"The next morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, there was still a long sea running after us. However, by noon the sun came sifting through aloft, the breeze got warm, the decks were dry as a bone, and one just saw the large dark-blue swells lift up alongside with a shower of spray, between the seams of the bulwarks. By six o'clock, again, it was got pretty dusk ahead, and I strolled forward right to the heel of the bowsprit with Westwood, looking down through her head-boards into the heap of white foam that washed up among the woodwork every time she plunged. One knot of the men were sitting with their legs over the break of the top-gallant forecastle, swinging as she rolled—laughing, roaring, and singing as loud as they could bawl, since the wind carried it all forward out of the officers' hearing. I was rather surprised to see and hear that Jacobs' friends, Bill Dykes and Tom, were there; the rogues were taking back their savage to the Andaman Isles again, I suppose.

"'Well, my lads,' said Tom, a regular sample of the man-o'-war's-man, 'this is what I calls balling it off. That mate knows how to make her go, anyhow.' 'We'll soon be into tropical regents, I consider,' remarked Bill, who made a point of never using sea-phrases except ashore, when he came out double salt, to make up for his gentility afloat. 'Hum,' grumbled a big ugly fellow, the same so flattered at the wheel by little Tommy, 'I doesn't like your fair winds. I'll tell you what, mates, we'll be havin' it puff more from east'ard ere third watch.' 'What's the odds, Harry, old ship?' said Tom, 'a fair wind still.' 'I say, my lads,' exclaimed Tom again, looking along toward the poop, 'yonder's the ould naboob squinting out of the round-house doors!—what's he after now, I wonder?'

"On stooping down, accordingly, I could see the judge's face with the binnacle light shining on it, as he swayed to and fro in the doorway, seemingly in a passion at something or other. 'Why,' said Bill, 'I consider he can't altogether circumstand the shindy as this here roll kicks up inside of his blessed paliss.' 'Nabob, does ye call him,' said Harry, sulkily; 'I'll tell you what, mates, he ben't nothin' but a reg'lar ould tyrant. T'other mornin' there, I just chances to brush against him as I kiles up a rope; says he, "Fellow" an' says he to the skipper, "I'd take it kind," says he, "if ye'd horder them common sailors for to pay more contention alongside o' my legs, Captain Williamson." Why, do the old beggar not think as a feller ben't a man as well as hisself, with his comming sailors, an' be blowed to him.' 'Well, though, Harry, old ship,' said Tom, 'ain't that daurter of his'n a jewel! I say, mates, she's all rounded into the head, and a clear run from aft, like a corvette model. My eye, that hair of hers is worth gold; I'd go down on the deck to please her, d'ye see.' 'No doubt,' says Bill, 'she's what I call a exact sparkler.' 'Well, I doesn't know,' said Harry, 'last vy'ge but one we'd got one aboard, a'most beautifuller—half as high again, an' twice her beam—I'm not sure but she——' 'All my eye, messmates,' broke in Tom; 'that one were built for stowing, ye see, bo', like yer cargo lumpers. No, this here young gal 'minds me o' no other blessed thing but the Nymph corvette's figure-head—and that warn't her match, neither. She don't look down upon a sailor, I can tell ye; there, I see her t'other morning-watch a-talkin' to Jacobs yonder, as pleasant and cheery as——Hullo, there's the captain comed out of the naboob's cabin, and speaking with the mate by the compass—blest if they ain't a-goin' to alter her course.'

"'Send aft here to the braces!' sung out the first officer to the boatswain. 'Blow me, shipmates, that's yeer naboob now, I'll bet a week's grog,' growled Harry; 'ship's course as fair as a handspike through a grummit; couldn't bring the wind more aft; my eyes, the sea's comin' to be bought and sold.' Whatever it might be for, in came the starboard yard-arms till she lay over a little; down studding and topgallant-sails, as neither of them could stand it except from aft; and off went the old ship rising high athwart the seas, her head sou'-south-east, and one streak of broken yellow light, low down to westward on her lee quarter. It was beginning to blow harder, too, and by eight bells it was 'Reef topsails, single reef.' The waves played slap on her weather side, the heavy sprays came showering over her bulwarks forward, and the forecastle planks were far from being so comfortable for a snooze as the night before.

