Some of my brother officers were glad enough, glory apart, to be leaving Jews and lawyers, "shent. per shent." and legal roguery, behind them. One of the former tribe, having followed Raymond Mostyn concerning a bill discounted at only sixty per cent., came alongside, insisting that the balance should be taken half in cash, and half in a "warranted Correggio," with some villainous wine for the voyage, and some jewelry "for the girls at Malta;" but he was swamped in his boat under the counter, when the first mate unceremoniously cast loose the painter, and sent old Moses--"Mammon incarnate"--to leeward, shrieking and cursing in rage and terror. So my short reverie was completely broken now, as the great ship, with her deck crowded by soldiers in forage-caps and gray greatcoats, swayed round, and our skipper, an old man-o'-war lieutenant, from the poop continued his orders with that promptitude and tone of authority which are best learned under the long pennant. "Make sail on her, my lads, with a will!" he cried. And the watch rushed to the coils at the belaying-pins, aided by the soldiers told off for deck duty. "Cast loose the topsails! hoist away, and sheet home!" "Bear a hand, forecastle, there! cat and fish the anchor!" added the first mate; and in a few minutes, with a heavy head sea--the same sea where, by that shore now lessening in the distance, Danish Canute taught his servile Saxon courtiers the lesson of humility--we bore past Sandown Bay, with its old square fort of bluff King Harry's day upon its level beach: and Portsmouth's spires and Selsey Point sunk fast upon our lee, while our bugles were announcing sunset. And then something of sadness and silence seemed to steal over the once noisy groups, as they gathered by the starboard side, when we cleared the Isle of Wight. When the yards were squared, more sail was made on the Urgent; and before the north wind we stood down the Channel, and ere the same bugles sounded again, for all save the deck-watches to turn-in below, we were standing well over to the coast of France. The white cliffs had melted into the world of waters, and we had bidden a long good-night to dear old England. The twinkling light on St. Catharine's Point lingered long at the horizon, and was watched by many an eye, as Mostyn, Clavell, and I, with others, cigar in mouth, walked to and fro on the poop, surmising what awaited us in the land for which we were bound.