Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fourteen.Down Channel.Meanwhile, the first lieutenant and boatswain were busy forward with the forecastle hands, seeing to the catting and fishing of the anchor; and, as soon as our port bower was properly secured by the aid of the cathead stopper and shank painter, the courses, which were all ready to let fall, were dropped and sheeted home, topgallants and royals spread, and the jib and foretopmast staysail set, as well as the spanker aft, the oldCandaharbeing presently under a cloud of canvas alow and aloft, and slowly but surely making an offing and reaching out to sea.We continued on the same tack until we had weathered the Nab Lightship, some ten miles out, when, being favoured with a “sojer’s wind,” fair both ways, we trimmed sails again and braced the yards up, wearing ship and gradually altering course from a nearly due east direction to one “west-half-south,” fetching a compass down Channel.We passed on our starboard hand within easy cannon shot of the Isle of Wight, whose bold, projecting headlands and curving bays of white and yellow sand we opened in turn every minute, with their purple hills beyond and deep-shadowed valleys lit up ever and anon by a gleam of sunshine as we sailed gaily on; the blue sky above our heads seeming in the clear atmosphere to recede further and further back into the immensity of space as we proceeded while the blue water around us became bluer and, more intense in tone, except where here and there the crest of a breaking wave flecked it with foam.At Seven Bells, when the watch was set, we had given the snub-nosed Dunose the go-by and were heading for Saint Catherine’s Point, going about eight knots under all plain sail, the wind freshening as we drew away from under the lee of the land, and the ship getting livelier.Just as I was looking over the side and noting this fact, while watching the gull’s circling in our wake, uttering their plaintive screams at intervals that sounded like the ghost cries of drowned sailors buried beneath the sea, Mr Quadrant, the master, who was on the poop, sextant in hand, reported it was twelve o’clock; whereupon, the commander telling him to “make it so,” Eight Bells was struck, the men being piped to dinner immediately afterwards in obedience to another order from headquarters aft.Not being wanted any longer on deck, and the crisp, bracing sea air giving me a good appetite, I hurried down the hatchway to join my messmates in the gunroom, mindful by my morning’s experiences of the disadvantage of being late for meals.Quick as I was, I found the majority of the other fellows not on duty had already forestalled me, chief among these early birds being my chum, Tom Mills.This young gentleman, all in his glory, was lording it over poor Dobb’s, the long-suffering steward, at a fine rate, I noticed, making Mr Stormcock waxy with his remarks about the fare.This, really, was not at all bad in quality nor scanty in quantity, as the irate master’s mate asseverated with considerable heat.It was much better, indeed, than most of us youngsters had probably been accustomed to when at school in our longshore days, no matter how we might growl and turn up our noses at it now; but, cocksy Master Tommy, of course, was incorrigible, treating such an innuendo as this, in spite of the loud voice and pointed manner of Mr Stormcock, with the contempt it deserved, the young rascal grinning and sticking his tongue in his cheek in so provocative a fashion that the master’s mate instantly pitched a hot potato at him.This caught Mr Fortescue Jones, the unoffending assistant-paymaster, in the eye, and made all the purser’s clerks yell with laughter.When I went on deck again, shortly after Three Bells, we were pretty well clear of the Isle of Wight, the Needles Rocks being off our weather quarter and some miles distant, with the Dorset coast looming ahead.As I stood listening to the quartermaster instructing the helmsmen, one of whom was a young hand, telling them to keep the ship a couple of points free, until, as time went on, it came close to the next hour, two o’clock, or Four Bells; when, according to the routine of the service, Adams, who was midshipman of the watch, hove the log and reported that we were still only going eight knots, with the ebb tide in our favour.At that moment, Captain Farmer came out of his cabin; and, hearing this, directed the officer of the watch, Mr Bitpin, whose rightful turn of duty it was, to set studding sails, not being satisfied, apparently, with the oldCandahar’sprogress, although she was doing her best and surging along in grand style, as I thought.“Bosun’s mate!” thereupon sang out the lieutenant. “Pipe watch to set starboard topmast and to’gallant stu’ns’ls!”“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the boatswain’s mate from his post by the after-hatchway; and, almost in the same breath, his piercing shrill whistle was heard, followed by his hoarse shout repeating Mr Bitpin’s gruff command. “Watch set starboard topmast and to’gallant stu’ns’ls!”“Topmen aloft!”“Jiggers at the tops’l lifts!”“Clear away stu’ns’l gear!”These successive orders were now jerked out in rapid rotation by Mr Bitpin, who stood at the poop-rail bellowing away like a wild bull, Captain Farmer remaining alongside him and surveying with critical eye all that was done as the hands scrambled up the rigging and bustled about the deck, casting off ropes and getting the booms prepared; until, anon, the captains of the fore and maintops and the captain of the forecastle, as well as the gunner’s mate, whose task it was to see to the main topmast studding sail, reported “All ready!”Therefore the lieutenant, with a deeper bellow than before, shouted “Sway away!”In an instant, the watch on deck, bending on to the halliards with a will, hoisted the gleaming white sails aloft and sheeted them home; when, bellying out before the northerly breeze, they expanded their folds, making the yardarms creak again, and looking like the wings of some gigantic seabird, the ship herself bearing out the resemblance and swooping away in a heavy lurch to leeward, after apparently preening her pinions for a fresh flight, being now a perfect pyramid of canvas from truck to deck.“Mr Adams,” called out Mr Bitpin presently from the poop, evidently in obedience to some quiet order given by the captain, to the midshipman, who of course stood immediately below his superior officer on the quarter-deck, “heave the log again and tell me what she’s going now!”“Very good, sir,” replied Frank Adams; and, after the necessary interval of heaving the log-ship over the side to leeward and counting the knots on the line while the fourteen-second glass held by the quartermaster was running out, he sang out “She’s going nearly ten, sir.”“Ah!” muttered Captain Farmer, who had come down the poop-ladder and was waiting for the news before returning to his cabin, as he passed the marine sentry before disappearing within the sliding door, expressing his thoughts aloud, “That’s better, much better—I thought she could do it with this wind!” It was a beautiful afternoon; and, from its being Sunday, several of the wardroom officers came on deck after luncheon, having nothing especial to do below.Amongst the lot were Dr Nettleby and Mr Nipper, the paymaster.I also observed on the poop the Reverend Mr Smythe and “Joe” Jellaby, who had contrived to secure sufficient snoozing, during the odd moments when he was off duty since the morning, to make up for the sleep he had lost by going to the admiral’s ball and there meeting the witching houri of his dreams, “that chawming gurl,” who had subsequently prevented him from taking his proper rest when he came aboard in the small hours of the middle watch.The chaplain seemed to have taken a fancy to “Joe,” for he stuck on to him as soon as he came up the hatchway; joining with some considerable difficulty in the lieutenant’s constitutional “quarter-deck walk.” The reverend gentleman had not got his sea legs yet, and did not find it an easy matter to keep step, or indeed keep his footing sometimes.This was more especially the case when the ship heeled over every now and again before the force of the wind and then righted herself on an even keel without warning, throwing Mr Smythe off his balance and causing him to clutch frantically atJoe’sarm for support till he recovered his lost centre of gravity.The lieutenant’s courtesy was put to a severe test in making him preservehisgravity; albeit, he had an itching inclination to burst out into his jovial laugh at the reverend gentleman’s ridiculous contortions and praiseworthy attempts to sustain a sort of disjointed conversation between the pauses of his grotesque sprawls and restoration to a more dignified attitude.As they were marching up and down the deck in this desultory way, describing the while a series of irregular ellipses, Six Bells was struck forwards, and the marine stationed by the taffrail at once shouted out in a high key, “Life-buoy!”“Dear me!” exclaimed Mr Smythe in a shrill tone of alarm, which his squeaky voice was well calculated to express, bringing up suddenly against one of the quarter boats which was swung inboard from the davits; and knocking his head violently against the bottom planking, through the ship lurching as he stopped. “What has happened—is anyone lost overboard?”“Oh, no,” replied “Joe,” laughing as usual. “It’s only the jolly in charge of the life-buoy. He has to sing out every time the bell is struck to show that he’s at his post, just as the sojers ashore on sentry-go cry ‘All’s well!’ to tell their sergeant they’re not napping, that’s all.”“Ah!” ejaculated the chaplain with a feeble smile, putting his hand to his head as if in great pain from the blow he had received, “I see—ah, I see.”“I hope you haven’t hurt yourself,” said “Joe,” seeing that the other kept his white cambric handkerchief still tightly pressed to his forehead. “That was a rather nasty knock you got! Cut yourself, eh?”“I—I—don’t quite know, you know,” answered the reverend gentleman, removing the handkerchief after some hesitation and proceeding to examine it carefully as if fearing the worst; but, finding now no trace of blood on its snowy surface, he became reassured and said, in a more cheery tone, “no, not cut, I think, only a severe contusion, thank you, Mr Jellaby. The pain has nearly gone now!”“That’s right; I’m glad you’ve escaped so well,” said “Joe,” taking Mr Smythe’s arm again and wheeling him in line so as to resume their walk; while I stood by, with my ears cocked, listening to the detached fragments of their talk. “On board my last ship, theBlanche, we had a rum start one day with our life-buoy sentry. Would you like me to tell you the story?”“Thanks, much,” responded the chaplain; “I should be delighted.”“Well, you see,” began the lieutenant, starting off with his yarn and quarter-deck walk again simultaneously, “we had a lot of raw marine lads who had just enlisted sent us from Forton to complete our complement; and, one of these green hands, as luck would have it, was placed as sentry on the poop by the sergeant of the guard, the first day he came aboard, though he’d probably never seen a ship in his life before. You see, eh?”“Ah!” ejaculated the chaplain as “Joe” turned abruptly when close up to the taffrail and nearly twisted him off his legs. “Yes, I—ah—see.”“When the poor jolly was put on sentry,” continued the lieutenant, bolstering up Mr Smythe with his arm and just saving him in the nick of time from coming to grief again over a ringbolt on the deck, “the sergeant told him he would have to call out when the bell was struck, thinking, of course, he knew all about it. The poor fellow, though, as you are aware, was quite ignorant of the custom; so, as soon as the sergeant’s back was turned, he asked one of the men of the starboard watch standing by, ‘What am I to call out when they strike the bell?’“‘Life-buoy!’ replied the other. ‘Life-buoy!’“‘All right, chummy, I thank you kindly,’ said the young marine, full of gratitude; and so, when, by-and-by, Two Bells were struck, he called out in a voice that could be heard all over the ship, ‘Live boy!’”“He—he—he!” chuckled the chaplain in his feeble way, he and Mr Jellaby coming to a stop, I was glad to see, close to where I stood. “That was funny! Very, very funny!”“Nothing to what’s coming,” went on Mr Jellaby, pleased that his efforts at comic narrative under such difficulties had been so far successful, the chaplain not objecting to the secular amusement from any conscientious scruples. “Well, as soon as the ignorant chaw-bacon chap yelled out this, which naturally made everyone who heard it laugh, although they put the mistake down to the poor fellow’s provincial pronunciation, he turns to the man who had previously instructed him and asks in a proud sort of way, as if seeking praise for his performance, ‘Say, how did I sing out that, chum?’“‘Very well,’ replied the other, who, if he had advised him in good faith in the first instance, on now seeing the result of his teaching was anxious to take a rise out of the ‘stupid jolly,’ as he thought him. ‘But, chummy, you’ll have to do different next time.’“‘Oh!’ exclaimed the marine. ‘What shall I have to sing out, then?’“‘You called “Live boy” at Two Bells; and so it’ll be “Dead boy” when it strikes Three Bells. It’s always turn and turn about aboard ship.’“‘Yes, that’s fair enough and I thank you kindly,’ answered the poor marine, sucking in the other’s gammon like milk, not perceiving for a moment that the sailor was ‘pulling his leg’; and, the next time the bell sounded, as sure as we both stand here, if you’ll believe me, Mr Smythe, the silly donkey shouted out, even louder than he had done before, at the very pitch of his voice, ‘Dead boy.’”“He, he, he!” cackled Mr Smythe again, while Dick Popplethorne, who had joined me by the taffrail and was intently listening like myself to “Joe’s” yarn, burst out in a regular guffaw, which he had to choke his fist into his mouth to suppress; for, any such violent expression of merriment was totally at variance with the discipline of a man-of-war and had to be checked at once for the good of the service! “But, what—ah, happened, Mr Jellaby, to the poor fellow, eh?”“Why, the officer of the watch sent for the sergeant of the guard with a file of marines, and put the man under arrest for being drunk and mutinous!”“You don’t—ah, mean to say he was punished?”“No,” replied “Joe,” with a wink to us. “He certainly was brought up on the quarter-deck before the captain, who had heard his queer shout, as everybody did, indeed, who was on deck at the time; but, the bluejacket who had misled him came forward at the last moment and got him released from chokey, our captain, who was a good-tempered chap and enjoyed a joke, letting them both off, although he read ’em a lecture and had to bite his lip the while he spoke of the heinousness of their joint offence, he being hardly able to speak seriously!”“Ah, I see,” said the Reverend Mr Smythe approvingly, though in a very faint tone, walking off towards the poop-ladder with the lieutenant’s aid, having evidently had enough of the ship’s rolling. He expressed a wish to seek the seclusion of his own cabin, whereat I was not surprised, both Dick Popplethorne and myself having observed his face assume a greenish-yellowy-liver sort of look during the last few moments of “Joe’s” narrative; but he kept up his courage to the last, murmuring yet more faintly as he tottered below. “Ve-wy good—ah! Ye-es, ve-wy good—ah, indeed!”“Funny, wasn’t it?” said Dick Popplethorne to me as the two turned away, laughing again, only more quietly now. “What a rum start for him to sing out, ‘dead boy!’”I thought so, too—afterwards.

