among the sails; the phosphorescent water
bubbling from the ship's bows; the murmurs
from little knots of men on deck subdued by the
great calm: home seemed near, all danger far;
Peace ruled the sea, the sky, the heart: the
ship, making a track of white fire on the deep,
glided gently yet swiftly homeward, urged by
snowy sails piled up like alabaster towers against
a violet sky, out of which looked a thousand
eyes of holy tranquil fire. So melted the sweet
night away.

Now carmine streaks tinged the eastern sky at
the water's edge; and that water blushed; now
the streaks turned orange, and the waves below
them sparkled. Thence splashes of living gold
flew and settled on the ship's white sails, the
deck, and the faces; and, with no more prologue,
being so near the line, up came majestically a
huge, fiery, golden sun, and set the sea flaming
liquid topaz.

Instant the look out at the foretop-gallant-
masthead hailed the deck below.

"STRANGE SAIL! RIGHT AHEAD!"

The strange sail was reported to Captain
Dodd, then dressing in his cabin. He came soon
after on deck and hailed the look out: " Which
way is she standing?"

"Can't say, sir. Can't see her move any."

Dodd ordered the boatswain to pipe to breakfast;
and taking his deck glass went lightly up
to the foretop-gallant-mast-crosstrees. There,
through the light haze of a glorious morning, he
espied a long low schooner, latine-rigged, lying
close under Point Leat, a small island about nine
miles distant on the weather bow; and nearly in
the Agra's course, then approaching the Straits
of Gaspar, 4 Latitude S.

"She is hove to," said Dodd, very gravely.

At eight o'clock, the stranger lay about two
miles to windward: and still hove to.

By this time all eyes were turned upon her,
and half a dozen glasses. Everybody, except the
captain, delivered an opinion. She was a Greek
lying to for water: she was a Malay coming
north with canes, and short of hands: she was a
pirate watching the Straits.

The captain leaned silent and sombre with his
arms on the bulwarks, and watched the suspected
Craft.

Mr. Fullalove joined the group, and levelled
a powerful glass, of his own construction. His
inspection was long and minute, and, while the
glass was at his eye, Sharpe asked him half in a
whisper, could he make out anything?

"Wal," said he, " the varmint looks considerably
snaky." Then, without moving his glass,
he let drop a word at a time, as if the facts were
trickling into his telescope at the lens, and out
at the sight. " One— two— four— seven, false
ports."

There was a momentary murmur among the
officers all round. But British sailors are
undemonstrative: Colonel Kenealy, strolling the
deck with his cigar, saw they were watching
another ship with maritime curiosity, and
making comments; but he discerned no particular
emotions nor anxiety in what they said, nor in the
grave low tones they said it in. Perhaps a brother
seaman would though.

The next observation that trickled out of
Fullalove's tube was this: "I judge there are too few
hands on deck, and too many— white—eyeballs
—glittering at the portholes."

"Confound it!" muttered Bayliss, uneasily;
"how can you see that?

Fullalove replied only by quietly handing his
glass to Dodd. The captain, thus appealed to,
glued his eye to the tube.

"Well, sir; see the false ports, and the white
eyebrows?" asked Sharpe, ironically.

"I see this is the best glass I ever looked
through," said Dodd doggedly, without interrupting
his inspection.

"I think he is a Malay pirate," said Mr. Grey.

Sharpe took him up very quickly, and, indeed
angrily: " Nonsense! And if he is, he won't
venture on a craft of this size."

"Says the whale to the swordfish," suggested
Fullalove, with a little guttural laugh.

The captain, with the American glass at his
eye, turned half round to the man at the wheel:
"Star-board!"

"Starboard it is."

"Steer South South East."

"Ay, ay, sir." And the ship's course was
thus altered two points.

This order lowered Dodd fifty per cent in Mr.
Sharpe's estimation. He held his tongue as long
as he could: but at last his surprise and
dissatisfaction burst out of him. " Won't that bring
him out on us?"

"Very likely, sir," replied Dodd.

"Begging your pardon, captain, would it not
be wiser to keep our course, and show the
blackguard we don't fear him?"

"When we do? Sharpe, he has made up his
mind an hour ago whether to lie still, or bite. My
changing my course two points won't change his
mind: but it may make him declare it; and I
must know what he does intend, before I run the
ship into the narrows ahead."

"Oh, I see," said Sharpe, half convinced.

The alteration in the Agra's course produced
no movement on the part of the mysterious
schooner. She lay to under the land still, and
with only a few hands on deck, while the Agra
edged away from her and entered the Straits
between Long Island and Point Leat, leaving the
schooner about two miles and a half distant to
the N.W.

Ah! The stranger's deck swarms black with
men!

His sham ports fell as if by magic, his guns
grinned through the gaps like black teeth; his
huge foresail rose and filled, and out he came in
chase.