out of the funnels, and they were under way--to Siberia, Bub could not
help but think. He saw the _Mary Thomas_ swing abruptly into line
as she took the pressure from the hawser, and her side-lights, red and
green, rose and fell as she was towed through the sea.

Bub's eyes dimmed at the melancholy sight, but--but just then the
lieutenant came to take him down to the commander, and he straightened
up and set his lips firmly, as if this were a very commonplace affair
and he were used to being sent to Siberia every day in the week. The
cabin in which the commander sat was like a palace compared to the
humble fittings of the _Mary Thomas_, and the commander himself, in
gold lace and dignity, was a most august personage, quite unlike the
simple man who navigated his schooner on the trail of the seal pack.

Bub now quickly learned why he had been brought aboard, and in the
prolonged questioning which followed, told nothing but the plain truth.
The truth was harmless; only a lie could have injured his cause. He did
not know much, except that they had been sealing far to the south in
open water, and that when the calm and fog came down upon them, being
close to the line, they had drifted across. Again and again he insisted
that they had not lowered a boat or shot a seal in the week they had
been drifting about in the forbidden sea; but the commander chose to
consider all that he said to be a tissue of falsehoods, and adopted a
bullying tone in an effort to frighten the boy. He threatened and
cajoled by turns, but failed in the slightest to shake Bub's statements,
and at last ordered him out of his presence.

By some oversight, Bub was not put in anybody's charge, and wandered up
on deck unobserved. Sometimes the sailors, in passing, bent curious
glances upon him, but otherwise he was left strictly alone. Nor could he