In the middle watch Jones, one of our petty officers and the captain of the 12-pounder, came aft to take the log and found us there. "’Ello, sir! what be you two young gen’lemen a-doing of there?" he said. We gulped out that we were too scared to go below, and felt better in the fresh air. He held up his flickering lantern. "Eh! ye be sea-sick, be ye?" he said. "Well, ye do look powerful green, and be as wet as water. Just come along o’ me; I’ll stow you away out of ’arm." He made us climb into the dinghy, which was in her crutches amidships, told us to lie down on some coils of rope and old canvas deck-cloths, and covered us with a tarpaulin. We huddled up together and presently got warm again, and once we were warm and steamy we soon went to sleep. It did not seem ten minutes later before we were roughly shaken by the shoulders, and there was Jones again. "Turn out, you young gents; just show a leg there. It’s gone seven bells (half-past seven), and it’s time ye were rousing yourselves." "Looking better the noo, ye are," he said, as we scrambled out from under the tarpaulin, feeling stiff all over but the sea-sickness gone; "and ’ere’s a drop of hot cocoa for you and a bit of ship’s biscuit—make men of you agin." The sea had gone down considerably and it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, and Jones was smiling in a fatherly manner at us, with a couple of ship’s biscuits in one hand and a bowl of steaming cocoa in the other. Well, I should never have believed it possible. A few hours before I thought I should never want to touch a bit of food again, and now we both felt famished, and would have gulped down the lot between us, but Jones made us eat a bit of hard biscuit first, and then sandwich in a little cocoa, and so on till there was no more left of either. "No, there ain’t no more," said Jones, "and the Captain, ’e wants to see you both as soon as you’ve made yourselves respectable." He was on the bridge; and after we had brushed each other down we went for’ard, feeling awfully cheap and disreputable. "Now, you two youngsters must understand," he began. "I’ll let you off this time, but don’t let me ever catch you shirking your work again, whether you are sea-sick or not. Now, go below (I think I saw a twinkle in his eye) and get some breakfast. The _Laird_ has sighted those pirate destroyers and we are chasing them, but I shall not want either of you for half an hour, so make the best of your time." "Where are they, sir?" we asked eagerly. "Right ahead, but we can’t see them yet. They’ve only just sighted them from the _Laird_." The range of view from a destroyer is very limited, and it was the _Laird’s_ mast-head look-out who had discovered them. "Couldn’t we stay, sir?" we asked, forgetting all about our hunger in the excitement. "No. Go down below; and you’re not to come up again for half an hour."