The port watch were mustered; I heard him explaining; the cock-eyed mate walked sulkily to the forecastle and took up his place between the knight-heads in a sullen posture; his arms folded and his eyes turned up. ‘Away aloft!’ there was a headlong rush of men, the rigging danced to their springs, and in a few moments every yard had its allotted number of look-outs. It was a test not to believe in, for the instant an arm on the topgallant yard was brandished the fellows below would know that something had hove into view, and the dishonest amongst them, calculating upon its appearance in due course, might flourish their fists before their eyes gave them the right to do so. However, Wilfrid looked hugely pleased, and you witnessed the one virtue of the test in _that_. He bet me a sovereign to ten shillings that the man on the port topgallant yard-arm would be the first to lift his hand. I took him, and then naturally found the affair interesting. In the midst of this business Miss Jennings arrived, cosily dressed in a jacket that fitted her shape and a little hat that looked to be made of beaver curled on one side to a sort of cockade where a small black plume rattled to the wind as I caught her hand and conducted her to my chair under the bulwarks. She started when she saw those sailors aloft all apparently staring in one direction with the intentness which the inspiration of five shillings would put into the nautical eye. ‘What is in sight?’ she exclaimed, looking round at Wilfrid with a pale face. ‘Surely--surely----’ I explained, whilst my cousin, rubbing his hands together and breaking into a loud but scarcely mirthful laugh, asked if she did not think it was a magnificent idea. ‘Positively,’ she cried with alarm still bright in her eyes, ‘I believed at first that the “Shark” or some vessel like her was in sight. But, Wilfrid, when a man climbs up there to look-out, will not he have a telescope?’ ‘Yes, by day,’ he answered, ‘and a night-glass when the dark comes.’ ‘Then what good is there in that sort of test?’ she inquired. ‘The shortest-sighted man with a telescope at his eye would be able to see miles farther than the longest-sighted.’ ‘Aye,’ cried my cousin, ‘but a good sight’ll see further through a glass than a feeble one, and I want to find out who have got the good sight amongst those fellows.’