"Mr. Hampton taken suddenly ill, sir," replied Mr. Bitts with a gratified grin. "Strang, see what is the matter." The young Scots doctor went amidships, and returned laughing, to report that which was really the case, "Young Hampton as screwed as an owl!" "The deuce he is!" exclaimed the Captain with great annoyance; "how came this to pass?" "The grog as Mr. Bitts gave him has been too strong for him, sir," said Joe Grummet, who took in the whole situation and resented it accordingly; "riglar thumb-grog it must have been, to my mind." Bitts furtively darted a vicious glance at the boatswain, who received it with perfect equanimity. "What can that boy know about grog?" said the Captain angrily. "How to get jolly drunk on it apparently," replied the unabashed Paul Bitts; "he is rather a greenhorn yet." "Shame on you, sir! this is your fault, not his; and mark me, if it ever happens again, it will be the worse for you and your certificate!" With this threat, the Captain turned and walked aft. It may be safely recorded that this never happened again, and Derval, full of shame for the occurrence, did all in his power, by proper and zealous behaviour, to wipe off the stain, for such he deemed it, brought upon him by the malevolence of the third mate. On the watch by night, under skies where new constellations--new to his eyes at least--were studding heaven, he always felt to the full the awful impressiveness, the utter silence of the sea! Then his thoughts fled home--to that which had latterly been no home to him--and again, in fancy, he saw the lovely dell of Finglecombe, the bay glittering in the sunny distance, the grim rocky portal of the Horses' Hole, the Pixies Parlour, the stately ruins of Oakhampton, the lone waste of Wistmanswood, the cob-cottages, and the old haunted mill at the Mill brook, with its silent and mossy wheel. What a vast time seemed to have elapsed since he left all these behind him! One day, when the _Amethyst_ was near the tropic of Cancer, and ploughing the Sargasso Sea, about daybreak, Tom Tyeblock, the second mate, who had the morning watch, reported a sail, with a signal flying on the lee-bow, so the _Amethyst_ was edged down towards her. She was a large brig, with her sails in considerable disorder. The peak halyards of the spanker gaff had given way, and the sail lay flapping against the mainmast; her spars were topped about in various ways; the maintopsail was full, but the foretopsail lay in the wind; not a soul was to be seen on board, and yet she had signals flying, that said, "Can you send a boat on board?" When near her, the _Amethyst_ lay to, and Captain Talbot ordered Mr. Bitts to take a brace of revolvers with him and go off to the stranger, with Derval and six men, who hazarded all manner of conjectures as to the vessel.