It was overheard by Cuffe, however, who just at that instant stepped into the gangway to make an examination for himself.
"It is a snake-_out_-of the grass, rather, Strand," observed the captain, for _he_ could speak to whom he pleased, without presumption or degradation.

"Had she stayed in port, now, she would have been _in_ the grass, and we might have scotched her." "Well, your honor, we can _English_ her, as it is; and that'll be quite as nat'ral, and quite as much to the purpose, as _Scotching_ her, any day," answered Strand, who, being a native of London, had a magnificent sort of feeling toward all the dependencies of the empire, and to whom the word scotch, in that sense, was Greek, though he well understood what it meant "to clap a Scotchman on a rope"; "we are likely to have a flat calm all the morning, and our boats are in capital order; and, then, nothing will be more agreeable to our gentlemen than a row." Strand was a gray-headed seaman, and he had served with Captain Cuffe when the latter was a midshipman, and had even commanded the top of which the present boatswain had been the captain.

He knew the "cut of the captain's jib" better than any other man in the Proserpine, and often succeeded with his suggestions, when Winchester and the other lieutenants failed.

His superior now turned round and looked him intently in the face, as if struck with the notion the other thus indirectly laid before him.

This movement was noted; and, at a sign secretly given by Winchester, the whole crew gave three hearty cheers; Strand leading off as soon as he caught the idea.