stout hawser coiled beneath the taffrail--a circular fort into which he
crept with his rugs, and nestled down warmly; and then for half an hour
lay listening. But only the preacher's voice broke the silence of the
harbour. On--on it went, rising and falling. . . .

Away in the little town the church clock chimed the quarter. "It must
have missed striking the hour," thought the boy, and he peered over the
edge of his shelter. The preacher's voice had ceased; but another was
speaking, and close beside him.

"You'd be surprised," it said, "how simple one's pleasures grow with
age. This is the twelfth Christmas I've spent at home, and I assure you
I quite look forward to it: that's a confession, eh?--from one who has
sailed under Nelson and smelt powder in his time." The boy knew that he
must be listening to the _Touch-me-not_, whose keelson came from an old
line-of-battle ship. "To be sure," the voice went on graciously,
"a great deal depends on one's company."

"Talking of powder," said the _Nubian_, creaking gently on her
stern-moorings, "reminds me of a terrible adventure. My very first
voyage was to the mouth of a river on the West Coast of Africa, where
two native tribes were at war. Somehow, my owner--a scoundrelly fellow
in the Midlands--had wind of the quarrel, and that the tribe nearest the
coast needed gunpowder. We sailed from Cardiff with fifteen hundred
barrels duly labelled, and the natives came out to meet us at the
river-mouth and rafted them ashore; but the barrels, if you will believe
me, held nothing but sifted coal-dust. Off we went before the trick was
discovered, and with six thousand pounds' worth of ivory in my hold.
But the worst villainy was to come; for my owner, pretending that he had
opened up a profitable trade, and having his ivory to show for it, sold