in their foreheads, while I could see lips
trembling and breasts working with the pain they
could hardly keep down. And then I don't
know how it was, but it seemed to me that we
thought together the same sad things, and that
I knew their thoughts and they knew mine.
There was all the old life—plain as could be; and
then came the long, long struggle with sickness,
and death, and want; and I knew that people
said such poor folk should not marry, and many
another bitter word, as if it was wrongful to love
and try to be happy. The wind whistled
through the ropes above our heads, and the
clouds seemed gathering, too, in our hearts, for
though the bitterness was gone, I could see
plenty of sorrow and sadness all around.

"Won't do, my lad," I says, rousing up,
and wetting both hands as if I meant work;
and then I goes down in the steerage to try
and make things a bit comfortable, for you see
all the poor things were in a most miserable
state. Some was ill, some down-hearted, some
drunk and foolish, some drunk and noisy, some
drunk and quarrelsome. Then there was children
crying, and women scolding, and altogether
it was anything but a cheering prospect for the
night, for, as you may say, we weren't shook
down into shape yet.

"Good time coming," I says cheerily; and
having no young ones of my own, I set to, to
help them as had. I got hold of a young shaver
—about two and a half, I should think—and he
was a-letting go right away as if he'd got all the
trouble in the ship in his precious young head.
But he soon turned quiet, playing with my
knife, and all at once I finds as he'd made a
hammock o' me, and had gone off as sound as
a church. During the next three days its
mother was very ill, poor thing, and I had to
regularly mind the little one; and I did, too.

Well, 'tisn't a very pleasant life in the
steerage of an emigrant ship bound for New
Zealand, 'specially if the weather's a bit
rough; and so we found it. For the next
morning, when I went on deck, there was a stiff
breeze blowing, the ship heeling over; and as
I thought the night before, so it was—there was
nothing in sight but waves all round. One
sailor did point to something which he said was
home, but it might have been a cloud.

The fourth night had come, and as I lay in
my berth listening to the "wash wash" of the
water past the side of the ship, the creaking and
groaning of the timbers, and every now and
then the heavy bump of a wave against the
side, I couldn't help thinking what a little there
was between us and death; and somehow or
other the serious thoughts that came kept me
wide awake.

It was two bells, I think they call it, for
they don't count time as we do ashore, when all
at once I could hear as there was a great bustle
up on deck, where all through the watches of
the night everything's mostly very quiet. Then
there came a good deal of tramping about and
running to and fro; so I gets out of my berth,
slips on one or two things, and goes cautiously
up the ladder and gets my head above the hatchway,
and then in a moment I saw what was up,
and it gave me such a shock that I nearly let
go my hold and fell back into the steerage.
There was a thick cloud of smoke issuing out
from between the hatches, right in the centre of
the ship; and almost before I could thoroughly
realise it all, or make myself believe as it was
true, a woman ran shrieking along the deck in
her night-dress, and calling out those fearful
words on board ship—

"Fire! fire! fire!"

Hundreds of miles from land, standing on a
few nailed-together pieces of wood, and them
burning beneath your feet.

I couldn't help it: all my bitter feelings of
being ill used came back, and I says to
myself:

"Your usual luck, mate; wouldn't be you if
you weren't unfortunate. But never mind; you
have your choice, fire or water." And then I
thought of the danger, and I ketches myself such
a thump in the chest, and rolls up my sleeves,
and goes up to the captain as was busy giving
his orders.

"What shall I do?" I says.

"Pump!" he shouts; "and fetch a dozen
more up."

Lord bless you! I had 'em up in no time from
amongst the crying women; and I found time,
too, to get the women and children up on deck in
the poop, which was furthest from the hatches,
where the smoke kept pouring out, besides
which the wind took it away from them.

There was plenty of shrieking and screaming
at first; but they had got the right man in the
right place when they chose that captain, for he
runs to the poop, where all the shivering things
was a-standing, and with a few words he quiets
them. Then he runs to the men as was scuffling
about, here, there, and everywhere, and gets
them all together; and then at last he gets a
line of fellows with buckets, a lot more at the
pumps, and some more at the little engine as
was there; and then when all was ready, and
every man standing still at his post, he goes
with some more to the hatches and drags up a
couple, when up rose a regular pillar of fire and
smoke, with a snaky quiet movement, and in a
moment every face was lit up, and there was
quite a glare spreading far out to sea. Sails,
cordage, masts, everything seemed turned into
gold. For a moment I couldn't help forgetting
the danger, and thinking what a beautiful sight
it was; when directly after there was a regular
ringing cheer, the engine and pumps went
"clang-clang," and the water was teemed into
the burning hold from bucket and engine-nozzle.

How the water hissed and sputtered! while
volumes of smoke and steam rushed up where
it had been all flame but a moment before, and
as we saw this we cheered; but we'd nothing
to cheer for; it was only the fire gathering
strength; and then, as though laughing at the
water we poured in, it came dashing, and crawling,
and running up, licking the edges of the
hatchway, and setting on fire the tarpaulins at