The evening after that in 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 mizen-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 sea-terms, 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's as good as a dictionary without 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 inboard 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 trowsers, 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 in him for a first-rate navigator that had learned headwork 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.

The old judge 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 on board at all; 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 as 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 mustache 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,—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 a 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 canvass in a piece, and begin to look blue with the air—one like a milkwoman 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 gray 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 scheme 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 niggers-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 my-thullogy—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 indentical 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 quarterdeck. 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 got—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 mustache, 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!" "D—— niggur!" said Mr Snout, tramping away aft; "there's your British regoolations, I say, young man! niggurs bÀÀing on the quarterdeck, and free-born citizens put off it!" "Bhote khoob, mistree!" squeaked out the native again; "burra judge sahib not i-sleep apter he dine?—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 bandanna, 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 this top-gear, 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 this 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 Hindostance, "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 fellow lost his balance at the ladder-head, 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 quarterdeck 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 backwash 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's 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 of 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 portsill, 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 chamberblind, 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 forsmudder 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 neckcloth 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, curse it!" "The army, indeed!" said Westwood, laughing for the first time, "and you 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 yourself 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 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." "The devil you did!" "Why 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 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—taketoit 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 all 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 canvass looming out on the dark, my thoughts righted. "Well," said I, "it may be all very well for some—every one to his rope; but, for my part, I think if a 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 call 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 prospect I had was in the service!"

Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a sidewind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened since midnight with a pour of rain, the sails being all wet, and coats hung to dry in the fore-rigging; she was going little more than five or six knots headway. The water was bluer, lifting in long waves, scarce a speck of foam except about the ship; but instead of having broke up with the sun, or sunk below the level, the long white clouds were risen high to leeward, wandering away at the top and facing us steady below out of the sky, a pretty sure sign they had more to do. However, the Indiaman was all alive from stem to stern: decks drying as clean as a table; hens and ducks clucking in the coops at their food; pigs grunting; stewards and cabin-boys going fore and aft, below and above, and the men from aloft coming slowly down for breakfast, with an eye into the galley funnel. Most of the passengers were upon deck, in knots all along the poop-nettings, to look out for Corvo and Flores, the westernmost of the Azores, which we had passed before daybreak.

