Captain Brooke smiled. "The old spirit isn't dead," he said; "there are always chips of the old block coming to the fore, who think a lot of the honour due to the glorious white ensign. One of my own youngsters is on board the 'Britannia' at this moment learning to be a young sea-dog." The "Forte" now lay "as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," rolling gently on the heaving land-swell. It was almost a stark calm, but a catspaw here and there played over the surface of the sea and fretted its blue-green surface into little furrows. Screaming seabirds swooped around the ship, and just under the quarter an enormous wily-looking shark kept watch and ward, eyeing greedily some refuse from the cook's galley which was floating towards him. Young Thring was only too delighted to go in charge of the cutter, and Lobb was equally pleased--though the duty of collecting sand was usually prosaic enough. There is a saying, however, which again and again has proved itself a true one: "It is always the unexpected which happens." What Lobb called "the wheel of fortin" revolves rather quickly sometimes. The light breaths of air that were stirring were moving in the direction of the land, so the cutter hoisted her lugsail and slowly glided towards the African shore. "Is there no surf on this part of the coast?" questioned Thring, as he buckled on his dirk around his waist. "I don't see it, or hear it." "There's less here than anywhere," answered the coxswain; "leastways, in fine weather like it is at present. When there's a gale blowing there's some scud and spray flying about, I can tell you." "The little bay we're making for seems to be protected on the south side by a high, jutting point," said the middy, who was now observing the coast through his telescope. "Right you are, sir, and that makes it a safe place to land when the south-west monsoon is blowing. That is where the little river Joo-joo runs into the sea." "You know this part of the coast well, Lobb, evidently." "Yes, I do, sir. 'Taint the fust time I've landed here for sand, not by a long chalk. On one occasion, when I was in the old 'Ariadne,' we went up the river Joo-joo in the pinnace to get a supply of fresh water." "And you fell in with some natives I expect, didn't you?" "Never a soul did we see, sir. There was a lot of mischievous-looking baboons a-cruising about and some flamingoes, but nothing else living did we see. No seaside lodgings to let, nor nothing of that sort." And Lobb laughed at his own joke, his mind reverting for a moment to his own Mary Anne, who let genteel apartments overlooking the sea at the little Dorsetshire town of Swanage. The words had hardly escaped his lips when the coxswain suddenly gripped the middy by the arm, and pointed in an excited manner in the direction of a jutting point. "Do you see that mast of an Arab vessel, sir?" he almost shouted, "just over them rocks yonder."