"I looked back from the ship astern to the brig-of-war's clean white decks, flush fore and aft, with the men all forward at their stations, neatly dressed in regular man-o'-war style, everyone alike--a sight that would have done me good at another time, small as she was by comparison; but the very thought of the Indiaman's lumbering poop and galleries was too much for me--'twas as if you'd knocked out those two round-house doors of hers, and let in a gush of bare sky instead. The ship-shape man-o'-war cut of things was nothing, I fancied, to the snug spot under those top-gallant bulwarks of hers, and the breezy poop all a-flutter with muslin of an evening, where you found books and little basket affairs stuck into the coils of rope. I thought the old _Seringapatam_ never looked so well, as she commenced trimming sail on a wind, beginning to go drive ahead, with a white foam at her bows, and her whole length broadside-on to us. All at once we saw her clue up courses and to'-gallant sails, till she was standing slowly off under the three topsails and jib; the two lieutenants couldn't understand what she was about, and the captain put the glass to his eye, after which he said something to the second lieutenant, who went forward directly. "The next thing I saw was the Indiaman coming up in the wind again for about a minute; she had her stern nearly to us, when the moment after, as she rose upon a long sea, you saw something flash white off her lee gangway in the sunlight, that dropped against it into the hollow of a wave. The next minute she fell off again with her topsails full, and the first shower of spray was rising across her forefoot, when the flash of a gun broke out of her side, and the sound came down to us; then a second and a third. The brig gave her the same number in answer, and as soon as the smoke betwixt us had cleared away, the ship could be seen under full sail to the south-westward by west. '_That_'s her poor skippers hammock dropped alongside, gentlemen,' said Captain Wallis to his officers; 'God be with him.' 'Amen,' said the first lieutenant, and we put our caps on again. 'Set stu'nsails, Mr Aldridge,' said the captain, limping down the hatchway; as for me, I leant I don't know how long over the brig's taffrail, watching the ship's canvas grow in one, through the width of air betwixt us; my heart full, as may be supposed, not to say what notions came into my head of what might happen to her under Finch's charge, ere she reached Bombay. No one belonging to the brig spoke to me, out of kindness, no doubt; and the ship was hull-down on the horizon, to my fancy with somewhat of a figure like _hers_, when she stood with the cashmere shawl over her head in the dusk. Then I went gloomily down to my berth, where I kept close by myself till I fell asleep, though the gun-room steward was sent to me more than once to join the officers.