mast to rail again. The cordage sang like harp-strings, the
schooner's forefoot crushed down into the heaving water with a
hissing like that of steam, blocks rattled, the Captain bellowed
his orders, rope-ends flogged the hollow deck till it reverberated
like a drum-head. The crossing of the bar was one long half-hour
of confusion and discordant sound.

When they were across the bar the Captain ordered the cook to give
the men their food.

"Git for'rd, sonny," he added, fixing Wilbur with his eye. "Git
for'rd, this is tawble dee hote, savvy?"

Wilbur crawled forward on the reeling deck, holding on now to a
mast, now to a belaying-pin, now to a stay, watching his chance
and going on between the inebriated plunges of the schooner.

He descended the fo'c'sle hatch. The Chinamen were already there,
sitting on the edges of their bunks. On the floor, at the bottom
of the ladder, punk-sticks were burning in an old tomato-can.

Charlie brought in supper--stewed beef and pork in a bread-pan and
a wooden kit--and the Chinamen ate in silence with their sheath-
knives and from tin plates. A liquid that bore a distant
resemblance to coffee was served. Wilbur learned afterward to
know the stuff as Black Jack, and to be aware that it was made
from bud barley and was sweetened with molasses. A single reeking
lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner over the centre of
the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the grisly scene--
the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the horrid