"Wal," said he, "the varmint looks considerably snaky." Then, without
moving his glass, he let drop a word at a time, as if the facts were
trickling into his telescope at the lens, and out at the sight.
"One--two--four--seven, false ports."

There was a momentary murmur among the officers all round. But British
sailors are undemonstrative: Colonel Kenealy, strolling the deck with a
cigar, saw they were watching another ship with maritime curiosity, and
making comments; but he discerned no particular emotion nor anxiety in
what they said, nor in the grave low tones they said it in. Perhaps a
brother seaman would though.

The next observation that trickled out of Fullalove's tube was
this: "I judge there are too few hands on deck, and too
many--white--eyeballs--glittering at the portholes."

"Confound it!" muttered Bayliss, uneasily; "how can you see that?"

Fullalove replied only by quietly handing his glass to Dodd. The
captain, thus appealed to, glued his eye to the tube.

"Well, sir; see the false ports, and the white eyebrows?" asked Sharpe,
ironically.

"I see this is the best glass I ever looked through," said Dodd doggedly,
without interrupting his inspection.

"I think he is a Malay pirate," said Mr. Grey.

Sharpe took him up very quickly, and, indeed, angrily: "Nonsense! And if
he is, he won't venture on a craft of this size."

"Says the whale to the swordfish," suggested Fullalove, with a little
guttural laugh.

The captain, with the American glass at his eye, turned half round to the
man at the wheel: "Starboard!"

"Starboard it is."

"Steer South South East."

"Ay, ay, sir." And the ship's course was thus altered two points.

This order lowered Dodd fifty per cent in Mr. Sharpe's estimation. He
held his tongue as long as he could: but at last his surprise and
dissatisfaction burst out of him, "Won't that bring him out on us?"

"Very likely, sir," replied Dodd.

"Begging your pardon, captain, would it not be wiser to keep our course,
and show the blackguard we don't fear him?"

"When we _do_? Sharpe, he has made up his mind an hour ago whether to
lie still, or bite; my changing my course two points won't change his
mind; but it may make him declare it; and _I_ must know what he does
intend, before I run the ship into the narrows ahead."

"Oh, I see," said Sharpe, half convinced.

The alteration in the _Agra's_ course produced no movement on the part of
the mysterious schooner.