“Oh, come now,” said the skipper, beginning to get angry in turn, “that’s too thin. Didn’t you come stumbling aboard last night as no sober man would have done? Didn’t you raise particular Cain down here in the cabin for a while, and then fall into such a heavy sleep that nothing could wake you from it? Don’t your eyes show that you have been drinking? Wasn’t the smell of whiskey almost strong enough to knock a man down when I came into the cabin to turn in, and nobody’d been here but you and your mate? Besides all this, didn’t I see you myself hanging round Grimes’s not more than half an hour before you came aboard? Don’t tell me again you wasn’t drunk. There’s nothing I despise so much as a sneak that tries to crawl out of a scrape by lying about it. Now wake up that partner of yours and turn him out, or I’ll come down here and do it for you with a bucket of salt-water.” With this the skipper went on deck, leaving Breeze bewildered and stunned by the charge just made against him, and the amount of apparent proof brought to sustain it. The worst of it all was that if the skipper had seen him in the vicinity of Grimes’s, others might also have seen him there, and would report the fact when inquiries began to be made for him. Then, too, if the whole crew of the _Vixen_ believed as their captain evidently did, that he had been drunk, would anybody ever believe his simple assertion that he had not been so, against their statement that he was? What would Captain Coffin think? What would his mother think? Would not her heart be broken by this horrid report coming on top of his mysterious and unexplained disappearance? In his agony of mind the poor boy groaned aloud. At this sound a voice behind him exclaimed, “Hello! What’s the matter, Breeze?” Turning quickly, he saw Wolfe Brady awake, but still lying in his bunk and regarding him with dull eyes. “Matter enough,” he answered; “for if ever a fellow was in a worse fix than I am I should like to know it. You ought not to be the one to ask, anyhow,” he added, bitterly. “Why, what do you mean, old man?” inquired Wolfe, leaning upon his elbow and gazing about the dirty cabin with a perplexed air. “Where are we, anyhow? What craft is this? Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the _Albatross_.” “_Albatross!_” exclaimed Breeze. “I should say not. We are on board the _Vixen_, bound for the Grand Bank, with only our shore clothes for an outfit, and nobody in Gloucester knows what has become of us.” “You don’t mean it!” cried Wolfe, now thoroughly aroused. “How did it all happen?” “Do you mean to tell me,” said Breeze, “that you do not remember anything of what happened to us last night?”