"The captain was sitting with one foot upon the carronade in his outer-cabin, looking through the port at the heavy Indiaman, as she slued about and plunged in the blue surge, with all sorts of ugly ropes hanging from her bows, dirty pairs of trousers towing clear of the water when she lifted, and rusty stains at her hawse-holes. A stout-built, hard-featured man he was, with bushy black eyebrows, and grizzled black hair and whiskers, not to speak of a queer, anxious, uneasy look in the keen of his eyes when he turned to me. However, he got half up on my coming in, and I saw he was lame a little of one foot, while he overhauled me all over with his eye. 'I'm sorry to have to send for you in this way, sir,' said he, rather surprised at my rig, apparently--'very sorry, sir, and no more about it; but I can't help it, confound me--_must_ do my duty.' 'Certainly, sir,' I said. 'In fact,' said Captain Wallis, 'the Admiral ordered us to see after you--_him_, that's to say--at the Cape, you know.' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said I, watching the Indiaman's poop-nettings through the port over his head, as he sat down. 'Pooh, pooh,' continued he, 'you can't be the man--just say you don't belong to the service--confound it, I'll pass you!' 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I can't exactly say _that_.' 'I hear you're Westwood of the _Orestes_, though,' said he; 'now I don't ask you to say _no_, sir; but everybody knew the _Orestes_, and I don't like the thing, I must say: so perhaps you're able to swear _he_ is not aboard the Indiaman--just now, you know, sir--_just now_, eh?'