"As soon as the wheel was relieved, and the other watch below, 'the ugly man' and his companions returned. 'Mates,' said he, solemnly, planting his back against the bitts, 'I've sailed this five-and-twenty year before the mast, an' I never yet seed the likes o' that! Take my say for it, we're on a wind now, but afore next mornin' we'll be close-hauled, beating up against it.' 'Well,' said another, 'she leaks a deal in the eyes of her below; in that case, Harry, your watch as slings in the fore-peak 'll be all afloat by that time.' 'What day did this craft sail on, I asks?' said the sailmaker gravely. 'Why, a Thursday night, old ship,' replied several eagerly. 'No,' went on the sailmaker; 'you counts sea-fashion, shipmates; but till ye're clear o' the pilot, ye know, it's land-fashion ye ought for to go by. 'Twas a Friday by that 'ere said reckoning, shipmates.' 'No! so it was though,' said the rest; 'it don't look well.' 'Howsomedever I'm not goin' to come for to go and be a croaker,' continued the sailmaker, in a voice like a ghost's. 'Well, luck or no luck, mates,' grumbled big Harry, 'if so be them larboard bowlines is hauled taut by the morning watch, blow me if I don't be upsides with that 'ere ould naboob—that's all.'

"Next morning, after all, it was easy to feel the ship had really been hauled close on a wind. When we went up the weather was clearing, though with a strongish gale from eastward, a heavy sea running, on which the Indiaman strained and creaked as she rose, rolling slowly to windward with her three double-reefed topsails strained full, then pitched head into it as a cloud of foam and spray flew over her weather-bow. It was quite early, the decks lately washed down, and the Indian judge walking the weather quarter-deck as grave and comfortable as if it was all right. The captain was with him, and two mates to leeward. 'Sail ho!' hailed a man on the foreyard. 'Whereaway?' sang out the mate of the watch. 'Broad abeam!'

"The captain went up to the poop, and I stood on the foremost carronade near the main rigging, where I could just see her now and then white against the blue haze between the hollows of the waves, as the Indiaman lifted. 'There she is!' said I, thinking it was Westwood that stopped behind me; it was the judge, however, and as soon as I got down he stepped up, holding on with one hand to a back-stay. The ship was rising after a pitch, every bulkhead and timber in her creaking, when all of a sudden I felt by my feet what all sailors feel the same way—she was coming up in the wind too fast to mount with the next wave, and a regular comber it was going to be. I looked to the wheel—there was big Harry himself with a grin on his face, and his eye on Sir Charles, as he coolly gave her half a weather-spoke more, and then whirled it back again to meet her. 'For heaven's sake, look out, sir!' exclaimed I. 'Why, so I do,' said the judge, rather good-naturedly. 'Zounds! what's——' You felt the whole ship stop creaking for a moment, as she hung with the last wave—'Hold on!' shouted a mid—she gave a dull quiver from stem to stern, and I fairly pulled the judge close into the bulwark, just as smash, like thunder, came a tremendous green sea over us, three in one, washing down into the lee scuppers. The old gentleman staggered up, dripping like a poodle, and unable to see—one heard the water trickling through the skylights, and stepping away downstairs like a fellow with iron heels; while there was the sailor at the wheel grinding down his spokes in right earnest, looking aloft at the shaking fore-topsail, and the Indiaman seemingly doubtful whether to fall off or broach-to. Up she rose again, however, and drove round with her Turkhead in the air, then dip through the spray as gallantly as ever.

