Under the Southern Cross

u will never find it out till the fish begin to nibble."

I realise sleepily there's a great commotion without; hurried feet fly about the decks; loud orders are shouted under our window, and with a mighty trembling and throbbing, the ship's engine seems to stop suddenly. Mrs. Steele is scrambling into her robe de chambre, and has her head out of the porthole, while I, hardly awake even yet, lean in a bewildered way over the side of my berth to listen.

"What has happened?" Mrs. Steele calls out.

"Man overboard," answers one of the sailors; "we're lowering a boat."

"Dthere ees no fear, Madame," says the Peruvian's voice outside.

I am so sleepy I gladly take his word for it, and am off again to the Land of Nod. Mrs. Steele's voice comes to me from afar off, with some question about a pistol, but the real soon mixes with a dream, and I know no more.

The next morning I hear that for two hours the whole ship was in a commotion. A drunken passenger of the intermedia