To come back from the noisy, cheery mess aboard the _Intrepid_ to be cooped up alone with him again made me feel extremely miserable. I was beginning to dread Percy announcing a meal. The food, generally speaking, was horrid—horrid to look at and horrid to eat. The gunner would sit on one side of the table, I on the other, and we often never spoke a single word all through a single meal except to curse Percy or the cook or the flies or the sun blazing through the awning. At least once every day the wretched cook would be sent for by the gunner and slanged in Hindustani or Urdu or some such queer dialect or other until he slunk down the ladder trembling with fear. Often to avoid a row with the gunner I would go away and leave him to finish his meal by himself. Latterly, when I saw Percy laying the cloth for "food", I would find myself a job of work to do, hoping that Mr. Scarlett would finish before I came. But that was no good; he would always wait for me. I was, in fact, heartily sick of him. I don’t mean to say that I actually disliked him, but we had nothing whatever in common once we had told each other all the yarns we knew and when the subject of gun-running was worn threadbare. It suddenly occurred to me to ask old Popple Opstein to get leave and come along with me for this trip to Sur, so I signalled across, and presently back came a semaphore: "Right oh! leave granted. What time do you sail?" I was not going until the morning; it was no good spending a night at sea along that coast. So I signalled: "Daybreak—delighted." He made me dine with him; we had a great sing-song on the poop, with the ship’s company chipping in, and after it he came back with me, bringing his bedding and other gear. The night was as hot as Hades, without a breath of air, but the old "_B.A._" standing out in the moonlight was a different ship with Popple Opstein climbing up her side and with him to yarn to before we lay down on the little deck outside the cabin (inside which Mr. Scarlett had again shut himself) and tried to sleep. Not much sleep did we get, so much had we to talk about, and so pleasant it was for me to have someone to talk to. *CHAPTER XIII* *Rounding up a Prodigal*