"No, sir," replied the signalman; "but she's rising now, sir, an' I thinks she's closing us." "Ay." Another short interval elapsed; and then, being down in the waist, right under the break of the poop, the quarter-master having set me to work flemishing down the slack ends of some of the sheets that he did not think were tidily arranged, I heard the signalman mumble some exclamation or other which he could not get out properly from his excitement. "What is it, you say?" said the officer of the watch, who had gone to the binnacle to look at the compass and did not quite catch what the man said. "Speak distinctly, my man. I can't hear you!" "It's the _Ruby_, sir!" shouted out the signalman, in a voice that could be heard, I believe, at the distance by which our consort was separated from us, making the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Robinson, jump off the deck, he having come up quite close in the meantime. "I knows her by the clew on her tops'l." "All right, my man," blurted out the lieutenant, who was a crusty, ill- tempered, sour sort of chap, one always speaking to the men as if he had a bad liver and who couldn't look a chap square in the eye if he stood up before him, having underhung brows and a nasty way of looking from under them. "You needn't roar at me like a grampus, Jones. I've a great mind to put you in the list for disrespectful conduct to your superior officer! What did you say?" "The _Ruby_, sir," repeated the signalman, as tenderly now as a sucking dove. "It's the gallant little _Ruby_ sure enough, sir." The irate lieutenant did not appear, though, to share the enthusiasm of Jones; and I afterwards heard that he had some grudge against the `boss' of the _Ruby_, as indeed he had against most people with whom he came in contact; and I don't think many were sorry when he left the service subsequently to our cruise, starting in some line of civil life where his uncivil demeanour has probably gained him as many friends as he got afloat! "I don't want any of your opinions, my man," said he; "and, if you talk of gallantry, I don't think she has stuck to us as she might have done in the gale. Probably, though, she couldn't help this; for she's a wretched tub and has the misfortune of having a nincompoop for a commander besides!" Luckily for the sour-tempered chap, whom I had time to reckon up since I had been on board the corvette, the commodore did not hear what he said, or he would most probably, officer of the watch though he might be, have given him a `dressing down' before us all. The fact of our having sighted the _Ruby_ had already been communicated by one of the midshipmen to our chief, who was down in his cabin having a rest, never having left the deck either day or night, I believe, since the gale overtook us; and, as soon as we got within signalling distance, he ordered the yeoman at the signal halliards to make our number.