“Having for these last fifteen years,” he continued, “sailed regularly from London in East-Indiamen, I am more at home over there—in the Bay.”      

       He pointed into the night toward the northwest and stared as if he could see from where he stood that Bay of Bengal where—as he affirmed—he would be so much more at home.     

       “You'll soon get used—” muttered Lingard, swinging in his rapid walk past his mate. Then he turned round, came back, and asked sharply.     

       “You said there was nothing afloat in sight before dark? Hey?”      

       “Not that I could see, sir. When I took the deck again at eight, I asked that serang whether there was anything about; and I understood him to say there was no more as when I went below at six. This is a lonely sea at times—ain't it, sir? Now, one would think at this time of the year the homeward-bounders from China would be pretty thick here.”      

       “Yes,” said Lingard, “we have met very few ships since we left Pedra Branca over the stern. Yes; it has been a lonely sea. But for all that, Shaw, this sea, if lonely, is not blind. Every island in it is an eye. And now, since our squadron has left for the China waters—”      

       He did not finish his sentence. Shaw put his hands in his pockets, and propped his back against the sky-light, comfortably.     

       “They say there is going to be a war with China,” he said in a gossiping tone, “and the French are going along with us as they did in the Crimea five years ago. It seems to me we're getting mighty good friends with the French. I've not much of an opinion about that. What do you think, Captain Lingard?”      

       “I have met their men-of-war in the Pacific,” said Lingard, slowly. “The ships were fine and the fellows in them were civil enough to me—and very curious about my business,” he added with a laugh. “However, I wasn't there to make war on them. I had a rotten old cutter then, for trade, Shaw,” he went on with animation.     

       “Had you, sir?” said Shaw without any enthusiasm. “Now give me a big ship—a ship, I say, that one may—”      

       “And later on, some years ago,” interrupted Lingard, “I chummed with 

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