Ay, mateys, ’twas a horrible moment!" The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open-mouthed when a hoarse voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger’s story and dispersing the group. "Here you, Burke you, up aloft and pay the topmast with grease. I’ll have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you. I’ve got no use for nobody too good for his berth. No Jimmy Duffs for me! Show a leg, or, by heavens, I’ll show you a rope’s end and make my mark--mind that, my lad!" Captain Barker turned to the man at his side. "’Twas an ill turn you did me and the ship’s company, Mr. Diggle, bringing this useless lubber aboard." "It does appear so, captain," said Diggle sorrowfully. "But ’tis his first voyage, sir: discipline--a little discipline!" Meanwhile Desmond, without a word, had moved away to obey orders. He had long since found the uselessness of protest. Diggle had taken him on board the _Good Intent_ an hour before sailing. He left him to himself until the vessel was well out in the mouth of the Thames, and then came with a rueful countenance and explained that, after all his endeavours, the owners had absolutely refused to accept so youthful a fellow as supercargo. Desmond felt his cheeks go pale. "What am I to be, then?" he asked quietly. "Well, my dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make yourself useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast deal of useful knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connexions, to assist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will prove a successful career." "Then who is supercargo?" "Unluckily that greatness has been thrust upon me. Unluckily, I say; for the office is not one that befits a former fellow of King’s College at Cambridge. Yet there is an element of good luck in it, too; for, as you know, my fortunes were at a desperately low ebb, and the emoluments of this office, while not great, will stand me in good stead when we reach our destination, and enable me to set you, my dear boy--to borrow from the vernacular--on your legs." "You have deceived me, then!" "Nay, nay, you do bear me hard, young man. To be disappointed is not the same thing as to be deceived. True, you are not, as I hoped, supercargo, but the conditions are not otherwise altered. You wished to go to India--well, Zephyr’s jocund breezes, as Catullus hath it, will waft you thither: we are flying to the bright cities of the East. No fragile bark is this, carving a dubious course through the main, as Seneca, I think, puts it. No, ’tis an excellent vessel, with an excellent captain, who will steer a certain course, who fears not the African blast nor the grisly Hyades nor the fury of Notus----"