set her jib that moment and heave up anchor. In ten minutes I was over the frigate's side, and in ten more Hammond was back in her, with the men who were to leave; while I sent my baggage below, set the hands to work shifting the schooner's berth, and by sun-down we were lying beyond hail of the ship, opposite the custom-house, and a long line of a main street in Cape Town, where we could see the people, the carriages, and the Dutch bullock-carts passing up and down; while Table Mountain hove away up off the steep Devil's Hill and the Lion's Rump, to the long level line a-top, as blue and bare as an iron monument, and throwing a shadow to the right over the peaks near at hand. Our friend from the United States being by this time in quite an oblivious condition, the first thing I did was to have him put quietly into the boat with which Mr Snelling was to go ashore for fresh hands, and I instructed the reefer to get clear of him anyhow he liked, if it was only above tide-mark. When they were gone I walked the schooner's little quarterdeck in the dusk by myself, till the half moon rose with a ghostly copper-like glare over the hollow in the Lion's Rump, streaking across the high face of Table Mountain, and bringing out all its rifts and wrinkles again. The land-breeze began to blow steadily with a long sighing sweep from the north-east, meeting the heavy swell that set into the broad bay; and the schooner, being a light crank little craft, got rather uneasy; whereas you could see the lights of the frigate heaving and settling leisurely, less than half a mile off. I had only six or seven good hands aboard altogether at the time, which, with those the midshipman had, were barely sufficient to work her in such seas; so with all I had to do, with the difficulty of getting men in the circumstances, a long voyage before us, and things that might turn up, as I hoped, to require a touch of the regular service, why the very pleasure of having a command made me a good deal anxious. Even of that I didn't feel sure; and I kept watching Table Mountain, eager for the least bit of haze to come across the top of it, as well as sorry I had sent Snelling ashore. "I'd give a hundred pounds at this moment," thought I, "to have had Bob Jacobs here!"