‘Pity we couldn’t manage to hot this duff up,’ sighed one, cutting a huge slice off a big plum pudding; ‘but they’d smell it all over the ship.’ ‘The cake for me!’ exclaimed another, attacking one of Gunter’s masterpieces. ‘I ain’t seen a three-decker like this since I was a kid, an’ used to hang about smellin’ at the tip-top cook-shops in the Mile-End Road!’ ‘Wade in, my bullies, an’ line yer ribs,’ croaked old Nestor. ‘It’s the spiciest Sunday’s feed I’ve ’ad in forty year o’ the sea. I kin do three months chokey at the end o’ this trip, flyin’; an’ kin live on the smell of an oil rag all the time! If we on’y ’ad a few nips a-piece, now, it would be parfect!’ * * * * * Midnight in the hold of the _Sardanapalus_. Four red spots moving slowly about in the thick gloom. From the irregular, tightly-packed mass proceeds all sorts of eerie creakings and groanings. The ship is pitching into a head sea and, at times, a wave catching her a thunderous slap, makes her seem to fairly stand still and shudder all over. The atmosphere is thick, and stuffy with an indescribable stuffiness. Presently the four points of light clustered together. ‘What is it, I wonder?’ said Billy, sticking his candle into a crevice, and pointing to a long, square, narrow case embedded in a pile of others. ‘Don’t know,’ replied another, stooping. ‘Got no marks, only “_Ex Sardinapples_—With great care.” Had any luck, you two?’ ‘Try this,’ answered one, holding out a bottle which old Nestor immediately clutched. ‘Wine o’ some sort,’ was his verdict. ‘Poor stuff—got no grip o’ the throat—sourish. Let’s see what it sez on the bottle. “Chat-oo Mar-goox,” read he, straddling, with legs wide apart, and bottle and candle close to his nose. ‘Ay, ay,’ he continued, ‘I thought’s much. Dutch, I reckon. Much the same kind o’ tipple as ye gets at the dance-houses in Hamburg. We wants a warmer drink for these ’ere latichudes—not but what it’s a cut above that sarseperiller, an’ ’op bitters, an’ such like slush as we bin livin’ on lately.’ ‘Well,’ asked Billy, tapping the case, as he spoke, with a short iron bar, ‘shall we see what’s in this?’ ‘Not worth while,’ replied Nestor, who had finished the claret, not without many grimaces— ‘It’s only china crockery, or somethin’ o’ that. They always put “With great care,” an’ “This side hup” on sich. Blast the old hooker, how she do shove her snout into it!’ This last, as a tremendous forward send of the ship nearly carried him off his legs. Billy, however, appeared determined on seeing the contents of the case, whose peculiar shape had aroused his curiosity, and started to break it out by himself. Finally the others came to his assistance, and a quarter-of-an-hour’s work hove it up from its nest. To their surprise it was locked and hinged. Curiosity took hold upon them. They prised and hammered, and strove, until, with a crash, the top flew back.