CHAPTER I.


CAPTAIN CAI HAULS ASHORE.

"Well, _that's_ over!"

Captain Caius Hocken, from the stern-sheets of the boat bearing him
shoreward, slewed himself half-about for a look back at his vessel, the
_Hannah Hoo_ barquentine. This was a ticklish operation, because he
wore a tall silk hat and had allowed his hair to grow during the passage
home--St. Michael's to Liverpool with a cargo of oranges, and from
Liverpool around to Troy in charge of a tug.

"I'm wonderin' what 'twill feel like when it comes to my turn," mused
his mate Mr Tregaskis, likewise pensively contemplating the _Hannah
Hoo_. "Not to be sure, sir, as I'd compare the two cases; me bein' a
married man, and you--as they say--with the ship for wife all these
years, and children too."

"I never liked the life, notwithstandin'," confessed the Captain.
"And I'll be fifty come Michaelmas. Isn' that enough?"

"Nobody likes it, sir; not at our age. But all the same I reckon there
be compensations." Mr Tregaskis, shading his eyes (for the day was
sunny), let his gaze travel up the spars and rigging of the
Barquentine--up to the truck of her maintopmast, where a gull had
perched itself and stood with tail pointing like a vane. "If the truth
were known, maybe your landsman on an average don't do as he chooses any