"Look where?" asked dad, not quite making out what particular direction Jake especially wished to draw his attention to, for the darkey was whirling one of his arms round him like a windmill to each point of the compass in turn; and, but that he had the bridles of the horses slung over his other arm, he would probably have gesticulated as frantically also with that. "Dere, dere--t'oder way, massa," repeated Jake, nodding his woolly head as he laughed and showed his teeth, this time indicating the extreme left of the bay, to which our backs had been turned; but where, on our now looking, we noticed a little jetty running out into the sea, with a boat putting off from it towards the ship. "Oh!" ejaculated dad; "what a stupid I am, to be sure!" Dad's exclamation made Jake break out afresh into a loud cachinnation. "Golly, dis chile can't 'tand dat," he shouted. "Massa um 'tupid, massa um 'tupid, yah, yah!" and he almost doubled himself in two with merriment, his hearty laughter being so contagious that both dad and I could not help joining in. So there were we all chuckling away at a fine rate at the idea of our not noticing either the jetty or the boat before. We had been so blindly anxious to reach the _Josephine_ that we had looked in every direction but the right one for the means of getting on board her! After a bit, dad was the first to recover his composure. "Well, Tom," said he, "the best thing we can do now will be to ride round the bay to the point where that boat has started out from. I think I can see another craft of some sort lying alongside the jetty; and, I daresay, we'll be able to get out to the vessel if we go there." As he spoke he mounted Dandy again, while I jumped up nimbly on Prince's back; and, in another moment we were cantering along the sandy beach towards the point in question, with Jake running behind holding on to Dandy's tail, and still laughing to himself in high glee. On approaching the jetty, it looked much bigger than it had appeared to be in the distance. It was a long wooden pier, indeed, that projected some hundred yards or so into the sea, and it had a crane at the end for hoisting and lowering the heavy hogs-heads of sugar. Dozens of these were ranged along its length awaiting shipment, and a gang of negroes were busily engaged under a white overseer in stowing some of them into the launch of the _Josephine_, which was moored right under the crane. The name of the vessel was painted in white letters on the stern of the boat, which was turned towards us as we rode up so that we could easily see it. On dad's telling the overseer what he wanted, we learnt that Captain Miles was on board his vessel, and that the launch would be going out to her as soon as she was loaded; so we had nothing to do now but to wait until she had taken in as many casks of sugar as she could carry.