as it frequently does, and gazing intently ahead, I fancied that I could see through the haze of rain that still remained, a darker appearance ahead than there would be with mere mist. At this moment the captain came up on the bridge. I pointed this out to him at once, exclaiming—
"That looks remarkably like the land to me, sir."
"So it does, Mr. Hardy," said the captain. "Unless I'm very much out in my reckoning, we ought to make Gebel Camar, or the Mountains of the Moon, as they are called, very soon, and probably what you see is really the land."
At this moment Mr. Stewart, the chief engineer, came up the bridge ladder in an excited and hasty manner. A glance at his face told me, before he opened his lips, that something was wrong.
"Captain Skeed, I've just made the discovery that the large pockets in both the foremost bunkers are empty, and we haena got more than a few hours' steaming in the ship."
"Good heavens! Why you told me the other day that we had eight or ten days' full steaming in the ship."
"I know I did, sir, but I reckoned upon fifty tons in the twa pockets. It appears now that that fellow Williams, who, I may say, has behaved more like a deevil than a mon all the voyage, never fashed himsel' to see the coals trimmed into the pockets, as I gave him orders to do in Bombay."
"What does he say about it?" said the captain.
"He actually tells me that it was no his business, and I ought to hae seen to it mysel'."
"I never heard of pockets in bunkers before," said the captain.
"Nor anybody else," said Mr. Stewart. "They're just bunkers within the bunkers. Ye can't get to them frae the deck, and to fill 'em with coal it has to be passed in by the trimmers through a hole that's cut in the bulkhead."
"Confound such contrivances!" exclaimed the captain,
