Everyone then, on the contrary, brightened up and kept to his station; while even the old quartermaster and helmsman drawing themselves up at "attention" as soon as the Honourable Digby Lanyard's long, telescopic form appeared on the poop, just as if he were the commander, or Captain Farmer himself. The Honourable was not long inactive, for the sun was already beginning to sink below the western horizon, lighting up Saint Alban's Head, abreast of which we were now speeding along, with a bright glare that displayed every detail of its steep escarpment and the rocky foreshore at its base; the glorious orb of day presently disappearing beneath the ocean, leaving a track of radiance behind him across the watery waste and flooding the heavens overhead with a harmony of vivid colouring in which every tint of the rainbow was represented--crimson and purple and gold, melting into rose, that paled again into the most delicate sea-- green and finally became merged in the more neutral tones of night! "Looks like a change coming, I think," observed Mr Quadrant, the master, glancing at the sunset more with the eye of a meteorologist than that of an artist. "Those northerly winds never last long in the Channel, especially at this time of year." "The evening's closing in, too," said the "first luff," screwing his eyeglass more tightly into the corner of his eye and bending his lanky body over the poop-rail to see if everything was all right on the deck below, after taking a hurried squint aloft. "I shall shorten sail at once. Bosun's mate!" You should have heard him roar out this hail. Why, it made me jump off my feet as if a cannon had been fired, with a full charge, close to my head! "Ay, ay, sir," replied the boatswain's mate, coming under the break of the poop, so as to be nearer at hand; but there was certainly no necessity for his approaching in order to hear better, for the lieutenant's voice would have been audible a mile off, "I'm here, sir." "Pipe the watch to shorten sail!" "Ay, ay, sir." There was no need, though, of pipe or shout from the worthy petty officer addressed, notwithstanding that the lusty seaman could have piped and shouted with the best, should duty demand it of him; for, the lieutenant's order had already reached the ears of every man of the watch, and all were at their several stations, ready for the next command. This was not long-delayed.