cabin at meal-times with unwavering sagacity; a lot of fowls,
accommodated aristocratically in coops on the poop; and, lastly, though
by no means least, the starling which I'd caught coming down Channel,
and which now seemed very comfortable in the boatswain's old canary
cage, hung up to a ringbolt in his cabin next to mine, and regarded as a
sort of joint property between us two.

There, you have our list of passengers; and, now, to continue my story.

Shortly after passing the Bishop's Rock lighthouse, which we did some
few minutes before "Billy," the ship's boy, came out of the forecastle
and struck "six bells," eleven o'clock, near the end of the port watch's
spell on deck, the wind, which had freshened considerably since sunset,
began to blow with greater force, veering, or "backing" as sailors say,
more and more round to the north; so that, although our yards were
braced up to the full and the vessel was sailing almost close-hauled, we
had to drop off a point or two within the next half-hour from our true
western course.

Within the next half-hour, south-west by west was as close as we could
now keep her head outward across "The Bay," the wind even then
continuing to show a tendency to shift further round still to the
northwards and westwards, and naturally forcing us yet more in a
southerly direction before gaining the offing Captain Gillespie wished.

The sea, too, had got up wonderfully during the short period that had
elapsed from our leaving the Chops of the Channel--I suppose from its
having a wider space to frolic in, without being controlled by the
narrow limits of land under its lea; for, the scintillating light of the
twinkling stars and pale sickly moon, whose face was ever and anon
obscured by light fleecy clouds floating across it in the east, showed
the tumid waste of waters heaving and surging tempestuously as far as
the eye could reach. The waves were tumbling over each other and racing
past the ship in sport, sending their flying scud high over the
foreyard, or else trying vainly to poop her; and, when foiled in this,
they would dash against her bows with the blow of a battering-ram, or
fling themselves bodily on board in an angry cataract that poured down
from the forecastle on to the main-deck, flooding the waist up to the
height of the bulwarks to leeward, for we heeled over too much to allow
of the sea running off through the scuppers, these and our port gunwale
as well being well-nigh un