Meanwhile, the first lieutenant and boatswain were busy forward with the forecastle hands, seeing to the catting and fishing of the anchor; and, as soon as our port bower was properly secured by the aid of the cathead stopper and shank painter, the courses, which were all ready to let fall, were dropped and sheeted home, topgallants and royals spread, and the jib and foretopmast staysail set, as well as the spanker aft, the oldCandaharbeing presently under a cloud of canvas alow and aloft, and slowly but surely making an offing and reaching out to sea.

We continued on the same tack until we had weathered the Nab Lightship, some ten miles out, when, being favoured with a “sojer’s wind,” fair both ways, we trimmed sails again and braced the yards up, wearing ship and gradually altering course from a nearly due east direction to one “west-half-south,” fetching a compass down Channel.

We passed on our starboard hand within easy cannon shot of the Isle of Wight, whose bold, projecting headlands and curving bays of white and yellow sand we opened in turn every minute, with their purple hills beyond and deep-shadowed valleys lit up ever and anon by a gleam of sunshine as we sailed gaily on; the blue sky above our heads seeming in the clear atmosphere to recede further and further back into the immensity of space as we proceeded while the blue water around us became bluer and, more intense in tone, except where here and there the crest of a breaking wave flecked it with foam.

At Seven Bells, when the watch was set, we had given the snub-nosed Dunose the go-by and were heading for Saint Catherine’s Point, going about eight knots under all plain sail, the wind freshening as we drew away from under the lee of the land, and the ship getting livelier.

Just as I was looking over the side and noting this fact, while watching the gull’s circling in our wake, uttering their plaintive screams at intervals that sounded like the ghost cries of drowned sailors buried beneath the sea, Mr Quadrant, the master, who was on the poop, sextant in hand, reported it was twelve o’clock; whereupon, the commander telling him to “make it so,” Eight Bells was struck, the men being piped to dinner immediately afterwards in obedience to another order from headquarters aft.

Not being wanted any longer on deck, and the crisp, bracing sea air giving me a good appetite, I hurried down the hatchway to join my messmates in the gunroom, mindful by my morning’s experiences of the disadvantage of being late for meals.

Quick as I was, I found the majority of the other fellows not on duty had already forestalled me, chief among these early birds being my chum, Tom Mills.

This young gentleman, all in his glory, was lording it over poor Dobb’s, the long-suffering steward, at a fine rate, I noticed, making Mr Stormcock waxy with his remarks about the fare.

This, really, was not at all bad in quality nor scanty in quantity, as the irate master’s mate asseverated with considerable heat.

It was much better, indeed, than most of us youngsters had probably been accustomed to when at school in our longshore days, no matter how we might growl and turn up our noses at it now; but, cocksy Master Tommy, of course, was incorrigible, treating such an innuendo as this, in spite of the loud voice and pointed manner of Mr Stormcock, with the contempt it deserved, the young rascal grinning and sticking his tongue in his cheek in so provocative a fashion that the master’s mate instantly pitched a hot potato at him.

This caught Mr Fortescue Jones, the unoffending assistant-paymaster, in the eye, and made all the purser’s clerks yell with laughter.

When I went on deck again, shortly after Three Bells, we were pretty well clear of the Isle of Wight, the Needles Rocks being off our weather quarter and some miles distant, with the Dorset coast looming ahead.

As I stood listening to the quartermaster instructing the helmsmen, one of whom was a young hand, telling them to keep the ship a couple of points free, until, as time went on, it came close to the next hour, two o’clock, or Four Bells; when, according to the routine of the service, Adams, who was midshipman of the watch, hove the log and reported that we were still only going eight knots, with the ebb tide in our favour.

At that moment, Captain Farmer came out of his cabin; and, hearing this, directed the officer of the watch, Mr Bitpin, whose rightful turn of duty it was, to set studding sails, not being satisfied, apparently, with the oldCandahar’sprogress, although she was doing her best and surging along in grand style, as I thought.

“Bosun’s mate!” thereupon sang out the lieutenant. “Pipe watch to set starboard topmast and to’gallant stu’ns’ls!”

“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the boatswain’s mate from his post by the after-hatchway; and, almost in the same breath, his piercing shrill whistle was heard, followed by his hoarse shout repeating Mr Bitpin’s gruff command. “Watch set starboard topmast and to’gallant stu’ns’ls!”

“Topmen aloft!”

“Jiggers at the tops’l lifts!”

“Clear away stu’ns’l gear!”

These successive orders were now jerked out in rapid rotation by Mr Bitpin, who stood at the poop-rail bellowing away like a wild bull, Captain Farmer remaining alongside him and surveying with critical eye all that was done as the hands scrambled up the rigging and bustled about the deck, casting off ropes and getting the booms prepared; until, anon, the captains of the fore and maintops and the captain of the forecastle, as well as the gunner’s mate, whose task it was to see to the main topmast studding sail, reported “All ready!”

Therefore the lieutenant, with a deeper bellow than before, shouted “Sway away!”

In an instant, the watch on deck, bending on to the halliards with a will, hoisted the gleaming white sails aloft and sheeted them home; when, bellying out before the northerly breeze, they expanded their folds, making the yardarms creak again, and looking like the wings of some gigantic seabird, the ship herself bearing out the resemblance and swooping away in a heavy lurch to leeward, after apparently preening her pinions for a fresh flight, being now a perfect pyramid of canvas from truck to deck.

“Mr Adams,” called out Mr Bitpin presently from the poop, evidently in obedience to some quiet order given by the captain, to the midshipman, who of course stood immediately below his superior officer on the quarter-deck, “heave the log again and tell me what she’s going now!”

“Very good, sir,” replied Frank Adams; and, after the necessary interval of heaving the log-ship over the side to leeward and counting the knots on the line while the fourteen-second glass held by the quartermaster was running out, he sang out “She’s going nearly ten, sir.”

“Ah!” muttered Captain Farmer, who had come down the poop-ladder and was waiting for the news before returning to his cabin, as he passed the marine sentry before disappearing within the sliding door, expressing his thoughts aloud, “That’s better, much better—I thought she could do it with this wind!” It was a beautiful afternoon; and, from its being Sunday, several of the wardroom officers came on deck after luncheon, having nothing especial to do below.

Amongst the lot were Dr Nettleby and Mr Nipper, the paymaster.

I also observed on the poop the Reverend Mr Smythe and “Joe” Jellaby, who had contrived to secure sufficient snoozing, during the odd moments when he was off duty since the morning, to make up for the sleep he had lost by going to the admiral’s ball and there meeting the witching houri of his dreams, “that chawming gurl,” who had subsequently prevented him from taking his proper rest when he came aboard in the small hours of the middle watch.

The chaplain seemed to have taken a fancy to “Joe,” for he stuck on to him as soon as he came up the hatchway; joining with some considerable difficulty in the lieutenant’s constitutional “quarter-deck walk.” The reverend gentleman had not got his sea legs yet, and did not find it an easy matter to keep step, or indeed keep his footing sometimes.

