voice behind him. "I don't allow passengers to
handle my ship."

"Then do pray handle her yourself, captain!
Is this weather to go tearing happy-go-lucky up
the British Channel?"

"I mean to sail her without your advice, sir:
and, being a seaman, I shall get all I can out of
a fair wind."

"That is right, Captain Robarts; if you had
but the Channel all to yourself."

"Perhaps you will leave me my deck all to
myself."

"I should be delighted: but my anxiety will
not let me." With this Dodd retired a few steps,
and kept a keen look out.

At noon, a lusty voice cried "LAND ON THE
WEATHER BEAM!"

All eyes were turned that way, and saw
nothing.

Land in sight was reported to Captain
Robarts.

Now that worthy was in reality getting
secretly anxious: so he ran on deck crying, "Who
saw it?"

"Captain Dodd, sir."

"Ugh! Nobody else?"

Dodd came forward, and, with a respectful
air, told him that, being on the look out, he had
seen the coast of the Isle of Wight in a momentary
lift of the haze.

"Isle of Fiddlestick!" was the .polite reply.
"Isle of Wight is eighty miles astern by now."

Dodd answered firmly that he was well
acquainted with every outline in the Channel, and
the land he had seen was St. Katharine's Point.

Robarts deigned no reply; but had the log
heaved: it showed the vessel to be running
twelve knots an hour. He then went to his
cabin and consulted his chart; and, having
worked his problem, came hastily on deck, and
went from rashness to wonderful caution. "Turn
the hands out, and heave the ship to!"

The manœuvre was executed gradually and
ably, and scarce a bucketful of water shipped.
"Furl taupsels and set the main trysail! There,
Mr. Dodd, so much for you and your Isle of
Wight. The land you saw was Dungeness, and
you would have run on into the North Sea, I'll
be bound."

When a man, habitually calm, turns anxious,
he becomes more irritable: and the mixture of
timidity and rashness he saw in Robarts made
Dodd very anxious.

He replied angrily: "At all events I should
not make a foul wind out of a fair one by heaving
to; and if I did, I would heave to on the righi
tack."

At this sudden facer, one, too, from a patient
man, Robarts staggered a moment. He
recovered, and, with an oath, ordered Dodd to go
below, or he would have him chucked into the
hold.

"Come, don't be an ass, Robarts," said Dodd,
contemptuously. Then, lowering his voice to a
whisper: "don't you know the men only want
such an order as that, to chuck you into the
sea?"

Robarts trembled. "Oh, if you mean to head
mutiny!——"

"Heaven forbid, sir! But I won't leave the
deck in dirty weather like this, till the captain
knows where he is."

Towards sunset it got clearer, and they drifted
past a Revenue cutter, who was lying to with
her head to the Northward. She hoisted no end
of signals, but they understood none of them;
and her captain gesticulated wildly on her deck.

"What is that Fantoccini dancing at?"
inquired Captain Robarts, brutally.

"To see a first class ship drift to leeward in a
narrow sea, with a fair wind," said Dodd,
bitterly.

At night it blew hard, and the sea ran high
and irregular. The ship began to be uneasy:
and Robarts very properly ordered the top-
gallant and royal yards to be sent down on deck.
Dodd would have had them down twelve hours
ago. The mate gave the order: no one moved.
The mate went forward angry. He came back
pale. The men refused to go aloft: they would
not risk their lives for Captain Robarts.

The officers all assembled and went forward:
they promised and threatened; but all in vain.
The crew stood sullen together, as if to back
one another, and put forward a spokesman to
say that "there was not one of them the captain
hadn't started, and stopped his grog a dozen
times: he had made the ship hell to them; and
now her masts and yards and hull might go there
along with her skipper, for them."

Robarts received this tidings in sullen silence.
"Don't tell that Dodd, whatever you do," said
he. "They will come round now they have had
their growl: they are too near home to shy away
their pay."

Robarts had not sufficient insight into
character to know that Dodd would instantly have
sided with him against mutiny.

But at this juncture the ex-captain of the
Agra was down in the cabin with his fellow
passengers, preparing a general remonstrance: he
had a chart before him, and a pair of compasses
in his hand.

"St. Katharine's Point lay about eight miles
to windward at noon; and we have been drifting
South and East this twelve hours, through lying
to on the starboard tack: and besides, the ship
has been conned as slovenly as she is sailed. I've
seen her allowed to break off a dozen times, and
gather more leeway: ah, here is Captain Robarts:
Captain, you saw the rate we passed the Revenue
cutter. That vessel was nearly stationary; so
what we passed her at was our own rate of
drifting, and our least rate; putting all this
together, we can't be many miles from the French
coast, and, unless we look sharp and beat to
windward, I pronounce the ship in danger."

A horse laugh greeted this conclusion.

"We are nearer Yarmouth sands than France,