"I am sure I don't know what we are to do next," said Jane, mournfully, after sitting for a moment in silence.
"Nor I," rejoined Rollo, "and so I am going to follow uncle George's rules."
Mr. George had given Rollo this rule, as a sort of universal direction for young persons when travelling alone:--
2. When you cannot find out in this or in any other way what to do, do nothing.
In accordance with this advice, Rollo concluded to sit still upon the settee, where the ship's officer had placed him, and do nothing. In the mean time, however, he amused himself in watching the ships and steamers which he saw sailing to and fro about the harbor, and in pointing out to Jane all the remarkable objects which he observed from time to time along the shores.
[Illustration: THE PILOT ON THE PADDLE BOX.]
Among other things which attracted his attention, he noticed and watched the movements of a man who stood upon the top of one of the paddle boxes on the side of the ship, where he walked to and fro very busily, holding a speaking trumpet all the time in his hand. Every now and then he would call out, in a loud voice, a certain word. Sometimes it was _port_, sometimes it was _starboard_, and sometimes it was _steady_. Rollo observed that it was always one or the other of those three words. And what was still more curious, Rollo observed that, whenever the man on the paddle box called out the word, the officer on the deck, who kept walking about there all the time to and fro, would immediately repeat it after him, in a loud but in a somewhat singular tone. While he was wondering what this could mean, a gentleman, who seemed to be one of the passengers, came and sat down on the settee close by his side. Rollo had a great mind to ask him who the man on the paddle box was.
"Well, my boy," said the gentleman, "you are rather young to go to sea. How do you like it?"
"We are going out in fine style," said the gentleman. "We shall soon be done with the pilot."
"Yes," said the gentleman. "There he is, on the paddle box."
"Is that the pilot?" asked Rollo. "I thought the pilot was the man who steered."
"No," replied the gentleman, "he is the man who gives directions how to steer. He does not steer himself. The man who steers is called the helmsman. There he is."