This was more especially the case when the ship heeled over every now and again before the force of the wind and then righted herself on an even keel without warning, throwing Mr Smythe off his balance and causing him to clutch frantically atJoe’sarm for support till he recovered his lost centre of gravity.

The lieutenant’s courtesy was put to a severe test in making him preservehisgravity; albeit, he had an itching inclination to burst out into his jovial laugh at the reverend gentleman’s ridiculous contortions and praiseworthy attempts to sustain a sort of disjointed conversation between the pauses of his grotesque sprawls and restoration to a more dignified attitude.

As they were marching up and down the deck in this desultory way, describing the while a series of irregular ellipses, Six Bells was struck forwards, and the marine stationed by the taffrail at once shouted out in a high key, “Life-buoy!”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Mr Smythe in a shrill tone of alarm, which his squeaky voice was well calculated to express, bringing up suddenly against one of the quarter boats which was swung inboard from the davits; and knocking his head violently against the bottom planking, through the ship lurching as he stopped. “What has happened—is anyone lost overboard?”

“Oh, no,” replied “Joe,” laughing as usual. “It’s only the jolly in charge of the life-buoy. He has to sing out every time the bell is struck to show that he’s at his post, just as the sojers ashore on sentry-go cry ‘All’s well!’ to tell their sergeant they’re not napping, that’s all.”

“Ah!” ejaculated the chaplain with a feeble smile, putting his hand to his head as if in great pain from the blow he had received, “I see—ah, I see.”

“I hope you haven’t hurt yourself,” said “Joe,” seeing that the other kept his white cambric handkerchief still tightly pressed to his forehead. “That was a rather nasty knock you got! Cut yourself, eh?”

“I—I—don’t quite know, you know,” answered the reverend gentleman, removing the handkerchief after some hesitation and proceeding to examine it carefully as if fearing the worst; but, finding now no trace of blood on its snowy surface, he became reassured and said, in a more cheery tone, “no, not cut, I think, only a severe contusion, thank you, Mr Jellaby. The pain has nearly gone now!”

“That’s right; I’m glad you’ve escaped so well,” said “Joe,” taking Mr Smythe’s arm again and wheeling him in line so as to resume their walk; while I stood by, with my ears cocked, listening to the detached fragments of their talk. “On board my last ship, theBlanche, we had a rum start one day with our life-buoy sentry. Would you like me to tell you the story?”

“Thanks, much,” responded the chaplain; “I should be delighted.”

“Well, you see,” began the lieutenant, starting off with his yarn and quarter-deck walk again simultaneously, “we had a lot of raw marine lads who had just enlisted sent us from Forton to complete our complement; and, one of these green hands, as luck would have it, was placed as sentry on the poop by the sergeant of the guard, the first day he came aboard, though he’d probably never seen a ship in his life before. You see, eh?”

“Ah!” ejaculated the chaplain as “Joe” turned abruptly when close up to the taffrail and nearly twisted him off his legs. “Yes, I—ah—see.”

“When the poor jolly was put on sentry,” continued the lieutenant, bolstering up Mr Smythe with his arm and just saving him in the nick of time from coming to grief again over a ringbolt on the deck, “the sergeant told him he would have to call out when the bell was struck, thinking, of course, he knew all about it. The poor fellow, though, as you are aware, was quite ignorant of the custom; so, as soon as the sergeant’s back was turned, he asked one of the men of the starboard watch standing by, ‘What am I to call out when they strike the bell?’

“‘Life-buoy!’ replied the other. ‘Life-buoy!’

“‘All right, chummy, I thank you kindly,’ said the young marine, full of gratitude; and so, when, by-and-by, Two Bells were struck, he called out in a voice that could be heard all over the ship, ‘Live boy!’”

“He—he—he!” chuckled the chaplain in his feeble way, he and Mr Jellaby coming to a stop, I was glad to see, close to where I stood. “That was funny! Very, very funny!”

“Nothing to what’s coming,” went on Mr Jellaby, pleased that his efforts at comic narrative under such difficulties had been so far successful, the chaplain not objecting to the secular amusement from any conscientious scruples. “Well, as soon as the ignorant chaw-bacon chap yelled out this, which naturally made everyone who heard it laugh, although they put the mistake down to the poor fellow’s provincial pronunciation, he turns to the man who had previously instructed him and asks in a proud sort of way, as if seeking praise for his performance, ‘Say, how did I sing out that, chum?’

“‘Very well,’ replied the other, who, if he had advised him in good faith in the first instance, on now seeing the result of his teaching was anxious to take a rise out of the ‘stupid jolly,’ as he thought him. ‘But, chummy, you’ll have to do different next time.’

“‘Oh!’ exclaimed the marine. ‘What shall I have to sing out, then?’

“‘You called “Live boy” at Two Bells; and so it’ll be “Dead boy” when it strikes Three Bells. It’s always turn and turn about aboard ship.’

“‘Yes, that’s fair enough and I thank you kindly,’ answered the poor marine, sucking in the other’s gammon like milk, not perceiving for a moment that the sailor was ‘pulling his leg’; and, the next time the bell sounded, as sure as we both stand here, if you’ll believe me, Mr Smythe, the silly donkey shouted out, even louder than he had done before, at the very pitch of his voice, ‘Dead boy.’”

“He, he, he!” cackled Mr Smythe again, while Dick Popplethorne, who had joined me by the taffrail and was intently listening like myself to “Joe’s” yarn, burst out in a regular guffaw, which he had to choke his fist into his mouth to suppress; for, any such violent expression of merriment was totally at variance with the discipline of a man-of-war and had to be checked at once for the good of the service! “But, what—ah, happened, Mr Jellaby, to the poor fellow, eh?”

“Why, the officer of the watch sent for the sergeant of the guard with a file of marines, and put the man under arrest for being drunk and mutinous!”

“You don’t—ah, mean to say he was punished?”

“No,” replied “Joe,” with a wink to us. “He certainly was brought up on the quarter-deck before the captain, who had heard his queer shout, as everybody did, indeed, who was on deck at the time; but, the bluejacket who had misled him came forward at the last moment and got him released from chokey, our captain, who was a good-tempered chap and enjoyed a joke, letting them both off, although he read ’em a lecture and had to bite his lip the while he spoke of the heinousness of their joint offence, he being hardly able to speak seriously!”

“Ah, I see,” said the Reverend Mr Smythe approvingly, though in a very faint tone, walking off towards the poop-ladder with the lieutenant’s aid, having evidently had enough of the ship’s rolling. He expressed a wish to seek the seclusion of his own cabin, whereat I was not surprised, both Dick Popplethorne and myself having observed his face assume a greenish-yellowy-liver sort of look during the last few moments of “Joe’s” narrative; but he kept up his courage to the last, murmuring yet more faintly as he tottered below. “Ve-wy good—ah! Ye-es, ve-wy good—ah, indeed!”

“Funny, wasn’t it?” said Dick Popplethorne to me as the two turned away, laughing again, only more quietly now. “What a rum start for him to sing out, ‘dead boy!’”

I thought so, too—afterwards.

