gleamed to the light. For one moment nothing could be plainer, than the glimpse old Davy Jones gave me by one of his tricks; but the old fellow was quite as decorous in his way as a chamberblind, and swallowed his pretty little bit of blab as quickly as if it had been a mermaid caught at her morning toilet. Whenever I found there was to be no more of it for the night, the best thing to calm one's feelings was to light a cigar and walk out the watch; but I took care it should rather be over the nabob's head than his daughter's, and went up to the weather side, where there was nobody else by this time, wishing her the sweetest of dreams, and not doubting I should see her next day. I daresay I should have walked out the first watch, and the second too, if Westwood hadn't come up beside me before he turned in. "Why, you look like the officer of the watch, Ned!" said my friend, after taking a glance, round at the night. "Yes--what?--a--a--I don't think so," stammered I, not knowing what he said, or at least the meaning of it, though certainly it was not so deep. "I hope not though, Tom!" said I again, "'tis the very thing I don't want to look like!" "You seem bent on keeping it up, and coming the innocent, at any rate," said he; "I really didn't know you the first time I saw you in the cuddy." "Why, man, you never saw our theatricals in the dear old Iris, on the African station! I was our best female actor of tragedy there, and _did_ Desdemona so well that the black cook who stood for Othello, actually cried. He said, 'Nobody but 'ee dibble umself go forsmudder missee Dasdemoner!'" "I daresay," said Westwood; "but what is the need for it _now_, even if _you_ could serve as a blind for me?" "My dear fellow!" said I, "not at all--you've kept it up very well so far--just go on." "Keep it up, Ned?" inquired he, "what do you mean? I've done nothing except keep quiet, from mere want of spirits." "So much the better," I said; "I never saw a man look more like a prophet in the wilderness; it doesn't cost you the least trouble--why you'd have done for Hamlet in the Iris, if for nothing else! After all, though, a missionary don't wear blue pilot-cloth trousers, nor tie his neckerchief as you do, Tom. You must bend a white neckcloth to-morrow morning! I'm quite serious, Westwood, I assure you," continued I. "Just think of the suspicious look of two navy men being aboard an _Indiaman_, nobody knows how! Why, the first frigate we speak, or port we touch at, they'd hand one or both of us over at once--which I, for my part, shouldn't at all like!" "Indeed, Collins," said Tom, turning round, "I really cannot understand _why_ you went out in her! It distresses me to think that here you've got yourself into this scrape on my account! At least you'll put back in the first home-bound ship we----"