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with the comfortable assurance of having earned their four hours' rest that they went below that first night at sea. "I guess old Tompkins will have to rap pretty loud to make me budge at eight bells," said Tom with a portentous yawn, as he peeled off his reefing jacket and turned in "all standing," as he expressed it, with the exception of his boots. He was too tired to undress; and besides, he thought, in his lazy way, what was the use of his doing so when he would have to turn out again and relieve the first mate at four o'clock in the morning, just as he was beginning to enjoy himself. "By George, a sailor's life is a dog's life!" he muttered out aloud. "What, eh?" sleepily murmured Charley from the other bunk adjacent, the two occupying one cabin between them; and, presently, the pair were "wrapped in the arms of Morpheus," and snoring like troopers in concert, the captain playing a nasal obligato from his state-room in the distance, whither he had retired a short time before themselves, after being satisfied that the ship was proceeding well on her course and everything all right. And all this time the _Muscadine_ was bowling so favourably along at the rate of some eight knots an hour, carrying with her the fair wind with which she had started from port, the felucca that had left the Syrian coast shortly after still followed in her track, although hull-down on the horizon, and her white lateen sails only just dimly discernible to a sharp eye that was looking out for her, under the rays of the rising moon, which now emerged from the waste of water that surrounded the two vessels with its fathomless expanse. But who on board the merchant ship suspected that they were pursued or looked out for the felucca, dead astern as she was, and only a tiny speck on the ocean? STORY TWO, CHAPTER FOUR. THE STRANGE SAIL. Mr Tompkins, the late second and now first officer of the _Muscadine_, besides possessing a nasty, grumbling, fault-finding temper for the benefit of those under him, and a mean, sly, sneaking sort of way of ingratiating himself with his superiors, was as obstinate as a mule, and one of those men who would have his way, if he could, no matter what might be the consequences. When he was able, as was the case with the men he was unfortunate enough to command, he bullied those who might differ from him into acquiescence with his views; with those over him in authority he adopted another course,
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