"I say, Fawd!" said the warlike cadet with the mustache, all of a sudden yawning and stretching himself, as if he'd been struck with the thing himself, "Cussed dull this vessel already, ain't it?" "Blast me, no, you fellow!" said Ford, the nautical man—"that's because you're not interested in the ocean—the sea—as I am! You should study the craft, Bob, my boy! I'll teach you to go aloft. I only wish it would blow harder—not a mere capful of wind, you know, but a tempest!" "By Jove! Fawd," said the other, "how we shall enjoy India—even that breakfast with old Rollock! By the bye, ain't breakfast ready yet?" These two fellows, for my part, I took for a joint-model, just trying to hit a mid-helm betwixt them, else I couldn't have got through it: accordingly they both patronised me. "Haw, Cawlins!" said one, nodding to me. "Is that you, my boy?" said the other; "now you're a fellow never would make a sailor!" "I daresay not," I said, gravely, "if they have all to commence as horse-marines." "Now, such ignorance!" said Ford; "marines don't ride horses, Collins, you fellow!—how d'you think they could be fed at sea—eh?" "Well—now—that didn't occur to me!" said I, in the cadet key. "Fawd, my boy, you—demmee—you know too much—you're quite a sea-cook!" "Oh, now! But I'm afraid, Winterton, I never shall land ashore in India—I am tempted to go into the navy instead." "I say, Mr Ford," put in a fat unlicked cub of a tea-middy, grinning as he listened, "I've put you up to a few rises aboard, but I don't think I told you we've got a dozen or so of donkeys[8] below in the steerage?" "Donkeys!—no?" said the griffin. "Yes," replied the midshipman; "they kick like blazes, though, if they get loose in a gale—why mine, now, would knock a hole through the side in no time—I'll show you them for a glass of grog, Mr Ford." "Done!" and away they went. "That fool, Fawd, you know, Cawlins, makes one sick with his stuff; I declare he chews little bits of tobacco in our room till he vomits as much as before," said Winterton. "I tell you what, Cawlins, you're a sensible man—I'll let you into a secret! What do you think—there's the deucedest pretty girl in the vessel, we've none of us seen except myself; I caught a sight of her this very mawning. She don't visit the cuddy at all; papa's proud, you pusseeve—a nabob in short!" "Oh, dear!" said I. "Yes, I do assure you, quite a bew-ty! What's to be done?—we absolutely must meet her—eh, Cawlins?" Here I mused a bit. "Oh!" said I, looking up again, "shall we send a deputation, do you think?" "Or get up a ball, Cawlins?—Hallo, what's this?" said he, leaning over the breast-rail to look at a stout lady who was lugging a chubby little boy of three or four, half-dressed, up the poop-stair, while her careful husband and a couple of daughters blocked it up above. "See, Tommy, dear!" said she, "look at the land—the nice, land, you know, Tommy." "Come away, my love," said her spouse, "else you won't see it." Tommy, however, hung back manfully. "Tommy don't want wook at yand," sang out he, kicking the deck; "it all such 'mell of a sheep, ma; me wook at 'at man wis gate feel. Fare other feel, man? Oh, fat a ugwy man!" The honest tar at the wheel pulled up his shirt, and looked terribly cut at this plain remark on his phiz, which certainly wasn't the most beautiful; meanwhile he had the leech of the main to'gallant sail shaking. "Mind your helm, there," sung out the second mate from the capstan. "My good man," said the lady, "will you be so kind as to show us the land?" "Ay, ay, sir," growled he, putting up his weather spokes; "sorry I carn't, ma'am—please not to speak to the man at the wheel." Jacobs was coiling down the ropes on a carronade close by, and stepped forward: "Beg your ladyship's pardon," said he, but if ye'll give me charge o' the youngster till you goes on the poop—why, I've got a babby at home myself." The stout lady handed him over, and Jacobs managed the little chap wonderfully. This was the first time Tommy had been on deck since leaving home, and he couldn't see over the high bulwarks, so he fancied it was a house he was in. "Oh, suts big tees, man!" shouted he, clapping his hands as soon as he noticed the sails and rigging aloft; "suts warge birds in a tees!" "Ay, ay, my little man," answered Jacobs, "that's the wonderfowl tree! Did ye ever hear Jack and the Bean-stalk, Tommy?" "Oh, 'ess, to be soo, man!" said Tommy, scornfully, as if he should think he had. "Well, little un," said Jacobs, "that's it, ye see. It grows up every night afore Jack's door—and them's Jack an' his brothers a-comin' down out on the wonderfowl country aloft, with fruits in their hands." The little fellow was delighted, and for going aloft at once. "Ye must wait a bit, Tommy, my lad, till you're bigger," said Jacobs; "here I'll show you the country, though;" so he lifted the boy up to let him see the bright blue sea lying high away round the sky. In place of crying, as he would have done otherwise, Tommy stared with pleasure, and finished by vowing to get as soon big as possible, Jacobs advising him to eat always as hard as he had been doing hitherto.

This morning the breakfast party was in high spirits: Mr Finch, the chief officer, rigged up to the nines in white trowsers and Company's jacket, laying himself out to please the young ladies, with whom he began to be a regular hero. He was as blustering as a young lion, and as salt-tongued as a Channel pilot to the men; but with the ladies, on the poop or in the cabin, he was always twisting his sea-talk into fine language, like what you see in books, as if the real thing weren't good enough. He rubbed his hands at hearing the mate on deck singing out over the skylight to trim yards, and gave a look along to the captain. "You must understand, ladies," said the mate, "this is what we mariners call the 'ladies' wind!'" "Oh delightful!" "Oh so nice!" "You sailors are so polite!" exclaimed the young ladies—"then does it actually belong to us?" "Why it's a Trade wind, Miss Fortescue!" said Ford the nautical cadet, venturing to put in a word; but the ladies paid no attention to him, and the chief mate gave him a look of contempt. "You see, ladies, the reason is," said the mate, in a flourishing way, "because it's so regular, and as gentle as—as—why it wafts your bark into the region of, you see,—the—" "The 'Doldrums,'" put in the third mate, who was a brinier individual by far, and a true seaman, but wished to pay his compliments too, between his mouthfuls. "At any rate," Finch went on, "it's congenial, I may say, to the feelings of the fair—you need never touch her braces from one day to another. I just wish, Miss Fortescue, you'd allow me the felicity of letting you see how to put the ship about!" "A soldier might put her in stays, miss," said the third mate again, encouragingly, "and out of 'em again; she's a remarkable easy craft, owing to her——" "Confound it! Mr Rickett," said the first mate, turning round to his unlucky inferior, "you're a sight too coarse for talking to ladies. Well the captain didn't hear you!" Rickett looked dumbfounded, not knowing what was wrong; the old ladies frowned; the young ones either blushed or put their handkerchiefs to their mouths, and some took the occasion for walking off.

