Flora peeped into the kennel, but Brindle had curled herself up for a comfortable nap, and did not choose to be disturbed. "I am glad he has not killed you, poor beast," said Flora; "but I don't see the pups," and, full of anxiety, she followed the Captain down to dinner. The laugh was now against her; for the dog's body turned out to be a pease pudding, of which she ate very heartily, while Boreas rubbed his hands, and chuckled at the joke. To while away the tedium of the voyage, she and Lyndsay would take it by turns to play draughts with the Captain. They always were the victors. He did not mind being beat by Lyndsay, but his pride was deeply mortified, whenever Flora won the game. "A man may beat a man," he would grumble out, "but, d---- it, I don't like being thrashed by a woman. Mrs. Lyndsay, you have no right to beat a sailor on his own deck, at checkers." The Captain was by no means a bad-hearted man; but he had many odd peculiarities. One of these was his insisting on keeping his pipe in the large, flat-bottomed, greasy candlestick. This afternoon he missed it from its usual place. "Sam!" he thundered, in his stentorian voice--"Sam Fraser!--What the devil have you done with my pipe?" "It's in the cupboard, Sir," said Sam, obsequiously. "How dared you put it in the cupboard, when I had found out such a _clean_ place for it?" "Why, Sir,--I thought, Sir, the cupboard was the best place for it." "You thought! Sir, you have no business to think, without I give you leave. If I had put it in the pitch-pot, you had no right to take it out, unordered by me!" Sam bowed with the gravity of a judge, handing him the black, greasy pipe, with the deference due from a subject to his sovereign prince. The Captain had lost his eye in a storm, in which his ship (not the _Anne_) had suffered wreck. He had effected his escape through the cabin-window, and a splinter of the glass had pierced his eye and destroyed his sight. This was one of the occasions in which he had been saved by the faithful Oscar, who kept him above water until a boat picked him up. The splinter of glass was afterwards extracted by the surgeon of a man-of-war; and Boreas kept it in a snuff-box, which he always carried about his person, and looked upon it in the light of a charm. "While I can keep this and Oscar," he said, "I shall never suffer from shipwreck again." It would have been a difficult matter for any one to persuade him to part with the one or the other of these precious relics. A great many private letters had been entrusted to his care. This was against the law. Boreas was aware of the fact, and took advantage of it. Every dull day, Sundays especially, he brought these letters from the depths of his huge sea-chest, and amused himself by spelling them over, until he must have learned their contents by heart. Lyndsay remonstrated with him on this dishonourable conduct.