to the table, I could n't 'a' eat it." Then, to Marden's surprise, the captain addressed him, turning so that the lantern-light threw a sinister shadow of his great nose across half his face. "Sebright," he said, speaking with fine irrelevancy, "I sailed under your father on the Gilderoy, and a sour man he was; but his wife was an angel, as we all knowed, at sea or ashore." He gave no explanation of this, but rising to his great height, and weighing the empty bottle in his palm, added, "They's only two kinds o' women, Mr. Spinney,—they's angels, and they's brimstone devils." And he flung the bottle overboard, where it sank in a bright splash of phosphorus.
"They's dummies, sometimes," replied the first mate sagely. But the captain did not hear, for he was clumping down into his cabin, to be alone.
Marden stood and wondered. Up forward, the reedy mouth-organ wheezed, and the heavy soles smote the planking faster and harder. But the boy was looking overhead, past the dim blackness of the topmast, into the
