"Starboard watch's breakfast ready yet, Lung?" asked Jim. "You wait one quallah minit; burgoo no done yet," returned the celestial. "What kind of a time did you have in the galley last night?" inquired the boy. "Me heap 'flaid. Tink-um dlown chop-chop. Plenty muchee water top-side galley. Big sea come, tink all smash, China boy tink-um all-e-same dead. No can see, no can do, no likee, velly bad time." "I don't wonder. The water must have poured in through the chimney-hole and nearly filled you up," Jim admitted. "Water him come, heap big flood; bime-by him go 'way, hey? Lung no savvy nuttin' plenty long time----" "Nearly drowned, eh?" "Lung tink-um pletty soon dlown. Plenty muchee solly! Want um first-chop coffin, no have got; no loast pig, no China blandy, no funelel. Tink-um lose face, heap 'shamed. Bime-by come one-piecee boss, him talkee-talkee. "'You allee-lightee, Lung?' him say. "'No can tell,' me say. 'Tink-um China boy plenty muchee sick, plaps him die pletty soon.' "'No sick, no dead if can chin-chin,' him say, an' go 'way." "Was that the bosun?" asked Jim. "Yass, him bosun," replied Lung, as he handed Jim a kid of steaming burgoo and a big tin of a coloured concoction known at sea by the name of "ship's coffee." Jim started warily for the foc's'le, but the eagle eye of Black Davis was upon him, and he was fairly caught. "Hyeh, yew kid! What yew doin'? Is this y'r watch on deck or ain't it?" roared the mate from aft. "Come hyeh, yew whelp!" he bellowed. Jim went bravely up on to the poop and faced the bully, expecting nothing less than a knockdown; but Black Davis, though boiling with rage, controlled himself with an effort. Shaking his fist in the boy's face, he burst forth: "Yew little skunk, I'll half kill yew one o' these days, loafin' an' sodgerin' around! Git out quick, or I'm liable to let fly an' jump your ribs in." Then, as Jim moved hurriedly away, he roared, "Wait, doggone ye! Who told yew ter go, yew Whitechapel mudlark? Jump up, overhaul an' stop them main-tops'l buntlines, an' turn to at one bell on the poop brasswork. I'll teach yew, yew Bowery refuse, thar ain't goin' ter be no skulkin' while Davis is mate o' this packet. Away with ye!" On coming on deck at eight bells the starboard watch were all sent aloft, each man with a bundle of rovings and rope-yarns. Now that the _Higgins_ was getting near the stormy cape, all preparations had to be made for the tempestuous weather which is always encountered whilst turning the last corner of the world, as rounding the Horn is sometimes called. For great "Cape Stiff" never disappoints one. He keeps an unlimited supply of bad weather about him, dealing out his great sixty-foot greybeards, his terrific hail-squalls, and his furious southern blasts with no niggard hand. To withstand the boisterous southern wind, the sails had to be lashed as securely as possible to the jackstays, which run along the top of the yards. This the watch were sent aloft to do.