There was now a dead calm. For several days the "Lightfoot" lay idle on the sea. The soldiers' rations were reduced, and as the calm continued, reduced again. The drinking water became unspeakably foul. It was a time of considerable anxiety for the officers--eight hundred men, illiterate and coarse-minded, the class that thinks most of what it eats, were now only half fed. Every hour they looked for trouble, ready to meet it with the utmost severity--yet it did not come. "I don't understand," said the colonel over his wine after dinner. "Here's a mob of Irish recruits who are probably all rebels in their hearts, and a few score English blackguards. What's making them behave?" "A Swaddler named Ferguson from Ulster, I think, sir," said Dr. Tam. "In some utterly incomprehensible way he has managed to mesmerize a crowd of south Irish into imagining he is a priest. He is suffering still with sea-sickness, and he lives on air and saying prayers, but he is always cheerful, makes jokes on his own privations, and is so tactful with his religious talk, that the men are ashamed to complain before him." "Hum, I don't believe in Methodists and these preaching soldiers, but this seems to be an exceptional case. But why isn't he in hospital having proper food, if he is as sick as you say?" "I wanted him to go, sir, but he didn't." "Are you in the habit, Doctor, of letting your patients decide whether they shall obey your orders or not?" "As you said, sir, Ferguson is an exceptional case. Under the circumstances I thought it best to let him have his way." "Hum, yes, but we can't have a man like him sacrificed to keep a rabble in order. I'll go and see him myself." So the colonel stood with Percy and Dr. Tam by the Methodist's hammock. Ferguson was too weak to rise, but he answered the colonel's inquiries very cheerfully--"Thank you, sir, but I have everything I need and more. I don't have to depend on food to sustain me while I have the Book which says 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from God'." "Er, that is, of course the Bible is a very good book," blurted the Colonel, somewhat at a loss, "but if you require anything, mind and let the doctor know." As they returned to the deck he said abruptly--"What's that man's record before he joined us? What's he doing in the ranks after three years service?" "His record's all right, sir," answered Percy, "but he is a Methodist first and a soldier afterwards. He has spent the bulk of his time as an officer's servant, preferring that to being a sergeant, as it gives him more liberty and more time, to go out and preach." "And suppose I object to this regiment being made a convenience for the Methodist itinerancy?" "Seeing the Methodist itinerancy in the shape of Ferguson is being a great convenience to us, sir, I don't see the reason for your objection."