"'It wasn't _before_ me, young man?' asked he, looking up of a sudden: 'no, that must have been in India--_must_ have been in England, when I was last there--let me see.' And I couldn't help fancying what a man's feelings must be, tried for his life, as I caught a side-view of his temples working, dead in my wake, as it were. The thing was laughable enough, and for a moment I met Lota's eye as he mentioned England--'twas too short a glimpse, though, to make out; and, thought I, 'he'll be down on Surrey directly, and then Croydon--last of all, the back of his garden-wall, I suppose!' 'Check' it was, and what I was going to say I couldn't exactly conceive, unless I patched up some false place or other, with matters to match, and mentioned it to the old fellow, though small chance of its answering with such a devil of a lawyer--when all at once I thought I heard a hail from aloft; then the second mate's voice roared close outside, 'Hullo!--aloft there!' The next moment I started up, and looked at Miss Hyde, as I heard plainly enough the cry, 'On deck there--land O!' I turned round at once, and walked out of the round-house to the quarter-deck, where, two minutes after, the whole of the passengers were crowding from below, the judge and his daughter already on the poop. Far aloft, upon the fore-to'-gallant-yard, in the hot glare of the sun, a sailor was standing with his hand over his eyes, and looking to the horizon, as the Indiaman stood quietly before the light breeze. 'Where-away-ay?' was the next hail from the deck. 'Broad on our larboard bow, sir,' was the answer." CHAPTER XIII "Well, ma'am," continued the naval man, on again resuming his narrative, "as I told you, the sudden hail of 'Land!' brought us all on deck in a twinkling, in the midst of my ticklish conversation with the judge. 'Hallo! you aloft!' shouted the chief officer himself, 'd'ye hear, sirrah! use your eyes before hailing the deck!' 'Land, sir!' came falling down again out of the sunlight; 'land it is, sir--broad away on our larboard bow, sir.'