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