his beard was dark and thick, with heavy, bushy eyebrows."

All this time I was getting very much interested in Old Charlie's story. "What did you do? What did you say to him?" I asked, very impatiently.

"I reached in front of him to answer the bell. He spoke very mournfully, saying: 'You shall have a visit from the Bo'sun tomorrow;' and he instantly disappeared and left me with my hand still stretched out for the bell-rope...."

I could smell the smoke from a cigar, and knew that the Captain was pacing the poop. I walked aft slowly, anxious to hear what happened on the bark "Mud Puddler." Sure enough, there was the Captain, walking up and down, and occasionally glancing at the compass. Evidently the ship was off her course when he came up from the cabin. He spoke to me rather harshly, saying: "Don't let these fellows," pointing to the man at the wheel, "steer her all over the ocean."

"Very well, sir. I was just forward seeing if the side-lights were burning brightly."

"Well, keep your eye on them, they are not to be trusted too long. And by the way, have the second mate get up the old spare sails in his morning watch; we have some roping and patching to do before we bend them. They are all right for this kind of weather. This breeze will carry us near the Equator."

"Very good, sir. I will have Olsen get them up."

He took one more look at the compass and went below. I went to the binnacle more to see the time than the compass. I was surprised to see that it was twenty minutes past three. I was anxious to go forward and have Charlie finish his story, but, seeing a light in the Captain's room, I was doomed to finish the watch around the man at the wheel.

My rather troubled sleep was ended by a rap at the door. It was the cook. "It has gone seven bells. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes, sir." Dressing was easy for me. In fact, all it required was washing and putting on my cap, for in the tropics one has little use for clothes, which was indeed fortunate for me.

"Steward," said I, as I perfected my toilet, "what have you for breakfast this morning?" He hesitated before answering, and well I knew what was passing in his mind. "How does he dare to ask me what I am going to have for breakfast! I who have befriended him. What have I for breakfast indeed!"

"Tongues and sounds," said the Emancipator, very sharply.

"A breakfast fit for a king," I replied cheerfully.

The word "king" was a red flag to a bull to him. The presence of the Captain coming down the companion-way was all that saved me from the fate of all reigning monarchs.

Tongues and sounds of the Alaska codfish come pickled in brine and packed in firkins, and are sold principally to marine shipping. All that is required in the process of cooking is to freshen them overnight, boil and serve with drawn butter. They are an enviable breakfast delicacy on land and sea.

The cook, although upset by my reference to kings, lost none of the dignity of serving the byproduct of the Alaska cod. The Captain had little to say during the morning meal, and seemed worried about something.

On my leaving the table he remarked: "Get your palm and needle. I want you to work with me on the spare sails, they are in bad shape."

The spare sails were indeed much in need of repair. Where they were not worn threadbare, they had been chewed by the rats. While we were sitting side by side sewing, this afternoon, we talked of many things—ships and shipping, and foreign ports.

"Do you know," said he, "that trip that took me to South America when my wife died was going to be my last trip." He stopped sewing. "You see, she would never complain of being sick. Of course, I was away most of the time, spending about two weeks a year at home with her and the children. It was while I was home that trip, that I noticed how poorly she looked, and that cough, and realized how much she must have suffered. The doctor told me she might live for years with proper care and right climatic conditions. She and I talked it over and decided that on my return trip I would give up the sea for good, and devote my time to her and the children on a farm in Southern California. When I returned from Valparaiso and found that poor Bertha was dead, and the boys living with their aunt, it was more than I could stand."

With tears streaming from his eyes, unconscious of the vast Pacific, the ship he was in, or even the crew around him, he murmured softly to himself:

"My wife, my wife,—gone, gone." In this intense moment a ball of sewing twine rolled from his knee, and, reaching for it, he said: "Do you know that sometimes I think she is with me."

CHAPTER V

The Shark—"To Hell With Shark and Ship"

I was so overcome by the Captain's tears and his great love for his deceased wife, that I failed to hear Old Charlie calling me from the wheel until he attracted my attention by pointing over the stern.

"What is wrong?" I asked, thinking that perhaps the log line had carried away.

"A black fin on the starboard quarter, sir."

"What is that?" said the Captain, throwing the sail aside and walking aft.

"It is a shark, sir," said I, "and a black one."

Instantly all love and human kindliness left him. Jumping down onto the poop deck and looking over the rail.

"By Heavens, you are right," he cried, "he must be twenty feet long. Run to the pork barrel and get a chunk of meat while I get the shark hook."

"Aye, aye, sir." In the excitement it did not take me long to reach the cook's salt pork barrel, and grabbing about ten pounds of salt horse I was aft again in a minute. The Captain was bending a three-inch rope into a swivel on a chain. The chain is about six feet from the hook. When the shark comes down with his six rows of teeth on each jaw, it takes more than manila rope to stop him, hence the quarter-inch chain.

The Captain was very much excited. "Here, damn it. No, he will nibble it off the hook if you put it there. That is it. The center. Now over the side with it. Slack away on your line there. That is enough. Make fast."

"All fast, sir," said I.

In our excitement of the morning we had forgotten to take our observation for latitude. It was now past eight bells with the cook ringing the bell for dinner. The black fin was swimming around the salt horse, and it was easy to decide between them.

"By God, there," pointing astern, "is another one," said the Captain. "Why in blazes don't he take the bait?"

No sooner said than done. The big black fin turned over on his back and swallowed meat and hook, then righting himself and feeling grateful for so small a morsel, and starting to swim away, he found that he was fast to the end of a rope.

No one realized it more than the Captain. With a shout that could be heard all over the schooner: "Lay aft, all hands," he cried, "and lend a hand to pull in this black cannibal."

With all hands aft, including the cook,—his presence is always needed in emergencies like this,—"Get that boom tackle from off the main boom," he continued, "and you," pointing to Olsen, "get a strop from the lazarette and fasten it up in the mizzen-rigging."

"If I go down there," said Olsen, pointing to the lazarette hatch, "the cat may get out."

"To Hell with the cat," said the Captain, "this is no time to stand on technicalities. Get the strop and get it up damned lively."

Meantime the cook forgot that he was the humble dispenser of salt horse and pea soup. He who had fought the land sharks for years, he who had stood hour after hour in the sweltering sun declaiming against the crimps and other parasites of the Barbary coast, was it not befitting that he should lead the charge on this black monster of the deep?

The Ballot-Box Cook, for this is the name I gave him, was standing abaft the mizzen-rigging, with unkempt iron-gray hair waving in the wind, a greasy