Chapter Fifteen.Off Ushant.At Eight Bells, or four o’clock in the ordinary parlance of landsmen, Mr Bitpin was relieved by the first lieutenant, who then came on deck with the rest of the starboard watch to take charge, while the port watch went below at the same time.This hour marked the beginning of the first dog watch, which, it may be here mentioned for the benefit of the uninitiated, only lasts two hours, from four o’clock to six, when the second dog watch, of similar duration, commences and continues until eight o’clock, or “Eight Bells,” again.These subdivisions of time are necessary on board ship in order to allow all to share alike the rough with the smooth, and give the officers and men a change at regular intervals from day to night service, and the reverse; for, if all the watches were of equal length, there could not be any possible variation of the hours during which the hands would be on and off duty respectively, the one section of the crew in such case coming on deck at precisely the same time each day and going below in similar rotation.By the system in vogue, however, of cutting one of the watches into two parts, which is common to the seamen of all countries in the mercantile marine and is not merely limited to the routine of our men-of-war, there is a constant change introduced; so that, the men who take, say, the first watch to-night, from eight o’clock till midnight, will have the middle watch to-morrow night, and so on in regular sequence until the time comes round again for them to “return to their old love” again!“Glass-eye,” as the men called the first lieutenant, I noticed, was a much smarter hand than Mr Bitpin, in spite of his drawly way of speaking and lackadaisical airs below; and when he was officer of the watch there was no lolling about the deck or any of the talking that went on behind the boats and in odd corners, as was the case while “old growler” had charge.Everyone then, on the contrary, brightened up and kept to his station; while even the old quartermaster and helmsman drawing themselves up at “attention” as soon as the Honourable Digby Lanyard’s long, telescopic form appeared on the poop, just as if he were the commander, or Captain Farmer himself.The Honourable was not long inactive, for the sun was already beginning to sink below the western horizon, lighting up Saint Alban’s Head, abreast of which we were now speeding along, with a bright glare that displayed every detail of its steep escarpment and the rocky foreshore at its base; the glorious orb of day presently disappearing beneath the ocean, leaving a track of radiance behind him across the watery waste and flooding the heavens overhead with a harmony of vivid colouring in which every tint of the rainbow was represented—crimson and purple and gold, melting into rose, that paled again into the most delicate sea—green and finally became merged in the more neutral tones of night!“Looks like a change coming, I think,” observed Mr Quadrant, the master, glancing at the sunset more with the eye of a meteorologist than that of an artist. “Those northerly winds never last long in the Channel, especially at this time of year.”“The evening’s closing in, too,” said the “first luff,” screwing his eyeglass more tightly into the corner of his eye and bending his lanky body over the poop-rail to see if everything was all right on the deck below, after taking a hurried squint aloft. “I shall shorten sail at once. Bosun’s mate!”You should have heard him roar out this hail. Why, it made me jump off my feet as if a cannon had been fired, with a full charge, close to my head!“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the boatswain’s mate, coming under the break of the poop, so as to be nearer at hand; but there was certainly no necessity for his approaching in order to hear better, for the lieutenant’s voice would have been audible a mile off, “I’m here, sir.”“Pipe the watch to shorten sail!”“Ay, ay, sir.”There was no need, though, of pipe or shout from the worthy petty officer addressed, notwithstanding that the lusty seaman could have piped and shouted with the best, should duty demand it of him; for, the lieutenant’s order had already reached the ears of every man of the watch, and all were at their several stations, ready for the next command.This was not long-delayed.“Topmen aloft! In royals and to’gallant stu’ns’ls!” he bellowed, in a tone that put that of poor Mr Bitpin completely into the shade; his voice sounding as if the wild bull which that gentleman had apparently imitated, according to the facetious Larkyns, had since been under the instruction of Signor Lablache or some other distinguished bass singer and had learnt to mellow his roar into a deeper tone. No sooner, too, had the hands jumped into the rigging and the studdingsail halliards and tacks been cast off by the watch on deck and the downhauls and sheets manned, than the “first luff,” pitching his voice to yet a higher key, sang out in rapid sequence, “Topmast stu’ns’l downhaul—haul taut—clew up—all down!”“Bosun’s mate,” he then cried, “turn the hands up!”This was the last order he gave on his own responsibility; for, while the men of the watch below were hurrying up on deck in obedience to the busy boatswain’s mates’ whistle and shout of “all ha-a-nds,” which could still be heard ringing through the ship, Commander Nesbitt came up on the poop and took charge.He thus superseded his subordinate, the lieutenant; it being the custom of the service for the commander to “carry on” on such occasions and the officer of the watch, whoever he might be, to “play second fiddle,” as the saying goes, which part the “first luff,” took in the present instance, proceeding at once to his proper station on the forecastle.No cessation occurred, however, in the task of shortening sail.“Hands reef tops’ls!” shouted the commander almost on the instant he gained the poop, following this up by the command, “Topmen aloft—take in one reef—way aloft!”Of course Adams and Larkyns and Popplethorne had to scramble up to their posts in the mizzen and main and foretops, much to my admiration and envy; for, being only a cadet, I was not allowed to go aloft except for drill, and then only under special supervision, as I will presently tell.While these lucky beggars, as I then thought them, were footing it up the ratlines, the commander sang out in rapid rotation, the orders necessary to make the way clear for taking in the reef required—“Weather topsail braces—round in—lower the tops’ls!”“Trice up and lay out!”By these being acted on, the wind was first “spilled” out of the three topsails, which were then lowered on the caps; and, the studdingsail booms being triced up to their usual place when not set, in the topmost rigging, the men were able to go out on the yards and commence reefing in earnest.On the completion of this, the command was given to hoist away; whereupon the halliards were manned below and the topsails run up again.“Trim sails!” sang out Commander Nesbitt as soon as he saw the middies and their men coming down from aloft. “Lee braces—brace up the yards!”During all this time, though, the wind had been shifting to the westward and ahead; and, noticing the jib beginning to shiver and flap, the commander came to the fore again.“Brace the mainyard sharp up!” he shouted; when, on the seamen at the bitts reporting that “the mark” was “down,” or, in other words, that the yard had been braced up as far as it would go, the other yards were trimmed parallel and the active commander cried, “Belay the main brace!”“By jingo, I think he might say ‘splice the main brace’ now, after all this jollification!” growled Mr Stormcock, who had come up on the quarter-deck while the ship was thus being made snug for the night and left now under easy sail, consisting of the courses with reefed topsails and topgallants, as well as the jib and spanker and foretopmast staysail. “The poor fellows must be precious dry with all that cutting about up and down the ratlines, and I wouldn’t mind a glass of grog myself.”“No, really, you don’t mean that!” said Larkyns chaffingly. “Wouldn’t you prefer a cup of tea, now?”“Cup of tea be hanged!” rejoined the master’s mate, angrily. “You youngsters of the present day are always thinking of your tea, like a lot of blessed old women! In my time, fellows at sea didn’t go in for slops and mollycoddling, as all of you do now. By jingo, the gunroom might as well be turned into a nursery at once, with such a pack of children about!”“At all events, we’d never be at a loss for a nurse, old chappie, with you aboard,” said Larkyns, sniggering. “Indeed, you’d make even a better one than we could get ashore.”“Hey!” exclaimed Mr Stormcock, a bit puzzled at this. “What do you mean?”“I don’t mean a dry nurse, you know, old chappie, though you said, you were ‘dry’ just now,” replied Larkyns, laughing at his own joke. “Nor do I mean a wet ’un. No, old chappie, I mean a wetter-un, do you twig?”“Phaugh!” ejaculated the master’s mate, with a gesture of disgust, as he turned towards the binnacle to take the course the ship was steering, so as to lay it off on his chart and estimate the distance run and our probable position by dead reckoning. “A beastly pun like that is enough a make a fellow sick!”“All right, old chappie, I’d better get out of your way, if that’s the case,” rejoined Larkyns, chuckling. “I’ll go below and finish my tea, which I would certainly not have left behind me, with you about, had it been grog!”With which parting shot at what was generally believed to be Mr Stormcock’s particular weakness, and one which had delayed his promotion, Larkyns hopped down the after-hatchway on his way to the gunroom, I following after him, nothing loth to have some little refreshment after my long stay on deck, this having made me hungry again.Things were pretty quiet below, I found, most of the noisier spirits of the mess having eaten their fill and departed; and, fortunately, the gunroom steward had not forgotten us late-comers, there being plenty of the “water-bewitched” sort of beverage that goes by the name of “tea” on board ship, albeit we had to be content with an extra allowance of sugar in lieu of milk.To make up for this, however, the good-natured Dobbs had thoughtfully reserved for the delectation of Larkyns and myself a fragment of some very stale cake, which, from the important air he assumed when presenting it to our astonished gaze, he evidently considered a great treat; and, I was really sorry at Larkyns making some unkind remark or other about Noah and the Ark in connection with this venerable dainty that, I’m sure, must have hurt the feelings of the steward, who meant to do us a kindness, no doubt, and, at all events, did his best!At Four Bells, or six o’clock, I went on deck again with Mr Jellaby and the port watch, remaining on duty until the end of the second dog watch.By that time, we were passing the Bill of Portland, sailing close-hauled still down Channel on the starboard tack; but, I was so tired out that I could hardly keep my eyes open, only knowing what the quartermaster kindly told me, so on getting below again soon after Eight Bells, I turned into my hammock without troubling much at undressing, and was “as fast as a top” within less than a minute of reaching the steerage.Next morning, on awakening, I was much surprised at everything being very quiet between decks, without any motion of the ship or rush of the water past her sides, and I wondered what had happened to cause this stillness.On turning out, however, my wonder was soon allayed by discovering that we had made Plymouth during the small hours, and were now anchored in the Sound, midway between Mount Edgecombe and the breakwater.I may add, that the mess table in the gunroom at breakfast clearly demonstrated our proximity to this very hospitable port, by the lavish abundance of milk and eggs, not to speak of bloaters and marmalade, so that even Tom Mills was satisfied.He did not have the heart to take another rise out of the irascible caterer, Mr Stormcock; while, as for Plumper, the senior mate, I never saw a chap eat in my life as he did.An ostrich of the most enterprising digestion, or the boa-constrictor at the Zoological Gardens who recently swallowed its messmate in a weak moment, would neither of them have been a match for the fat little gourmand, who made even Dobbs stare at his efforts in the knife-and-fork line.We stopped at Plymouth for some four-and-twenty hours, shipping supernumeraries and taking in surplus stores.After which, weighing anchor again, we worked out of the Sound, having to tack twice before clearing the breakwater; and, resuming our passage we passed the Lizard the same afternoon, being some ten or twelve miles to the southward of the Bishop’s Rock in the Scilly Isles at midnight.I noticed the bright, star-like light of the latter, low down on the horizon, away on our weather quarter, only just dimly discernible in the distance through the haze, when I came on deck for the middle watch, the lighthouse looking to me as if twinkling to us a last farewell from home and the land we had left, never, perhaps, to see again.But, although we made fair enough progress, we were not able to preserve as straight a course as Captain Farmer and the master would have liked to have done.The wind was continually on the shift and trying to head us, thus causing us to keep the ship away and steer more to the southward; instead of making all the westering we could when leaving the channel, so as to give Cape Ushant, with its erratic currents and treacherous indraught, as wide a berth as possible—the French coast being a bad lookout under one’s lee at any time!However, we had to make the best we could of the wind we had; and by noon next day, when Mr Quadrant took the sun, having all of us round him on the poop, cadets as well as midshipmen, on the alert to watch for the dip and mark off the angle on our sextants, we were found to be in latitude 48 degrees 50 minutes North, and longitude 7 degrees 35 minutes West, showing that we had run some two hundred miles or so since leaving Plymouth Sound.After observing the sun’s altitude, we were supposed to work out the reckoning for ourselves independently of each other; though, when the master sent us down to the gunroom to do this, the lazy hands amongst us, who were by a long way in the majority, cribbed from those who were readier at figures, like Larkyns and Ned Anstruther, both of whom arrived at the same result as Mr Quadrant, ay even in a shorter time, handing in their papers for inspection before I had well-nigh begun mine.“Here, Vernon, take my log and copy it out,” cried Larkyns, seeing me somewhat puzzled over the calculations I was making by the aid of a fat volume of logarithm tables and Roper’s “Navigator”; “you look considerably fogged, old chappie, by the cut of your jib.”“No thank you,” I replied, all on my mettle, determined not to be beat. “I want to try and make it out by myself, so that I shall know how to do it next time.”“Bravo, youngster,” put in Mr Stormcock. “That’s the only way to become a good navigator. Fudging your reckoning will never teach you how to work out your altitudes; you stick to it, my boy, and do it on your own hook.”Nor did the master’s mate content himself with merely giving me this sound advice; for, sitting down by my side, he overhauled my figures and, being an expert mathematician, soon put me in the right road to arriving at a solution of my difficulties.Really, he explained the various steps necessary in order to work out the reckoning in such a simple way that I understood it thoroughly; learning more in this one lesson from Mr Stormcock than I had done, I think, during the three months that I had studied navigation while on board the training-shipIllustrious.I learnt even yet more.That was, not to judge by appearances and form hasty conclusions as to the character of my messmates; as, up to the moment of his coming thus to my aid, I had always considered Mr Stormcock an ill-tempered and soured man—whereas I now saw he was at bottom a good-natured fellow and one ready enough to help another when opportunity offered!It was a lesson which, like the one he had just taught me in navigation, I never forgot.Towards sunset that afternoon, when we were entering the Bay of Biscay, the lookout man on the foretopsail yard hailed the deck.“Sail in sight, sir!” he sang out loudly. “She’s on our port bow, sir.”“All right,” answered the officer of the watch, Mr Jellaby, who was up on the poop and I below on the quarter-deck at the time; and then, turning to the yeoman of signals, he cried, “Signalman, a vessel’s in sight on our port bow, go and look at her and see what she is.”“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the seaman, putting his telescope to his eye; when, scanning in the direction pointed out to him, he soon made out the ship. “She appears like a strange man-of-war, sir.”“Very well,” said Mr Jellaby. “Watch her till you can make her out perfectly.”In another minute or two, the signalman made the result of his second scrutiny known.“She’s a French man-of-war and is making for Brest, I think, sir.”“Ah!” exclaimed “Joe,” having a look at her, too, with his binocular. “Hoist the ensign!”This was done; but, the stranger made no sign, until, gradually approaching each other all the while, she was about three miles off, when she displayed the gallant tricolour flag of France.“Signalman,” sang out Mr Jellaby on seeing this, “Dip the colours!”Our ensign was thereupon raised and lowered from the peak three times in succession, according to the usual nautical etiquette observed on such occasions, the other ship returning the compliment in like fashion; and we were just passing each other, she crossing our bows and sailing away right before the wind on our starboard beam, when, all of a sudden, she brought up, backing her maintopsail and firing a gun at the same time to attract our attention.“By Jove, she wants to speak us; something must be up!” said the commander who had come on deck in the meanwhile. “Go below, Vernon, and tell the cap’en at once.”