"'Send that lubber from the wheel, Mr Macleod!' said the captain angrily, when he came down, 'he nearly broached the ship to just now!' The 'ugly man' put on a double-gloomy face, and grumbled something about her 'steering wild'; but the knowing squint he gave Jacobs, who relieved him, was enough to show me he was one of the best helmsmen aboard. As for the judge, he hadn't the least notion that it was anything more than a natural mischance, owing to exposing himself. He eyed the bulwark as if he couldn't understand how any wave was able to rise over it, while the captain was apologising, and hoping he wouldn't be the worse. 'Eh, young gentleman!' said Sir Charles of a sudden, turning round to me, after a glance from the weather side to the lee one, 'now I observe the circumstances, the probability is I should have had myself severely injured on the opposite side there, had it not been for your presence of mind, sir—eh?' Here I made a bow, and looked as modest as I could. 'I perceive you are wet, young gentleman,' said he again; 'you'd better change your dress—eh?' 'Thank you, sir!' I said; and as he walked off quite drenched to his cabin with the captain, I heard him remark it was 'wonderfully intelligent in a mere griffin.'

"However, the wind soon got down to a fine top-gallant breeze; less of a sea on, the clouds sunk in a long grey bank to leeward, and the strange sail plain abeam of us—a large ship steering seemingly more off the wind than the Seringapatam, with topgallant-sails set—you could just see the heads of her courses, and her black lower-yards, when both of us rose together. Our first officer was all alive at the sight; the reefs were out of our topsails already, and he soon had us ploughing along under ordinary canvas, though still hugging the wind. In a short time the stranger appeared to take the challenge, for he slanted his yards, clapped on royals and hauled down a stu'nsail, heading our course, till he was one body of white cloth on the horizon. For awhile we seemed to gain on her; but after dinner, there was the other ship's hull up on our lee-bow, rising her white streak out of the water steadily, and just lifting at times on the long blue seas; she was fore-reaching on us as plain as could be. The mate gave a stamp on the deck, and kept her away a little to set a stu'nsail. 'Why,' said I to Westwood, 'he'll fall to leeward of himself!' 'She's too much by the head, Collins,' said Westwood; 'that's it!' 'Hasn't he the sense to take the fore-course off her?' said I, 'instead of packing more on! Why that craft weathers on us like a schooner—I wish you and I had the Indiaman for an hour or two, Tom!'

"It wasn't an hour before we could see the very waves splashing up under her black weather-side, and over her high bows, as she slanted right through it and rose to windward again, standing up to cross our course—a fine frigate-built Indiaman, sharper stemmed than her kind in ordinary, and square in her spread; one yard-arm just looking over the other as they ranged aloft, and all signs of a weatherly craft. 'That's the Duke o' Bedford!' said a sailor at the braces to his companions, 'all oak planks, and not a splinter of teak in her! No chance!' Out flew the British colours from her mizzen-peak, and next the Company's striped ensign at her fore-royal mast-head, as a signal to speak. However, the Seringapatam only answered by showing her colours, and held on. All of a sudden the other Indiaman was seen slowly falling off before the wind, as if in scorn at such rude manners, and sure of passing us if she chose. For a moment the red sunset glanced through betwixt all three of her masts, every rope as fine as wire! then the canvas swung broad against it, blood-red from the sun, and she showed us her quarter-gallery, with a glimpse of her stern-windows glittering—you even made out the crowd of passengers and soldiers on her poop, and a man or two going up her rigging. The sea beyond her lay as blue as blue could be, what with the crimson streak that came zigzag on both sides of her shadow, and gleamed along the smooth troughs, taking a crest or two to dance on by the way; and what with the rough of it near hand, where the tops of the dark waves ran hither and thither in broad white flakes, we surging heavily over them.

"In a few minutes more the sun was not only down, but the clouds banked up to westward of a deep purple; and almost at once you saw nothing of the other ship except when a stray streak somehow or other caught her rising, or her mast-heads came across a pale line in the clouds. The breeze got pleasanter as the night went on, and the Seringapatam rattled away in fine style, careening to it by herself.

