s like
I had not an idea. I fixed on one of the largest of the Indiamen, but
when I told old Bob the tonnage of the _Barbara_ he laughed, and said
she wasn't half the size of the ship I pointed out.

It was getting darkish and coming on to blow pretty fresh, and how to
find my ship among the hundred or more at anchor I could not possibly
tell.

"Well, I thought from your look and the way you hailed me that you was a
sea-faring gentleman, and on course you'd ha' known your own ship," said
old Bob, with a wink of his one eye. "Howsomever, we can beat about
among the fleet till it's dark, and then back to Portsmouth; and then,
do ye see, sir, we can come out to-morrow morning by daylight and try
again. Maybe we shall have better luck. The convoy is sure not to sail
in the night, and the tide won't serve till ten o'clock at earliest."

"This comes of dressing in nautical style, and assuming airs foreign to
me," I thought to myself, though I could not help fancying that there
was some quiet irony in the old man's tone. His plan did not at all
suit my notions. I was already beginning to feel very uncomfortable,
bobbing and tossing about among the ships; and I expected to be
completely upset, unless I could speedily put my foot on something more
stable than the cockleshell, or rather bean-pod, of a boat in which I
sat. I began to be conscious, indeed, that I must be looking like
anything but "a sea-faring gentleman."

"But we _must_ find her," I exclaimed, with some little impetuosity; "it
will never do to be going back, and I know she's here."

"So the old woman said as was looking for her needle in the bundle of
hay," observed old Bob, with provoking placidity. "On course she is,
and we is looking for her: but it's quite a different thing whether we
finds her or not, 'specially when it gets dark; and if, as I suspects,
it comes on to blow freshish there'll be a pretty bobble of a sea here
at the turn of the tide. To be sure, we may stand over to Ryde and haul
the boat up there for the night. There's a pretty decentish public on
the beach, the Pilot's Home, where you may get a bed, and Jerry and I
always sleeps under the wherry. That's the only other thing for you to
do, sir, that I sees on."

Though very unwilling to forego the comforts of my cabin and the society
of Captain Hassall, I agreed to old Bob's proposal, provided the
_Barbara_ was not soon to be found. We sailed about among the fleet for
some ti