"Well, Tom," said I to Westwood one day, "I wish these good folks mayn't be disappointed, but I do suspect this blessed mate of ours will turn out to have run us into some fine mess or other with his navigation! Did you notice how _blue_ the sky looked this morning, over to eastward, compared with what it did just now where the sun _set_?" "No," said Westwood, "not particularly; but what of that?" "Why, in the Iris," replied I, "we used always to reckon that a sign, hereabouts, of our being near the _land_! Just you see, now, to-morrow morning, if the dawn hasn't a hazy yellow look in it before the breeze fails; in which case, 'tis the African coast to a certainty! Pity these 'Hyson Mundungo' men, as Jack calls them, shouldn't have their eyes about 'em as well as on the log-slate! I daresay, now," continued I, laughing, "you heard the first mate bothering lately about the great variation of the compass here? Well, what do you suppose was the reason of it--but that sly devil of a kitmagar shoving in his block for grinding curry, under the feet of the binnacle, every time he was done using it! I saw him get a kick one morning from the man at the wheel, who chanced to look down and notice him. Good solid iron it is, though painted and polished like marble, and the circumcised rascal unluckily considered the whole binnacle as a sort of second Mecca for security!" "Hang the fellow!" said Westwood, "but I don't see much to laugh at, Ned. Why, if you're right, we shall all be soaked and fried into African fever before reaching the Cape, and we've had misfortunes enough already! Only think of an exquisite creature like Miss----" "Oh," interrupted I, fancying Master Tom began lately to show sufficient admiration for her, "betwixt an old humdrum, and a conceited fool like that, what could you expect? All I say is, my dear parson, stand by for a pinch when it comes."