They had not been long at sea when one night Pigeon was encountered walking the deck, and every now and then stopping and looking eagerly over the side. "What do you see there?" asked Jack. "Anything out of the common way?" "All those sparkles, what can they be?" exclaimed Pigeon, pointing to the flashes of phosphorescent light which played among the foam dashed off from the sides, and which were seen in the wake of the vessel. Hemming came by at the moment. He had taken an especial dislike to the bully. "Those sparkles! don't you know what they are? I thought everybody did," he observed, in a tone of contempt. "Well, there's a Russian fleet just gone up through the Straits, and every man, woman, and child aboard them smokes, from the admiral to the admiral's baby, and those are the ashes out of their pipes and off the ends of their cigars. Why, that's nothing to what you sometimes see. If we were close in their wake, there would be light enough for us to see to steer by." "Law, you don't say so!" exclaimed Pigeon. "I should have thought the water would have put them out." "Not down in these latitudes. It's too warm for that," answered Hemming gravely. Pigeon was seen, when he went into the gun-room, entering the remark in his notebook. A few days after this Pigeon was walking the deck in solitary grandeur, when, as he passed the marine-sentry at the gangway, of course no notice was taken of him. Now he had observed that, on certain occasions, the sentry presented arms to the officers. This he had taken into his head was in consequence, not of their rank, but of their being gentlemen. He therefore thought that the same respect ought to be shown to him. Instead of complaining to the officers or to the captain, when he would have been well laughed at, he thought fit to take the law into his own hands, and, walking up to the sentry, soundly rated him for his want of respect. "And who bees you?" asked the sentry, cocking his eye--he was a wag in his way; "do you belong to the horse-marines, sir?" "No, I do not; I am Mr Theophilus Pigeon, and you must treat me properly, or I shall report you." "I thought as how you had drunk many a pint of Pigeon's milk when you was a baby," observed the marine, with perfect gravity. Pigeon's measure had already been very accurately taken on board by the crew. "Fellow, you are an impertinent scoundrel," exclaimed Pigeon. "What's your name?" "Mum's the word," answered the marine, with perfect gravity. "Ah! you think I am not up to you, do you?" cried Pigeon, glancing at the marine's musket. "I see it where you forgot that it was, ha! ha!" It was some time before Pigeon could find the first lieutenant to make his report. In the meantime the sentries had been changed. "I am sorry, Mr Pigeon, that you should have received any impertinence from any of the people on board," said the first lieutenant kindly. "Can you describe the man!"