“Your narrative is extraordinary, and the marvel should have been looked into closer. It may truly have been a church, for there stands an edifice at Rome, which towers to treble the height of a cruiser’s masts.” “Having rarely troubled churches, I know not why a church should trouble me,” said the mariner of the sash, while he turned his back on the ocean, as if indisposed to regard the waste of water longer. “It is now twelve years since that sight was seen, and though a seaman of many voyages, my eyes have not looked upon the Roman coast, from that hour to this. Will your honor lead the way from the bluff, as becomes your rank?” “Your tale of the burning cross and looming church, Master Tiller, had almost caused me to forget to watch the movements of yon periagua,” returned Ludlow, who still continued to face the bay. “That obstinate old Dutchman——I say, sir, that Mr. Alderman Van Beverout has greater confidence in this description of craft than I feel myself. I like not the looks of yonder cloud, which is rising from out the mouth of Raritan; and here, seaward, we have a gloomy horizon.—By Heaven! there is a sail playing in the offing or my eye hath lost its use and judgment.” “Your honor sees the wing of the sporting gull, again; it had been nigh to deceive my sight, which would be to cheat the look-out of a man that has the advantage of some ten or fifteen years’ more practice in marine appearances. I remember once, when beating in among the islands of the China seas, with the trades here at south-east——” “Enough of your marvels, friend; the church is as much as I can swallow, in one morning—It may have been a gull! for I confess the object small; yet it had the steadiness and size of a distant sail! There is some reason to expect one on our coast, for whom a bright and seaman’s watch must be had.” “This may then leave me a choice of ships,” rejoined Tiller. “I thank your honor for having spoken, before I had given myself away to the Queen; who is a lady that is much more apt to receive gifts of this nature, than to return them.” “If your respect aboard shall bear any proportion to your hardihood on shore, you may be accounted a model of civility! But a mariner of your pretension should have some regard to the character of the vessel in which he takes service.” “That of which your honor spoke, is then a buccaneer?” “If not a buccaneer, one but little better. A lawless trader, under the most favorable view; and there are those who think that he, who has gone so far, has not stopt short of the end. But the reputation of the ‘Skimmer of the Seas’ must be known to one who has navigated the ocean, long as you.”