Of late years he had fallen into feeble health, and found it not so easy to row the long distance over to land.  Even in his best days he had, owing to an old injury to one of his legs, found some difficulty in getting down to the boat; and now, therefore, he sat during the greater part of the day over the hearth, in his woolen jacket and leather breeches, with his indoor work.  Now and then, when his granddaughter—­a child with a thick crop of hair falling about her ears, and a rough dog constantly at her heels—­would burst into the house with all the freshness of the outside air blowing round her, as it were, and deliver herself of her intelligence, he might be drawn, perhaps, to the window to look out over the sea, and afterwards, like a growling bear disturbed from its lair, even follow her with some difficulty out of the door with the spyglass.  There he would station himself, so as to use her shoulder as a rest for his shaking hand, and with his never-ceasing directions and growling going on behind her neck, she would do her best to fix the glass on the desired object.  His crossness would then disappear, little by little, in their joint speculation as to what ship it could be, or in whatever remarks it might suggest; and after giving his decision, the old man would generally hobble in again.

He was really very proud of his granddaughter’s cleverness.  She could distinguish with her naked eye as clearly as he could through the glass.  She never made a mistake about the craft, large or small, that belonged to that part of the coast, and could, besides, say to a nicety, what sort of master each had.  Her superiority of sight she asserted, too, with a tyranny to which he made no resistance, although it might have tried a temper many degrees more patient than his was.

One day, however, she was at a loss.  They made out a crescent on the flag, and this caused even the old man a moment’s astonishment.  But he declared then, for her information, shortly and decisively, that it was a “barbarian.”

This satisfied her for a moment.  But then she asked—­

“What is a barbarian, grandfather?”

“It is a Turk.”

“Yes, but a Turk?”

“Oh! it’s—­it’s—­a Mohammedan—­”

“A what!—­a Moham—­”

“A Mohammedan—­a robber on board ship.”

“On board ship!”

He was not going to give up his ascendancy in the matter, hard as she pushed him; so he bethought him of a pack of old tales there-anent, and went on to explain drily—­

“They go to the Baltic—­to Russia—­to salt human flesh.”

“Human flesh!”

“Yes, and sometimes, too, they seize vessels in the open sea and do their salting there.”

She fixed a pair of large, terrified eyes on him, which made the old man continue—­

“And it is especially for little girls they look.  That meat is the finest, and goes by tons down to the Grand Turk.”