“Very well, then; the thing is done. I have full powers to make any changes and appointments in the fleet, so I will write out the orders at once. If you will send Lieutenant Morales in here, Captain Crosbie, I will announce his promotion to him and tell him to take up his duties at once, and then Embleton can enter upon his as soon as he has provided himself with a uniform.” Stephen was about to leave the room with Captain Crosbie when the admiral stopped him. “I have no doubt that you are short of cash, Stephen,” he said, “and just at the present moment of course you cannot draw upon your bankers in England, for your father will naturally have long since believed you dead, and the account will be transferred to himself; so I must be your banker for the present. Here are two hundred and fifty dollars. Tell the fellows who make your uniform—Crosbie will tell you where to go to—that you will pay them something extra to get one suit finished by to-morrow. We shall sail in a couple of days.” After thanking the admiral, Stephen retired just as the lieutenant entered the cabin. On asking the captain as to the address of the best firm of tailors the latter said: “I am just going ashore myself to see about some stores from the dockyard, and will go there with you. As I am known to them they will probably sharpen up more than if you, a stranger, went by yourself.” As they rowed ashore Stephen learned from Captain Crosbie that the fleet ready for sea consisted, in addition to the flagship, of one fine frigate, the _Piranza_, the _Maria da Gloria_, a converted merchantman mounting thirty-three small guns, and the _Liberal_, about the same size.