ombat had caused this sudden departure from the
programme. "Look!" he continued; "just where the sun's gone down
yonder. It's only a speck; but I can see it plain enough. It must be
the light from a ship's binnacle!"

"_Carrajo_!" exclaimed a Spaniard; "it's only a spark the sun's left
behind him. It's the _ignis fatuus_ you've seen, _amigo_!"

"Bah!" added another; "supposing it is a binnacle-lamp, as you say, what
would be the use, except to tantalise us. If it be in the binnacle, in
course the ship as carries it must be stern towards us. What chance
would there be of our overhaulin' her?"

"_Par Dieu_! there be von light!" cried a sharp-eyed little Frenchman.
"Pe Gar! I him see. Ver true, vraiment! An--pe dam!--zat same est no
lamp in ze binnacle!"

"I see it too!" cried another.

"And I!" added a third.

"_Io tambien_!" (I also) echoed a fourth, whose tongue proclaimed him
of Spanish nativity.

"_Ich sehe_!" drawled out a native of the German Confederacy; and then
followed a volley of voices,--each saying something to confirm the
belief that a light was really gleaming over the ocean.

This was a fact that nobody--not even the first objectors--any longer
doubted.

It is true that the light seen appeared only a mere sparkle, feebly
glimmering against the sky, and might have been mistaken for a star.
But it was just in that part of the heavens where a star could not at
that time have been seen,--on the western horizon, still slightly
reddened by the rays of the declining sun.

The men who speculated upon its appearance,--rude as they were in a
moral sense,--were not so intellectually stupid as to mistake for a star
that speck of yellowish hue, struggling to reveal itself against the
almost kindred colour of the occidental sky.

"It isn't a star,--that's certain," confidently declared one of their
number; "and if it be a light aboard ship, it's no binnacle-lamp, I say.
Bah! who'd call that a binnacle glim, or a lamp of any kind? If't be a
ship's light at all, it's the glare o' the galley-fire,--where the
cook's makin' coffee for all hands."

The superb picture of comfort thus called forth was too much for the
temper of the starving men, to whom the idea was addressed; and a wild
cry of exultation responded to the speech.

A galley; a galley-fire; a cook; coffee for all hands; lobscouse;
plum-duff; sea-pies; even the much-despised pea-soup and salt junk, had
been long looked upon as things be