However, my answer appeared to satisfy him, and I went below as quickly as possible, and turned in with a feeling of resentment against everybody on board the ship. At midnight I turned out, and found the stranger close aboard our port quarter, and O’Toole furious at the answer he had received on hailing him. “He won’t stand off, Mr. Gore,” said the second mate as I came aft, “an’ if it holds calm another hour he’ll be alongside.” After O’Toole had gone below, I took the glass and watched the man who had just relieved the watch on her quarter-deck. He was not over fifty fathoms distant, and I could see that he was tall and wore a full beard. Just below the stranger’s white quarter-rail was a yellowish streak on her black hull, and on focusing the night-glass upon it I read _Countess of Warwick_ in small gold letters. She drifted steadily nearer and I hailed her again. At that moment a sturdy, bow-legged man appeared on deck and joined the one I had been watching. He came to the rail and stared at me for several minutes, and then answered in a deep, gruff, even tone: “By the great eternal! Ain’t this ocean big enough for you, that you must come wailing like a babe in the night? S’help me Gawd, when I sailed Yankee clippers there was little trouble in finding room enough in any ocean. This here lady is a real countess, and you needn’t be afraid of her sassiety, even if she is a little fast. She won’t foul them blooming stunsails of yours.” At the sound of this voice, which was now quite near and distinct, I heard a quick movement in the skipper’s cabin, and I glanced down into it through one of the open ports. Crojack had jumped out of his bunk and was in the act of swallowing a stiff drink of grog,--his usual toilet,--and as he finished it he bounded on deck with a series of sudden springs. “Hello, there!” he bawled at the stranger. His answer was a hoarse chuckle from the stout man, which swelled into a hearty laugh. “Hello, there! Is that you, Bill Garnett?” repeated the skipper. I heard the bow-legged man mutter something, and then take off his cap and mop his bald head, which shone in the moonlight. “Well, sure enough, so it is,” he finally answered. “Who the devil would be sailing with such a cargo but me? Why in thunder didn’t you tell me ’twas you, messmate? and I would have tried to put more water atween us--though there ain’t no danger.” I had been watching him while he was talking, and I now recognized the old mate easily enough. Nearly every man in the deep-water trade at that time had seen or heard of old Bill Garnett. “I might have known it was you,” growled Crojack. “Always an ornery, bull-headed, headstrong mate, trying to make trouble. Why don’t you keep off and give us more room?”