throw out the round of the staysail and jib as though the clear lens of a bull’s-eye lamp had glanced upon the canvas. This greenish, baffling twinkling, this fading and flickering of flames over the side thickened the obscurity to the sight within the rails. Somehow, too, the mystic illumination seemed to deepen the stillness that lay upon the deep, spite of the welter and the breeze that had weight enough to lift a streak of foam here and there. It might be that the sight of those fires made one think of the crackling and noise of flame, so that the very dumbness of the burning lay like a hush upon the darkling surface with nothing aboard us to vex it, for our canvas swelled silent as if carved in mother-of-pearl, and not so much as the chafe of a rope or the stir of a sheave in its block fell from above to trouble the ear. I spied a figure standing a foot or two before the main rigging, leaning over the side. Not knowing whether Finn or Crimp had the watch, and supposing this man to be one of them, I approached close and peered. ‘Is that you, captain?’ said I, for the shadow of the rigging was upon him to darken him yet. ‘No sir, it’s me, Mr. Monson. Muffin, sir.’ He had no need to mention his name, for his greasy, most remarkable voice, along with its indescribable tone of insincere habitual obsequiousness would have proclaimed him Muffin had he spoken as one of a crowd out of the bottom of a coal mine. ‘Feel sick?’ said I. ‘No, I am obliged to you, sir,’ he answered with a simper in his tone. ‘I am taking the liberty of breathing the hair just a little, sir.’ ‘I suppose you’ll not be sorry to get home again, Muffin?’ ‘Indeed, sir,’ he exclaimed, ‘I shall be most humbly thankful, I assure you.’ ‘You’re an Englishman, aren’t you?’ ‘Oh dear yes, quite English, sir. Born at ’ammersmith, sir.’ ‘Then you ought to be very fond of the sea.’ ‘I should be more partial to it, sir, I believe,’ said he, ‘if it was a river. I have a natural aversion to the hocean, sir. I can swim and I can row. I’ve pulled on the Serpentine, sir, and four years ago I made a voyage to the Continong as far as Cally, and found the water very hentertaining. But there’s so much hocean here, sir, that it’s alarming to think of. On a river, Mr. Monson, sir, one can never seem distant, but here--why, sir, if my mother’s ’ouse was in one of them stars, it couldn’t seem further off, and every day I suppose’ll make the distance greater.’ ‘That you must expect,’ said I, turning with a notion of seeking Finn or Crimp. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘but could you tell me what them fires are that’s burning in the water?’ ‘Phosphorus,’ said I. ‘Phosphorus?’ he ejaculated as though startled, ‘hoh, indeed sir! And might I wenture to ask why it is that the water don’t put it out?’ ‘There are more kinds of fire than one,’ said I, laughing, and not much relishing the prostrative nature of the fellow’s respectfulness I walked aft.