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“Can’t I stay on deck, then,” pleaded Frank, “it does smell so in the room?”

“Yes it does, thanks to you and that other little beast. No, you can’t stay on deck in your watch below, but you can clean up the filthy mess you’ve been making in the house, and you shall, so get about it as quick’s the devil’ll let ye.”

Of course theoretically Frank should have rebelled, but he felt so low and helpless that he hadn’t a kick in him, and besides he did not know what power over him his young tormentor might have, so instead of firing up he meekly replied, “Will you show me what I’m to do, and I’ll try and do it?”

“Oh, I’ll show ye right enough,” answered the young tyrant, who led the way to the house from whence Frank had so recently emerged.

But as soon as he stepped within, the foul, fetid atmosphere of the place revived his nausea, and he staggered out again on deck crying, “I can’t stand it, it makes me sick.”

And yet he had seen that the other two lads were asleep in it, the one from sheer exhaustion and the other because he had got used to it. He also saw that it was in such a condition that it could only be compared to a hogsty, and even in his then mental state he could not help wondering however he would grow used to sleeping in such a hole as that.