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48 to what you think is the proper figure. Oh, don't take us to Capetown, for there isn't food enough, and I shall die of indigestion."

"There is plenty of food," said Jordan. "Oh, there is heaps of grub such as Mr. Shody sent on board himself, and as a lesson I'm goin' to take you to South Africa, and I hope to the Lord that you will survive it."

Shody shivered; he knew what bad pork was like. Gruddle, as a Jew, was no judge of it. But the beef was even worse than the pork, and the men for'ard were almost in mutiny about it already. "But food like that is only fit for men who are doin' hard work," said the unlucky Shody. The skipper's eyes flashed and then twinkled.

"Is that so?" he said. "If it is so, there seems to be a remedy."

What the remedy was he declined to state, and the firm declined to believe that it could be the one that occurred to them all with dreadful vividness. Oh, no, it could not be that! Captain Jordan left them thinking, and retired into privacy for the remainder of the night. The trouble of wondering what was to happen to them came to an end in the morning,