the rest of them, bothering our lives out
with questions about Homer and the _Iliad_, and all such stuff; so, I
put it to you candidly, whether it wasn't almost as bad as being back
again at school, making a fellow feel small who was shaky in his Greek
and had a bad memory for history?

However, we had scarcely anchored in the Piraeus when some events
happened which drove the classics out of the heads of our elders; and I
may say that thenceforth we heard no more about the ancients.

There had been a sharp squall shortly before, in which we had been
amused by seeing the smart little zebeques, with their snowy white
lateen sails, flying before the wind like a flock of small birds
frightened by a hawk; and the _Moonshine_ was just coming up to the wind
in order to let go her anchor, when Bob and I, who were close together
on the forecastle, watching the men preparing for running out and
bitting the cable, saw, almost at the same moment, a man's head in the
water right in front of the yacht's forefoot; then--it all happened as
suddenly as a flash of lightning--his hands were thrown up as if in
entreaty, although we heard no cry, and he disappeared.

"Man overboard!" sang out one of the crew, who was pulling away at the
jib down-haul in order to stow the sail, the halliards having been cast
loose, "Man overboard!" in a voice which rang through the vessel fore
and aft, and attracted everybody's attention.

"Hi! Rollo, good dog!" cried out Bob, turning round sharp to where the
brave old fellow had been lying on the deck not a moment before,
flopping his tail lazily, and with his great red tongue lolling out, as
though he laughed cheerily at everything going on around him.

"Hi! Rollo!" said I too, in almost the same breath with Bob. "Fetch
him out, good dog!" and I turned round also.

But the dog was gone.

Bob and I were "nonplussed." We had both seen Rollo there not--why, not
a second before. And now he was gone.

However, we soon discovered the noble fellow and the cause of his
absence.

The cry of "Man overboard!" had startled everybody, so that the anchor
had not been let go; and the steersman's attention, naturally, having
been taken up, the yacht had paid off again instead of bringing up, and
her head had swung; consequently, what had been ahead of us just before
was now astern, and we were quite confused as to our bearings.

While we were looking in perplexity in every direction but the right
one, Cap