The evening after that on which the commander of the Gloucester Indiaman introduced his adventures, nearly the same party met on the poop to hear them continued.

"Well then," began Captain Collins, leaning back against a stanchion of the quarter-rail, with folded arms, legs crossed, and his eyes fixed on the weather-leech of the mizzen-topsail to collect his thoughts; "well then, try to fancy the Seringapatam in chase of the Gloucester; and if I do use a few extra seaterms, I consider the ladies good enough sailors for them already. At any rate, just throw a glance aloft now and then, and our good old lady will explain herself; to her own sex, she ought to be as good as a dictionary, with signs for the hard words!

"The second day out we had the wind more from seaward, which broke up the haze into bales of cloud, and away they went rolling in for the Bay of Biscay; with a longer wave and darker water, and the big old Indiaman surged over it as easily as might be, the blue breeze gushing right into her main-tack through the heave of the following seas, and the tail of the trade-wind flying high above her trucks in shreds and patches. Things got more ship-shape on deck; anchor-flukes brought in-board on the head-rail, and cables stowed away—the very best sign you can have of being clear of the land. The first officer, as they called him, was a good-looking fellow, that thought no small-beer of himself, with his glossy blue jacket and Company's buttons, white trousers, and a gold thread round his cap; he had it stuck askew to show how his hair was brushed; and changed his boots every time he came on deck. Still he looked like a sailor, if but for the East-India brown on his face, and there was no mistake about his knowing how to set a sail, trim yards, or put the ship about; so that the stiff old skipper left a great deal to him, besides trusting him for a first-rate navigator that had learned head-work at a naval school. The crew were to be seen all mustering before tea-time in the dog-watch, with their feet just seen under the foot mat of the fore-course, like actors behind a playhouse curtain—men that I warrant you had seen every country under heaven amongst them—as private as possible, and ready to enjoy their pots of tea upon the forecastle, as well as their talk.

"However, all this was nothing to me, as I saw no sign of the passengers I had counted on. I could do little for poor Westwood but leave him to mope below, over his own thoughts.

"If the Indian judge really chanced to be on board after all, he evidently fought shy of company, and perhaps meant to have his own mess-table under the poop as long as the voyage lasted; scarcely any of the ladies had apparently got their sea-qualms over yet, and, for all I knew, she might not be with him, even if he were there; or, if she were, her father seemed quite Turk enough to keep her boxed up with jalousie-blinds, Calcutta fashion, and give her a walk in the middle watch, with the poop tabooed till morning. The jolly, red-faced indigo-planter was the only one that tried to get up anything like spirit at the table; indeed, he would have scraped acquaintance with me, if I had been in a mood for it; all I did was to say 'Yes' and 'No,' and to take wine with him. 'Poor fellow!' said he, turning to three or four of the cadets, that stuck by him like pilot-fish to an old shark, 'he's thinking of his mother at home, I daresay.' The fools thought this was meant for a joke, and began to laugh. 'Why, you unfledged griffins you,' said the planter, 'what d'ye see to nicker at, like so many jackals in a trap? D'ye suppose one thinks the less of a man for having a heart to be sick in, as well as a stomach—eh?' 'Oh, don't speak of it, Mr Rollock!' said one. 'Come, come, old boy,' said another, with a white moustache on his lip, ''twon't do for you to go the sentimental, you know.' 'Capsize my main-spanker, 'tis too funny, though,' put in a fellow who wore a glazed hat on deck, and put down all the ropes with numbers on paper, as soon as he had done being sick. The planter leant back in his chair, looked at them coolly, and burst out a-laughing. 'Catch me ever "going home" again,' said he. 'Of all the absurd occasions for impudence with the egg-shell on its head coming out, hang me if these fifteen thousand miles of infernal sea-water ain't the worst. India for ever!—that's the place to try a man. He's either sobered or gets room to work there; and just wait, my fine fellows, till I see you on the Custom-house Bunda at Bombay, or setting off up country—you're all of you the very food for sircars and coolies. That quiet lad there, now, soft as he looks'—meaning me—'I can tell by his eye he won't be long a griff—he'll do something. I tell you what, as soon as he's tasted his first mango-fish, he'll understand the country. Why, sir,' said he again, smacking his lips, ''tis worth the voyage of itself—you begin a new existence so to speak. I'll be bound all this lot o' water don't contain one single mango-fish. Remember, boys, I promised you all a regular blow-out of mango-fish, and florican with bread-sauce, whenever you can get across to Chuckbully Factory.' 'Blow, good breeze, then; blow away the main jib!' said the nautical young gentleman; 'I'll join you, old fellow!' 'Not the best way to bring it about, though,' said the indigo-planter, good-naturedly, not knowing but there was such a sail on the ship.

