long as the rigging held they could sail. He carried no
top-gallant-mast, so as not to strain her; her sails were all in holes,
as if they had been riddled with bullets; and where ropes had broken in
the rigging, they had been tied in clumsy knots, instead of being
spliced in proper sailor-like fashion. There was not much to boast of in
the way of navigation either; the captain keeping his log by the simple
method of spitting over the side, or throwing a chip of wood overboard,
and making his calculations according to the pace it drifted past. The
food, too, was on a par with all the rest, and the cook could be heard
beating the dried fish with the back of an axe to make it tender. Salvé
seemed to have dropped all at once into home life and ways again.

The crew were dressed in thick winter clothing, and had the appearance
of navvies rather than of sailors, but they were all fearless,
hardy-looking fellows, as most of the men who risk their lives on these
timber vessels are; and what immediately struck him with a feeling of
pleasure, was the honest expression which every countenance, without
exception, wore. It was long since he had seen a sight of the kind, and
he felt ashamed of himself for going about with his knife ready to hand,
as had been his custom for so many years, and put it away in his chest
the very first day. He took a pleasure in leaving his watch and money
out on the top where they might easily have been taken, and was filled
with surprise and admiration when he found that they were not stirred.

He had not been able to get out of his head the idea that Elizabeth was
now in Amsterdam, in spite of the almost certain feeling which he had
that she had been long ago married to young Beck. His thoughts kept
returning to, and dwelling upon, this subject, and he began to sound the
skipper as to whether the trade with Holland was a paying one, and to
post himself up generally in all particulars. Their conversation was