The weather began to have a different turn already by the time we got up—the clouds banking to leeward, the sea dusky under them, and the air-line between rather bluish. Two or three lazy gulls in our wake began to look alive, and show themselves, and a whole black shoal of porpoises went tumbling and rolling across the bows for half an hour, till down they dived of a sudden, head-foremost, one after another in the same spot, like so many sheep through a gap.

My gentleman-mate was to be seen everywhere about the decks, and active enough, I must say: the next minute he was amongst two or three young ladies aft, as polite as a dancing-master, showing them everything in board and out, as if nobody knew it except himself. Here a young girl, one of Master Tommy's sisters, came skipping aft, half in a fright. "Oh, Miss Fortescue!" cried she, "just think!—I peeped over into a nasty black hole there, with a ladder in it, and saw ever so many common sailors hung up in bags from the ceiling. Oh, what do you think, one of them actually kissed his hand to me!" "Only one of the watch below awake, Miss," said the mate; "impertinent swab!—I only wish I knew which it was." "Poor fellows!" said the young ladies; "pray, don't be harsh to them—but what have they been doing?" "Oh, nothing," said he, with a laugh, "but swing in their hammocks since eight bells." "Then are they so lazy as to dislike getting up to such delightful-looking occupations?" "Why, ma'am," said the mate, staring a little, "they've been on deck last night two watches, of four hours each, I must say that for them." "Dear me!" broke out the ladies; and on this the chief officer took occasion to launch out again concerning "the weary vigils," as he called them, "which we mariners have to keep, far distant from land, without a smile from the eyes of the fair to bless us! But, however, the very thought of it gives courage to the sailor's manly heart, to disregard the billows' fearful rage, and reef topsails in the tempest's angry height!" Thought I, "he'd much better do it before." However, the young ladies didn't seem to see that, evidently looking upon the mate as the very pink of seamen; and he actually set a second lower stud-sail, to show them how fast she could walk.

"D'ye know, sir," put in the third mate, coming from forward, "I'm in doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round the larboard stuns'ls." Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had time, amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread of cloth, he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to north-eastward, one shooting into another—the breast of them lowering down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till it bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of it scarce half a mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of it twenty—coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet after you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in "kingdom come" all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind the spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye of stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red, purple, and yellow together—what is called a "wind-gall;" then it was gone. The American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford, who began to look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the weather. "Mind your helm there, sirrah!" sung out the mate, walking aft to the wheel, as everything aloft fluttered. "She won't lie her course, sir!" said the man. "All aback for'ud!" hailed the men at work on the bowsprit; and hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over and over again; the wind freshening fast, stunsails flapping, booms bending, and the whole spread of canvass in a cumber, to teach the mate not to be in such a hurry with his infernal merchantman's side-wings next time. The last stunsail he hauled down caught full aback before the wheel could keep her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched foul at the boom-end, and crack through went the boom itself, with a smash that made the ladies think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The loose scud was flying fast out from behind the top of the clouds, and spreading away overhead, as if it would catch us on the other side; while the clouds themselves broke up slowly to both hands, and the north-east breeze came sweeping along right into the three topsails, the wind one way and the sea another. As she rounded away steadying before it, you felt the masts shake in her till the topsails blew out full; she gave one sudden bolt up with her stern, like an old jackass striking behind, which capsized three or four passengers in a heap; and next minute she was surging along through the wide heave of the water as gallantly as heart could wish, driving a wave under her bows that swung back under the forechains on both sides, with two boys running up the rigging far aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing I looked at was poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top of a wave, as if it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen, than it was down in the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of white gulls making snatches at it and one another, and hanging over it again with a doubtful sort of a scream. Still the wind was as yet nothing to speak of when once aft; the sea was getting up slowly, and the Indiaman's easy roll over it made every one cheerful, in spite of the shifts they were put to for getting below. When the bell struck for dinner, the sun was pretty clear, away on our starboard bow; the waves to south-westward glittered as they rose; one side of the ship shone bright to the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail, and we left the second mate hauling down the jibs for want of use for them.

