There was nothing moving about the decks. The lookouts, aft, and at the gangways, sat or stood like statues half bronze, half alabaster. The old quartermaster, who was cunning the ship, and had perched himself on a carronade, with his arm leaning on the weather nettings, was equally motionless. The watch had all disappeared forward, or were stowed out of sight under the lee of the boats; the first Lieutenant, as if captivated by the serenity of the scene, was leaning with folded arms on the weather gangway, looking abroad upon the ocean, and whistling now and then either for a wind, or for want of thought. The only being who showed sign of life was the man at the wheel, and he scarcely moved, except now and then to give her a spoke or two, when the cheep of the tiller-rope, running through the well-greased leading blocks, would grate on the ear as a sound of some importance; while in daylight, in the ordinary bustle of the ship, no one could say he ever heard it. Three bells!--“Keep a bright look-out there,” sung out the Lieutenant. “Ay, ay, sir,” from the four look-out men, in a volley. Then from the weather-gangway, “All’s well” rose shrill into the night air. The watchword was echoed by the man on the forecastle, re-echoed by the lee-gangway look-out, and ending with the response of the man on the poop. My dream was dissipated--and so was the first lieutenant’s, who had but little poetry in his composition, honest man. “Fine night, Mr Cringle. Look aloft, how beautifully set the sails are; that mizzen-topsail is well cut, eh? Sits well, don’t it? But confound the lubbers! Boatswain’s mate, call the watch.” Whi--whew, whi--whew, chirrup, chip, chip--the deck was alive in an instant, “as bees biz out wi” angry fyke. “Where is the captain of the mizzen-top?” growled the man in authority. “Here, sir.” “Here, sir!--look at the weather-clew of the mizzen-topsail, sir, look at that sail, sir,--how many turns can you count in that clew, sir? Spring it, you no--sailor you--spring it, and set the sail again.” How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable all this appeared to me at the time I will remember; but the obnoxious turns were shaken out, and the sail set again so as to please even the fastidious eye of the Lieutenant, who, seeing nothing more to find fault with, addressed me once more. “Have had no grub since morning, Mr Cringle; all the others are away in the prizes; you are as good as one of us now, only want the order to join, you know--so will you oblige me, and take charge of the deck, until I go below and change my clothes, and gobble a bit?” “Unquestionably,--with much pleasure.” He forthwith dived, and I walked aft a few steps towards where the old quartermaster was standing on the gun. “How is her head, Quartermaster?” “South-east and by south, sir. If the wind holds, we shall weather Morant Point, I think, sir.”