He went forward, to rest his arms on the bulwark and look out to sea. The sight was not tempting. The mouth of the Mersey is not attractive on a misty day, and the nearest land aft showed like a low-down dirty cloud. Away on the horizon there was a long thick trail of smoke being left behind by some outward-bound steamer, and running his eyes along the horizon he caught sight of another being emitted from one of two huge funnels which were all that was visible of some great Atlantic steamer making for the busy port. Nearer in there were two more vessels, one that he made out to be a brig, and that was all. "Ugh!" ejaculated the boy. "I wish--I wish--What's the use of wishing? One never gets what one wants. Whatever are we going to do to-night? It must mean smuggling. Well, there will be something in that. Going aboard some small boat and looking at the skipper's papers, and if they are not right putting somebody on board and bringing her into port. But there won't be any excitement like one reads about in books. It's a precious dull life coming to sea." Fitz Burnett sighed and waited, for the evening was closing in fast, and then he began to brighten in the expectation of the something fresh that was to take place that night. But knowing that it might be hours before they started, he waited--and waited--and waited. There is an old French proverb which says, _Tout vient a point a qui sait attendre_, and this may be roughly interpreted, "Everything comes to the man who waits." Let's suppose that it comes to the boy. CHAPTER TWO. BRAVO, BOY! The dim evening gave place to a dark night. The _Tonans_ had for some two or three hours been stealing along very slowly not far from land, and that something important was on the way was evident from the captain's movements, and the sharp look-out that was being kept up, and still more so from the fact that no lights were shown. The gunboat's cutter had been swung out ready for lowering down at a moment's notice, the armed crew stood waiting, and one man was in the stern-sheets whose duty it was to look after the lantern, which was kept carefully shaded. Fitz, who was the readiest of the ready, had long before noted with intense interest the fact that they showed no lights, and his interest increased when the lieutenant became so far communicative that he stood gazing out through the darkness side by side with his junior, and said softly-- "I am afraid we shall miss her, my lad. She'll steal by us in the darkness, and it will all prove to be labour in vain." Fitz waited to hear more, but no more came, for the lieutenant moved off to join the captain. "I wish he wouldn't be so jolly mysterious," said the midshipman to himself. "I am an officer too, and he might have said a little more." But it was all waiting, and no farther intercourse till close upon eight bells, when Fitz, feeling regularly tired out, said to himself--