"Ah! I remember, ma'am," said the naval man, laughing; "the bottle--that was where I was. Well, as you may conceive, this said scrap of penmanship in the bottle _did_ take both of us rather on end; and for two or three minutes Westwood and I sat staring at each other and the uncouth-looking fist, in an inquiring sort of way, like two cocks over a beetle. Westwood, for his part, was doubtful of its being the planter's writing at all; but the whole thing, when I thought of it, made itself as clear to me, so far, as two half-hitches, and so the angrier I was at myself for being _done_--by a frog-eating bloody-politeful set of Frenchmen like these. Could we only have clapped eyes on the villanous thieving craft at the time, by Jove! if I wouldn't have manned a boat from the Indiaman, leave or no leave, and boarded her in another fashion. But where they were now, what they meant, and whether we should ever see them again, Heaven only knew. For all we could say, indeed, something strange might have turned up at home in Europe--a new war, old Boney got loose once more, or what not; and I could scarce fall asleep for guessing and bothering over the matter, as restless as the first night we cruised down the Channel in the old _Pandora_. "Early in the morning-watch a sudden stir of the men on deck woke me, and I bundled up in five minutes' time. But it was only the second mate setting them to wash decks, and out they came from all quarters, yawning, stretching themselves, and tucking up their trousers, as they passed the full buckets lazily along; while a couple of boys could be seen hard at work to keep the head-pump going, up against the grey sky over the bow. However, I was so anxious to have the first look-out ahead, that I made a bold push through the thick of it for the bowsprit, where I went out till I could see nothing astern of me but the Indiaman's big black bows and figure-head, swinging as it were round the spar I sat upon, with the spread of her canvas coming dim after me out of the fog, and a lazy snatch of foam lifting to her cutwater as the breeze died away.