Well, just after sundown, as the dusk came on, Westwood and I left the deck to go down to supper with the Planter, the midshipman being in charge. There was nothing in sight, sail or land; indeed, the queer dark-brown tint of the horizon showed strongly against the sky, as if it had been the mahogany of the capstan-head inside its brass rim; the night was cloudy, with a light breeze, and though the stars came out, I expected it to get pretty dark. As I went down the companion, I heard nothing but the light wash of the water from her bows, and the look-out stepping slowly about betwixt her knightheads on the forecastle: while it struck me the smooth face of the sea seemed to show wonderfully distinct into the dusk, the completer it got, as if a sort of light rose up from off it. Down below we felt her stealing pleasantly through all, and Tom and I sat for I didn't know how long, trying to settle our differences on the main point--about the Seringapatam, of course, and which way she was likely to be gone. Tom plumed himself mightily on his common-sense view of a thing, and having by this time got back a good deal of his cheerfulness, he and Mr Rollock almost laughed me over to his line of thinking. We agreed that the ship must be at present edging up on one side or other of the Maldives, but both of them thought the less we had to say to her the better. "I say, though," exclaimed the Planter, whose face was turned the opposite way to ours, "I'd no idea it was moonlight!" "Moonlight!--there's no moon till morning," I said. "Look into the stern-cabin there, then!" said Rollock; and I turned round, seeing into the door of the after-cabin, where, to my no small surprise, there was a bright white glare through the little square stern-light, gleaming on the rim of the sill, and seemingly off both the air and the water beyond. Quite confounded, as well as wondering what Snelling could be about, I hurried up the companion, the Planter and Westwood hard at my heels.