closed sea? Don't you see, Bub, the evidence is all against us. If you
caught a man with his pockets full of apples like those which grow on
your tree, and if you caught him in your tree besides, what'd you think
if he told you he couldn't help it, and had just been sort of blown
there, and that anyway those apples came from some other tree--what'd
you think, eh?"

Bub saw it clearly when put in that light, and shook his head
despondently.

"You'd rather be dead than go to Siberia," one of the boat-pullers said.
"They put you into the salt-mines and work you till you die. Never see
daylight again. Why, I've heard tell of one fellow that was chained to
his mate, and that mate died. And they were both chained together! And
if they send you to the quicksilver mines you get salivated. I'd rather
be hung than salivated."

"Wot's salivated?" Jack asked, suddenly sitting up in his bunk at the
hint of fresh misfortunes.

"Why, the quicksilver gets into your blood; I think that's the way. And
your gums all swell like you had the scurvy, only worse, and your teeth
get loose in your jaws. And big ulcers form, and then you die horrible.
The strongest man can't last long a-mining quicksilver."

"A pad piziness," the boat-steerer reiterated, dolorously, in the
silence which followed. "A pad piziness. I vish I was in Yokohama. Eh?
Vot vas dot?"

The vessel had suddenly heeled over. The decks were aslant. A tin