"The captain was sitting with one foot upon the carronade in his outer-cabin, looking through the port at the heavy Indiaman, as she slued about and plunged in the blue surge, with all sorts of ugly ropes hanging from her bows, dirty pairs of trousers towing clear of the water when she lifted, and rusty stains at her hawse-holes. A stout-built, hard-featured man he was, with bushy black eyebrows, and grizzled black hair and whiskers, not to speak of a queer, anxious, uneasy look in the keen of his eyes when he turned to me. However, he got half up on my coming in, and I saw he was lame a little of one foot, while he overhauled me all over with his eye. 'I'm sorry to have to send for you in this way, sir,' said he, rather surprised at my rig, apparently--'very sorry, sir, and no more about it; but I can't help it, confound me--_must_ do my duty.' 'Certainly, sir,' I said. 'In fact,' said Captain Wallis, 'the Admiral ordered us to see after you--_him_, that's to say--at the Cape, you know.' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said I, watching the Indiaman's poop-nettings through the port over his head, as he sat down. 'Pooh, pooh,' continued he, 'you can't be the man--just say you don't belong to the service--confound it, I'll pass you!' 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I can't exactly say _that_.' 'I hear you're Westwood of the _Orestes_, though,' said he; 'now I don't ask you to say _no_, sir; but everybody knew the _Orestes_, and I don't like the thing, I must say: so perhaps you're able to swear _he_ is not aboard the Indiaman--just now, you know, sir--_just now_, eh?'
"This tack of his rather dumfoundered me, seeing the captain of the brig meant it well; but deuced unlucky kindness it was, since I couldn't swear to the very thing he fancied so safe, and his glance was as quick as lightning, so he caught the sense of my blank look in a moment--as I fancied, at least. 'The fact is, sir,' added he,'the surgeon told me just now he knows Lieutenant Westwood well enough by sight so they locked him up! You see we could have made you out at any rate, sir--however, we'll let the doctor stay till we're clear of the Indiaman, I think.' 'Then you take me for the gentleman you speak of, Captain Wallis?' asked I, faintly; for at the same moment I could see a light-coloured dress and a white ribbon fluttering on the _Seringapatam's_ poop, the look of which sent the blood about my heart. 'Twas hard to settle betwixt a feeling of the kind, and fear for Westwood; it struck me Captain Wallis wasn't very eager in the affair, and 'twas on my lips to assure him I wasn't the man. 'Hark'ee,' broke in he, with almost a wink, and a smile ready to break out on his mouth, 'the short and the long of it is, I'll take _you_! We must have somebody to show in the case; though now I remember, there was someone else said to've gone off with you--but we won't trouble _him_! If we've brought away the wrong man, why, hang it, so much the better! If you're Westwood, I can tell you, they'll run ye up to a yardarm, sir! Much more comfortable than ten years or so in a jail, too, as--as no one knows better than _I_ do myself.'