At Eight Bells, or four o’clock in the ordinary parlance of landsmen, Mr Bitpin was relieved by the first lieutenant, who then came on deck with the rest of the starboard watch to take charge, while the port watch went below at the same time.

This hour marked the beginning of the first dog watch, which, it may be here mentioned for the benefit of the uninitiated, only lasts two hours, from four o’clock to six, when the second dog watch, of similar duration, commences and continues until eight o’clock, or “Eight Bells,” again.

These subdivisions of time are necessary on board ship in order to allow all to share alike the rough with the smooth, and give the officers and men a change at regular intervals from day to night service, and the reverse; for, if all the watches were of equal length, there could not be any possible variation of the hours during which the hands would be on and off duty respectively, the one section of the crew in such case coming on deck at precisely the same time each day and going below in similar rotation.

By the system in vogue, however, of cutting one of the watches into two parts, which is common to the seamen of all countries in the mercantile marine and is not merely limited to the routine of our men-of-war, there is a constant change introduced; so that, the men who take, say, the first watch to-night, from eight o’clock till midnight, will have the middle watch to-morrow night, and so on in regular sequence until the time comes round again for them to “return to their old love” again!

“Glass-eye,” as the men called the first lieutenant, I noticed, was a much smarter hand than Mr Bitpin, in spite of his drawly way of speaking and lackadaisical airs below; and when he was officer of the watch there was no lolling about the deck or any of the talking that went on behind the boats and in odd corners, as was the case while “old growler” had charge.

Everyone then, on the contrary, brightened up and kept to his station; while even the old quartermaster and helmsman drawing themselves up at “attention” as soon as the Honourable Digby Lanyard’s long, telescopic form appeared on the poop, just as if he were the commander, or Captain Farmer himself.

The Honourable was not long inactive, for the sun was already beginning to sink below the western horizon, lighting up Saint Alban’s Head, abreast of which we were now speeding along, with a bright glare that displayed every detail of its steep escarpment and the rocky foreshore at its base; the glorious orb of day presently disappearing beneath the ocean, leaving a track of radiance behind him across the watery waste and flooding the heavens overhead with a harmony of vivid colouring in which every tint of the rainbow was represented—crimson and purple and gold, melting into rose, that paled again into the most delicate sea—green and finally became merged in the more neutral tones of night!

“Looks like a change coming, I think,” observed Mr Quadrant, the master, glancing at the sunset more with the eye of a meteorologist than that of an artist. “Those northerly winds never last long in the Channel, especially at this time of year.”

“The evening’s closing in, too,” said the “first luff,” screwing his eyeglass more tightly into the corner of his eye and bending his lanky body over the poop-rail to see if everything was all right on the deck below, after taking a hurried squint aloft. “I shall shorten sail at once. Bosun’s mate!”

You should have heard him roar out this hail. Why, it made me jump off my feet as if a cannon had been fired, with a full charge, close to my head!

“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the boatswain’s mate, coming under the break of the poop, so as to be nearer at hand; but there was certainly no necessity for his approaching in order to hear better, for the lieutenant’s voice would have been audible a mile off, “I’m here, sir.”

“Pipe the watch to shorten sail!”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

There was no need, though, of pipe or shout from the worthy petty officer addressed, notwithstanding that the lusty seaman could have piped and shouted with the best, should duty demand it of him; for, the lieutenant’s order had already reached the ears of every man of the watch, and all were at their several stations, ready for the next command.

This was not long-delayed.

“Topmen aloft! In royals and to’gallant stu’ns’ls!” he bellowed, in a tone that put that of poor Mr Bitpin completely into the shade; his voice sounding as if the wild bull which that gentleman had apparently imitated, according to the facetious Larkyns, had since been under the instruction of Signor Lablache or some other distinguished bass singer and had learnt to mellow his roar into a deeper tone. No sooner, too, had the hands jumped into the rigging and the studdingsail halliards and tacks been cast off by the watch on deck and the downhauls and sheets manned, than the “first luff,” pitching his voice to yet a higher key, sang out in rapid sequence, “Topmast stu’ns’l downhaul—haul taut—clew up—all down!”

“Bosun’s mate,” he then cried, “turn the hands up!”

This was the last order he gave on his own responsibility; for, while the men of the watch below were hurrying up on deck in obedience to the busy boatswain’s mates’ whistle and shout of “all ha-a-nds,” which could still be heard ringing through the ship, Commander Nesbitt came up on the poop and took charge.

He thus superseded his subordinate, the lieutenant; it being the custom of the service for the commander to “carry on” on such occasions and the officer of the watch, whoever he might be, to “play second fiddle,” as the saying goes, which part the “first luff,” took in the present instance, proceeding at once to his proper station on the forecastle.

No cessation occurred, however, in the task of shortening sail.

“Hands reef tops’ls!” shouted the commander almost on the instant he gained the poop, following this up by the command, “Topmen aloft—take in one reef—way aloft!”

Of course Adams and Larkyns and Popplethorne had to scramble up to their posts in the mizzen and main and foretops, much to my admiration and envy; for, being only a cadet, I was not allowed to go aloft except for drill, and then only under special supervision, as I will presently tell.

While these lucky beggars, as I then thought them, were footing it up the ratlines, the commander sang out in rapid rotation, the orders necessary to make the way clear for taking in the reef required—

“Weather topsail braces—round in—lower the tops’ls!”

“Trice up and lay out!”

By these being acted on, the wind was first “spilled” out of the three topsails, which were then lowered on the caps; and, the studdingsail booms being triced up to their usual place when not set, in the topmost rigging, the men were able to go out on the yards and commence reefing in earnest.

On the completion of this, the command was given to hoist away; whereupon the halliards were manned below and the topsails run up again.

“Trim sails!” sang out Commander Nesbitt as soon as he saw the middies and their men coming down from aloft. “Lee braces—brace up the yards!”

During all this time, though, the wind had been shifting to the westward and ahead; and, noticing the jib beginning to shiver and flap, the commander came to the fore again.

“Brace the mainyard sharp up!” he shouted; when, on the seamen at the bitts reporting that “the mark” was “down,” or, in other words, that the yard had been braced up as far as it would go, the other yards were trimmed parallel and the active commander cried, “Belay the main brace!”

“By jingo, I think he might say ‘splice the main brace’ now, after all this jollification!” growled Mr Stormcock, who had come up on the quarter-deck while the ship was thus being made snug for the night and left now under easy sail, consisting of the courses with reefed topsails and topgallants, as well as the jib and spanker and foretopmast staysail. “The poor fellows must be precious dry with all that cutting about up and down the ratlines, and I wouldn’t mind a glass of grog myself.”

“No, really, you don’t mean that!” said Larkyns chaffingly. “Wouldn’t you prefer a cup of tea, now?”

“Cup of tea be hanged!” rejoined the master’s mate, angrily. “You youngsters of the present day are always thinking of your tea, like a lot of blessed old women! In my time, fellows at sea didn’t go in for slops and mollycoddling, as all of you do now. By jingo, the gunroom might as well be turned into a nursery at once, with such a pack of children about!”

“At all events, we’d never be at a loss for a nurse, old chappie, with you aboard,” said Larkyns, sniggering. “Indeed, you’d make even a better one than we could get ashore.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Mr Stormcock, a bit puzzled at this. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean a dry nurse, you know, old chappie, though you said, you were ‘dry’ just now,” replied Larkyns, laughing at his own joke. “Nor do I mean a wet ’un. No, old chappie, I mean a wetter-un, do you twig?”

“Phaugh!” ejaculated the master’s mate, with a gesture of disgust, as he turned towards the binnacle to take the course the ship was steering, so as to lay it off on his chart and estimate the distance run and our probable position by dead reckoning. “A beastly pun like that is enough a make a fellow sick!”

“All right, old chappie, I’d better get out of your way, if that’s the case,” rejoined Larkyns, chuckling. “I’ll go below and finish my tea, which I would certainly not have left behind me, with you about, had it been grog!”

With which parting shot at what was generally believed to be Mr Stormcock’s particular weakness, and one which had delayed his promotion, Larkyns hopped down the after-hatchway on his way to the gunroom, I following after him, nothing loth to have some little refreshment after my long stay on deck, this having made me hungry again.

Things were pretty quiet below, I found, most of the noisier spirits of the mess having eaten their fill and departed; and, fortunately, the gunroom steward had not forgotten us late-comers, there being plenty of the “water-bewitched” sort of beverage that goes by the name of “tea” on board ship, albeit we had to be content with an extra allowance of sugar in lieu of milk.

To make up for this, however, the good-natured Dobbs had thoughtfully reserved for the delectation of Larkyns and myself a fragment of some very stale cake, which, from the important air he assumed when presenting it to our astonished gaze, he evidently considered a great treat; and, I was really sorry at Larkyns making some unkind remark or other about Noah and the Ark in connection with this venerable dainty that, I’m sure, must have hurt the feelings of the steward, who meant to do us a kindness, no doubt, and, at all events, did his best!

At Four Bells, or six o’clock, I went on deck again with Mr Jellaby and the port watch, remaining on duty until the end of the second dog watch.

