"We've got to go to Rangoon for hospital, and this is the outwater of the Irawadi," said a passenger from his seat. "We can't be more than sixty miles from the coast, and an Irawadi flood shoots its slime out quite as far as that." "I prefer to think it's flat ale. It's too hot to go into physical geography, Burgess"; and Sladen, flinging the half-burnt stump of his cheroot overboard, joined us who sat in torpid silence. The heat was intense. We had tried every known way to kill time, and failed. The small excitement of the morning, caused by a shoal of turtles drifting by solemnly, had passed. They looked like so many inverted earthen pots in the water, and we had wasted about fifty of the ship's snider cartridges on them, until, finally, they floated out of range and sight, unhurt and safe. Then an Indian Marine vessel passed us in the offing, and there was a hot discussion between Sladen and myself whether it was the _Warren Hastings_ or the _Lord Clive_. We appealed to the captain, who, being a member of the Royal Naval Reserve, looked with profound scorn on the Indian Marine. He scarcely deigned to glance at the ship as he grunted out: "Oh, it's one of those damned cockroach navy boats: it's that old tub the _Lord Clive_," and he walked off to the bridge. Ten minutes afterwards we lost the grey sides of the old tub in the grey of the sea, and a dark line of smoke running from east to west was the only sign of the _Lord Clive_, as she steamed through the dead calm at fourteen knots an hour. Then we tried nap, we adventured at loo, and we bluffed at poker. There was no balm in them, and Sladen twice held a flush sequence of hearts. Therefore we sat moody and silent, some of us too sleepy even to smoke. It was at this moment that the skipper rejoined us, and behind him came his stout Madrassee butler, with a tray full of long glasses, in which the ice chinked pleasantly. "Drink, boys!" he said, settling himself in the special chair reserved for him. "It's the chief's watch, and I've brought you a particular brew, as you seem dull and lonesome, so to speak." It was a particular brew, and we sucked at it lovingly through the long amber straws. "Ha!" said the skipper, "I thought that would stiffen your backbones. Phew! it is hot!" and he mopped his face with a huge handkerchief. Sladen burst out: "We've got absolutely on the hump. Somebody do something to kill time. Can't some of you fellows tell a story? Any lie will do! Come, Captain!" "No, no!" said the skipper. "I'm the senior officer here, and speak last. Here's Mr. Burgess: he's been in all sorts of uncanny places, and should be able to tell us something. I put the call on him--so heave away."