“He is almost a native of the seas; for more than thirty years has he passed his time on them.”

“There, Harry Ark, he has done you handsomely.  Now, I have his own assertion for it, that he will not be three-and-twenty until to-morrow.”

“On my word, he has deceived you, sir.”

“I don’t know, Mr Ark; that is a task much easier attempted than performed.  Threescore and four years add as much weight to a man’s head as to his heels!  I may have undervalued the skill of the younker but, as to his years, there can be no great mistake.  But where the devil is the fellow steering to?  Has he need of a pinafore from his lady mother to come on board of a man-of-war for his dinner?”

“See! he is indeed standing from us!” exclaimed Wilder, with a rapidity and delight that would have excited the suspicions of one more observant than his Commander.

“If I know the stern from the bows of a ship, what you say is truth,” returned the other, with some austerity.  “Hark ye, Mr Ark, I’ve a mind to furnish the coxcomb a lesson in respect for his superiors and give him a row to whet his appetite.  By the Lord, I will; and he may write home an account of this manoeuvre, too, in his next despatches.  Fill away the after-yards, sir; fill away.  Since this honourable youth is disposed to amuse himself with a sailing-match, he can take no offence that others are in the same humour.”

The lieutenant of the watch, to whom the order was addressed, complied; and, in another minute, the “Dart” was also beginning to move a-head, though in a direction directly opposite to that taken by the “Dolphin.”  The old man highly enjoyed his own decision, manifesting his self-satisfaction by the infinite glee and deep chuckling of his manner.  He was too much occupied with the step he had just taken, to revert immediately to the subject that had so recently been uppermost in his mind; nor did the thought of pursuing the discourse occur to him, until the two ships had left a broad field of water between them, as each moved, with ease and steadiness, on its proper course.

“Let him note that in his log-book, Mr Ark,” the irritable old seaman then resumed, returning to the spot which Wilder had not left during the intervening time.  “Though my cook has no great relish for a frog, they who would taste of his skill must seek him.  By the Lord, boy, he will have a pull of it, if he undertake to come-to on that tack.—­But how happens it that you got into his ship?  All that part of the cruise remains untold.”

“I have been wrecked, sir, since you received my last letter.”

“What! has Davy Jones got possession of the red gentleman at last?”

“The misfortune occurred in a ship from Bristol, aboard which I was placed as a sort of prize-master.—­He certainly continues to stand slowly to the northward!”

“Let the young coxcomb go! he will have all the better appetite for his supper.  And so you were picked up by his Majesty’s ship the ‘Antelope.’  Ay, I see into the whole affair.  You have only to give an old sea-dog his course and compass, and he will find his way to port in the darkest night.  But how happened it that this Mr Howard affected to be ignorant of your name, sir, when he saw it on the list of my officers?”