er
feeling out of sight, and Westward Ho! for the land of Yellow Jack.

On the day but one following, we sailed from Spithead in half a gale of
wind from E.N.E., with frequent snow-squalls; pretty much the same
weather in fact as we had on the eventful occasion of my sailing in the
"Scourge." We looked into Plymouth Sound on out way, assumed the convoy
of a fleet of some seventeen sail, and proceeded.

Oh! the misery of convoy-duty. To feel that you have a smart ship
underfoot and a crew who will shrink from nothing their skipper may put
them alongside, and to be doomed to drag along, day after day, under
close-reefed topsails, in order to avoid running away from the sluggish,
deep-laden merchantmen; with signalling and gun-firing going on day and
night, restraining the swift and urging on the slow; with an occasional
cruise round the entire fleet to keep them well together, and an
everlasting anxious lookout to see that no fast-sailing privateer or
pirate sneaks in and picks up one of your charges--it is almost as bad
as blockading.

However, all things come to an end sooner or later; and we were looking
forward to a speedy release from our annoyances--having arrived within a
couple of days' sail of the Mona Passage--when just after sun-rise the
lookout aloft reported a small object apparently a boat, about five
miles distant on our port bow. As the weather was beautifully fine,
with our convoy bowling along under every rag of canvas they could
spread, and no sign of any lurking picaroons in our neighbourhood, the
skipper had our course altered, so as to give the strange object an
overhaul. As we ran rapidly down upon it, we perceived that it was
indeed a boat, but she showed neither mast nor oar, and we were unable
to distinguish any one on board her. When within a mile of her,
however, the lookout hailed to say he thought he saw some people lying
down in her bottom. A few minutes more, and our doubts were removed by
the sight of some person rising for a moment into a sitting position and
then sinking down into the bottom of the boat again.

"A shipwrecked crew, apparently," observed the skipper; "but why don't
they out oars and stand by to pull alongside?"

"Perhaps they are lying asleep, tired out with a long spell of pulling
already?" suggested Mr Woods, the second lieutenant.

Five minutes afterwards we swept close past her.

"Boat ahoy!" hailed the skipper; and once more a figure appeared for a
mome