“I should be delighted: but my anxiety will not let me.” With this Dodd retired a few steps, and kept a keen look-out. At noon a lusty voice cried “Land on the weather beam!” All eyes were turned that way and saw nothing. Land in sight was reported to Captain Robarts. Now that worthy was in reality getting secretly anxious: so he ran on deck crying, “Who saw it?” “Captain Dodd, sir.” “Ugh! Nobody else?” Dodd came forward, and, with a respectful air, told him that, being on the look-out, he had seen the coast of the Isle of Wight in a momentary lift of the haze. “Isle of Fiddlestick!” was the polite reply; “Isle of Wight is eighty miles astern by now.” Dodd answered firmly that he was well acquainted with every outline in the Channel, and that the land he had seen was St. Katherine's Point Robarts deigned no reply, but had the log heaved: it showed the vessel to be running twelve knots an hour. He then went to his cabin and consulted his chart; and, having worked his problem, came hastily on deck, and went from rashness to wonderful caution. “Turn the hands out, and heave the ship to!” The manoeuvre was executed gradually and ably, and scarce a bucketful of water shipped. “Furl taupsles and set the main trysail! There, Mr. Dodd, so much for you and your Isle of Wight. The land you saw was Dungeness, and _you_ would have run on into the North Sea, I'll be bound.” When a man, habitually calm, turns anxious, he becomes more irritable; and the mixture of timidity and rashness he saw in Robarts made Dodd very anxious. He replied angrily, “At all events, I should not make a foul wind out of a fair one by heaving to; and if I did, I would heave to on the right tack.” At this sudden facer--one, too, from a patient man--Robarts staggered a moment. He recovered, and with an oath ordered Dodd to go below, or he would have him chucked into the hold. “Come, don't be an ass, Robarts,” said Dodd contemptuously. Then, lowering his voice to a whisper, “Don't you know the men only want such an order as that to chuck you into the sea?” Robarts trembled. “Oh, if you mean to head a mutiny----” “Heaven forbid, sir! But I won't leave the deck in dirty weather like this till the captain knows where he is.” Towards sunset it got clearer, and they drifted past a revenue cutter, who was lying to with her head to the northward. She hoisted no end of signals, but they understood none of them, and her captain gesticulated wildly on her deck. “What is that Fantoccio dancing at?” inquired Captain Robarts brutally. “To see a first-class ship drift to leeward in a narrow sea with a fair wind,” said Dodd bitterly.