Early next morning there were plenty of wherries looking out for fares; so, as the Indiaman was not to sail before the night-ebb, when the breeze would probably spring up fair again, I hailed one of them to go ashore at the Point, for a quiet stroll over Southsea Common, where I meant to overhaul the whole bearings of the case, and think if it weren't better to go home, and wait the Admiralty's pleasure for a ship. I hadn't even seen anything of Jacobs, and the whole hotel-keeping ways of the Indiaman began to disgust me, or else I should have at once decided to take the chance of seeing Lota Hyde somehow or other in India; but, again, one could scarcely endure the notion of droning on in a frigate without so much as a Brest lugger to let drive at. It was about six o'clock; the morning gun from the guard-ship off the Dockyard came booming down through the harbour, the blue offing shone like silver, and the green tideway sparkled on every surge, up to where they were flashing and poppling on the copper of the frigates at Spithead. I noticed them crossing yards and squaring; the farthest out hove up anchor, loosed fore-topsail, cast her head to starboard, and fired a gun as she stood slowly out to sea under all sail, with a light air freshening abeam. The noble look of her almost reconciled me of itself to the service, were it for the mere sake of having a share in driving such a craft between wind and water. Just then, however, an incident turned up in spite of me, which I certainly didn't expect, and which had more, even than I reckoned at the time, to do with my other adventure; seeing that it made me, both then and afterwards, do the direct opposite of what I meant to do, and both times put a new spoke in my wheel, as we say at sea here.