WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 119 



roughest time of my life," he continued, puffing at his new 

 calabash. 



" We was on the Kron Prince three weeks out from Cardiff, 

 seven feet water in the hold and the pumps won't work." 

 They had reached the Azores and drifted back to the 

 Bay, then to the Irish Channel, and got shelter, I think, in 

 Bridgewater. 



44 Captain and mate they's on deck, with revolvers, but 

 we get ashore and run away. We was not going in that 

 for-dumna sink ship, I'se sure. No ! tree hours at wheel was 

 my last watch, one hour pumping, cold, wet, then I finds in 

 corner of fo'c'sle three biscuits, one half-cup tea cold, dat 

 decides me ! " " How did you get off ? " I said. 



44 With a runner runner come alongside : we cuts square 

 hole under fo'c'sle head, captain and mate, they looks all 

 round deck, but not below bows, and we slips out, eight of 

 us and our bags." 



Perhaps these eight were justified for the Crown Prince 

 got a new crew and sailed, and was never heard of again. 



Henriksen had three guineas sewn in the waistband of 

 his trousers, and a lot of sense besides for eighteen, also his 

 mate's certificate, although he was only a sailor on board, and 

 he reflected, as he went ashore, on what he knew of runners 

 and their ways : how the sailor is kept by the same on the 

 credit of his next two or three months' advance wage, and 

 then goes to sea with precious few clothes and say five 

 shillings to land with at the next port, and has therefore to 

 go to another runner until he gets another ship, and so may 

 be at sea two or three years with hardly the sight of pay. 

 So on getting ashore Henriksen made a clean bolt to the 

 nearest railway station, jumped into first train, taking ticket 

 to first station, leaving his bag with the runner, of course, 

 but keeping his mate's ticket. Where did he say he got to ? 

 I forget, somewhere near Liverpool, but five or ten miles he 

 did free of charge as the guard was interested in his recital. 



From Liverpool he booked third class to Belfast. It was 

 a wild crossing and he met, strangely enough, another run- 

 away, an Englishman, and isn't this the making of a story ? 

 They befriended a would-be second-class passenger and his 



