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142 worlds to know what to say to the owner of such eyes. But just then the rest of the crew, swinging noisily round the corner, with loud cries and laughter surrounded the two truants and swept them along. The rest of the evening went quickly, for they would have to sail for Trapani in the early morning; and after visiting a maze of wineshops, they all trooped aboard, laden with bottles, jugs, and small kegs, like pirates from the sack of a town. All but Fox: he kept his word and deserted, no one saw where; at which Captain Harlow swore next morning, loud and nasal, for several miles along the northern coast of Sicily.

From Trapani the Merry Andrew cleared with a cargo of salt for Boothbay, Maine. The voyage home was longer, and to Marden, whose thoughts were now homeward bound so fast, was tedious. Ten days out from Gibraltar they ran into a dead tropical calm, with the sun blazing down from overhead in intolerable heat, the deck like the top of a great stove, and the ocean dead and blank to the high, taut line of the horizon. All day long the tar dripped from the rigging like