The wind began to drop, and by ten o'clock we were talking of heaving
her to. We passed a ship, two schooners, and a four-masted barkentine
under the smallest of canvas, and at eleven o'clock, running up the
spanker and jib, we hove her to, and in another hour we were beating
back again against the aftersea under full sail to regain the sealing
ground away to the westward.

Below, a couple of men were sewing the "bricklayer's" body in canvas
preparatory to the sea burial. And so with the storm passed away the
"bricklayer's" soul.




THE LOST POACHER


"But they won't take excuses. You're across the line, and that's enough.
They'll take you. In you go, Siberia and the salt-mines. And as for
Uncle Sam, why, what's he to know about it? Never a word will get back
to the States. 'The _Mary Thomas_,' the papers will say, 'the
_Mary Thomas_ lost with all hands. Probably in a typhoon in the
Japanese seas.' That's what the papers will say, and people, too. In you
go, Siberia and the salt-mines. Dead to the world and kith and kin,
though you live fifty years."

In such manner John Lewis, commonly known as the "sea-lawyer," settled
the matter out of hand.

It was a serious moment in the forecastle of the _Mary Thomas_. No