As for Christian, Oscar and Josef, they might very appropriately have been likened to the three degrees of thankfulness. Christian, drying himself on the galley roof, represented the positive degree, and was merely thankful that Neptune had got through with him without taking his life. Josef, with one cheek lathered, felt like a fish that has been hooked, and then succeeds in escaping. He looked rather woebegone, but was thankful indeed to have escaped with such comparative comfort. But Oscar, who had now ventured part way down the main mast, had fairly baffled Neptune and his daughter; and had there been any degree beyond the superlative, it could not have been too strong to express the state of his feelings. Henceforth he regarded Miss Pitkin as a deliverer, and had she been a goddess, his veneration could scarcely have been greater. The _Mohawk_ crossed the Line during the afternoon on the 30th meridian of west longitude, and for all we know, Oscar and Josef are lubbers yet. MISSING. [Picture: Missing] The trades of the Indian Ocean usually blow with great regularity except at the semi-annual change of the monsoons, and the bark _Harvester_ was slipping easily along at a six-knot rate on her voyage from Singapore to New York. It was the second dog-watch; that time at sea when, the day’s work being over, decks swept up, and supper eaten, all hands bring out their pipes and gather in groups to discuss passing events, or to while away the twilight hour in telling stories. Job, the negro cook, sat in the galley door singing one of the plaintive melodies of his race. An old banjo, played as only a darky can play that instrument, furnished the accompaniment. The singer’s voice was rich and mellow, and the simple notes floated out on the still evening air with a soothing charm that went straight to the heart, and struck many a forgotten chord in the breasts of the four rough seamen who comprised his audience. Near the booby hatch were gathered the mate, the bo’s’un and the steward; each relating in turn some reminiscence or bit of adventure connected with his past life. Many of these provoked roars of laughter, while the conclusion of a few was followed by a period of silence rendered more eloquent by a shake of the head or a sigh. That was the way these hardy men received the narration of some half-forgotten ocean tragedy. “Yes, Mr. Morgan,” the steward was saying, “I recollect hearing of those two gales off Cape Flattery, now you speak of it. About ’87, wasn’t it?” The mate thought a moment before he answered: “It was in the spring of ’87, in the first of those gales, that the ship _St. Lawrence_ went to the bottom. If I live to be a hundred I’ll never forget it; but if I should happen to, here’s something that’ll make me remember.”