"And if he asks for a man or two, you know we're short-handed already." "Tell me something I don't know," said Ryder, a trifle crossly. Even his sweet temper suffered in 115deg. in the shade. "I dare say I could," said his wife, when he was in the boat; "I dare say I could." Watchett received his cousin with an air of gloom that would have struck a damp on anything anywhere but the Equator. "This is a terrible business," he said. "I never 'eard of anything like it. Every night a man, and last night two!" Ryder was naturally very much cut up about it, and said so. "Will you have some more marmalade?" he asked, anxiously. "Marmalade don't work," said Watchett, sadly; "it don't work worth a cent. Nor does butter. I'd give five pounds for some green cabbage." A brilliant idea struck Ryder. "Why don't you paint her green, all the inside of the rail and the boats?" "She'd be a beauty show, like a blessed timber-droghing Swede," said Watchett, with great distaste. "But d'ye think it'd work?" "You might try," replied Ryder. "And now you've got the bulge on me," sighed Watchett; "with two 'ands missing from both watches, she'll be as 'ard in the mouth as your _Star_. You might let me off that bet, Bill." "No," said Ryder, "a bet's a bet." "But fairness is fairness," urged Watchett; "there should be a clause in a bet renderin' it void by the act of God or the Queen's enemies." "There isn't," said his cousin, "and you forget you wouldn't help me about those two hands I wanted." "Oh, if you talk like that----" "That's the way I talk," said Ryder, remembering the wife he had left behind him. "I'm sorry." "Hang your sorrow," said Watchett. "But I'll lose no more, and 'tain't your money yet." "Will you and Mary come on board to tea?" asked Ryder. "I won't tea with no unfair person with no sympathy," returned Watchett, savagely. And when Ryder had gone he set the crowd painting his beautiful white paint a ripe grass-green. "Watch if it soothes 'em any," he said to Seleucus Thoms. "If it seems to work I'll paint 'er as green as a child's Noah's Ark." And that night there was no decrease of the _Battle-Axe's_ sad crowd, in spite of the fact that he did not act on his impulse to lock them up in the stuffy fo'c's'le. For soon after midnight Mr. Double felt one side of his face cooler than the other as he stood staring at the motionless lights of the _Star of the South_, then lying stern on to the _Battle-Axe's_ starboard beam. "Eh? What? Jerusalem!" said Double. Then he let a joyous bellow out of him. "Square the yards!" For there was a breath of wind out of the south. Both vessels were alive in a moment, and while the _Battle-Axe_ was squaring away the _Star's_ foreyard was braced sharp up on the starboard tack till she fell off before the little breeze. Then she squared her yards too, and both vessels moved at least a mile towards home before they began fooling all round the compass again.