n, to the
second cutter. Mr Chucks was much pleased with the idea of having the
command of a boat, and asked me to come with him, to which I consented,
although I had intended as usual, to have gone with O'Brien.

About an hour before daylight we ran the frigate to within a mile and a
half of the shore, and the boats shoved off; the frigate then wore
round, and stood out in the offing, that she might at daylight be at
such a distance as not to excite any suspicion that our boats were sent
away, while we in the boats pulled quietly in-shore. We were not a
quarter of an hour before we arrived at the cape forming one side of the
bay, and were well secreted among the cluster of rocks which was
underneath. Our oars were laid in; the boats' painters made fast; and
orders given for the strictest silence. The rocks were very high, and
the boats were not to be seen without any one should come to the edge of
the precipice; and even then they would, in all probability, have been
supposed to have been rocks. The water was as smooth as glass, and when
it was broad daylight, the men hung listlessly over the sides of the
boats, looking at the corals below, and watching the fish as they glided
between.

"I can't say, Mr Simple," said Mr Chucks to me in an undertone "that I
think well of this expedition; and I have an idea that some of us will
lose the number of our mess. After a calm comes a storm; and how quiet
is everything now! But I'll take off my great coat, for the sun is hot
already. Coxswain, give me my jacket."

Mr Chucks, had put on his great coat, but not his jacket underneath,
which he had left on one of the guns on the main deck, all ready to
change as soon as the heavy dew had gone off. The coxswain handed him
the jacket, and Mr Chucks threw off his great coat to put it on; but
when it was opened, it proved, that by mistake he had taken away the
jacket, surmounted by two small epaulets, belonging to Captain Kearney,
which the captain's steward, who had taken it out to brush, had also
laid upon the same gun.

"By all the nobility of England!" cried Mr Chucks, "I have taken away
the captain's jacket by mistake. Here's a pretty mess! if I put on my
great coat I shall be dead with sweating; if I put on no jacket I shall
be roasted brown; but if I put on the captain's jacket I shall be
considered disrespectful."

The men in the boats tittered; and Mr Phillot, who was in the launch
next to us, turned round to se