The splendid pace she went at was plain, below in the cuddy, to everybody; you felt her shoving the long seas aside with the force of a thousand horses in one, then sweep they came after her, her stern lifted, she rolled round, and made a floating rush ahead. In the middle of it all, something darkened the half-open skylight, where I perceived the Scotch second-mate's twisted nose and red whiskers, as he squinted down with one eye aloft, and disappeared again; after which I heard them clue up to'gallant-sails. Still she was driving through it rather too bodily to let the seas rise under her; you heard the wind hum of the main-topsail, and sing through betwixt it and the main-course, the scud flying over the skysail-mast truck, which I could see from below. The second mate looked in once more, caught the first officer's eye with a glance aloft, and the gallant mate left attending to the ladies to go on deck. Down went the skylight frame, and somebody carefully threw a tarpaulin over it, so that there was only the light from the port-windows, by which a dozen faces turned still whiter.

The moment I shoved my head out of the booby-hatch, I saw it was like to turn out a regular gale from nor'-east. Both courses brailed close-up, and blowing out like rows of big-bladders; the three topsail-yards down on the caps to reef, their canvass swelling and thundering on the stays like so many mad elephants breaking loose; the wild sky ahead of us staring right through in triumph, as it were, and the wind roaring from aft in her bare rigging; while a crowd of men in each top were laying out along the foot-ropes to both yard-arms. Below, they were singing out at the reef-tackles, the idlers tailing on behind from the cook to the cabin-boys, a mate to each gang, and the first officer with his hands to his mouth before the wheel, shouting "Bear a hand!—d'ye hear!—two reefs!" It did one's heart good, and I entered into the spirit of it, almost forgiving Finch his fine puppy lingo, when I saw him take it so coolly, standing like a seaman, and sending his bull's voice right up with the wind into the bellies of the topsails—so I e'en fell-to myself, and dragged with the steward upon the mizen reef-tackle till it was chock up. There we were, running dead before it, the huge waves swelling long and dark after us out of the mist, then the tops of them scattered into spray; the glaring white yards swayed slowly over aloft, each dotted with ten or a dozen sturdy figures, that leant over with the reef-points in their hands, waiting till the men at the earings gave the word; and Jacobs's face, as he looked round to do so—hanging on heaven knows what at one of the ends—was as distinct as possible against the gray scud miles off, and sixty feet above the water. A middy, without his cap, and his hair blowing out, stood holding on in the main-top to quicken them; the first mate waved his hand for the helmsman to "luff a little." The ship's head was rounding slowly up as she rose on a big blue swell, that caught a wild gleam on it from westward, when I happened to glance towards the wheel. I could scarcely trust my eyes—in fact it had never been less in my mind since coming aboard than at that very point—but outside one of the round-house doors, which was half open, a few feet from the bulwark I leant over—of all moments in the day, there stood Lota Hyde herself at last! Speak of faces!—why, I hadn't even power to turn farther round, and if I was half out of breath before, what with the wind and with pulling my share, I was breathless now—all my notions of her never came up to the look of her face at that instant! She just half stopped, as it were, at sight of the state of things, her hands letting go of the large shawl, and her hair streaming from under a straw hat tied down with a ribbon—her lips parted betwixt dread and bewilderment, and her eyes wandering round till they settled a-gazing straight at the scene ahead, in pure delight. I actually looked away aloft from her again, to catch what it was she seemed to see that could be so beautiful!—the second reef just made fast, men crowding in to run down and hoist away with the rest, till, as they tailed along decks, the three shortened topsails rose faster up against the scud, and their hearty roaring chorus was as loud as the gale. "Keep her away, my lad!" said the mate, with another wave of his hand; the topsails swelled fair before it, and the Indiaman gave a plunge right through the next sea, rising easily to it, heave after heave. The setting sun struck two or three misty spokes of his wheel through a cloud, that made a big wave here and there glitter; the ship's white yards caught some of it, and a row of broad backs, with their feet stretching the foot-rope as they stowed the foresail, shone bright out, red, blue, and striped, upon the hollow of the yellow fore-topsail, in the midst of the gale; while just under the bowsprit you saw her black figure-head, with his white turban, and his hand to his breast, giving a cool salaam now and then to the spray from her bows. At that moment, though, Lota Hyde's eye was the brightest thing I could find—all the blue gone out of the waves was in it. As for her seeing myself, I hadn't had space to think of it yet, when all of a sudden I noticed her glance light for the first time, as it were, on the mate, who was standing all the while with his back to her, on the same plank of the quarterdeck. "Down main-course!" he sung out, putting one hand in his jacket-pocket; "down both tacks—that's it, my men—down with it!"—and out it flapped, slapping fiercely as they dragged it by main force into the bulwark-cleats, till it swelled steady above the main-stay, and the old ship sprang forward faster than before, with a wild wash of the Atlantic past her sides. "Another hand to the wheel, here!" said the first officer. He took a look aloft, leaning to the rise of her bows, then to windward as she rolled; everything looked trim and weatherly, so he stepped to the binnacle, where the lamp was ready lighted, and it just struck me what a smart, good-looking fellow the mate was, with his sun-burnt face; and when he went to work, straight-forward, no notion of showing off. "Confound it, though!" thought I of a sudden, seeing her eyes fixed on him again, and then to seaward. "Mr Macleod," said he to the second mate, "send below the watch, if you please. This breeze is first-rate, though!" When he turned round, he noticed Miss Hyde, started, and took off his cap with a fine bow. "I beg pardon, ma'am," said he, "a trifle of wind we have! I hope, Miss Hyde, it hasn't troubled you in the round-house?" What Miss Hyde might have said I don't know, but her shawl caught a gust out of the spanker, though she was in the lee of the high poop; it blew over her head, and then loose—I sprang forward—but the mate had hold of it, and put it over her again. The young lady smiled politely to the mate, and gave a cold glance of surprise, as I thought, at me. I felt, that moment, I could have knocked the mate down and died happy. "Why, sir," said he, with a cool half sneer, "I fancied none of you gentlemen would have favoured us this capful of wind—plenty of air there is on deck, though." It just flashed through my mind what sort of rig I was in—I looked over my infernal 'long-shore toggery, and no wonder she didn't recollect me at all! "Curse this confounded folly!" muttered I, and made a dart to run up the poop-steps, where the breeze took me slap aback, just as the judge himself opened the larboard door. "Why, Violet!" exclaimed he, surprised at seeing his daughter, "are you exposing yourself to this disagreeable—I declare a perfect storm!" "But see, papa!" said she, taking hold of his arm, "how changed the sea is!—and the ship!—just look where the sun was!" "Get in—get in, do!" kept on her father; "you can see all that again in some finer place; you should have had a servant with you, at least, Violet." "I shall come out oftener than I thought, papa, I can tell you!" said she, in an arch sort of way, before she disappeared. The mate touched his cap to the judge, who asked where the captain was. "'Gad sir," said the judge crossly, "the floor resembles an earthquake—every piece of furniture swings, sir; 'tis well enough for sleeping, but my family find it impossible to dine. If this oolta-poolta continues in my apartments, I must speak to Captain Williamson about it! He must manage to get into some other part of the sea, where it is less rough," saying which he swayed himself in and shut the door. I still kept thinking and picturing her face—Lota Hyde's—when she noticed the mate. After all, any one that knew tack from bowline might reef topsails in a fair wind; but a girl like that would make more count of a man knowing how to manage wind and sea, than of the Duke on his horse at Waterloo beating Bonaparte; and as for talk, he would jaw away the whole voyage, no doubt, about moonlight and the ocean, and your genteel fancy mariners! "By George, though!" thought I, "if the mate's a better man than me, hang me—it's all right; but burn my wig if I don't go and turn a Hindoo fakeer, with my one arm stuck up in the air till I die! Go it, old lady!" said I, as I glanced over the side before going below for the night, "roll away, only shake something or other to do out of the pace you're going at!"

