Westwood and I had been keeping a log, and calculated just now we were somewhere to south-eastward of Ascension; whereas, by the captain and mate's reckoning, she was much farther to west. "I never thought the sea could appear so awful," said she, as if to herself--"much more than in a storm." "Why, madam," said I, "you haven't exactly seen one this voyage--one needs to be close-hauled off the Cape for that." Somehow or other, in speaking to _her_, by this time I forgot entirely about keeping up the sham cadet, and slipped into my own way again; so all at once I _felt_ her two dark-blue eyes looking at me, curiously. "How!--why," exclaimed she suddenly, and then laughing, "you seem to know all about it!--why, you speak--have you been studying sea affairs so thoroughly, sir, with your friend, who--but I _do_ think, now, one can scarcely _trust_ to what you have said?" "Well--why--well," said I, fiddling with the shark-hook, "I don't know how it is, but I feel as if I must have been at sea some time or other before;--you wouldn't suppose it, ma'am, but whenever I fix my eyes on a particular rope, I seem almost to know the name of it!" "And its _use_, too?" asked she, merrily. "I shouldn't wonder!" said I; "perhaps I was _born_ at sea, you know, ma'am?" and I gave a side-look to notice how she took it. "Ah! perhaps!" said Miss Hyde, laughing; "but do you know one sometimes fancies these things; and now I think of it, sir, I even imagined for a moment I had seen _yourself_ before!" "Oh," said I, "that couldn't be the case; I'm sure, for my part, I should recollect clear enough if I'd seen--a--a _lady_ anywhere! I think you said something of the kind, ma'am, that night of the last squall--about the water and the clouds, ma'am, you remember?" The young lady looked away, though a notion seemed to flash through her mind. "Yes," said she, "that terrible rain--_you_ were----" "Washed into the lee-scuppers," said I, indifferently, for I didn't want her to suspect it was _I_ that had kissed her hand in the dark as I carried her in. "I hope Sir Charles and yourself got in safe, madam?" However, she was watching the water alongside, and suddenly she exclaimed--"Dear! what a pretty little fish!" "By heavens!" said I, seeing the creature with its sharp nose and blue bars, as it glanced about near the surface, and then swam in below the ship's bilge again, "that's one of the old villain's pilots--he's lying right across our keel! I wish I could catch that shark!" The pork was of no use for such an old sea-lawyer, and I cast a wistful eye on the Irishwoman's fat pug-dog stretched asleep on her shawl by the bulwark; she was far gone in the family way, and, thought I, "he'd take _that_ in a trice!" I even laid out some marline from a stern-locker, and noticed how neatly one could pass the hook under her belly round to the tail, and seize her so snugly on, muzzled and all; but it was no go, with the devil to pay afterwards. All of a