By that time, we were passing the Bill of Portland, sailing close-hauled still down Channel on the starboard tack; but, I was so tired out that I could hardly keep my eyes open, only knowing what the quartermaster kindly told me, so on getting below again soon after Eight Bells, I turned into my hammock without troubling much at undressing, and was “as fast as a top” within less than a minute of reaching the steerage.

Next morning, on awakening, I was much surprised at everything being very quiet between decks, without any motion of the ship or rush of the water past her sides, and I wondered what had happened to cause this stillness.

On turning out, however, my wonder was soon allayed by discovering that we had made Plymouth during the small hours, and were now anchored in the Sound, midway between Mount Edgecombe and the breakwater.

I may add, that the mess table in the gunroom at breakfast clearly demonstrated our proximity to this very hospitable port, by the lavish abundance of milk and eggs, not to speak of bloaters and marmalade, so that even Tom Mills was satisfied.

He did not have the heart to take another rise out of the irascible caterer, Mr Stormcock; while, as for Plumper, the senior mate, I never saw a chap eat in my life as he did.

An ostrich of the most enterprising digestion, or the boa-constrictor at the Zoological Gardens who recently swallowed its messmate in a weak moment, would neither of them have been a match for the fat little gourmand, who made even Dobbs stare at his efforts in the knife-and-fork line.

We stopped at Plymouth for some four-and-twenty hours, shipping supernumeraries and taking in surplus stores.

After which, weighing anchor again, we worked out of the Sound, having to tack twice before clearing the breakwater; and, resuming our passage we passed the Lizard the same afternoon, being some ten or twelve miles to the southward of the Bishop’s Rock in the Scilly Isles at midnight.

I noticed the bright, star-like light of the latter, low down on the horizon, away on our weather quarter, only just dimly discernible in the distance through the haze, when I came on deck for the middle watch, the lighthouse looking to me as if twinkling to us a last farewell from home and the land we had left, never, perhaps, to see again.

But, although we made fair enough progress, we were not able to preserve as straight a course as Captain Farmer and the master would have liked to have done.

The wind was continually on the shift and trying to head us, thus causing us to keep the ship away and steer more to the southward; instead of making all the westering we could when leaving the channel, so as to give Cape Ushant, with its erratic currents and treacherous indraught, as wide a berth as possible—the French coast being a bad lookout under one’s lee at any time!

However, we had to make the best we could of the wind we had; and by noon next day, when Mr Quadrant took the sun, having all of us round him on the poop, cadets as well as midshipmen, on the alert to watch for the dip and mark off the angle on our sextants, we were found to be in latitude 48 degrees 50 minutes North, and longitude 7 degrees 35 minutes West, showing that we had run some two hundred miles or so since leaving Plymouth Sound.

After observing the sun’s altitude, we were supposed to work out the reckoning for ourselves independently of each other; though, when the master sent us down to the gunroom to do this, the lazy hands amongst us, who were by a long way in the majority, cribbed from those who were readier at figures, like Larkyns and Ned Anstruther, both of whom arrived at the same result as Mr Quadrant, ay even in a shorter time, handing in their papers for inspection before I had well-nigh begun mine.

“Here, Vernon, take my log and copy it out,” cried Larkyns, seeing me somewhat puzzled over the calculations I was making by the aid of a fat volume of logarithm tables and Roper’s “Navigator”; “you look considerably fogged, old chappie, by the cut of your jib.”

“No thank you,” I replied, all on my mettle, determined not to be beat. “I want to try and make it out by myself, so that I shall know how to do it next time.”

“Bravo, youngster,” put in Mr Stormcock. “That’s the only way to become a good navigator. Fudging your reckoning will never teach you how to work out your altitudes; you stick to it, my boy, and do it on your own hook.”

Nor did the master’s mate content himself with merely giving me this sound advice; for, sitting down by my side, he overhauled my figures and, being an expert mathematician, soon put me in the right road to arriving at a solution of my difficulties.

Really, he explained the various steps necessary in order to work out the reckoning in such a simple way that I understood it thoroughly; learning more in this one lesson from Mr Stormcock than I had done, I think, during the three months that I had studied navigation while on board the training-shipIllustrious.

I learnt even yet more.

That was, not to judge by appearances and form hasty conclusions as to the character of my messmates; as, up to the moment of his coming thus to my aid, I had always considered Mr Stormcock an ill-tempered and soured man—whereas I now saw he was at bottom a good-natured fellow and one ready enough to help another when opportunity offered!

It was a lesson which, like the one he had just taught me in navigation, I never forgot.

Towards sunset that afternoon, when we were entering the Bay of Biscay, the lookout man on the foretopsail yard hailed the deck.

“Sail in sight, sir!” he sang out loudly. “She’s on our port bow, sir.”

“All right,” answered the officer of the watch, Mr Jellaby, who was up on the poop and I below on the quarter-deck at the time; and then, turning to the yeoman of signals, he cried, “Signalman, a vessel’s in sight on our port bow, go and look at her and see what she is.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the seaman, putting his telescope to his eye; when, scanning in the direction pointed out to him, he soon made out the ship. “She appears like a strange man-of-war, sir.”

“Very well,” said Mr Jellaby. “Watch her till you can make her out perfectly.”

In another minute or two, the signalman made the result of his second scrutiny known.

“She’s a French man-of-war and is making for Brest, I think, sir.”

“Ah!” exclaimed “Joe,” having a look at her, too, with his binocular. “Hoist the ensign!”

This was done; but, the stranger made no sign, until, gradually approaching each other all the while, she was about three miles off, when she displayed the gallant tricolour flag of France.

“Signalman,” sang out Mr Jellaby on seeing this, “Dip the colours!”

Our ensign was thereupon raised and lowered from the peak three times in succession, according to the usual nautical etiquette observed on such occasions, the other ship returning the compliment in like fashion; and we were just passing each other, she crossing our bows and sailing away right before the wind on our starboard beam, when, all of a sudden, she brought up, backing her maintopsail and firing a gun at the same time to attract our attention.

“By Jove, she wants to speak us; something must be up!” said the commander who had come on deck in the meanwhile. “Go below, Vernon, and tell the cap’en at once.”

