tain's proposal that he should unlock the old square piano and play during spare moments in the dog-watches. And once he thought he detected a twinkle in the old man's eye when, at table, the mate had spoken of the Brandywine, the ship which Mark Laval had thought Paul owned.
Paul lingered in the sail locker reading and ruminating, though it was time to take in the washing and see to the old man's tea. He must open a new tin of fancy biscuits, and set aside some of the chocolate-coated ones for himself. His conscience condoned petty larcenies in the store-room. In the first place, he could not stomach salt beef and porridge and bacon, and had to make up for such staples of sea diet by extra rations of tinned food. Besides, the captain always left the chocolate-coated biscuits on the plate. The cigars he had smuggled forward to Otto? Well, he hadn't taken more than four, and after all the captain hadn't paid for them; they were "come-shaw."
When he returned to the deck he found that the breeze had pleasantly transformed his circumscribed world. While the tea was steeping he ran to look for the sail. To his joy it occupied a greater space on the horizon. Apparently it was coming north, and as the wind was abeam for both ships they should, at the present rate, pass each other before dark.
The appearance of a vessel was a phenomenon sufficient to give a festive air to the evening gathering on the fore hatch. After supper Paul hurried forward to hear scraps of talk. It was a strangely assorted group. Chips, an old Dane from Holstein, had migrated in his youth to escape the German yoke. In his shop, half buried in shavings, he had told Paul of the tyrannies borne by his family, and solemnly prophesied a day of deliverance for Denmark. These accounts had stimulated the cook to similar tales of oppression in Finland. Rather than submit to Russian rule, he had crossed to
