So long as the wind blows, whether favourably or not, there is something to do. If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is getting each hour so much nearer one's destination; while, if King Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making way in spite of adverse breezes. But, in a calm, nothing can be done excepting to wait patiently, or impatiently, for the wind to blow again; and, consequently, all is dreary stagnation and dead monotony--the captain ever pacing the poop in not the best of tempers, with the men idling about the decks, or else occupied in the unexciting task of unreeving rope yarn, to keep their hands from mischief, and, perhaps, polishing up the ring-bolts as a last resource! Under such circumstances, it is not at all to be wondered that the crew of a vessel usually get discontented; and, should her officers be in the least inclined to be tyrannical, an ill feeling is produced which sometimes leads to an outbreak. Hardly a single mutiny ever occurred on a ship at sea save in calm weather; at other times the hands have too much to do even to grumble, in the way that sailors love to do ashore, comparing their nautical experience to "a dog's life"--albeit they never give up the sea all the same! On board the _Josephine_, however, all went along pleasantly enough, although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for airing their grievances. Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his way unnecessarily to "haze" them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar cases. As for Mr Marline, he was of a most even disposition, taking all things that came with his usual equanimity and never giving a rough word to anyone. Davis, the second mate, whom I have already mentioned as having been promoted from the fo'c's'le, was a very different sort of man; for, being without education and any good principle, he took advantage of his position, whenever the captain's eye was not upon him, to bully those with whom he had previously associated on an equality. He was "very much above them now," he thought, and showed it as it was in the nature only of a low-minded fellow to do. Like most "Jacks in office," he was always trying to assert his position; and, as a natural result, he was not by any means in good favour with the men, who resented his overbearing way all the more from the fact of their having formerly been hail-fellow-well-met with him, which of course they could not readily forget, if he did.