s they turned to descend the companion-stairs, pointing to what
looked like a white speck, far-away off in the direction he had named.

"A sail be hanged!" exclaimed Charley. "I never saw such a fellow in my
life. You are like Don Quixote, who fancied every windmill a giant. I
believe that blessed felucca haunts you in your sleep!"

"No, really, Charley, I didn't think it was her. I meant another sort
of sail. But I was mistaken, for I can see nothing now."

"That's always the way with you, Tom. It strikes me that all your sails
are sells."

At which brilliant piece of wit on Charley's part both lads laughed so
loudly that Mr Tomkins thought they were making fun at his expense, and
it was gall and wormwood to him as he paced the deck on the windward
side; and "the two inseparables," as Captain Harding dubbed them, then
turned in without any further palaver save a brief "good-night," being
soon wafted happily into the land of dreams.

A tolerably fast vessel for her size, and in fair sailing trim, as she
was only half-loaded--being unable to complete her cargo at Beyrout,
whence her going out of her way, as it were, to Smyrna from thence--the
_Muscadine_, with the good breeze she had at starting, which had
subsequently increased into a very favourable wind, strong, but not too
strong to prevent her carrying all plain sail, had made such use of her
legs, as sailors say, that she had by this time run over 500 miles from
her point of departure, and before morning the captain expected they
would sight the southernmost point of Rhodes, and be able to enter the
channel between that island and Scarpanto.

He had therefore issued strict injunctions about a sharp lookout being
kept forward, stationing one of the English crew in each watch there for
that purpose--as he said he didn't believe in any foreigner's eyesight
where a ship was concerned--just when he was leaving the deck, which was
shortly before Tom and Charley, giving orders at the same time that he
should be called as soon as anything was perceived; and these
instructions Tom, as the second officer, passed on, as in duty bound, to
Mr Tompkins when he relieved him, the first mate receiving them, as he
now invariably did any statement from his junior, with a characteristic
grunt!

There is really no other word in the English language to express the
meaning of the ejaculative sound he made, which signified, equally,
acquiescence, approval, disapproval, or any