I was speculating on this likeness when we shipped oars and fell alongside the brig's ladder. At the head of it my hand was taken, and I was helped on deck with ceremony by a tall man in loose blue jacket and duck trousers: an old man, bent and frail; by his air of dignity, the master of the vessel, and by his features as clearly the patriarch of the family. He lifted his cap and addressed us with a fine but (as I now recall it) somewhat tired courtesy. "An awkward adventure, gentlemen." We thanked him in proper form. "I am pleased to have been of service. The pilot-cutter yonder could hardly have fetched you in less than twenty minutes. I have signalled her alongside, and she will convey you back to Falmouth; none the worse, I hope, for your wetting." "A convenience," said I, "of which my friends will gladly avail themselves. For my part, I do not propose to return." He paused, weighing my words; obviously puzzled, but politely anxious to understand. His eyes were grey and honest, even childishly honest, but dulled about the rim of the iris and a trifle vacant, as though the world with its train of affairs had passed beyond his active concern. I keep my own eyes about me when I travel, and have surprised just such a look, before now, behind the spectacles of very old men who sit by the roadside and break stones for a living. "I fear, sir, that I do not take you precisely." "Why," said I, "if I may guess, this is one of the famous Falmouth packets?" "As to that, sir, you are right, and yet wrong. She _was_ a packet, and (if I may say it) a famous one." His gaze travelled aloft, and descending rested on mine with a sort of gentle resignation. "But the old pennon is down, as you see. At present she sails on a private adventure, and under private commission." "A privateer?" "You may call it that." "The adventure hits my humour even more nicely. Accept me, Captain----" "Colenso." "Accept me, Captain Colenso, for your passenger: I will not say comrade-in-arms--naval warfare being so far beyond my knowledge, which it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I can pay--" I thrust a hand nervously into my breast-pocket, and blessed Flora for her waterproof bag. "Excuse me, Captain, if I speak with my friend here in private for a moment." I drew Byfield aside. "Your notes? The salt water----" "You see," said he, "I am a martyr to acidity of the stomach." "Man! do I invite the confidence of your stomach?" "Consequently I never make an ascension unaccompanied by a small bottle of Epsom salts, tightly corked." "And you threw away the salts and substituted the notes?--that was clever of you, Byfield." I lifted my voice. "And Mr. Dalmahoy, I presume, returns to his sorrowing folk?"