You had better, therefore, move your chest aft and take the second cabin next to the steward's pantry, hitherto occupied by Davis, whom I have just disrated and sent to fill your place in the fo'c's'le.

Men," added the captain, raising his voice a little higher, "you will please consider _Mister_ Jackson to be the second mate of the _Josephine_, and treat him respectfully as such." No one seemed more surprised at the ending of the affair than the newly- promoted foremast hand.
Twirling his cap in his two hands and fidgeting first on one leg and then on the other, he looked the very picture of confusion.
When he was told to come forwards, he expected no doubt to have been called to account for his insubordination, whereas here he was actually selected to fill Davis's billet! He couldn't make it out at all, and stared open mouth upwards at the poop unable to utter a word of thanks or anything.
"Come up here, Mr Jackson," said Captain Miles kindly, seeing how dumbfounded he looked; wherefore, the modest fellow, actually blushing at the unexpected honour bestowed on him, mounted the poop-ladder in a much more gingerly fashion than he would have done if he had been told to take his trick at the wheel or exercise some sailor's job aft.
However, as soon as he got alongside the captain and Mr Marline, they both shook hands with him, in order to give him a proper welcome to his new station, and the steward singing out a few minutes afterwards that dinner was ready, he was invited down into the cabin to "christen" his promotion, as it were, by partaking of that meal, in token of his being admitted to a social equality with his superior officers.
I may add, too, that if his sudden rise in rank was unexpected, Jackson did not take long to settle down to his new duties, proving himself ere long a much better officer in every way than his predecessor.

The men, too, were not in the least jealous of his being placed over them, but executed his orders with alacrity; for, he exercised his authority judiciously, remembering his former position--albeit he was ever a rigid and impartial disciplinarian.
"After a storm comes a calm," says the old adage, but the reverse of this axiom holds equally good at sea.
It was so, at all events, in our instance; for, after our ten days of stagnation on the rolling ocean, a change came almost as suddenly as the calm had set in, the weather breaking towards the close of the very day that had witnessed the downfall of Davis and Jackson's elevation to the dignity of the poop.
Every evening during the continuance of the calm, as I think I have mentioned, the sun went down below the horizon like a ball of fire, while a thick misty fog afterwards enveloped the sea; but this day when we came on deck after dinner, about the middle of the second dog watch, the sky, for a wonder, was quite clear, and the glorious orb sank to rest with some of that old splendour of his which I had noticed when we were threading our way amongst the islands.

Long after he had disappeared, too, from view the heavens were lit up with a ruby radiance which was reflected below in the water, making it look like a crimson ocean.
"We're going to have a change at last, Marline," said Captain Miles rubbing his hands together.

"It is better late than never!" "Aye," responded the first mate who stood by the binnacle; "the question, though, is, what change ?" "Hang it, man," exclaimed the captain testily, "anything is preferable to this confounded calm." "Well, I don't quite agree with you there," said Mr Marline drily; "there is such a thing as changing for the worse.