acknowledged that in case of his illness he had an able successor on board. The guns and all the ironwork of the ship drew his attention next, and he came to be respected for his practical knowledge of every part; when anything needed mending, it was he who was ultimately called in to give advice or aid. Slowly he rose to be the real master of the _Daydream_, even though he continued to be laughed at for his heromimic airs and his occasional boasts. He had by his reading and studies made himself essential to every man on board, and his strong will exacted outward respect, if not obedience to him, in return. It was strange to see the revolution in the ship’s crew during their voyaging about the archipelago. When I came on board again, I saw that, though they continued a semblance of their old bantering, they had in their hearts begun to bow before the boy of twenty. The very gall of their scorn and of his menial position had driven him into this slow but striking revolt. And here I saw the result. His boyhood, neglected and beaten, had given the cunning and worldly wisdom and concentration of power that belong in most to late maturity. The strength that had lain dormant for so many centuries in his mother’s peasant race had gathered in him like a torrent. The hard conditions of his youth had reined in the wildness and animality which had run riot in his father’s debauchery. Hundreds of such masterful natures, finding no sphere in their native locality to give scope to the long-dammed-up powers of their race, waste themselves in chafing against their petty surroundings and die with the reputation of miniature devils. The focussed energy of two long-suppressed races had in this case found its career and scope, and a diabolic conflagration was the consequence in this isolated region of the world. The race of Jock Drew had never before blossomed; now that it had found the fit soil, it had flowered portentously.