from eight
o'clock till midnight that is, I sharing it with him, speaking as we
were just abreast of the light I've mentioned, although so far to the
southward that it could only be seen very faintly glimmering on the
horizon like a star, a trifle bigger than those which twinkled above it
and on either side in the clear northern sky--"we've run exactly forty-
six miles from our departure point."

"Departure point, sir!" I repeated after him, my curiosity aroused by
the use of such a term. "What is that?"

"The last land sighted before a ship gains the open sea," replied he
kindly, always willing to give me any information, although I'm afraid I
caused him a good deal of trouble with my innumerable questions, in my
zeal to get acquainted with everything connected with the ship and my
profession as an embryo sailor. "Ours was the Lizard; didn't you notice
Cap'en Gillespie taking the bearings of it as we passed this afternoon?"

"Yes, sir. I saw him with his sextant, as you told me that queer
triangular thing was," said I; "but I didn't know what he was doing. I
thought our starting-place was the Thames? We must have gone miles and
miles since we left the Downs."

"So we have, my boy; still, that was only the threshold of our long
journey, and sailors do not begin to count their run until fairly out at
sea as we are now. When you came up to town the other day from that
place in the country--West something or other?"

"Westham, sir," I suggested; "that's where we live."

"Well, then," he went on, accepting my correction with a smile, "when
you were telling your adventures and stated that you came from Westham
to London in three hours, say, you would not include the time you had
taken in going from the door of your house to the garden gate and from
thence to the little town or village whence you started by the railway--
eh?"

"No, sir," said I, laughing at his way of putting the matter. "I would
mean from the station at Westham to the railway terminus in London."

"Just so," he answered; "and, similarly, we sailors in estimating the
length of a voyage, do not take into consideration our passage along the
river and down channel, only counting our distance from the last point
of land we see of the country we are leaving and the first we sight of
that we're bound to. Our first day's run, therefore, will be what we
get over from the Lizard up to the time the cap'en takes the sun at noon
to-morrow, which will t