unfortunate as to be seized with the fever of the
country, which laid me on my back, while we
were in harbour; and which only let me return
to my duty after we had been ten days at sea,
on the voyage home again. For this reason,
the first morning when I was able to get on
deck, was also the first time of my setting eyes
on our new supercargo, Mr. Lawrence Clissold.

I found him to be a long, lean, wiry man,
with some complaint in his eyes which forced
him to wear spectacles of blue glass. His age
appeared to be fifty-six, or thereabouts; but he
might well have been more. There was not
above a handful of grey hair, altogether, on his
bald head—and, as for the wrinkles at the corners
of his eyes and the sides of his mouth, if he could
have had a pound apiece in his pocket for every
one of them, he might have retired from business
from that time forth. Judging by certain
signs in his face, and by a suspicious morning-
tremble in his hands, I set him down, in my
own mind (rightly enough, as it afterwards
turned out), for a drinker. In one word, I didn't
like the looks of the new supercargo—and, on
the first day when I got on deck, I found that
he had reasons of his own for paying me back
in my own coin, and not liking my looks, either.

"I've been asking the captain about you,"
were his first words to me in return for my
civilly wishing him good morning. "Your
name's Raybrock, I hear. Are you any relation
to the late Hugh Raybrock, of Barnstaple,
Devonshire?"

"Rather a near relation," I made answer.
"I am the late Hugh Raybrock's eldest son."

There was no telling how his eyes looked,
because they were hidden by his blue spectacles
—but I saw him wince at the mouth, when I
gave him that reply.

"Your father ended by failing in business,
didn't he?" was the next question the
supercargo put to me.

"Who told you he failed?" I asked, sharply
enough.

"Oh! I heard it," says Mr. Lawrence Clissold,
both looking and speaking as if he was
glad to have heard it, and he hoped it was true.

"Whoever told you my father failed in business,
told you a lie," I said. "His business
fell off towards the last years of his life—I don't
deny it. But every creditor he had was honestly
paid at his death, without so much as touching
the provision left for his widow and children.
Please to mention that, next time you hear it
reported that my father failed in business."

Mr. Clissold grinned to himself—and I lost
my temper.

"I'll tell you what," I said to him, "I don't
like your laughing to yourself, when I ask you
to do justice to my father's memory—and, what
is more, I didn't like the way you mentioned
that report of his failing in business, just now.
You looked as if you hoped it was true."

"Perhaps I did," says Mr. Clissold, coolly.
"Shall I tell you why? When I was a young
man, I was unlucky enough to owe your father
some money. He was a merciless creditor;
and he threatened me with a prison if the debt
remained unpaid on the day when it was due.
I have never forgotten that circumstance; and
I should certainly not have been sorry if your
father's creditors had given him a lesson in
forbearance, by treating him as harshly as he once
treated me."

"My father had a right to ask for his own,"
I broke out. "If you owed him the money and
didn't pay it——"

"I never told you I didn't pay it," says
Mr. Clissold, as coolly as ever.

"Well, if you did pay it," I put in, "then,
you didn't go to prison— and you have no cause
of complaint now. My father wronged nobody;
and I won't believe he ever wronged you. He
was a just man in all his dealings; and whoever
tells me to the contrary——!"

"That will do," says Mr. Clissold, backing
away to the cabin stairs. "You seem to have
not quite got over your fever yet. I'll leave
you to air yourself in the sea-breezes, Mr.
Second Mate; and I'll receive your excuses
when you are cool enough to make them."

"It is a son's business to defend his father's
character," I answered; "and, cool or hot, I'll
leave the ship sooner than ask your pardon for
doing my duty!"

"You will leave the ship," says the supercargo,
quietly going down into the cabin. "You
will leave at the next port, if I have any interest
with the captain."

That was how Mr. Clissold and I scraped
acquaintance on the first day when we met
together! And as we began, so we went on to
the end. But, though he persecuted me in
almost every other way, he did not anger me
again about father's affairs: he seemed to have
dropped talking of them at once and for ever.
On my side I nevertheless bore in mind what
he had said to me, and determined, if I got
home safe, to go to the lawyer at Barnstaple
who keeps father's old books and letters for us,
and see what information they might give on
the subject of Mr. Lawrence Clissold. I, myself,
had never heard his name mentioned at
home—father (as you know, Alfred) being
always close about business-matters, and mother
never troubling him with idle questions about
his affairs. But it was likely enough that he
and Mr. Clissold might have been concerned
in money-matters, in past years, and that Mr.
Clissold might have tried to cheat him, and
failed. I rather hoped it might prove to be
so—for the truth is, the supercargo provoked
me past all endurance; and I hated him as
heartily as he hated me.

All this while the ship was making such a
speedy voyage down the coast, that we began
to think we were carrying back with us the fine
weather we had brought out. But, on nearing
Cape Horn, the signs and tokens appeared
which told us that our run of luck was at an
end. Down went the barometer, lower and
lower; and up got the wind, in the northerly
quarter, higher and higher. This happened
towards nightfall—and at daybreak next day, we