the words of my father, 'You
will find your wings some day and fly away,' would come back to me, and
set up such a restlessness as all the wise words of Zachary Palmer could
not allay.

Chapter IV. Of the Strange Fish that we Caught at Spithead

One evening in the month of May 1685, about the end of the first week
of the month, my friend Reuben Lockarby and I borrowed Ned Marley's
pleasure boat, and went a-fishing out of Langston Bay. At that time I
was close on one-and-twenty years of age, while my companion was one
year younger. A great intimacy had sprung up between us, founded on
mutual esteem, for he being a little undergrown man was proud of my
strength and stature, while my melancholy and somewhat heavy spirit took
a pleasure in the energy and joviality which never deserted him, and
in the wit which gleamed as bright and as innocent as summer lightning
through all that he said. In person he was short and broad, round-faced,
ruddy-cheeked, and in truth a little inclined to be fat, though he would
never confess to more than a pleasing plumpness, which was held, he
said, to be the acme of manly beauty amongst the ancients. The stern
test of common danger and mutual hardship entitle me to say that no
man could have desired a stauncher or more trusty comrade. As he was
destined to be with me in the sequel, it was but fitting that he should
have been at my side on that May evening which was the starting-point of
our adventures.

We pulled out beyond the Warner Sands to a place half-way between them
and the Nab, where we usually found bass in plenty. There we cast the
heavy stone which served us as an anchor overboard, and proceeded to
set our lines. The sun sinking slowly behind a fog-bank had slashed the
whole western sky with scarlet streaks, against which the wooded slopes
of the Isle of Wight stood out vaporous and purple. A fresh breeze was
blowing from the south-east, flecking the long green waves with crests
of foam, and filling our eyes and lips with the smack of the salt spray.
Over near St. Helen's Point a King's ship was making her way down the
channel, while a single large brig was tacking about a quarter of a mile
or less from where we lay. So near were we that we could catch a glimpse
of the figures upon her deck as she heeled over to the breeze, and could
bear the creaking of her yards and the flapping of her weather-stained
canvas as she prepared to go about.

'Look ye, Micah,' said my companion,