bread and a great piece of salt beef, was brought down. This time
there were no abstentions. As the evening wore on fresh batches
of prisoners were brought in, until, by midnight, the number was
raised to fifty. Many of them had been seriously knocked about in
their capture, and Jack, who had persuaded his friend the sailor
to bring down three or four more buckets of salt water, did his
best, by bathing and bandaging their wounds, to put them at their
ease.

In the morning he could see who were his companions in misfortune.
Many of them he knew by sight as loafers on the wharves and
as troublesome or riotous characters. Three or four were men of
different type. There were two or three respectable mechanics--
men who had had, at various times, drawn upon them the dislikes of
the great men of the town by insisting on their rights; and there
were two idle young fellows of a higher class, who had vexed their
friends beyond endurance.

Presently the officer in charge of the recruiting party, who had
now come on board, came down into the hold. He was at once assailed
with a storm of curses and angry remonstrances.

"Look here, my lads," he said, raising his hand for silence, "it is
of no use your going on like this, and I warn you that the sooner
you make up your minds that you have got to serve her majesty the
better for you, because that you have got to do it is certain. You
have all been impressed according to act of parliament, and there
is no getting out of it. It's your own fault that you got those
hard knocks that I see the marks of, and you will get more if you
give any more trouble. Now, those who choose to agree at once to