"Well, you know, nothing could be better for a good understanding and high spirits amongst us than a fast course, fine weather, and entering the tropics. As for the tropics, if you have only a roomy ship and a good run of wind, as we had, in those latitudes, everything outside of you seems almost to have double the stuff in it that air and water have in other places; while inside of one, again, one felt twice the life he had before, and everybody else came out newer a good deal than on the parlour-rug at home. As the days got each hotter than the last, and the sea bluer and bluer, we began to think better of the heavy old Seringapatam's pace, teak though she was, and her sole good point right before the wind. Every night she lighted her binnacle sooner, till deuce the bit of twilight there was, and the dark sky came down on us like the extinguisher over a candle. However, the look of things round and aloft made full amends for it, as long as we held the "Trades"; old Neptune shifting his scenes there so quickly, that nobody missed getting weather and air, more than he could help, were it only a sight how the Indiaman got on, without trouble to any living soul save the man at the wheel, as one long, big, bright wave shoved her to another, and the slower they rose the more business she seemed to do of herself. By the time they had furbished her up at their leisure, the Seringapatam had a queer Eastern style, too, throughout; with her grass mattings and husky coir chafing-gear, the yellow varnish about her, and her three topsails of country canvas, cut narrow towards the head—bamboo stu'nsail booms, and spare bits of bamboo always ready for everything; besides the bilious-like gold-coloured patches here and there in the rest of her sails, and the outlandish figure-head, that made you sometimes think there might be twenty thousand of them under the bows, dancing away with her like Juggernaut's travelling pagoda.

"The decks were lively enough to look at; the men working quietly by twos and threes about the bulwarks all day long, and pairs of them to be made out at different points aloft, yarning away comfortably together, as the one passed the ball for the other's serving-mallet, with now a glance at the horizon, and now a grin at the passengers below, or a cautious squint at the top of the mate's cap. White awnings triced over poop and quarter-deck, the cover of the waist hammock-netting clean scrubbed, and the big shady main-course half brailed-up, rustling and bulging above the boats and booms amidships; every hatchway and door with a round funnel of a wind-sail swelling into it, and their bellies moving like so many boa-constrictors come down from aloft, and going in to catch cadets. You saw the bright white sky dazzling along under the awning-cheeks, that glared on it like snow; and the open quarter-deck ports let in so many squares of shifting blue light, with a draught of air into the hot carronade muzzles, that seem to gasp for it, with their red tompions stuck out like tongues. The very look of the lifting blue water on the shady side was refreshing, and the brighter the light got, it grew the darker blue. You listened for every cool splash of it on the bends, and every rustle of the canvas aloft; and instead of thinking, as the landsmen did, of green leaves and a lazy nook for shelter, why to my fancy there's a great deal more satisfaction in good dark blue, with a spray over the cathead to show you're going, and with somewhat to go for! For want of better, one would have given his ears to jump in head-foremost, and have a first-rate bathe—the very sea itself kept rising up alongside, to make an easy dive for one, and sinking into little round troughs again, where the surges would have sprinkled over your head. Now and then a bigger wave than ordinary would go swelling up, and out sprang a whole glittering shower of flying-fish, freckling the dark side with drops, and went flittering over into the next, or skimming the crests out of sight into a hollow.

"The writers and cadets were in high feather at knowing they were in the same latitude as India, and appeared in all sorts of straw hats, white trousers, and white jackets. Ford had left off talking of going aloft for awhile, to flourish about his swimming—when he looked over with the surgeon into the smooth of a hollow, and saw something big and green, like an immense cucumber, floating along within a fathom or two of the ship, deep down in the blue water. While the griffin asked what it was, a little ripple broke above, a wet black horn came right out of it, and two fiendish round eyes glared up at us ahead of it, as we leant over the quarter, set wide in a broad black snout, shaped like a gravedigger's shovel; then it sank away into the next wave. Ford shivered, in spite of the heat. 'The devil?' inquired one of the writers, coolly, to the surgeon. 'Not just him,' said the Scotchman; 'it's only the first shark!'

