Captain Burke amused me in these early days by explaining how he worked out his sights. He gave me a very good idea of the art of navigation; he and his wife shared a pleasant cabin confronting mine. It was a little parlour in its way as well as a bedroom, cheerful with oil paintings of ships, a small collection of china, and other matters all carefully cleated and otherwise secured. Amongst the pictures was a cutting in black paper mounted upon white of myself when a child in my nurse's arms, the lineaments defined by streaks of bronze. Captain Burke told me that his wife valued that little memorial above everything in the cabin, including himself and all that they owned ashore. He showed me his chronometers and explained their use; placed charts before me and talked of the places we were to visit, and promised that I should be able to take sights and work out the latitude and longitude before we returned home. He said this at the dinner table during one of those days of wet, foul weather. 'Miss Otway,' he added, addressing Mr. Owen, 'is just doing what everyone should do who goes a voyage, whether for entertainment or on business; she's taking an intelligent interest in whatever's passing. If everybody who went to sea did that the case of Jack would be understood, and you'd hear no more of young ladies being astonished on discovering that sailors look exactly like men.' 'I never could make head nor tail myself,' said Mrs. Burke, 'of my husband's method of finding out where the ship is.' 'No voyage can ever be dull,' exclaimed Mr. Owen, 'that's sensibly lived into. Yet every voyage is found dull.' 'There's too much water,' said Mrs. Burke, 'and not enough things to look at. But dull days have long legs, Miss Marie. Time soon passes,' said she with a cheery look. 'The top's never spinning so fast as when it is asleep.' 'There's plenty to look at,' said I. 'I don't like weather that keeps you under deck; but it can't be always so.' 'Scarce once in a white moon, and never even _that_ for sailors,' said the captain. 'What,' asked Mr. Owen, 'do you consider the great sights of the sea?' Captain Burke shut his eyes and scratched the back of his head, then looking full at me he said: 'What do you think of a ship in full sail, becalmed in the heat of the fan-shaped reflection of the moon, Miss Otway? Or would you prefer a whale as big as a brig leaping half out of water with a killer at its throat? Or what d'ye say to a quadrille of water-spouts, the white satin shoes on their feet gleaming as they slide, and the black feathers in their hair nodding stately among the clouds brilliant with electric gems.' 'How?' inquired Mr. Owen, smoothing his bald head. 'But at sea the less you find to talk about the better,' exclaimed Captain Burke; 'I'd like my ship's log-book to be as dull as a parson's tale. Trifles on the ocean become serious in a moment; a slight deviation from dulness will start a tragedy. Give us no excitements.'