Chapter Sixteen.“Man Overboard!”“Confound those mounseers,” I heard Mr Stormcock say to the master as I came out from Captain Farmer’s cabin. “I wonder what they want to stop us for now, just as we were getting clear of Ushant? It’s sure to bring us bad luck!”“By jingo, it is a nuisance bringing us up like this,” chorused Mr Quadrant, a fellow-grumbler of the same kidney. “We might have carried on as we were standing, if those blessed Parlyvoos, had only let us alone; while now, when we do make a start again, the wind will most probably have headed us, and we’ll then have to go about and bear away to the nor’ard on the port tack, losing all the southing we’ve made since yesterday!”In spite of both their growls, however, we could not well avoid the interview, albeit it was none of our seeking; and while I went down to summons the captain, Commander Nesbitt ordered the courses to be clewed up and the mainyard squared, so as to heave the ship to.When I came up again the Frenchman and ourselves had both our heads to windward and were bobbing about abreast of each other, though still some distance apart; dipping deeply in the rough seaway and occasionally rolling broadside on, with the salt spray and spindrift coming in over our hammock nettings in sprinkles of foam.“Hullo!” cried Larkyns, who was signal midshipman and was looking at the stranger with a diminutive telescope screwed-up to his starboard eye. “She’s hoisted the answering pen’ant under her ensign.”“That means she’s going to use the International Code,” said the commander, overhearing him. “Signalman, keep a sharp lookout on her, and have your book handy to read her signal as soon as it goes up!”“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the man, who was, like Larkyns, squinting his best at the other ship, although with a much bigger glass. “Something’s going up now, sir.”“Yes, I see,” said Commander Nesbitt, as a string of flags were run up to the French ship’s main. “Have our answering pen’ant ready to hoist as soon as you can make it out. Look sharp, signalman! What does she say?”“It’s ‘B D N,’ sir,” stammered out the man, who was rapidly turning over the pages of the signal book, seeking the meaning of the flags in that dictionary of the sign language of the sea, and missing what he sought to find in his hurry. “I—I—can’t find it, sir.”“Can’t find your grandmother!” cried the Commander, impatiently, vexed at the delay. “Here, give me the signal book!”“The hoist means ‘I want to communicate,’ I think,” observed Captain Farmer, who had come up quietly on the poop meanwhile, and stood behind the commander. “But the Frenchman might have saved himself the trouble of sending such a signal aloft; for, the mere fact of his already coming up to the wind and firing a gun, told us as much beforehand!”“I should think so, sir; but it’s just like those Johnny Crapauds—always gabbling a lot about nothing!” rejoined the commander, who, at last, had now found the right page of the signal book. “Yes, sir, you’re quite right, as usual! I wish I had your memory for signals! He ‘wants to communicate.’ Signalman, hoist our answering pen’ant!”At this order, the red-and-white barred pennant, which had long since been bent ready to the signal halliards, was run up to our main truck.From this point of vantage, it flew out fair above all our sails and tophamper, visible all round the compass and telling the French corvette, still curvetting and prancing abreast of us and showing her bright copper sheathing as she rolled, that we had at last made out her signal and were waiting to learn what she had to say.“I hope it’s really important,” said Captain Farmer to the commander; while Larkyns and the head signalman kept their glasses fixed on the opposite ship, ready to take in her next signal. “International courtesies are all very well in their way, but I don’t like being stopped for a mere exchange of bunting and that sort of balderdash, Nesbitt.”“Nor I, sir,” agreed the commander. “Ha, they’re sending up another hoist now, and we’ll soon know all about it. What’s that now, signalman?”“‘B L K,’ sir,” replied the yeoman of signals and Larkyns in one breath; and the former, running his fingers over the pages of the signal book, which Commander Nesbitt had returned to his custody, soon found that the interpretation of the flags thus clustered was, “We have passed a wreck, but were unable to stand by to see if any survivors were aboard her.”“Oh!” exclaimed the captain on this being read out aloud, as the signalman put it down on the slate for entry into the ship’s log, according to the usual custom. “This is getting interesting. Hoist ‘Q R S’ after the answering pen’ant.”“I say, Larkyns,” I asked, in an undertone of my friend the senior mid, as a string of square flags went up on our side—a yellow on top, a red square with a yellow cross in the middle, and a white flag with a blue centre the lowermost—“what does our signal mean, eh?”“It means,” he whispered back, keeping his starboard eye still glued to his telescope, “‘whereabouts is that wreck you’re speaking of?’”Some considerable delay now occurred on board the corvette; the Frenchies, in spite of their taking the initiative in the matter, being not as handy as our man in the manipulation of their flags.At last, however, they sent up two hoists in rather a slovenly fashion, one going up after the other.“Ha, that’s the latitude,” said Captain Farmer. “‘F K S’ and ‘G I V’ Signalman, what does that make, eh?”“Forty-seven degrees, and fifteen minutes north latitude, sir.”“Good, my man,” returned the captain, approvingly. “You’ve read that pretty smartly! Now, hoist the answering pennant; though, I suppose we’ll have to wait another month of Sundays for their longitude. No, by Jove! Messieurs les Français are a trifle quicker this time. ‘F N J’ and ‘G V L.’ How do you make them out, signalman? See if you can be as smart again as you were just now.”“Ay, ay, sir,” returned the yeoman, all on his mettle and his eye the quicker to scan the alphabetical pages of his flag lexicon where the signals were catalogued in groups according to their subjects, this one being a numeral and, therefore, all the easier to read. “It’s longitude 9 degrees 15 minutes west, sir.”“All right, put it down correctly, signalman,” said Captain Farmer; and, turning to the commander, he added, “Why, Nesbitt, it’s nearly in our direct course across the Bay, only we shall have a tighter squeeze, perhaps, in weathering Finisterre.”“But, we can go a couple of points more free, sir,” observed Mr Quadrant, who had busied himself shaping a course on a chart by the binnacle as soon as he heard the latitude and longitude given. “That’ll be better than going about on the port tack, as I thought we should have to do, sir.”“Yes—ha—humph! But I don’t like going too near Finisterre, though, Mr Quadrant, with a westerly gale threatening,” said the captain. “We cannot help ourselves, however, at present, for we must go after this wreck and see if there’re any unfortunate people aboard; though, I think those Frenchmen might have overhauled her themselves, instead of leaving it for us to do! Hoist ‘H V L,’ signalman! That will serve, Nesbitt, to tell them we’ll attend to the wreck. Let us fill and bear away again. We can’t afford to waste any more time palavering with our friend over yonder, who keeps us bowing and scraping like a veritable Frenchman as he is! Run up the signal now, signalman; and, Nesbitt, give him a parting dip of the ensign, and then brace round the yards and bear up!”“Very good, sir,” replied the commander; and, as soon as the Frenchmen had hoisted their answering pennant to show that our signal had been taken in and understood, he turned to the poop-rail and sang out, “Bosun’s mate, pipe the watch to trim sails!”The braces were then manned and the main yard swung, while our helm put hard a-starboard; when, the upper sails now filling and drawing again, our courses were dropped and the tacks hauled aboard, the clew garnets rattling as they were brought aft, and the ship put on her course.We bore away, though, a couple of points more to the southward than before, steering sou’-sou’-west, towards the position of the wreck, as pointed out to us by our communicative friends, the strange ship.“By Jove, sir,” exclaimed the commander as we bade farewell to the Frenchman, who also filled at the same time and went about on his way, both of us dipping our ensigns once more in salute, “we never thought of asking his name!”“No more we did, Nesbitt,” said Captain Farmer; and the two stared at each other for a moment in silence, the captain ultimately breaking into a laugh. “But, that need not trouble you; for, I should know that corvette anywhere, I think, from the way she tumbles home from her water line abaft the beam. She’s the oldSérieusefor a thousand!”“Indeed, sir?”“Yes. She was one of the French fleet in the Black Sea when I was out there with old Dundas. I’ve been alongside her too often to forget her queer build!”“But, I thought most of those French corvettes were wall-sided, sir?”“Ay, true enough,” replied Captain Farmer, with a chuckle, as he came down the poop-ladder and turned to go into his cabin. “But, not all of them, Nesbitt, not all of them, my boy. I tell you, I would know the oldSérieuseanywhere, for they haven’t got another tub like her afloat.”“The ‘old man’s’ right,” I heard the master say to Mr Stormcock when the captain had disappeared. “The corvette was on the right of our line when we bombarded Odessa; and I recollect she missed stays when tacking, and pretty nearly came aboard us.”“By jingo,” replied Mr Stormcock, enthusiastically, “what an eye the old man has for a ship, and what a memory for signals! I never came across his equal.”So thought I too; however, each day disclosed some fresh trait in our captain’s character, which surprised us all the more from his being such a very reserved man.He was in the habit of keeping himself to himself until occasion arose to bring out his latent qualities.Time, and a longer acquaintance with him, only taught us this pregnant fact, amongst other things!While all the signalling had been going on, the wind was gradually freshening and the sea getting up; and by the time we made sail again the waves had put on their white caps, while a heavy, rolling swell had set in.This met us almost full butt as we lay on our course and broke over our weather bow in columns of spray, washing the forecastle fore and aft and tumbling into the waist in a cataract of foam.The water was knee-deep on the lee side of the deck, whenever the ship heeled over to port under the pressure of her canvas, passing out of the scuppers like a mill-race on her rising again and righting on an even keel.The more the gale blew, however, the better the oldCandaharappeared to like it; racing along in grand style, and kicking up her heels to the Frenchman who was pretty soon hull down astern, the distance between us widening each instant all the more rapidly from the fact of our proceeding in opposite directions!At Two Bells, when the log was hove, we were found to be going over nine knots but the ship began to plunge so much presently, that Commander Nesbitt, after one or two anxious glances aloft, ordered the boatswain’s mate to call the hands to shorten sail, setting them to work the moment they came up from below, the topgallant sails and royals being taken in without delay and the royal yards sent down.“I thought we were going to have bad luck,” observed Mr Stormcock, who had made his appearance again on the quarter-deck on hearing the boatswain’s pipe for all hands. “We haven’t seen the worst of it yet, I’m afraid.”“Shut up, you old croaker,” said Mr Jellaby. “Why, you’re a regular Jonah with your prophecies of evil!”“I hope you won’t chuck me overboard for it, though, as they did him!” replied Mr Stormcock, good-humouredly. “Goodness knows, I don’t wish any harm to the old ship, or anyone in her! It isn’t likely I would; but, look at those clouds there away to win’ard and judge for yourself what sort of weather we’re likely to have before nightfall!”“Yes; no doubt you’re right, Stormcock,” said “Joe” in answer to this, squinting as he spoke over the side to the westward, where a heavy bank of cloud was rising up and nearly blotting out now the sun as it sank lower and lower towards the horizon. “It does look squally, certainly; still, I can’t see the use of anticipating the worst and trying to meet troubles half-way, as you do, old chap!”“I would rather be prepared for them than be caught napping,” rejoined the master’s mate, eyeing the quartermaster at the wheel, who was giving a helping hand to the two helmsmen, their task being by no means easy to make the ship keep her luff under the circumstances of wind and sea. “I wonder the commander doesn’t reef tops’ls? We can’t carry on much longer like this!”“I hope he won’t,” whispered little Tommy Mills to me aside, my chum having come up with the rest from the gunroom at the general call. “Ain’t it jolly, spinning along like this, eh, Jack?”Before I could reply, however, the commander seemed to have arrived at Mr Stormcock’s opinion, that we were still carrying too much canvas, for he came to the break of the poop and shouted out to the boatswain’s mate.“Hands reef topsails!” he cried. “Topmen aloft! Take in two reefs!”“Not a bit too soon,” growled the master’s mate, under his breath. “He ought to have given that order when the to’gallants were taken in!”“Better late than never, say I,” said Mr Jellaby, laughing, as the topmen raced up the ratlines and the weather braces were rounded-in, preparatory to reefing. “Really, Stormcock, you’re the most inveterate growler I have come across in the service since first I went to sea, by Jove!”Tom Mills and I chuckled at this; but, alas! our merriment was suddenly hushed by hearing a wild shriek come from aloft, that rose above the moaning of the wind as it whistled through the rigging and the melancholy wash of the waves, while, at the same instant, a dark body whizzed through the air and fell into the water alongside with a heavy plunge.“Good heavens!” exclaimed Commander Nesbitt, as we all stared at one another with blanched faces. “What is that?”His question was answered in the moment of its utterance by a loud shout from forward that rang through the ship, sending a chill to every heart.“Man overboard!”

“Confound those mounseers,” I heard Mr Stormcock say to the master as I came out from Captain Farmer’s cabin. “I wonder what they want to stop us for now, just as we were getting clear of Ushant? It’s sure to bring us bad luck!”

“By jingo, it is a nuisance bringing us up like this,” chorused Mr Quadrant, a fellow-grumbler of the same kidney. “We might have carried on as we were standing, if those blessed Parlyvoos, had only let us alone; while now, when we do make a start again, the wind will most probably have headed us, and we’ll then have to go about and bear away to the nor’ard on the port tack, losing all the southing we’ve made since yesterday!”

In spite of both their growls, however, we could not well avoid the interview, albeit it was none of our seeking; and while I went down to summons the captain, Commander Nesbitt ordered the courses to be clewed up and the mainyard squared, so as to heave the ship to.

When I came up again the Frenchman and ourselves had both our heads to windward and were bobbing about abreast of each other, though still some distance apart; dipping deeply in the rough seaway and occasionally rolling broadside on, with the salt spray and spindrift coming in over our hammock nettings in sprinkles of foam.

“Hullo!” cried Larkyns, who was signal midshipman and was looking at the stranger with a diminutive telescope screwed-up to his starboard eye. “She’s hoisted the answering pen’ant under her ensign.”

“That means she’s going to use the International Code,” said the commander, overhearing him. “Signalman, keep a sharp lookout on her, and have your book handy to read her signal as soon as it goes up!”

“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the man, who was, like Larkyns, squinting his best at the other ship, although with a much bigger glass. “Something’s going up now, sir.”

“Yes, I see,” said Commander Nesbitt, as a string of flags were run up to the French ship’s main. “Have our answering pen’ant ready to hoist as soon as you can make it out. Look sharp, signalman! What does she say?”

“It’s ‘B D N,’ sir,” stammered out the man, who was rapidly turning over the pages of the signal book, seeking the meaning of the flags in that dictionary of the sign language of the sea, and missing what he sought to find in his hurry. “I—I—can’t find it, sir.”

“Can’t find your grandmother!” cried the Commander, impatiently, vexed at the delay. “Here, give me the signal book!”

