"I had the middle watch that night, the ship being under short canvas, and slowly edging down to make the most leewardly point of the island, from which she was to beat up again at her leisure by the morning. All we had to do was to keep a good look-out, on the one hand, into the streak of starlight to seaward, and on the other along the foot of the rocks, as well as holding her well in hand, in case of some sudden squall through the valleys from inside. "However, I shan't easily forget the thoughts that ran in my mind, walking the quarter-deck with the frigate under charge, the first time I noticed Orion and the Serpent begin to wheel glittering away from over Diana's Peak--the others stealing quietly into sight after them, past the leech of our main-topsail; scarce an English star to be seen for the height of the island off our quarter; some of the men on one side of the booms humming a song about Napoleon's dream, which you'll hear to this day in ships' forecastles; another yarning solemnly, on the other side, about some old sweetheart of his--but all of them ready to jump at my own least word. In the morning, however, there we were, stretching back by degrees to go round the lee side of the island again, the haze melting off Diana's Peak as before, and the sea rolling in swells as blue as indigo, to the huge red lumps of bare crag; while the bright surges leapt out of them all along the frigate's side, and the spray rose at times to her figure-head. "During the day we cruised farther out, and the _Hebe_ had enough to do in seeing off one Indiaman for home, and speaking another outward-bound craft, that passed forty miles off or so, without touching; the Governor's telegraphs were eternally at work on the heights, bothering her for the least trifle, and making out a sail sixty miles off, it was said. For my part, I was pretty well tired of it already, sincerely wishing for the _Conqueror_, with Admiral Plampin, to heave in sight; but glad enough all aboard the _Hebe_ were, when, after an entire week of the thing, it came to her turn, with the _Newcastle_ and _Podargus_, to lie at anchor off Jamestown, where half the ship's company at a time had their liberty ashore.