"The yellow setting sun was striking over the starboard quarter-boat, and the Bay of Biscay lay broad down to leeward for a view—a couple of large craft, with all studding-sails set before the wind, making for land, far enough off to bring their canvas in a piece, and begin to look blue with the air—one like a milk-woman with pitchers and a hoop; the other like a girl carrying a big bucketful of water, and leaning the opposite way to steady herself. There was one far to north-east, too, no more than a white speck in the grey sky; and the land-cloud went up over it into so many sea-lions' heads, all looking out of their manes. The children clapped their hands and laughed; and the ladies talked about the vessels, and thought they saw land—Spain or the Pyrenees, perhaps. However, it wasn't long before my American friend Snout caught sight of me in the midst of his meditations, as he turned bolt round on his toes to hurry aft again. 'The fact is, mister,' said he, 'I'm riled a little at the tarnation pride of you Britishers. There now,' said he, pointing at the blaze of the sun to westward, with his chin, 'there's a consolation. I calculate the sun's just over Noo-York, which I expect to give you old country folks considerable pain.'

"'No doubt,' said I, with a sigh; 'one can't help thinking of a banker run off with ever so much English gold.' 'You're a sensible chap, you are. It's a right-down asylum for oppressed Europains—that can't be denied.' 'And Africans, too,' I put in. 'Indy, now,' said he; 'I reckon there's a sight of dollars made in that country—you don't s'pose I'm goin' out there for nothing? We'll just take it out o' your hands yet, mister. I don't ought to let you into the schim till I know you better, you see; but I expect to want a sort o' company got up before we land. There's one of your nabobs now came into the ship at Possmouth, with a whole tail of niggurs dressed up——' 'And a lady with him, I think?' said I, as coolly as I could. 'I'll somehow open on that chap about British tyranny, I guess, after gettin' a little knowledge out of him. We'd just rise the niggurs, if they had not such a right-down cur'ous mythullogy—but I tell you now, mister, that's one of the very p'ints I expect to meet. Miss'naries won't do it so slick off in two thousand years, I kinder think, as this identical specoolation will in ten—besides payin' like Peruvain mines, which the miss'nary line don't. I'm a regoolar down-easter, ye see—kinder piercin' into a subject, like our nation in gin'ral—and the whull schim hangs together a little, I calculate, mister?' 'So I should think, Mr Snout, indeed,' I said. Here the American gave another chuckle, and turned to again on his walk, double quick, till you'd have thought the whole length of the poop shook, when who should I see with the tail of my eye but my friend the kitmagar salaaming to Mr Snout by the break of the quarter-deck. The Yankee seemed rather taken aback at first, and didn't know what to make of him. 'S'laam sah'b,' said the dark servant with an impudent look, and loud enough for me to hear, as I stepped from aft. 'Judge sahib i-send genteeman salaam—say too much hivvy boot he get—all same as illimphant. S'pose master not so much loud walk this side?' 'Well!' broke out the American, looking at the Bengalee's flat turban and moustache, as if he were too great a curiosity to be angry with, then turning on his heel to proceed with his walk. 'Now, mister,' said he to me, 'that's what I call an incalculable impudent black; but he's the first I ever saw with hair on his lip, it's a fact.' 'Master not mind?' said the kitmagar, raising his key next time Mr Snout wheeled round. 'Judge sahib burra burra buhadoorkea!—ver' great man!' 'Low niggur!' said Mr Snout, tramping away aft; 'there's your British regoolations, I say, young man—niggurs bÀÀing on the quarter-deck, and free-born citizens put off it!' 'Bhote khoob, mistree!' squeaked out the native again; 'burra judge sahib not to i-sleep apter he dine, eh? Veri well; I tell the sahib, passiger mistree moor stamp-i-stamp all the moor I can say!' So off he went to report in the poop-cabin. A little after up shot a head wrapped in a yellow bandana, just on the level of the poop-deck, looking through the breast-rail; and the next thing I saw was the great East-Indian himself, with a broad-flapped Manilla hat over his topgear, and a red-flowered dressing-gown, standing beside the binnacle with Captain Williamson. 'What the deuce, Captain Williamson,' said the judge, with an angry glance up to the poop,' cannot I close my eyelids after dinner for one instant—in my own private apartments, sir—for his hideous noise? Who the deuce is that person there—eh, eh?' 'He's an American gentleman, I believe, Sir Charles,' replied the captain. 'Believe, sir,' said the judge; 'you ought to know every individual, I think, Captain Williamson, whom you admitted into this vessel. I expressly stipulated for quiet, sir—I understood that no suspicious or exceptionable persons should travel in the same conveyance with my suwarry. I'd have taken the whole ship, sir!' 'I've no more to do than tell him the regulations aboard, Sir Charles,' said the captain, 'and the annoyance will cease.' 'Tell him, indeed!' said the judge, a little more good-humouredly. 'Why, captain, the man looks like a sea-pirate. You should have taken only such raw griffins as that young lad on the other side. Ho, kitmagar!' 'Maharaj?' said the footman, bowing down to the deck. 'Slippers lao!' 'Jee khodabund,' answered the native, and immediately after he reappeared from the round-house door, with a pair of turned-up yellow slippers. 'Take them up with my salaam to that gentleman there,' said Sir Charles, in Hindoostanee, 'and ask him to use them.' 'Hullo!' sung out Mr Snout, on being hove-to by the kitmagar, with one hand on his breast, and the other holding the slippers, 'this won't do! You'd better not rile me again, you cussed niggur you. Out o' my way!' There they went at it along the poop together, Mr Snout striding right forward with his long legs, and the kitmagar hopping backward out of his way, as he tried to make himself understood; till, all at once, the poor darkey lost his balance at the ladderhead, and over he went with a smash fit to have broken his neck, if the captain's broad back hadn't fortunately been there to receive it. The rage of Sir Charles at this was quite beyond joking; nothing else would satisfy him but the unlucky Yankee's being shoved off the poop by main force, and taken below—the one stamping and roaring like an old buffalo, and the other testifying against all 'aristocratycal tyranny.'