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's 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, any how!" "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 bloody 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 commin sailors for to pay more contention alongside o' my legs, Captin Willumsen!' Why, do the old beggar not think as a feller ben't a man as well as hisself, with his commin sailors, an' be blowed to him!" "Well though, Harry, old ship," said Tom, "an'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. Now, 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 o' the naboob's cabin, and speaking with the mate by the compass,—blessed if they an't agoin' 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 grummet; couldn't bring the wind more aft; b—t 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 top-gallant 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 here 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, its 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 bloody 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 quarterdeck as grave and comfortable as if it was all right. The captain was with him, and two mates to leeward. "Sail O!" hailed a man on the foreyard. "Where away?" sung 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 backstay. 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 down stairs 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 Turk-head 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 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 gray bank to leeward, and the strange sail plain abeam of us—a large ship steering seemingly more off the wind than the Seringapatam, with top-gallant-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 canvass, 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 stunsail, heading our course, till he was one body of white cloth on the horizon. For a while 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 stunsail. "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 yardarm 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 mizen-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 canvass 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 zig-zag 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 at 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 looks 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 of 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-canvass, cut narrow towards the head—bamboo stunsail 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 quarterdeck, 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 quarterdeck ports let in so many squares of shifting blue light, with a draught of air into the hot carronade muzzles, that seemed 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 canvass 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 deuced sigh more satisfaction in good dark blue, with a spray over the cat-head 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 a while, 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 all 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 devilish 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 bye, is 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.

