black cook; and he, while not
employed in his culinary operations, spent the best part of the day
basking on the bowsprit-end.

The crew were engaged in their usual occupations of knotting yarns,
making sinnet, etcetera, while the aforesaid Bill Tasker was instructing
me--for whom he had taken an especial fancy--in the mysteries of
knotting and splicing; but we all of us, in spite of ourselves, went
about our work in a listless, careless way, nor had the officers even
sufficient energy to make us more lively. Certainly it was hot. There
had been no sail in sight that I know of all the day, when, as I by
chance happened to cast my eyes over the bulwarks, they fell on the
topsails of a schooner, just rising above the line of the horizon.

"A sail on the starboard bow!" I sung out to the man who was nominally
keeping a look-out forward. He reported the same to the first mate.

"Where away is she?" I heard the captain inquire, as he came directly
afterwards on deck.

"To the southward, sir; she seems to be creeping up towards us with a
breeze of some sort or other," answered Mr Dobree. "Here, lad," he
continued, beckoning to me, "go aloft, and see what you can make of her.
Your eyes are as sharp as any on board, if I mistake not, and a little
running will do you no harm."

I was soon at the mast-head, and in two minutes returned, and reported
her to be a large topsail schooner, heading north-north-east with the
wind about south-east.

"I can't help thinking, sir, from her look, that this is the same craft
that was lying off New Orleans two days ago," I added, touching my hat
to the captain. I don't remember exactly what made me suppose this, but
such I know was my idea at the time.

"What, your friend Captain Hawk's craft, the _Foam_, you mean, I
suppose?" he observed. "But how can that be? She was bound to the
Havanah, and this vessel is standing away from it."

"I can't say positively, sir; but if you would take the glass and have a
look at her, I don't think you would say she is very unlike her, at all
events," I replied.

"It's very extraordinary if such is the case," said the captain, looking
rather more as if he thought I might be right than before.

"Give me the glass, and I'll judge for myself, though it's impossible to
say for a certainty what she may be at this distance." Saying this he
took the telescope, and in spite of the heat went aloft.

When he came down again, I observed that he loo