turned back to old Tommy and said:

"I s'pose you lets women go with you when you're out asploring--women
and girls?"

"Never a woman," said Tommy.

"Not never--not if they're stunners?" said Martin.

"Well," says Tommy, glancing down at me, while his starboard eye
twinkled, "I won't say never--not if they're stunners."

Next day Martin, attended by William Rufus, arrived at our house with a
big corn sack on his shoulder, a long broom-handle in his hand, a
lemonade bottle half filled with milk, a large sea biscuit and a small
Union Jack which came from the confectioner's on the occasion of his
last birthday.

"Glory's waiting for me--come along, shipmate," he said in a mysterious
whisper, and without a word of inquiry, I obeyed.

He gave me the biscuit and I put it in the pocket of my frock, and the
bottle of milk, and I tied it to my belt, and then off we went, with the
dog bounding before us.

I knew he was going to the sea, and my heart was in my mouth, for of all
the things I was afraid of I feared the sea most--a terror born with me,
perhaps, on the fearful night of my birth. But I had to live up to the
character I had given myself when Martin became my brother, and the one
dread of my life was that, finding me as timid as other girls, he might