Next evening, when the cuddy dinner was scarce over, I went up to the poop, where there was no one to be seen; the sun just setting on our starboard-quarter in a golden blaze that stretched overhead, with flakes of it melting, as 'twere, all over the sky to port, and dropping in it like threads of oil in water; the ship with a light breeze aft, and stunsails packed large upon her, running almost due for the Line. The waves to westward were like liquid light, and the eddies round our counter came glittering out, the whole spread of her mizen and main canvass shining like gold cloth against the fore: then 'twas but the royals and skysails brighter than ever, as the big round sun dipped down with a red streak or two, and the red waterline, against his hot old face. Every blue surge between had a clear green edge about its crest, the hollows turning themselves inside out from deep purple into bright blue, and outside in again,—and the whole rim of the sea grew out cool and clear away from the ship's taffrail. A pair of sharp-headed dolphins that had kept alongside for the last few minutes, swimming near the surface, turned tail round, the moment I put my nose over the bulwark, and shot off like two streaks of a rainbow after the flying-fish. I was just wondering where Lota Hyde could be, this time, when on a sudden I observed little Tommy poke his curly head out of the booby-hatch, peeping cautiously round; seeing nobody, however, save the man at the wheel, who was looking over his shoulder at the sun, the small rogue made a bolt out of the companion, and scampered aft under the awning to the Judge's starboard door, with nothing on but his nightshirt. There he commenced kicking and shoving with his bare feet and arms, till the door flew open, and over went Tommy on his nose, singing out in fine style. The next thing I heard was a laugh like the sound of a silver bell; and just as the boy's sister ran up in a fright lest he had gone overboard, Violet Hyde came out leading the little chap wrapped in a long shawl that trailed astern of him, herself with a straw bonnet barely thrown upon her head. "Tommy says you put him to bed too soon, Jane!" said she smiling. "Iss!" said Master Thomas, stoutly, "go 'way, Dzane!" "You hadn't bid me good-night—wasn't that it, Tom? But oh! what a sea!" exclaimed she, catching sight of it under the awning. The little fellow wanted to see it too, so the young lady lifted him up in her arms, no small weight I daresay, and they both looked over the bulwark: the whole sky far out of the awning to westward being spotted with orange scales, turning almost scarlet, faster than the dusk from both ends could close in; the clear greenish tint of it above the openings of the canvass, going up into fathomless blue overhead, the horizon purple, and one or two still, black clouds tipped with vermilion against the far sky—while the Indiaman stole along, scarce plashing under her bends. Every now and then you heard a whizz and a flutter, as the flying-fish broke out of a bigger surge, sometimes just missing the ship's side: at last two or three fell over the mizen chains, and pop came one all of a sudden right into the white breast of Miss Hyde's dress inside her scarf, where only the wings kept it from disappearing. She started, Jane screamed, but the little boy coolly pulled it out, commencing to overhaul it in great delight. "Oh fat a funny ickoo bird!" shouted he, "it's fell down out of 'ese t'ees!" looking aloft. "No, no," said Miss Hyde, laughing, as she drew her shoulders together with a shiver, "birds' noses don't drop water! 'Twill die if you don't put it in again, Tommy—'tis a fish!" "A fish!" said he, opening his eyes wider, and smacking his lips, "yes, Tommy eat it for my beckfust!" However the young lady took it out of his hand and dropped it overboard; on which the small ogre went off rather discontented, and kissed her more as a favour than otherwise. It was almost dark already, the water shining up in the ship's wake, and the stars coming out aloft; so I was left wondering at the impudence of flying-fish, and the blessings of being a fat little imp in a frock and trousers, compared with this puzzle of a "traverse," betwixt being a third lieutenant and hailing for a "griffin."

