on his hands that would run him in more
debt in a month than he could pay off in a
year. However, it was done; he could not
give up the port,  it was too profitable; so he
thought his case over calmly, and soon made
up his mind.

"He invited his wife to go to sea for a
short trip, which she was very willing to do.
Before many weeks she'd given the captain
a black eye and bred a mutiny. The men came
aft and insisted on the lady being put ashore;
however my friend managed to pacify them.

"At length they reached. the Sandal Wood
Island and King Kettle came on board; an
Indian king, so called because he had made
a crown of a bright copper kettle. The
captain presented him with a second-hand
drummer's coat, besides other valuables, and
introduced him to his wife, who divided the
savage's admiration with the coat; he had
never seen any white woman but an old one
before.

"The captain went on shore with King
Kettle, and the next day without the usual
delays, the natives began bringing a cargo of
sandal-wood down, to the beach; they got the
finest lot I ever saw; when it was loaded,
King Kettle invited the captain and his lady
to go ashore to a feast and dance. I will say
that for her, she was afraid of nothing; the
captain, before all the crew, recommends her
not to go, and that makes her positive that she
would. She puts on a light, green satin dress
with short sleeves, scarlet satin turban with
an ostrich feather, all her hair hanging in
curls down her back, and a pair of pocket
pistols in her belt. She looked so grand, for
all the crew were so mad with her goings on,
they gave her three cheers when, she stepped
into the boat. Well, the captain came back
alone, and told the crew his wife would stop,
a piece of news that vexed nobody but one
young fellow, who was for arming a boat,
but nobody heeded him. At any rate, they
up anchor and made sail, for it was a place
where more than one ship's company had
been murdered. However, there were people
that will have it he sold his wife to King
Kettle for that cargo of sandal-wood; and
when, twelve months after, news came that
King Kettle, after worshipping his white wife
for some time, had had his patience exhausted
like many others, and not only killed but
eaten her, according to the custom of the
country; my friend's only remark was an
expression of wonder whether he digested
her, 'Because,' says he, 'if he did, King
Kettle's the only person, she ever could,
agree with! '"

This story, so coolly told, quite finished me
up. With a short good night, and a very
hollow laugh at King Kettle's digestion, I
turned in, having first loaded my pistols and
put them under my pillow. My dreams were
not very pleasant. It would have been odd
if they had been, transplanted so suddenly
from the calm security of civilisation to the
middle of the ocean, bound up in the space of
a few square feet, certainly without a friend,
and probably with a felon.

I was awakened by a fearful cry, and rushed
upon deck at the same time as the captain.
There was a large ship bearing right down
upon us, the man at the wheel in his fright
threw the brig up into the wind.

"Starboard," roared the captain to the
stranger ship, snatching up a speaking
trumpet. "Starboard" we all shrieked in
chorus, the shrill voice of the captain's wife
above all. Through the moonlight, I saw
something white dash at the wheel of the
stranger, and just as her bowsprit was over us
she paid slowly off, and past us, grinding along
our stern with a sound that chilled me to my
heart. We were saved. The captain's wife
fell on her knees and returned thanks for our
wonderful escape; most of us followed her
example, but when the mate, who had been
lying, in a drunken sleep on deck, came up
rubbing his eyes, the captain snatched up a
handspike and knocked him down; the mate
jumped and flew on him like a tiger, but
the crew were too quick for him. and got him
down; in the mean time the captain had run
for his pistols, but after a great row the mate
went forward, and we all coiled down again
in our berths.

A few days afterwards, the water turned
bad. The owners, to save money, had given
us half-cleansed beer-barrels, so it was decided
to put into Rio de Janeiro. After the
running-down night, the mate had been
disrated, and sent forward among the men, for it
was his watch, and it seemed as if the watches
in both vessels had been asleep. From that
time he was never sober. He had found out
the way to bore a hole in a cask of rum, and
suck at it through a thin bamboo tube every
evening at dusk.

I was sitting one morning reading Don
Quixote for the second time, when Clank came
with a piece of wood in his hand, and asked
me to lend him a large case-knife, that, among
other foolish things stuck into emigrants, I
had purchased for my outfit. I handed it to
him without a word; he went straight to the
grindstone and began to sharpen it. "Halloa!"
cried impudent little Duds, the cabin-boy,
"are you going to kill a pig this morning? A
bit of fresh meat would be a treat." "You
shall have fresh meat enough in five minutes,"
was the answer. "I'm going to cut that
infernal captain's liver out!" and with that
he sprang at the captain, who was just coming
on deck. As luck would have it, one of the
men, a sharp fellow, was coming aft, with a
handspike. In an instant he threw it so
cleverly, it took the mate between the legs
and flung him flat; the knife flew out of his
hand overboard, his head striking the captain
in the middle of' his fat paunch, upset him.
Two or three of' us jumped on top of the
mate, who began to howl like a demon, and
no wonder; for, in my anxiety to keep him