Blankets, bedding, and pillows were piled on the chairs and benches that had surrounded the centre table, which article, with its legs upstanding, was jammed into the captain's own sanctum, half in and half out, like the cow had been; while the fragments of plates and dishes, coffee-pots and glass-ware of all description, were scattered on the floor in every direction. Captain Miles's sextant and the tell-tale compass, that used to hang from the middle of the ceiling of the deck above, reposed peaceably together on the top of a double Gloucester cheese. Every variety of eatable was mixed up higgledy piggledy with articles for table use, and all sorts of known and unknown garments. My trunk had not escaped the general destruction, the new outfit with which I had been provided being all spoilt; while some pictures and various cherished mementoes of my old West Indian home shared the fate of Mr Marline's wardrobe and the captain's kit. Indeed, the sea had performed its scouring work so well, that it would have puzzled a wiser man than Solomon to have decided what was each individual's personal property, the whole having been thrown together like one of the odd lots at an auction sale. After surveying the medley for a few moments, my attention was attracted to Captain Miles and Jake, the latter of whom was down within the store- room under the hatch in the stern-sheets, only his woolly head projecting, handing up several tins of potted meats and bags of biscuit to the captain; while the latter was placing these as he received them on a clear space of the deck from which he had swept the broken refuse away, checking off the things as Jake ferreted them out from below, his head bobbing down and up again each moment. "There," said Captain Miles, as I came up to the two; "three bags of biscuit, four seven-pound tins of boiled mutton, two tins of preserved vegetables, one ham, one cheese, six pounds of coffee, and one firkin of butter. I think that will do. But, where is the sugar I told you to get out, Jake?" "Here he am," replied the darkey, handing another bag up. "Dat's fine sugar, sah, for de cabin table." "And where is the other sort?" asked the captain. "Um here too; but cask too big for dis chile to lift." "Then you must get out more in something smaller, for the men's coffee in the morning," said Captain Miles. "I don't want them to be treated differently to myself, and I know I like sugar in mine." "Yah, yah, massa too good," laughed Jake; but he proceeded to obey the captain's orders, and another bag was soon added to the pile on the floor of the cabin awaiting distribution. "Now, Tom," said Captain Miles to me, "run and call in a couple of the hands to take out their rations. I'm going to serve out the grub at once, and we may as well all eat together."