Chapter 29 - Page 2

sir? He has seen salt water before this cruise?"

"He is almost a native of the seas; for more than thirty years has he
passed his time on them."

"There, Harry Ark, he has done you handsomely. Now, I have his own
assertion for it, that he will not be three-and-twenty until to-morrow."

"On my word, he has deceived you, sir."

"I don't know, Mr Ark; that is a task much easier attempted than
performed. Threescore and four years add as much weight to a man's head as
to his heels! I may have undervalued the skill of the younker but, as to
his years, there can be no great mistake. But where the devil is the
fellow steering to? Has he need of a pinafore from his lady mother to come
on board of a man-of-war for his dinner?"

"See! he is indeed standing from us!" exclaimed Wilder, with a rapidity
and delight that would have excited the suspicions of one more observant
than his Commander.

"If I know the stern from the bows of a ship, what you say is truth,"
returned the other, with some austerity. "Hark ye, Mr Ark, I've a mind to
furnish the coxcomb a lesson in respect for his superiors and give him a
row to whet his appetite. By the Lord, I will; and he may write home an
account of this manoeuvre, too, in his next despatches. Fill away the
after-yards, sir; fill away. Since this _honourable_ youth is disposed to
amuse himself with a sailing-match, he can take no offence that others are
in the same humour."

The lieutenant of the watch, to whom the order was addressed, complied;
and, in another minute, the "Dart" was also beginning to move a-head,
though in a direction directly opposite to that taken by the "Dolphin."
The old man highly enjoyed his own decision, manifesting his
self-satisfaction by the infinite glee and deep chuckling of his manner.
He was too much occupied with the step he had just taken, to revert
immediately to the subject that had so recently been uppermost in his
mind; nor did the thought of pursuing the discourse occur to him, until
the two ships had left a broad field of water between them, as each moved,
with ease and steadiness, on its proper course.

"Let him note that in his log-book, Mr Ark," the irritable old seaman then
resumed, returning to the spot which Wilder had not left during the
intervening time. "Though my cook has no great relish for a frog, they who
would taste of his skill must seek him. By the Lord, boy, he will have a
pull of it, if he undertake to come-to on that tack.--But how happens it
that you got into his ship? All that part of the cruise remains untold."

"I have been wrecked, sir, since you received my last