Ned,” answered he, flushing a little, “only there’s a few words in it I’d like you to see—don’t look at it just now, but tell me afterwards what you think—you ought to see it, as the matter seems to depend on you, Ned; and if _you_ object, you may be sure, so far as I’m concerned, ’tis all over!” Somehow or other, the look of the little folded piece of paper, with the touch and the scent of it, as Westwood slipped it into my hand, made it stick to me. I caught one glance of the address on the back, written as if fairy fingers had done it, and I suppose I slipped it into my coat as I went out of the berth, meaning to go aloft in the foretop and sicken over the thought at my leisure, of Violet Hyde’s having ever favoured another man so far, and that man Tom Westwood. The strangeness of the whole affair, as I took it, never once struck me; all that I minded was the wretched feeling I had in me, as I wished I could put the Atlantic betwixt me and them all; in fact a hundred things before we sailed, and during the passage, seemed all at once to agree with what I’d just heard; and I’d have given thousands that moment it had been some one else than Westwood, just that I might wait the voyage out coolly, for the satisfaction of meeting him at twelve paces the first morning ashore. On the larboard side of the berth-gangway, opposite our door, I saw the old planter’s standing half open, and Mr Rollock himself with his shirt and trousers on, taking in his boots. “Hallo, Collins, my boy,” he sang out eagerly, “come here a moment, I’ve got something to show you!” “Look,” said he, standing on tiptoe to see better through the half-port, “there’s something new been put in my picture-frame here overnight, I think—ha! ha!” The first thing that caught my eye, accordingly, was the gleam of a sail rising from over the swell to windward, far away off our larboard quarter; seemingly rolling before the south-easter; while the Indiaman hove her big side steadily out of water, with her head across the other’s course, and gave us a sight of the strange sail swinging to the fair wind, every time we rose on the surge. “What is it, eh?” said the planter turning to me, “back or face, Collins? for, bless me, if I can distinguish tub from bucket, with all this bobbing about—great deal of capital indigo wasted hereabouts, my dear fellow!” “Why, you may make out the two breasts of her royals,” said I—“a brig, I think, sir.” “Not that abominable schooner in her first shape again, I hope!” exclaimed he, “perhaps bringing back the Yankee.” “Too square-shouldered for that, Mr Rollock,” I said; “in fact she seems to be signalling us; yes, by Jove! there’s the long pennant at her fore-royal mast-head—she’s a brig of war. They’re surely asleep, on deck, and we shall have a shot directly, if they don’t look sharp!” “You’d better say nothing about the Yankee’s absence, Collins,” put in the planter, “till we’re fairly away.