“No, no, not so bad as that now, I think,” he replied, chuckling away. “There probably will be only a slight shift of wind from the western quarter, whence it is now blowing, to the eastward, whither the porpoises are now making off for, as you can see for yourself.”
So it subsequently turned out.
The “sea-pigs,” as the Captain had at first jocularly termed them, bade good-bye to the steamer and its passengers when they had got a little way beyond No Man’s fort, and were approaching shoal water, with an impudent flick of their flukey tails in the air as they went off, shaping a straight course out towards the Nab light-ship, as if bound up Channel.
They had all been so occupied watching the porpoises that they had not noticed the rapid progress the steamer had been making towards her first port of call on the other side of the Solent; and so, almost at the same moment that the Captain called Nellie’s attention to the last movements of the queer fish as they vanished in the distance, she shut off her steam and sidled up to Seaview pier.
“Who’s for the shore?” cried out the skipper from his post on the paddle-box, as soon as the vessel had made fast, and the “brow,” or gangway, was shoved ashore for the passengers to land, without any unnecessary delay. “Any ladies or gents for Seaview?”
The majority of those on board at once quitted the steamer, amongst them being our quintet.
As they were stepping on to the pier, however, a slight difficulty arose in connection with one of their number.
It was about Rover.
“Is that your dog?” asked the collector of tickets of the
Captain, as the retriever darted ahead in a great hurry. “That your dog, sir?”