n Fleetwood resolved to return south again,
keeping close along by the Greek coast, to examine the dense group of
islands and islets of which I have spoken.

The wind had been light all night, and the _Ione_ had made little
progress; but as the morning broke a breeze sprang up from the
northward, and she hauled in a little to fetch the easternmost of the
islands, among which she was about to cruise. A Greek pilot had been
taken on board on the _Zone's_ first entering the Archipelago. He was a
clever old fellow, and he undertook to carry the ship in safety through
all the dangers with which she would be surrounded. Zappa had once
plundered a ship of which he had charge, and he was doubly anxious to
get hold of him. All the officers were on deck with telescopes in hand,
sweeping the horizon, while the captain, as was his custom every hour,
had just gone aloft with his glass to take a wider sweep, and to assure
himself, with his own eyes, whether any sail was or was not in sight.

"Poor fellow," said Linton, "I am afraid the captain will never live
through it. He is worn almost to a skeleton, and he looks as if a fever
were consuming him. Should anything dreadful have occurred, I am afraid
it will kill him when he hears of it."

"I fear so too, and it would be the last way I should wish to gain my
commission," said Saltwell, with much feeling. "I wish to Heaven we
could fall in with this phantom rover."

"It takes a great deal of worry to kill a man," observed the doctor, who
had no great faith in the effect of any but physical causes on the body,
the consequences of a limited medical education, though he was a very
fair surgeon. "If he persists in going without food and sleep, of
course he will grow thin."

"That's very well for you to say, doctor; but when a man's heart is sick
he can't eat," answered Linton. "It is the uncertainty of the thing is
killing him. Let him once find the young lady, and he will pluck up
fast enough; or, let him know the worst, and, as he is a man and a
Christian, he will bear his affliction like one, I'll answer for him."

"Deck, ahoy!" hailed the captain, from aloft. "Keep her away one point
more to the southward."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Saltwell, and every telescope was pointed in the
direction the ship was now steering.

Nothing, however, was to be seen from the deck; but the captain still
kept at the mast-head with his glass, intently watching some object
still below