The vessel was badly manned; all her gear stiff and old-fashioned, and she required a deal of handling. Her sails were covered with geordie patches, and when stowed were huddled to the yards in a most ungainly fashion. Red rust was prevalent from the want of paint, or rather coal tar, and her decks were scratched and dented, and had not been acquainted for years with the carpenter’s caulking irons and mallet. In a stiff breeze she yawed and capered about like a tipsy woman, thumping heavily into the seas, and sending banks of angry foam rushing from her basin-shaped bows. She plunged and groaned, compelling the skipper to watch her very closely, as she rushed from her course and then refused to come to, till the wheel was hard down, and she had cracked and strained her timbers and described the letter _S_ in her wake, and the weary helmsman’s arms ached with the amount of labour she required. To step from such a vessel as this on to the deck of the _Pandora_ was a new experience in Abel Coffin’s life, and he appreciated it accordingly. The trim passenger ship, fitted up with all the latest improvements and designs--well manned by strong able seamen--and provisioned with a goodly supply of live stock and fresh vegetables--was a rich feast for his eyes, and to be her chief officer a stroke of good luck he had never contemplated. It was like leaving two squalid furnished apartments to take up his quarters in a first-class hotel, and though, as yet, not quite at home in his new capacity, Abel Coffin worked with his accustomed zeal, and rather astonished the easy-going seamen. It was the day before the departure of the _Pandora_, and every one on board was active. The last lighters were alongside with their casks and cases, and Jack Blythe was superintending their stowage in the main hatchway. The steward bustled about the decks, attended by his satellites, carrying squeaking fowls and quacking ducks to their coops, which were lashed on top of the house amidships. The black cook and the butchers unmercifully dragged the unfortunate sheep and pigs to their pens, whilst able seamen were busy serving the running gear, and coiling down the warps, to be in readiness to heave out. Small carts and drays waited on the wharf to unload their cargoes of vegetables, cabin stores, and ship’s dry provisions, and porters, with trucks of passengers’ luggage, and seamen’s chests and baggage, with shellbacks, runners, boarding-house keepers, and gaily-dressed women, were all looking out for some one or other, who was about to sail in the _Pandora_. Confusion reigned supreme. The decks were hampered with coils of rope, tins of varnish, sails that were to be bent and gear to be lashed or stowed away, and in the midst of this Babel, Mr Coffin was here, there, and everywhere. Now on the poop slacking away a barge’s stern rope--then on the quarter-deck signing a receipt--anon on the topgallant forecastle,