"The young ladies, in their white dresses, now made you think of angels gliding about: as to the only one I had an eye for, by this time it wasn't of not seeing her often enough I had to complain, as she seemed to delight in nothing else but being somewhere or other upon deck, first one part of the ship, then another, as if to see how different the look-out could be made, or to watch something in the waves or the horizon. Instead of sitting with a needle or a book, like the rest, with the corner of one eye toward the gentlemen, or talking and giggling away at no allowance, she would be noticing a man aloft as if she were there herself, or trying to see past a sail, as if she fancied there was something strange on the other side of it. The rest of the girls appeared shy of her at first, no doubt on account of the judge's separate quarters and his grandee style; next, they made acquaintance, she speaking and smiling just as if she had known them before; then again most of them seemingly got jealous because the cadets squinted after her, while old Rollock said Miss Hyde would be the beauty on Chowringee Course, and the first officer was eternally pointing out things to her, like a showman at a fair.

"However, she seemed not to mind it at all, either way; those that did talk to her would scarce hear her answer ere they lost her, and there she was, looking quietly down by herself into the ripples alongside; a minute after she would be half-playing with little Tommy, and making companions of Tommy's young sisters, to see the sheep, the pigs, and the cow, or feed the poultry. As for the handsome 'first officer,' when he caught occasion for his politeness, she took it graciously enough, and listened to all he said, till, of a sudden, a smile would break over her face, and she seemed to me to put him off as easy as a duchess—on the score, it might be, of the judge's looking for her off the poop, or something else of the kind. 'Twas the more curious how much at home she seemed amongst the men at work, when she chanced to go 'forward' with Tommy and his sisters, as they skipped hither and thither: the rough blue-shirted fellows took the quids out of their cheeks as soon as they saw the party coming from aft, and began to smirk, shoving the tar-buckets and ropes aside.

"One forenoon, an old lady under the poop awning, where she and her daughter were sewing together at a bright strip of needlework, asked me to hold her woollen yarns for her as she balled them off—being the red coat for a sepoy killing a tiger, which her daughter was making in yellow. I couldn't well refuse, seeing that amongst the ladies I was reckoned a mild, quiet young man. Even in these days I must say I had a good deal of that look, and at home they used always to call me 'quiet Ned.' My mother, good soul, never would believe I broke windows, killed cats, or fought; and the mystery to her always is why the neighbours had a spite at me, for if I had been a wild boy, she said, or as noisy as little Brown next door, why she wouldn't have objected to my going to sea!—that noisy little Brown, by-the-by, is now a fat banker. So in I had to stick my thumbs at arms'-length, and stoop down to the old lady, the more with a will since I guessed what they were talking of.

"'Well though, Kate,' continued the old lady, winding away at the thread, 'you cannot deny her to be a charming creature, my love?' 'Oh, if you mean pretty!' said the girl, 'I don't want to deny it—not I, ma'am—why should I, indeed?' 'Pity she's a little light-headed,' said her mother in a musing way. 'Affected, you mean, mother!' said Miss Fortescue, 'and haughty.' 'Do you know, Kate,' replied the old lady, sighing, 'I fear she'll soon go in India!' 'Go?' said the daughter, sharply. 'Yes; she won't stand the hot season as I did—these flighty girls never do. Poor thing! she certainly hasn't your stamina now, my love!'

"Here Miss Fortescue bit her lip, tossed her head, and was saying that wasn't what she cared about, though in fact she looked ready to cry; when just at the moment I saw Lota Hyde herself half above the little gallery stair, gazing straight at me, for the first time, too; a curious kind of half-smile on her face, as I stood with my paws out, the old lady jerking the yarn off my wrists, and I staring right over her big bonnet at the sky astern of the awning, pretending not to listen. All at once my mouth fell, and before she could turn her face away from the funny countenance I no doubt put on, I saw her cheek rosy and her eyes sparkle with laughter, instead of seeming like one to die soon.

"For my part I couldn't stand it at all, so I just bolted sheer round and made three strides to the poop-ladder, as dignified as was possible, with ever so many plies of red yarn foul of my wrists, and a big red ball hopping after me when I'd vanished, like a fellow running from a hot shot! I daresay they thought on the poop I'd had a stroke of the sun on my brain, but till next day I kept clear of the passengers, and took to swigging off stiff nor'-westers of grog as long as Westwood would let me.