CHAPTER II.

CAPTAIN WILL RATLIN.




THE watch below, after completing the work which had summoned them for
the time being on deck, tumbled helter-skelter down the fore hatch once
more, and left on the deck of the "Sea Witch" about a dozen able seamen
who formed the watch upon deck. A number of these were now gathered in a
knot on the forecastle, and while they were sitting cross-legged,
picking old rope, and preparing it in suitable form for caulking the
ship's seams, one of their number was spinning a yarn, the hero of which
was evidently him who now filled the post of commander on board their
vessel. The object of their remarks, meanwhile, stood once more quietly
leaning over the monkey-rail on the weather side of the quarter-deck,
quite unconscious that he was supplying a theme of entertainment to the
forecastle.

There was an absent expression in his handsome face, a look as though
his heart was far distant from the scene about him, and yet a habit of
watchful caution seemed ever and anon to recall his senses, and his
quick, keen glance would run over the craft from stem to stern with a
searching and comprehensive power that showed him master of his