f having recognised Mohammed's "corsair," even although
Charley backed him up by his statement of what he had heard say in
conversation with the stranger.

"Avast there, my dear boys!" said he, speaking good-humouredly to them,
as he always did. "That rascally old Turk so stuffed you up with his
lying yarns, that you've got pirates on the brain."

Captain Harding, however, did one thing that pleased them, especially
Tom, to whom it gave the greatest satisfaction.

Despite the first mate's protest, he remodelled the two watches into
which the crew were divided, putting four of the Greek sailors with an
equal number of English Jack tars in each, so that should any "little
unpleasantness," as he laughingly observed, occur, the foreigners would
not have it all their own way.

Mr Tompkins's chagrin when this was effected was delightful to Tom,
although he suffered from it, as the first mate, ascribing to his
suggestion the credit of the new arrangement, vented his spite on him
accordingly, and tried to make his duties as difficult for him as he
could.

Nothing was seen further all that day, or the next night, of the
felucca, although Tom never went below for a single watch even when his
time for relief came--except for meals, of course--remaining on deck and
keeping a sharp lookout towards every point of the compass, not only
during his own time of duty but in that of the chief mate as well,
despite the latter's broad hints and insulting remarks that his absence
would be more agreeable than his company. So, when the following day
likewise passed without any reappearance of the suspicious stranger,
both the lads began to think that their fear of being attacked by
pirates was only a chimera, founded, as the captain had said, on
Mohammed's fabulous narrative; for Charley had been quite as nervous in
the matter as Tom, and had shared his anxious watch with him all through
ever since he had recognised the Greek on board the felucca.

Accordingly, the two, their apprehensions quite allayed, turned in
together again on the third night the _Muscadine_ was at sea, without
any greater anticipation of something being about to happen, beyond the
usual disagreeables of a sailor's life, than they had the first evening
after they left port--both quitting the deck about just the same time as
then, too, when Tom was relieved by the first mate at six bells.

"Isn't that a sail out there, Charley, right in the wind's-eye?" said
Tom a