out any motion of the ship or rush of the
water past her sides, and I wondered what had happened to cause this
stillness.

On turning out, however, my wonder was soon allayed by discovering that
we had made Plymouth during the small hours, and were now anchored in
the Sound, midway between Mount Edgecombe and the breakwater.

I may add, that the mess table in the gunroom at breakfast clearly
demonstrated our proximity to this very hospitable port, by the lavish
abundance of milk and eggs, not to speak of bloaters and marmalade, so
that even Tom Mills was satisfied.

He did not have the heart to take another rise out of the irascible
caterer, Mr Stormcock; while, as for Plumper, the senior mate, I never
saw a chap eat in my life as he did.

An ostrich of the most enterprising digestion, or the boa-constrictor at
the Zoological Gardens who recently swallowed its messmate in a weak
moment, would neither of them have been a match for the fat little
gourmand, who made even Dobbs stare at his efforts in the knife-and-fork
line.

We stopped at Plymouth for some four-and-twenty hours, shipping
supernumeraries and taking in surplus stores.

After which, weighing anchor again, we worked out of the Sound, having
to tack twice before clearing the breakwater; and, resuming our passage
we passed the Lizard the same afternoon, being some ten or twelve miles
to the southward of the Bishop's Rock in the Scilly Isles at midnight.

I noticed the bright, star-like light of the latter, low down on the
horizon, away on our weather quarter, only just dimly discernible in the
distance through the haze, when I came on deck for the middle watch, the
lighthouse looking to me as if twinkling to us a last farewell from home
and the land we had left, never, perhaps, to see again.

But, although we made fair enough progress, we were not able to preserve
as straight a course as Captain Farmer and the master would have liked
to have done.

The wind was continually on the shift and trying to head us, thus
causing us to keep the ship away and steer more to the southward;
instead of making all the westering we could when leaving the channel,
so as to give Cape Ushant, with its erratic currents and treacherous
indraught, as wide a berth as possible--the French coast being a bad
lookout under one's lee at any time!

However, we had to make the best we could of the wind we had; and by
noon next day, when Mr Quadrant took the sun, having all of us