‘My duty!’ ejaculated Flashley, ‘Attend to my duty! Oh, what _is_ my duty?’ His eyes wandered round. Nothing but hard black planks and timbers, and masts with reefed sails, and rigging all covered with coal-dust, met his gaze. The sky, however, was visible above him—_that_ was a great comfort. ‘Scrape these carrots and parsnips,’ said the Captain solemnly, ‘very clean, d’ye mind!—and take them to the cook in the galley, who’ll let you know what’s next. When he has done with you, clean my sea-boots, and grease them with candle-ends; dry my peajacket, pilot-coat, and dreadnoughts; clean my pipe, and fill it—light, and take three whiffs to start it; mix me a glass of grog, and bring it with the lighted pipe; then, go and lend a hand in tarring the weather-rigging, and stand by, to go aloft and ease down the fore-top-gallant mast when the mate wants her on deck.’ ‘Oh, heavens!’ thought Flashley, ‘are these then my duties! This hideous black ship must be a collier—and I am the cabinboy!’ A mixed impulse of equal curiosity and apprehension (it certainly was from no anxiety to commence his miscellaneous duties) caused him to ‘inquire his way’ to the cook’s galley. He was presently taken to a square enclosure, not unlike a great black rabbit-hutch, open at both sides, in which he was received by a man of large proportions, who was seated on an inverted iron saucepan, smoking. The black visage gave a grim smile and familiar wink. It could not be the miner who had acted as his guide and companion underground! And yet— Flashley stepped back hastily, and cast an anxious look towards the after-part of the deck. There stood the Captain. A short yet very heavily-built figure,—a kind of stunted giant. He was not an Indian, nor a Mulatto, nor an African,—and yet his face was as black as a coal, in which several large veins rose prominently, and had a dull yellow tinge, as if they had been run with gold, or some metallic substance of that colour. Who could he be? Some demon _incog._? No, not that—but some one whom Flashley held in equal awe.