it used to be two years ago. Now
one walks up and down the deck, and though there may be twenty sail in
sight, one pays no more attention to them than one would to as many
sea-birds. Then every sail was watched, and one was up, in the tops with
one's glass twenty times a day, for there was no saying whether it was a
friend or an enemy. One's watch at night was a watch then, for there was
never any saying whether a French privateer might not come looming out of
the darkness at any moment; and if a vessel of about our size was made out
a mile off, it was all hands on deck, and cast the lashings off the guns,
and stand by till she was out of sight again. Now one jogs along, and all
that you have got to look out for, is to see that you don't run foul of
another craft, or let one run foul of you. Yes, we had a rough time of it
in those days, and I ain't sorry that they are over."

"But you look out sharp for pirates when you are among the islands, don't
you, Mr. Staines?"

"Ay, lad; but when one sees a Malay pirate, there is no mistaking her for
anything else. At night it is generally a stark calm, and whether one is
lying idle, with the sails hanging flat against the mast, or whether one
is at anchor, one knows that they can't come upon us under sail, and on a
still night one can hear the beat of their oars miles away. There is never
any fear of being surprised as long as there is a hand wide awake and
watchful on deck. Calms are the greatest curse out there; the ship lies
sometimes for days, ay and for weeks, with the water as smooth as grease,
and everything that has been thrown overboard floating alongside, and the
sun coming down until your brain is on the boil."

"You have storms sometimes, don't you?"

"Sometimes, not very often; but when it does blow, it blows fit to take
your head off, and you have nothing to do but to cruise under bare poles,
and hope that nothing will get in your way. There is one thing, they are
not gales like we have here, but cyclones, and instead of getting blown
along for hundreds of miles, you go round and round, so that if there is
no land within fifty miles of you when the storm strikes, the chances are
that you are safe. If you can but lie to, you can manage at last to edge
out of it on the side that is furthest from land. A cyclone is no joke, I
can tell you; but if you get warning enough to get your canvas stowed and
to send down your light spars, and have got a ship like the _Tiger_