ssed and in my hammock,
and he was sitting smoking beside me, and after a silence of some ten
minutes or a quarter of an hour, during which he seemed to be ruminating
deeply, he began.

"I've something to tell ye, lad," said he, knocking the ashes
contemplatively out of his pipe as he spoke, "but dash my ugly old wig
if I'm at all sartain that I ought to say anything about it to-night,
seeing as it can't do much good, and might only be upsetting of ye for
the night; but your head's better nor mine in matters of this sort, and
I confess I should like to have your idees upon the subject afore I
sleep. Maybe they'll in a way mark out a course upon which my idees can
travel a good bit of a way betwixt this and morning, and even that
much'll be an advantage gained. The fact is, that I've see'd something
as I didn't expect to see whilst I was away up aloft there,"--pointing
with the stem of his pipe backwards over his shoulder toward the
mountain--"and the sight has disturbed me a little and set me thinkin' a
good deal."

"Indeed," said I, "what have you seen, Bob? You must perforce tell me
all about it now, for you have excited both my curiosity and my
apprehensions."

"Not much need for the last, boy, I hope and believe," answered he, "but
it's best perhaps as you should know at once--so, without any further
palaver, the _Albatross_, the pirate-brig, is inside the reef, and is
lying at anchor at this very moment in the bay where you was so near
losing the number of your mess."

"The _Albatross_!" exclaimed I; "nonsense, Bob; surely you must be
mistaken! Is it not some whaler, think you, come in to water!"

"No, no," said he; "it's no whaler, Harry. Whalers wouldn't come so far
within the group as this here island. And when did ye ever know me
mistaken about a vessel as has given us such good reason to remember her
as this here brig? I knowed her the minute I set eyes on her: firstly,
by a patch in her foresail, as you might ha' noticed the last time we
see her; nextly, by the shape of her main-topmast-staysail; and, thirdly
and lastly, by the whull look of her, which enables a seaman to
recognise a ship in the same way as one of your 'long-shore folks
recognises an acquaintance in the street when they see him, though he
may be dressed exactly like a score of other people within hail. And
what's more, I can make a pretty near guess as to what's become of that
whaler that he went a'ter when he found we wasn't to