Pagina 251 van 416

Life aboard the Nettie B. had been a dead monotony. On the

foremast above Code's prison hung the bell that rang the watches,

so that the passage of every half hour was dinged into his ears.

Three times a day he was given food, and twice a day he was

allowed to pace up and down the deck, a man holding tightly to

each arm.

The weather had been propitious, with a moderate sea and a good

quartering wind. The Nettie had footed it properly, and Code's

experienced eye had, on one occasion, seen her log her twelve

knots in an hour. The fact had raised his estimation of her fifty

per cent.

It must not be supposed that, as Code sat in his hard wooden

chair, he forgot the diary that he had read the first afternoon

of his incarceration. Often he thought of it, and often he drew

it out from its place and reread those last entries: "Swears he

will win second race," "Says he can't lose day after to-morrow,"

"I wonder what the boy has got up his sleeve that makes him so

sure he will win?"