The captain takes his place upon the bridge, the engines are eased until, to the worried landsman’s ears, their labored throbbing seems a devil’s tattoo answering the grumbling and rumbling of the fog-whistle. Below, brawny, silent men stand at the levers, ready at an instant to stop and back, or go ahead, just as the emergency may direct. Outside the pilot-house the quarter-master strains his ears and peers nervously into the gloom, yet alert to pass any command given to the junior officer and to his messmate at the wheel. Signals from fog-whistles drift into them from other groping ships, and, at times, spectral hulls and ghostly sails loom close aboard, creeping out of the curtained night or slipping landward or seaward in search of hidden port or roadway. At regular intervals the lead is cast and the depth of water read from the scale by the unhooded glare of a lantern, and on the chart the positions given by the soundings are pricked, to guard against the tricks of treacherous currents. And so the cheerless night drifts sadly into a wan morning, and the ship creeps warily down Channel, the weary vigil taxing the brains and bodies of those who must seek no rest because of the lives entrusted to their care. * * * * * After the pilot has been discharged and the mails received at Queenstown, and the ship has taken her departure from the Roche Point Light-ship everybody settles into the routine of life at sea. From the beginning watches have been kept rigorously, and the interior discipline and rules are so well-jointed that the ship seems to run herself. You hear no jarring of the cogs, feel on rough edges in the mosaic, though the government is, as it must always be, the hand of steel in the glove of velvet. The care of the ship is unremitting, even in details which if set down here would seem trivial and finicky, and every hour of the day has duties which are performed heartily and thoroughly to the foot of the letter by the officers. The number of these may vary on each line, even in different ships of the same employ, but in the largest steamers there are, besides the captain, three seniors and two juniors. The three seniors keep the watches, and each during his tour of duty has, as the captain’s representative, the direct charge of the ship. The two juniors stand watch and watch, that is, four hours on duty and four hours off, with a swing at the dog-watches, and carry on, under the direction of the senior officers, the routine of the ship. Normally the officer of the watch takes his station on the forward bridge, and the junior officer sticks by the wheel-house, where, after collecting the data he writes the log-slate hourly, and sees that the quartermaster steers the given course to a nicety. The first night at sea the starboard watch (the captain’s in marine law) has the eight hours out, that is, from 8 P.M. to midnight and from 4 to 8 A.M.; and on the home voyage the mate’s watch (the