"At eight bells again I found it a fine, breezy night, the two upper mates walking the weather quarter-deck in blue-water style, six steps and a look to windward, then a wheel round, and, now and then, a glance into the binnacle. I went aft and leant over the Seringapatam's lee quarter, looking at the white back-wash running aft from her bows, in green sparks, into the smooth alongside, and the surge coming round her counter to meet it. Everything was set aloft that could draw, even to a starboard main-topmast stunsail; the high Indiaman being lighter than if homeward-bound, and the breeze strong abeam, she had a good heel-over to port; but she went easily through the water, and it was only at the other side you heard it rattling both ways along the bends. The shadow of her went far to leeward, except where a gleam came on the top of a wave or two between the sails and under their foot. Just below the sheer of the hull, aft, it was as dark as night, though now and then the light from a port struck on it and went in again; but every time she sank, the bight of her wake from astern swelled up away round the counter, with its black side as smooth as a looking-glass. I kept peering into it, and expecting to see my own face, while all the time I was very naturally thinking of one quite different, and felt uneasy till I should actually see her. 'Confound it,' I thought, 'were it only a house, one might walk round and round it till he found out the window.' I fancied her bewitching face through the garden-door, as clearly as if I saw it in the dark head of the swell; but I'd have given more only to hear that imp of a cockatoo scream once—whereas there was nothing but the water working up into the rudder-case; the pintles creaking, and the tiller-ropes cheeping as they traversed; and the long welter of the sea when the ship eased down, with the surgeon and his friends walking about and laughing up to windward. From that again, I ran on putting things together, till, in fact, Jacobs' notion of a shipwreck seemed by far the best. No doubt Jacobs and Westwood, with a few others, would be saved, while I didn't even object much to the old nabob himself, for respectability's sake, and to spare crape. But, by Jove, wouldn't one bring him to his bearings soon enough there? Every sailor gets hold of this notion some night-watch or other, leaning over the side, with pretty creatures aboard he can scarce speak to otherwise; and I was coiling it down so fast myself, at the moment, that I had just begun to pitch into the nabob about our all being Adam's sons and daughters, under a knot of green palm-trees, at the door of a wooden house, half thatched with leaves, when I was brought up with a round turn by seeing a light shining through the hazy bull's-eye in the deck where I stood. No doubt the sweet girl I had been thinking of was actually there, and going to bed; I stretched over the quarter, but the heavy mouldings were in the way against seeing more than the green bars of the after window—all turned edgeways to the water, where the gallery hung out like a corner turret from the ship's side. Now and then, however, when she careened a little more than ordinary, and the smooth lee swell went heaping up opposite, I could notice the light through the venetians from the state-room come out upon the dark water in broad bright lines, like the grate across a fire, then disappearing in a ripple, till it was gone again, or somebody's shadow moved inside. It was the only lighted window in the gallery, and I looked every time it came as if I could see in; when at last, you may fancy my satisfaction, as, all of a sudden, one long slow heave over of the ship showed me the whole bright opening of the port, squared out of her shadow, where it shone upon the glassy round of the swell. 'Twas as plain as from a mirror in a closet—the lighted gallery window with its frame swung in, a bit of the deck-roof I was standing on, and two female figures at the window—mere dark shapes against the lamp. I almost started back at the notion of their seeing me, but away lengthened the light on the breast of the swell, and it sank slowly down into a black hollow, as the Indiaman eased up to windward. Minute by minute, quite breathless, did I watch for such another chance; but next time she leant over as much, the port had been closed, and all was dark; although those few moments were enough to send the heart into my mouth with sheer delight. The figure I had seen, holding with one hand by the port-sill, and apparently keeping up her dress with the other, as if she were looking down steadily on the heave of the sea below—it couldn't be mistaken. The line of her head, neck, and shoulders, came out more certain than if they hadn't been filled up with nothing but a black shadow; it was just Lota Hyde's, as she sat in the ball-room amongst the crowd, I'd have bet the Victory to a bumboat on it; only her hair hung loose on one side, while the girl behind seemed to be dressing the other, for it was turned back, so that I saw clear past her cheek and neck to where the lamp was, and her ear gleamed to the light. For one moment nothing could be plainer than the glimpse old Davy Jones gave me by one of his tricks; but the old fellow was quite as decorous in his way as a chamber-blind, and swallowed his pretty little bit of blab as quickly as if it had been a mermaid caught at her morning toilet. Whenever I found there was to be no more of it for the night, the best thing to calm one's feelings was to light a cigar and walk out the watch; but I took care it should rather be over the nabob's head than his daughter's, and went up to the weather side, where there was nobody else by this time, wishing her the sweetest of dreams, and not doubting I should see her next day.