“The hoist means ‘I want to communicate,’ I think,” observed Captain Farmer, who had come up quietly on the poop meanwhile, and stood behind the commander. “But the Frenchman might have saved himself the trouble of sending such a signal aloft; for, the mere fact of his already coming up to the wind and firing a gun, told us as much beforehand!”

“I should think so, sir; but it’s just like those Johnny Crapauds—always gabbling a lot about nothing!” rejoined the commander, who, at last, had now found the right page of the signal book. “Yes, sir, you’re quite right, as usual! I wish I had your memory for signals! He ‘wants to communicate.’ Signalman, hoist our answering pen’ant!”

At this order, the red-and-white barred pennant, which had long since been bent ready to the signal halliards, was run up to our main truck.

From this point of vantage, it flew out fair above all our sails and tophamper, visible all round the compass and telling the French corvette, still curvetting and prancing abreast of us and showing her bright copper sheathing as she rolled, that we had at last made out her signal and were waiting to learn what she had to say.

“I hope it’s really important,” said Captain Farmer to the commander; while Larkyns and the head signalman kept their glasses fixed on the opposite ship, ready to take in her next signal. “International courtesies are all very well in their way, but I don’t like being stopped for a mere exchange of bunting and that sort of balderdash, Nesbitt.”

“Nor I, sir,” agreed the commander. “Ha, they’re sending up another hoist now, and we’ll soon know all about it. What’s that now, signalman?”

“‘B L K,’ sir,” replied the yeoman of signals and Larkyns in one breath; and the former, running his fingers over the pages of the signal book, which Commander Nesbitt had returned to his custody, soon found that the interpretation of the flags thus clustered was, “We have passed a wreck, but were unable to stand by to see if any survivors were aboard her.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the captain on this being read out aloud, as the signalman put it down on the slate for entry into the ship’s log, according to the usual custom. “This is getting interesting. Hoist ‘Q R S’ after the answering pen’ant.”

“I say, Larkyns,” I asked, in an undertone of my friend the senior mid, as a string of square flags went up on our side—a yellow on top, a red square with a yellow cross in the middle, and a white flag with a blue centre the lowermost—“what does our signal mean, eh?”

“It means,” he whispered back, keeping his starboard eye still glued to his telescope, “‘whereabouts is that wreck you’re speaking of?’”

Some considerable delay now occurred on board the corvette; the Frenchies, in spite of their taking the initiative in the matter, being not as handy as our man in the manipulation of their flags.

At last, however, they sent up two hoists in rather a slovenly fashion, one going up after the other.

“Ha, that’s the latitude,” said Captain Farmer. “‘F K S’ and ‘G I V’ Signalman, what does that make, eh?”

“Forty-seven degrees, and fifteen minutes north latitude, sir.”

“Good, my man,” returned the captain, approvingly. “You’ve read that pretty smartly! Now, hoist the answering pennant; though, I suppose we’ll have to wait another month of Sundays for their longitude. No, by Jove! Messieurs les Français are a trifle quicker this time. ‘F N J’ and ‘G V L.’ How do you make them out, signalman? See if you can be as smart again as you were just now.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” returned the yeoman, all on his mettle and his eye the quicker to scan the alphabetical pages of his flag lexicon where the signals were catalogued in groups according to their subjects, this one being a numeral and, therefore, all the easier to read. “It’s longitude 9 degrees 15 minutes west, sir.”

“All right, put it down correctly, signalman,” said Captain Farmer; and, turning to the commander, he added, “Why, Nesbitt, it’s nearly in our direct course across the Bay, only we shall have a tighter squeeze, perhaps, in weathering Finisterre.”

“But, we can go a couple of points more free, sir,” observed Mr Quadrant, who had busied himself shaping a course on a chart by the binnacle as soon as he heard the latitude and longitude given. “That’ll be better than going about on the port tack, as I thought we should have to do, sir.”

“Yes—ha—humph! But I don’t like going too near Finisterre, though, Mr Quadrant, with a westerly gale threatening,” said the captain. “We cannot help ourselves, however, at present, for we must go after this wreck and see if there’re any unfortunate people aboard; though, I think those Frenchmen might have overhauled her themselves, instead of leaving it for us to do! Hoist ‘H V L,’ signalman! That will serve, Nesbitt, to tell them we’ll attend to the wreck. Let us fill and bear away again. We can’t afford to waste any more time palavering with our friend over yonder, who keeps us bowing and scraping like a veritable Frenchman as he is! Run up the signal now, signalman; and, Nesbitt, give him a parting dip of the ensign, and then brace round the yards and bear up!”

“Very good, sir,” replied the commander; and, as soon as the Frenchmen had hoisted their answering pennant to show that our signal had been taken in and understood, he turned to the poop-rail and sang out, “Bosun’s mate, pipe the watch to trim sails!”

The braces were then manned and the main yard swung, while our helm put hard a-starboard; when, the upper sails now filling and drawing again, our courses were dropped and the tacks hauled aboard, the clew garnets rattling as they were brought aft, and the ship put on her course.

We bore away, though, a couple of points more to the southward than before, steering sou’-sou’-west, towards the position of the wreck, as pointed out to us by our communicative friends, the strange ship.

“By Jove, sir,” exclaimed the commander as we bade farewell to the Frenchman, who also filled at the same time and went about on his way, both of us dipping our ensigns once more in salute, “we never thought of asking his name!”

“No more we did, Nesbitt,” said Captain Farmer; and the two stared at each other for a moment in silence, the captain ultimately breaking into a laugh. “But, that need not trouble you; for, I should know that corvette anywhere, I think, from the way she tumbles home from her water line abaft the beam. She’s the oldSérieusefor a thousand!”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes. She was one of the French fleet in the Black Sea when I was out there with old Dundas. I’ve been alongside her too often to forget her queer build!”

“But, I thought most of those French corvettes were wall-sided, sir?”

“Ay, true enough,” replied Captain Farmer, with a chuckle, as he came down the poop-ladder and turned to go into his cabin. “But, not all of them, Nesbitt, not all of them, my boy. I tell you, I would know the oldSérieuseanywhere, for they haven’t got another tub like her afloat.”

“The ‘old man’s’ right,” I heard the master say to Mr Stormcock when the captain had disappeared. “The corvette was on the right of our line when we bombarded Odessa; and I recollect she missed stays when tacking, and pretty nearly came aboard us.”

“By jingo,” replied Mr Stormcock, enthusiastically, “what an eye the old man has for a ship, and what a memory for signals! I never came across his equal.”

So thought I too; however, each day disclosed some fresh trait in our captain’s character, which surprised us all the more from his being such a very reserved man.

He was in the habit of keeping himself to himself until occasion arose to bring out his latent qualities.

Time, and a longer acquaintance with him, only taught us this pregnant fact, amongst other things!

While all the signalling had been going on, the wind was gradually freshening and the sea getting up; and by the time we made sail again the waves had put on their white caps, while a heavy, rolling swell had set in.

This met us almost full butt as we lay on our course and broke over our weather bow in columns of spray, washing the forecastle fore and aft and tumbling into the waist in a cataract of foam.

The water was knee-deep on the lee side of the deck, whenever the ship heeled over to port under the pressure of her canvas, passing out of the scuppers like a mill-race on her rising again and righting on an even keel.

The more the gale blew, however, the better the oldCandaharappeared to like it; racing along in grand style, and kicking up her heels to the Frenchman who was pretty soon hull down astern, the distance between us widening each instant all the more rapidly from the fact of our proceeding in opposite directions!

At Two Bells, when the log was hove, we were found to be going over nine knots but the ship began to plunge so much presently, that Commander Nesbitt, after one or two anxious glances aloft, ordered the boatswain’s mate to call the hands to shorten sail, setting them to work the moment they came up from below, the topgallant sails and royals being taken in without delay and the royal yards sent down.

“I thought we were going to have bad luck,” observed Mr Stormcock, who had made his appearance again on the quarter-deck on hearing the boatswain’s pipe for all hands. “We haven’t seen the worst of it yet, I’m afraid.”

“Shut up, you old croaker,” said Mr Jellaby. “Why, you’re a regular Jonah with your prophecies of evil!”

“I hope you won’t chuck me overboard for it, though, as they did him!” replied Mr Stormcock, good-humouredly. “Goodness knows, I don’t wish any harm to the old ship, or anyone in her! It isn’t likely I would; but, look at those clouds there away to win’ard and judge for yourself what sort of weather we’re likely to have before nightfall!”

“Yes; no doubt you’re right, Stormcock,” said “Joe” in answer to this, squinting as he spoke over the side to the westward, where a heavy bank of cloud was rising up and nearly blotting out now the sun as it sank lower and lower towards the horizon. “It does look squally, certainly; still, I can’t see the use of anticipating the worst and trying to meet troubles half-way, as you do, old chap!”

“I would rather be prepared for them than be caught napping,” rejoined the master’s mate, eyeing the quartermaster at the wheel, who was giving a helping hand to the two helmsmen, their task being by no means easy to make the ship keep her luff under the circumstances of wind and sea. “I wonder the commander doesn’t reef tops’ls? We can’t carry on much longer like this!”

“I hope he won’t,” whispered little Tommy Mills to me aside, my chum having come up with the rest from the gunroom at the general call. “Ain’t it jolly, spinning along like this, eh, Jack?”

Before I could reply, however, the commander seemed to have arrived at Mr Stormcock’s opinion, that we were still carrying too much canvas, for he came to the break of the poop and shouted out to the boatswain’s mate.

“Hands reef topsails!” he cried. “Topmen aloft! Take in two reefs!”

“Not a bit too soon,” growled the master’s mate, under his breath. “He ought to have given that order when the to’gallants were taken in!”

“Better late than never, say I,” said Mr Jellaby, laughing, as the topmen raced up the ratlines and the weather braces were rounded-in, preparatory to reefing. “Really, Stormcock, you’re the most inveterate growler I have come across in the service since first I went to sea, by Jove!”

Tom Mills and I chuckled at this; but, alas! our merriment was suddenly hushed by hearing a wild shriek come from aloft, that rose above the moaning of the wind as it whistled through the rigging and the melancholy wash of the waves, while, at the same instant, a dark body whizzed through the air and fell into the water alongside with a heavy plunge.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Commander Nesbitt, as we all stared at one another with blanched faces. “What is that?”

His question was answered in the moment of its utterance by a loud shout from forward that rang through the ship, sending a chill to every heart.

“Man overboard!”

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