We will make our way on board the _Tornado_. She had a quick passage under sail and steam to Malta, where she lay taking in a fresh supply of coals, and thence proceeded on through the Aegean Sea up the Bosphorus. Jack recognised with no small amount of pleasure many of the islands he had visited as a youngster; he had then thought them very beautiful, and he acknowledged that they were so still, though the proportions of the scenery appeared lessened in his eyes after the grander features of the West Indies and South America. Tom and Desmond were inclined to turn up their noses at them, not having any great respect for the surrounding classical associations. "Very pretty hills to adorn the surface of a moderate-sized lake," observed Tom, "but Trinidad and Jamaica completely take the shine out of them." Higson, whom Jack had obtained as his first lieutenant, was much of the same opinion. Mildmay, who had been appointed by the Admiralty, not having seen the West Indies, was in raptures, and, with notebook in hand, stood dotting down the lines inspired by his muse. Jos Green, the master, suggested that he would be better employed in making outlines of the headlands and other prominent features of the land. "Very well for you, master, who have to navigate the ship, but we are above such grovelling notions," answered Mildmay; "you have nothing Byronic in your composition." "Just take care when it's your watch that you don't run the ship ashore in a fit of poetical abstraction," said Green, laughing; "your Byronic enthusiasm would not be received as a valid excuse at a court-martial." Besides the officers named, Jack had several of his own and Murray's old shipmates--Dick Needham as gunner, Ben Snatchblock as boatswain, with the two midshipmen, Dicky Duff and Billy Blueblazes; Jerry Bird; the Irishman, Tim Nolan; and several others, all good men and true.