"I daresay I should have walked out the first watch, and the second too, if Westwood hadn't come up beside me before he turned in.

"'Why, you look like the officer of the watch, Ned!' said my friend, after taking a glance round at the night. 'Yes—what?—a—a—I don't think so,' stammered I, not knowing what he said, or at least the meaning of it, though certainly it was not so deep. 'I hope not though, Tom!' said I again; ''tis the very thing I don't want to look like!' 'You seem bent on keeping it up, and coming the innocent, at any rate,' said he; 'I really didn't know you the first time I saw you in the cuddy.' 'Why, man, you never saw our theatricals in the dear old Iris, on the African station! I was our best female actor of tragedy there, and did Desdemona so well that the black cook, who stood for Othello, actually cried. He said, "Nobody but 'ee dibble umself go for smudder Missee Dasdemoner!"' 'I daresay,' said Westwood; 'but what is the need for it now, even if you could serve as a blind for me?' 'My dear fellow,' said I, 'not at all—you've kept it up very well so far—just go on.' 'Keep it up, Ned?' inquired he—'what do you mean? I've done nothing except keep quiet from mere want of spirits.' 'So much the better,' I said; 'I never saw a man look more like a prophet in the wilderness; it doesn't cost you the least trouble—why you'd have done for Hamlet in the Iris, if for nothing else! After all, though, a missionary don't wear blue pilot cloth trousers, nor tie his neckerchief as you do, Tom. You must bend a white neck-cloth to-morrow morning! I'm quite serious, Westwood, I assure you,' continued I. 'Just think of the suspicious look of two navy men being aboard an Indiaman, nobody knows how! Why, the first frigate we speak, or port we touch at, they'd hand one or both of us over at once—which I, for my part, shouldn't at all like!' 'Indeed, Collins,' said Tom, turning round, 'I really cannot understand why you went out in her! It distresses me to think that here you've got yourself into this scrape on my account! At least you'll put back in the first home-bound ship we——'