The night following, after a sultry hot day, the wind had varied a good deal, and the ship was running almost close-hauled on a warm south-easterly breeze, with somewhat of a swell in the water. Early in the first watch there was a heavy shower, after which I went on deck, leaving Westwood at his book. The half-moon was just getting down to leeward, clear of a ragged dark cloud, and a long space of faint white light spread away on the horizon, behind the sheets of the sails hauled aft; so that you just saw a sort of a glimmer under them, on the black heave of the swell between. Every time she rolled to leeward on it, a gleam of the moonshine slipped inside the shadow of her high bulwarks, from one wet carronade to another, and went glistening over the moist decks, and among the boats and booms, that looked like some big brute or other lying stretched out on his paws, till you saw the men's faces on the forecastle as if they were so many mutineers skulking in the dark before they rushed aft: then up she righted again, and all was dark inboard. The awnings were off, and the gruff third mate creaking slowly to and fro in his soaked shoes; the Judge stood talking with the captain before one of the round-house doors; directly after I noticed a young lady's figure in a white dress close by the mizen-rigging, apparently intent on the sea to leeward. "Well, now or never!" thought I, stepping over in the shadow of the main-sheet. I heard her draw a long breath: and then, without turning her head at the sound of my foot, "I wonder if there is anything so strange in India," exclaimed she; "is there now?" "No, by——, no, madam!" said I, starting, and watching as the huge cloud grew darker, with a rusty stain in it, while three or four broad-backed swells, one beyond the other, rose up black against the setting moon, as if they'd plunge right into her. Miss Hyde turned round, with one hand on the bulwark to steady herself, and half looked at me. "I thought—" said she; "where is papa?—I thought my father—" I begged pardon for intruding, but next minute she appeared to have forgotten it, and said, in a musing sort of way, partly to herself, partly to me—"I seem to remember it all—as if I just saw that black wave—and—that monstrous cloud—over again! Oh! really that is the very same top it had then—see!" "Yes," said I, leaning forward, with a notion I had seen it before, though heaven knew when. "Did you ever read about Columbus and Vasco da Gama?" asked she, though directly afterwards her features broke into a laughing smile as she caught sight of mine—at the thought, I suppose, of my ridiculous figure the last time she saw me. "No, never," said I; "but look to windward, ma'am; 'tis coming on a squall again. For heaven's sake, Miss Hyde, go in! We're to have another shower, and that pretty thick. I wonder the mate don't stow the royals." "What do you mean?" said she, turning. "Why are you alarmed, sir? I see nothing particular." The sea was coming over, in a smooth, round-backed swell, out of a dirty, thick jumble of a sky, with a pitchblack line behind—what Ford would have called "wild" by daylight; but the young lady's eye naturally saw no more in it than a dark night. Here the Judge came over from the binnacle, giving me a nod, as much as to say he recollected me. "I am afraid, sir," said I, "if you don't make haste, you'll get wet." "How!" said Sir Charles, "'tis an exceedingly pleasant night, I think, after such a deuced hot day. They don't know how to cool rooms here—this perpetual wood retains heat till midnight, sir! That detestable pitch precludes walking—the sea absolutely glares like tin. Why do you suppose so now—eh, young gentleman?" said he again, turning back, all of a sudden, with his daughter on his arm. "Why—why—why, Sir Charles," said I, hesitating betwixt sham innocence and scarce knowing what reason to give; "why, I just think—that is to say, it's my feeling, you see." "Ah, ah, I do see," replied the Judge, good-humouredly; "but you shouldn't ape the sailor, my good fellow, as I fancy you do a little. I don't particularly admire the class, but they always have grounds for what they say in their profession, frequently even acute. At your aunt's, Lady Somers's, now, Violet, who was naturally so surrounded by naval officers, what I had to object to was, not their want of intelligence, but their forwardness. Eh! eh! who—what is that?" exclaimed he suddenly, looking straight up into the dark, as five or six large drops fell on his face out of it. All at once you heard a long sigh, as it were, in the canvass aloft, a clap like two or three carronades fired off, as all the sails together went in to the masts—then a hum in the air far and near—and whish! rush! came the rain in sheets and bucketfuls off the edge of a cloud over our very heads, plashing and washing about the deck with coils of rope; ship rolling without a breath of wind in her sails; sails flapping out and in; the rain pouring down ten times faster than the scupper-holes would let it out, and smoking gray in the dark hollow of the swells, that sank under the force of it. The first officer came on deck, roaring in the hubbub to clue up and furl the royals before the wind came again. It got pitch-dark, you couldn't see your hand before you, and we had all lost mark of each other, as the men came shoving in between us. However I knew whereabouts Miss Hyde was, so I felt along the larboard rigging till I found a backstay clasped in her hands, and the soaked sleeve of her muslin dress, while she leant back on a carronade, to keep from being jerked down in the water that washed up over her feet with every roll, full of ropes and a capstan-bar or two. Without saying a word, I took up Lota in my arms, and carried her aft in spite of the roll and confusion, steering for the glimmer of the binnacle, till I got her inside one of their own cabins, where there was a lamp swinging about, and laid her on a sofa. I felt somehow or other, as I went, that the sweet creature hadn't fainted, though all the while as still as death; accordingly I made off again at once to find the Judge, who, no doubt, was calling for his daughter, with a poor chance of being heard. In a minute or two more the rain was over; it was light enough to make out the horizon, as the belt of foam came broadening out of it; the ship gave two or three wild bounds, the wheel jolting and creaking: up swelled the black waves again over one side, the topsails flapped full as the squall rushed roaring into them, and away she rose; then tore into it like a scared horse, shaking her head and throwing the snow-white foam into her forechains. 'Twas as much as three men could do to grind down her wheel, leaning and grinning to it; you saw just the Indiaman herself, scarce so far forward as the booms, and the broad swell mounting with her out of the dark, as she slowly squared yards before it, taking in to'gallant-sails while she did so, with her topsail-yards lowered on the caps. However, the look of it was worse than its force, else the swell wouldn't have risen so fast, as every sailor knew; and by two bells of the mid-watch she was bowling under all, as easy as before, the mate of the watch setting a stunsail.

