convinced already, this same Jack Jones hadn't been sent out a cabin boy; there was not only a touch of high blood in him at bottom, but I'd have sworn he had been some time or other in the place of a gentleman, afloat or ashore, though plainly now "going to the devil." Meanwhile the breaking look of the clouds away on our larboard bow showed it wasn't far off dawn; so, sending another hand to the wheel, and finding a snug spot under a stern-grating for a snooze on deck, I told Jones to begin with taking charge of the deck for me. "One thing, sir," said he, touching his hat again, as I lay down, "I've only shipped for the outward voyage, and leave at the first port."--"Why, what the deuce!" said I, lifting my head; "what do you mean to do there, eh?" "I--I want to go ashore," answered he, eagerly; "ay, if we're years on the cruise, so much the better, sir,--but so soon as she drops anchor off Calcutta, I'm my own master?"--"Have your own way, then," said I; "at any rate I'll try you in the meantime,--so Mister Jones, let's see how you mind the schooner till eight bells!" Whereupon I turned myself over to sleep, and it was as broad daylight as we had any likelihood of about the Cape, when I woke. It still blew a stiff breeze, but the waves rose with a length and a breadth in them you find in no other sea; deep-blue sparkling hills of water, with green gleams about the crests, of which every single wave had a hundred or so; and a long seething, simmering, glassy hollow of a still valley between, where the flecks of foam slid away glittering out of the shadow. But, Lord! it was glorious to feel the schooner rising quietly in the trough, with the mount of a wave, to the very ridge of it; then with a creak of all her timbers and bulk-heads below, a slight shake to windward, and a yerk at her bows, lean over to leeward again and go hissing through the breast of a huge sea, till you thought she'd go down into it; while there she was, however, lifting head up, with a swift flash of her cutwater, on the cross half wave that joined every first and third one--"billow" and "sea," as you may say. The breeze having drawn more easterly toward morning, Jones had braced her more upon a wind, with reefed main and foresails, and fore-staysail set, which brought out the Aniceta's weatherly qualities to a marvel; as notwithstanding almost a head-wind and a swelling sea, she went nearly as fast as the frigate would have done before the breeze, and not a sign of the land was to be seen from her crosstrees.