"'Oh!' exclaimed I, blushing a little in the dark though, both at Westwood's simplicity, and my not wishing to tell him my secret yet—'I'm tired of shore—I want to see India again—I'm thinking of going into the army!' 'The army, indeed!' said Westwood, laughing for the first time, 'and you still midshipman all over. No, no—that won't do! I see your drift, you can't deceive me! You're a true friend, Ned, to stand by an old schoolmate so!' 'No, Tom!' said I; ''tis you yourself that has too kind a heart, and more of a sailor's, all fair and above-board, than I can manage! I won't humbug you, at any rate—I tell you I've got a scheme of my own, and you'll know more of it soon.' Tom whistled; however I went on to tell him, 'The long and the short of it is, Westwood, you'll bring both of us down by the head if you don't keep up the missionary.' 'Missionary!' repeated he; 'you don't mean to say you and Neville intended all that long toggery you supplied my kit with, for me to sail under missionary colours? I tell you what, Ned, it's not a character I like to cut jokes upon, much less to sham.' 'Jokes!' said I; 'there's no joking about it; 'tis serious enough.' 'Why,' said Westwood, 'now I know the reason of a person like a clergyman sighting me through his spectacles for half an hour together, these two evenings below! This very afternoon he called me his brother, and began asking me all manner of questions, which I could no more answer than the cook's mate.' 'Clergyman be hanged!' said I, 'you must steer clear of him, Tom—take care you don't bowse up your jib too much within hail of him! Mind, I gave your name, both to the head-steward and the skipper, as the Reverend Mr Thomas, going back to Bombay. There was nothing else for it, Westwood,' I said, 'when you were beyond thinking for yourself. All you've got to do with that solemn dissenting chap in the spectacles is just to look as wise as possible, and let him know you belong to the Church. And as for shamming, you needn't sham a bit—take to it, my dear fellow, if that will do you good.' I said this in joke, but Westwood seemed to ponder on it for a minute or two. 'Indeed, Collins,' said he gravely, 'I do think you're right. What do we sailors do but give up everything in life for a mere schoolboy notion, and keep turning up salt water for years together like the old monks did the ground; only they grew corn and apples for their pains, and we have nothing but ever so many dull watches and wild cruises ashore to remember! How many sailors have turned preachers and missionaries, just because something, by accident, as it were, taught them to put to account what you can't help feeling now and then in the very look of the sea. What does it mean in the Scriptures, Ned, about "seeing the wonders of the Lord in the deep?"' As Westwood said this, both of us stopped on the taffrail, and, somehow or other, a touch of I didn't well know what went through me. I held my breath, with his hand on my arm, just at the sight I had seen a thousand times—the white wake running broad away astern, with a mark in the middle as if it had been torn, on to the green yeast of the waves, then right to their black crests plunging in the dark. It was midnight ahead, and the clouds risen aloft over where I had been looking half-an-hour before; but the long ragged split to westward was opened up, and a clear glaring glance of the sky, as pale as death, shot through it on the horizon. 'I can't be sorry for having gone to sea,' said Westwood again; 'but isn't it a better thing to leave home and friends, as those men do for the sake of carrying the Gospel to the heathen?' As soon as we wheeled round, with the ship before us, leaning over and mounting to the heave, and her spread of canvas looming out on the dark, my thoughts righted. 'Well,' said I, 'it may be all very well for some—everyone to his rope; but, for my part, I think if man hadn't been made for the sea, he couldn't have built a ship, and where would your missionaries be then? You're older than I am, Westwood, or I'd say you let some of your notions run away with you, like a Yankee ship with her short-handed crew!' 'Oh, Ned,' said he, 'of all places in the world for one's actions coming back on him the sea is the worst, especially when you're an idler, and have nothing to do but count the sails or listen to the passengers' feet on deck. These two days, now, I've thought more than I ever did in my life. I can't get that man's death out of my head; every time the sea flashes round me as I come from below, I think of him—it seems to me he is lying yet by the side of the Channel. I can't help having the notion he perhaps fired in the air!' ''Twas a base lie!' said I; 'if he weren't there, you wouldn't be here, I can tell you, Westwood.' 'I don't know how I shall ever drag through this voyage,' continued he. 'If there were a French gunboat to cut out to-morrow morning, or if we were only to have a calm some day in sight of a Spanish slaver—'tis nothing but a jogging old Indiaman though! I shall never more see the flag over my head with pride—every respect I had was in the service!'