subordinate’s manner. “It’s a judgment summons. It’s ruin if he gets me.”

“Well, so far as I can see, the only thing for you to do is to miss the ship this trip,” said the mate, without looking at him. “I can take her out all right.”

“I won’t,” said the skipper, interrupting fiercely.

“Very well, you’ll be nabbed,” said the mate.

“You’ve been wanting to handle this craft a long time,” said the skipper fiercely. “You could ha’ got rid of him if you’d wanted to. He’s no business down my cabin.”

“I tried everything I could think of,” asseverated the mate.

“Well, he’s come down on my ship without being asked,” said the skipper fiercely, “and, damme, he can stay there. Cast off.”

“But,” said the mate, “s’pose–“

“Cast off,” repeated the skipper. “He’s come on my ship, and I’ll give him a trip free.”

“And where are you and the mate to sleep?” inquired the cook, who was a man of pessimistic turn of mind, and given to forebodings.

“In your bunks,” said the skipper brutally. “Cast off there.”

The men obeyed, grinning, and the schooner was soon threading her way in the darkness down the river, the skipper listening somewhat nervously for the first intimation of his captive’s awakening.

He listened in vain that night, for the prisoner made no sign, but at six o’clock in the morning, when the Fearless, coming within sight of the Nore, began to dance like a cork upon the waters, the mate reported hollow groans from the cabin.

“Let him groan,” said the skipper briefly, “as holler as he likes.”

“Well, I’ll just go down and see how he is,” said the mate.

“You stay where you are,” said the skipper sharply.

“Well, but you ain’t going to starve the man?”

“Nothing to do with me,” said the skipper ferociously; “if a man likes to come down and stay in my cabin, that’s his business. I’m not supposed to know he’s there; and if I like to lock my cabin up and sleep in a foc’sle what’s got more fleas in it than ten other foc’sles put together, and what smells worse than ten foc’sles rolled into one, that’s my business.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to berth for’ard too,” grumbled the other. “He can’t touch me. I can go and sleep in my berth.”

“You’ll do what I wish, my lad,” said the skipper.

“I’m the mate,” said the other darkly.

“And I’m the master,” said the other; “if the master of a ship can stay down the foc’sle, I’m sure a tuppeny-ha’penny mate can.”

“The men don’t like it,” objected the mate.

“Damn the men,” said the skipper politely, “and as to starving the chap, there’s a water-bottle full o’ water in my state-room, to say nothing of a jug, and a bag o’ biscuits under the table.”

The mate walked off whistling, and the skipper, by no means so easy in his mind as he pretended to be, began to consider ways and means out of the difficulty which he foresaw must occur when they reached port.

“What sort o’ looking chap is he?” he inquired of the cook.

“Big, strong-looking chap,” was the reply.

“Look as though he’d make a fuss if I sent you and Bill down below to gag him when we get to the other end?” suggested the skipper.

The cook said that judging by appearances “fuss” would be no word for it.

“I can’t understand him keeping so quiet,” said the skipper; “that’s what gets over me.”

“He’s biding ‘is time, I expect,” said the cook comfortingly. “He’s a ‘ard looking customer, ‘sides which he’s likely sea-sick.”

The day passed slowly, and as night approached a sense of mystery and discomfort overhung the vessel. The man at the wheel got nervous, and flattered Bill into keeping him company by asking him to spin him a yarn. He had good reason for believing that he knew his comrade’s stock of stories by heart, but in the sequel it transpired that there was one, of a prisoner turning into a cat and getting out of the porthole and running up helmsmen’s backs, which he hadn’t heard before. And he told Bill in the most effective language he could command that he never wanted to hear it again.