tall and noiseless, with a pair of braces beating about his calves.
Amongst the shadows of stanchions and bowsprit, Donkin munched a
piece of hard ship's bread, sitting on the deck with upturned feet and
restless eyes; he held the biscuit up before his mouth in the whole fist
and snapped his jaws at it with a raging face. Crumbs fell between his
outspread legs. Then he got up.

"Where's our water-cask?" he asked in a contained voice.

Singleton, without a word, pointed with a big hand that held a short
smouldering pipe. Donkin bent over the cask, drank out of the tin,
splashing the water, turned round and noticed the nigger looking at him
over the shoulder with calm loftiness. He moved up sideways.

"There's a blooming supper for a man," he whispered bitterly. "My dorg
at 'ome wouldn't 'ave it. It's fit enouf for you an' me. 'Ere's a big
ship's fo'c'sle!... Not a blooming scrap of meat in the kids. I've
looked in all the lockers...."

The nigger stared like a man addressed unexpectedly in a foreign
language. Donkin changed his tone:--"Giv' us a bit of 'baccy, mate," he
breathed out confidentially, "I 'aven't 'ad smoke or chew for the last
month. I am rampin' mad for it. Come on, old man!"

"Don't be familiar," said the nigger. Donkin started and sat down on a
chest near by, out of sheer surprise. "We haven't kept pigs together,"
continued James Wait in a deep undertone. "Here's your tobacco." Then,
after a pause, he inquired:--"What ship?"--"_Golden State_,"
muttered Donkin indistinctly, biting the tobacco. The nigger whistled
low.--"Ran?" he said curtly. Donkin nodded: one of his cheeks bulged