which made all the seams of the deck-planks sticky with melting pitch. Still, the barometer was rising, and there was nothing to indicate danger. Although competent to perform skillfully all the duties of my profession, I had not, as you know, that long experience which alone can give a seaman thorough knowledge of all his perils even before they are apparent. I felt no apprehensions, therefore; and when I saw how Mr. Kelson was overhauling every rope and sail and spar, and making everything snug alow and aloft, I only congratulated myself on having an officer who kept the men too busy to get into mischief, and lost no opportunity for putting and keeping everything in order." I now knew that Uncle Joseph was "fairly wound off" on his yarn, for I never before had heard him use so many sea-phrases. All of them I did not fully understand, but he was evidently thinking very little of me, and did not stop to explain. "It was about four bells when the lookout in the cross-trees sung out, 'Sail ho!' "'Where away?' I asked. "'Broad on the port-beam," was the answer. "I made out the vessel with my glass very easily from the deck, but paid no more attention to the matter until I came up from breakfast, an hour later. Not a ripple was stirring, nor a ghost of a breath of wind, but the two ships were several miles nearer, and evidently approaching, though their relative position was somewhat different. She was slowly drifting on one current, and we as slowly on another diagonally across her track. The stranger was a large Clyde-built ship, and carried far more canvas than was necessary in a calm, but I thought she might be drying her sails. I was waiting for her to get within hail, but her captain anticipated me and hailed first. "'Ship ahoy!' came over the water, 'What ship is that?' "The Ariadne, Alford master, from Cape Town for Portsmouth. What ship is that?' I replied. "'The Ellen, Alford master, from Liverpool for Cape Town. Will send a boat aboard with letters for home.'