“Worse than a footprint, Mrs. Evans. The moonlight prevented our noticing it sooner. Stand here—where your shadow falls on this deadlight. {132} Now what do you see?” “A light reflected from below. Oh, Laura, the lazarette is on fire!” Captain Maxwell was already disappearing through the hatchway, while the mate and Miss Blake ran up at the widow’s exclamation. Even the silent figure at the wheel started at the mention of the word fire. It was but a moment before the master of the bark reappeared, bearing a lighted lantern in one hand. “The cause for alarm is removed, ladies,” he said quietly. “There is no fire in the lazarette, though nothing short of a miracle prevented it. This lantern was standing on the floor beneath the deadlight and caused the reflection to appear. Mr. Bohlman, have you any idea how it came there?” He spoke with apparent calmness, which Miss Blake readily saw was more feigned than real. The mate hesitated a moment before answering: “Dick must have left it there, sir.” “_Dick must have left it there_! So that bright boy of yours has been in the lazarette again without permission? If I don’t have him triced up to the spanker-boom in irons early to-morrow morning, my name’s not John Maxwell.” “He was in the lazarette, sir, but not without permission. I sent him there just before supper to bring up a coil of old rope that was to be ravelled out. He wasn’t there ten minutes.” Both ladies glanced at the mate in surprise at these words, and Captain Maxwell looked at his chief officer in a way that was anything but complimentary to the latter. The captain had a temper of his own, which was under excellent control, but he found it necessary to cross the quarter-deck twice before trusting himself to speak. “After that occasion a week ago, when this boy was discovered in the lazarette doing God knows what, I should have thought your own judgment would have prevented your sending him there again. There are plenty of men in your watch, and if none of them knew where this old rope was, you should have gone yourself, rather than let that fool of a boy take a light into such a place.” Bohlman smarted under this speech, though he maintained a discreet silence, knowing it would be useless to attempt to justify himself in the captain’s present humor. Inwardly, however, he cursed Dick Lewis for having forgotten the lantern, and thus bringing his superior’s censure upon himself. Orders were given for Dick to come aft, and the youth shortly appeared on the quarter-deck for the second time that day in the role of culprit. He quailed before the captain’s glance, and nervously shifted his old felt hat from one hand to the other. “Do you know why you have been sent for?” Dick pointed to the accusing lantern, and said in a frightened tone: “Yes, sir. I—I remember now I forgot to bring up the lantern when—when I fetched the rope.”