When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, reading Don Quixote in Spanish. "Bless me, Ned!" said he, "you seem to like it! paying fair and weathering it too!" "Only a little adventure, Westwood!" said I, laughing. "Why, here have I been enjoying better adventures than we seem likely to have," said he, "without stirring a hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here's Don Quixote—" "Don Quixote be hanged!" said I: "I'd rather wear ship in a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened—out of an infernal play-book. What's the use of thinking you see service, when you don't? After all, you couldn't expect much till we've crossed the Line—nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot, Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!" "Well, we'll see," said Westwood, lazily, and half asleep.

The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient, by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and, before crossing it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang, besides. Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite of his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies—so he got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood Scot-free; but, for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind the studding-sail curtain into three feet of water, where I absolutely saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog.

Late at night, the breeze held and freshened; and, being Saturday night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their troubles, drinking and singing songs, Tom Little's and your sentimental affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through the water; so "hang it!" thought I, "somehow or other I'll have out a stave of 'Black-eyed Susan' at the top of my pipe, though overboard I go for it!" There was an old spare topsail-yard slung alongside to larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend, the fat midshipman, was in the boat itself, "caulking"[9] his watch out, as he did every night in a fresh place. I was no sooner there, again, than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in my head if I sung there, why, in place of being afraid there was some one under her casement, that and the wind and water together would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night—in fact I may say I was a little "slewed"[10] at the time. How to get there, though, was the matter, it being rather nice practice to sling over an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter: accordingly, first I took the end of a coil round the mizen-shrouds, and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising away with a light at his masthead back to the Line. 'Twas curious—but when I was "two or three cloths in the wind," far from growing stupid, I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and cheat a purser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet, slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got, how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his baby. All at once, I felt the rope was giving off the belaying-pin, till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash of the waves, the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace: now and then there came a sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell out of the dark for miles. I fancied I didn't care for the water, but I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into such an infernally flame-looking stream: I was actually in a fright at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul myself up; when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute, and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to make known. "Ford!" said he. "Ay," said Ford, feeling to haul off his trousers,—"ay—avast you—blub-lub-lubber!" "I say, Ford!" said the cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marlinspike, and then fell to cry—Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp out, carefully enough; but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw a spark catch in the stuff—and there it was, swinging slowly away in the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers, ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew Winterton kept powder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. "Confound it!" I thought, quite cooled by the sight, "the sooner I get on deck the better!" However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys, so I held on till they'd go forward again: suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know "what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail-clueline here?" Down I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to save myself by a clutch of the portsill at arm's-length—where, heaven knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the moulding—"Man overboard!" shouted he, and the men after him: however I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat, where I clung like a cat. How to get on deck again, without being seen, was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning train inside; when out jumped some one over my head: I heard a splash in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits. I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming up was the ships' lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after, the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round to the wind, and we were very shortly aboard again. "Confound it, Simm, what took you overboard, man?" asked the mid in the boat at his dripping messmate, the fat reefer. "Oh, bother!" said he, "if you must know—why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas the other I was in, when you kicked up that shindy! Now I remember, though, there was too much rain in it for comfort!" "Well, youngster," said Tom, the man-o'-war'sman, "this here gentleman saved your life, anyhow!" "Why, mate," whispered Bill, "'tis the wery same greenhorn we puckalowed so to-day! Didn't he jump sharp over, too?" "Pull! for your lives, my lads!" said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing-up he got; the men swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the Judge's cabins; especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside.