"One forenoon, an old lady under the poop awning, whereshe and her daughter were sewing together at a bright strip of needlework, asked me to hold her woollen yarns for her as she balled them off—being the red coat for a sepoy killing a tiger, which her daughter was making in yellow. I couldn't well refuse, seeing that amongst the ladies I was reckoned a mild, quiet young man. Even in these days I must say I had a good deal of that look, and at home they used always to call me 'quiet Ned.' My mother, good soul, never would believe I broke windows, killed cats, or fought; and the mystery to her always iswhythe neighbours had a spite at me, for if I had been a wild boy, she said, or as noisy as little Brown next door, why she wouldn't have objected to my going to sea!—that noisy little Brown, by-the-by, is now a fat banker. So in I had to stick my thumbs at arms'-length, and stoop down to the old lady, the more with a will since I guessed what they were talking of.
"'Well though, Kate,' continued the old lady, winding away at the thread, 'you cannot deny her to be a charming creature, my love?' 'Oh, if you meanpretty!' said the girl, 'I don'twantto deny it—notI, ma'am—why should I, indeed?' 'Pity she's a little light-headed,' said her mother in a musing way. 'Affected, you mean, mother!' said Miss Fortescue, 'and haughty.' 'Do you know, Kate,' replied the old lady, sighing, 'I fear she'll soongoin India!' 'Go?' said the daughter, sharply. 'Yes; she won't stand the hot season as I did—these flighty girls never do. Poor thing! she certainly hasn'tyourstamina now, my love!'
"Here Miss Fortescue bit her lip, tossed her head, and was saying that wasn't what she cared about, though in fact she looked ready to cry; when just at the moment I saw Lota Hyde herself half above the little gallery stair, gazing straight at me, for the first time, too; a curious kind of half-smile on her face, as I stood with my paws out, the old lady jerking the yarn off my wrists, and I staring right over her big bonnet at the sky astern of the awning, pretending not to listen. All at once my mouth fell, and before she could turn her face away from the funny countenance I no doubt put on, I saw her cheek rosy and her eyes sparkle with laughter, instead of seeming like one to die soon.
"For my part I couldn't stand it at all, so I just bolted sheer round and made three strides to the poop-ladder, as dignifiedas was possible, with ever so many plies of red yarn foul of my wrists, and a big red ball hopping after me when I'd vanished, like a fellow running from a hot shot! I daresay they thought on the poop I'd had a stroke of the sun on my brain, but till next day I kept clear of the passengers, and took to swigging off stiff nor'-westers of grog as long as Westwood would let me.
"Next evening, when the cuddy dinner was scarce over, I went up to the poop, where there was no one to be seen; the sun just setting on our starboard-quarter in a golden blaze that stretched overhead, with flakes of it melting, as 'twere, all over the sky to port, and dropping in it like threads of oil in water; the ship with a light breeze aft, and stu'nsails packed large upon her, running almost due for the line. The waves to westward were like liquid light, and the eddies round our counter came glittering out, the whole spread of her mizzen and main canvas shining like gold cloth against the fore: then 'twas but the royals and sky-sails brighter than ever, as the big round sun dipped down with a red streak or two, and the red water-line, against his hot old face. Every blue surge between had a clear green edge about its crest, the hollows turning themselves inside out from deep purple into bright blue, and outside in again—and the whole rim of the sea grew out cool and clear, away from the ship's taffrail. A pair of sharp-headed dolphins that had kept alongside for the last few minutes, swimming near the surface, turned tail round the moment I put my nose over the bulwark, and shot off like two streaks of a rainbow after the flying-fish.
"I was just wondering where Lota Hyde could be this time, when on a sudden I observed little Tommy poke his curly head out of the booby-hatch, peeping cautiously round; seeing nobody, however, save the man at the wheel, who was looking over his shoulder at the sun, the small rogue made a bolt out of the companion, and scampered aft under the awning to the judge's starboard door, with nothing on but his night-shirt. There he commenced kicking and shoving withhis bare feet and arms, till the door flew open, and over went Tommy on his nose, singing out in fine style. The next thing I heard was a laugh like the sound of a silver bell; and just as the boy's sister ran up in a fright lest he had gone overboard, Violet Hyde came out leading the little chap wrapped in a long shawl that trailed astern of him, herself with a straw bonnet barely thrown upon her head. 'Tommy says you put him in bed too soon, Jane!' said she, smiling. 'Iss!' said Master Thomas, stoutly, 'go 'way, Dzane!' 'You hadn't bid me good-night—wasn't that it, Tom? But oh!whata sea!' exclaimed she, catching sight of it under the awning. The little fellow wanted to see it, too; so the young lady lifted him up in her arms, no small weight I daresay, and they both looked over the bulwark: the whole sky far out of the awning to westward being spotted with orange scales, turning almost scarlet, faster than the dusk from both ends could close in; the clear greenish tint of it above the openings of the canvas going up into fathomless blue overhead, the horizon purple, and one or two still black clouds tipped with vermilion against the far sky—while the Indiaman stole along, scarce plashing under her bends.
"Every now and then you heard a whizz and a flutter, as the flying-fish broke out of a bigger surge, sometimes just missing the ship's side; at last two or three fell over the mizzen chains, and pop came one all of a sudden right into the white breast of Miss Hyde's dress inside her scarf, where only the wings kept it from disappearing. She started, Jane screamed, but the little boy coolly pulled it out, commencing to overhaul it in great delight. 'Oh, fat a funny ickoo bird!' shouted he; 'it's fell down out of 'ese t'ees!' looking aloft. 'No, no,' said Miss Hyde, laughing, as she drew her shoulders together with a shiver—'birds' noses don't drop water! 'Twill die if you don't put it in again, Tommy—'tis a fish!' 'A fish!' said he, opening his eyes wider, and smacking his lips. 'Yes, Tommy eat it for my beckfust!' However, the young lady took it out of his hand, and dropped it overboard; on which the small ogre went off rather discontented, and kissed her more as a favour than otherwise. It was almost dark already, the water shining up in the ship's wake, and the stars coming out aloft; so I was left wondering at the impudence of flying-fish, and the blessings of being a fat littleimp in a frock and trousers, compared with this puzzle of a 'traverse,' betwixtbeinga third lieutenant and hailing for a 'griffin.'
"The night following, after a sultry hot day, the wind had varied a good deal, and the ship was running almost close-hauled on a warm south-easterly breeze, with somewhat of a swell in the water. Early in the first watch there was a heavy shower, after which I went on deck, leaving Westwood at his book. The half-moon was just getting down to leeward, clear of a ragged dark cloud, and a long space of faint white light spread away on the horizon, behind the sheets of the sails hauled aft; so that you just saw a sort of a glimmer under them, on the black heave of the swell between. Every time she rolled to leeward on it, a gleam of the moonshine slipped inside the shadow of her high bulwarks, from one wet carronade to another, and went glistening over the moist decks, and among the boats and booms, that looked like some big brute or other lying stretched out on his paws, till you saw the men's faces on the forecastle as if they were so many mutineers skulking in the dark before they rush aft: then up she righted again, and all was dark in-board.
"The awnings were off, and the gruff third mate creaking slowly to and fro in his soaked shoes; the judge stood talking with the captain before one of the round-house doors; directly after I noticed a young lady's figure in a white dress close by the mizzen-rigging, apparently intent on the sea to leeward. 'Well, now or never!' thought I, stepping over in the shadow of the mainsheet. I heard her draw a long breath; and then, without turning her head at the sound of my foot, 'I wonder if there is anything so strange in India,' exclaimed she; 'isthere now?' 'No, no, madam!' said I, starting, and watching as the huge cloud grew darker, with a rusty stain in it, while three or four broad-backed swells, one beyond the other, rose up black against the setting moon, as if they'd plunge right into her. Miss Hyde turned round, with one hand on the bulwark to steady herself, and half looked at me. 'I thought,' said she—'where is papa?—I thought my father——' I begged pardon for intruding, but next minute she appeared to have forgotten it, and said, in a musing sort of way, partly to herself, partly to me—'I seem torememberit all—as if I just saw that black wave—and—that monstrous cloud overagain! Oh! really that is theverysame top it hadthen—see!'—'Yes,' said I, leaning forward, with a notion Ihadseen it before, though heaven knew when. 'Did you ever read about Columbus and Vasco di Gama?' asked she, though directly afterwards her features broke into a laughing smile as she caught sight of mine—at the thought, I suppose, of my ridiculous figure the last time she saw me. 'No, never,' said I; 'but look to windward, ma'am; 'tis coming on a squall again. For heaven's sake, Miss Hyde, go in! We're to have another shower, and that pretty thick. I wonder the mate don't stow the royals.' 'What do you mean?' said she, turning. 'Why are you alarmed, sir? I see nothing particular.' The sea was coming over, in a smooth round-backed swell, out of a dirty, thick jumble of a sky, with a pitch-black line behind—what Ford would have called 'wild' by daylight; but the young lady's eye naturally saw no more in it than a dark night.
"Here the judge came over from the binnacle, giving me a nod, as much as to say he recollected me. 'I am afraid, sir,' said I, 'if you don't make haste, you'll get wet.' 'How!' said Sir Charles, ''tis an exceedingly pleasant night, I think, after such a very hot day. They don't know how to cool rooms here—this perpetual wood retains heat till midnight, sir! That detestable pitch precludes walking—the sea absolutely glares like tin.Whydo you suppose so now—eh, young gentleman?' said he again, turning back, all of a sudden, with his daughter on his arm.
"'Why—why—why, Sir Charles,' said I, hesitating betwixt sham innocence and scarce knowing what reason to give; 'why, I just think—that is to say, it's my feeling, you see.' 'Ah, ah, Idosee,' replied the judge, good-humouredly; 'but you shouldn't ape the sailor, my good fellow, as I fancy you do a little. I don't particularly admire the class, but they always have grounds for what they say in their profession, frequently even acute. At your aunt's, Lady Somers's now, Violet, who was naturally so surrounded by naval officers, what I had to object to was, not their want of intelligence, but their forwardness. Eh—eh! who—what isthat?' exclaimed he suddenly, looking straight up into the dark, as five or six large drops fell on his face out of it. All at once you heard a long sigh, as it were, in the canvas aloft, a claplike two or three carronades fired off, as all the sails together went into the masts—then a hum in the air far and near—and whish! rush! came the rain in sheets and bucketfuls off the edge of a cloud over our very heads, plashing and washing about the deck with coils of rope; ship rolling without a breath of wind in her sails; sails flapping out and in; the rain pouring down ten times faster than the scupper-holes would let it out, and smoking grey in the dark hollow of the swells, that sank under the force of it.
"The first officer came on deck, roaring in the hubbub to clue up and furl the royals before the wind came again. It got pitch-dark, you couldn't see your hand before you, and we had all lost mark of each other, as the men came shoving in between us. However, I knew whereabouts Miss Hyde was, so I felt along the larboard rigging till I found a back-stay clasped in her hands, and the soaked sleeve of her muslin dress, while she leant back on a carronade, to keep from being jerked down in the water that washed up over her feet with every roll, full of ropes and a capstan bar or two. Without saying a word, I took up Lota in my arms, and carried her aft in spite of the roll and confusion, steering for the glimmer of the binnacle, till I got her inside one of their own cabins, where there was a lamp swinging about, and laid her on a sofa. I felt somehow or other, as I went, that the sweet creature hadn't fainted, though all the while as still as death; accordingly I made off again at once to find the judge, who, no doubt, was calling for his daughter, with a poor chance of being heard.
"In a minute or two more the rain was over; it was light enough to make out the horizon, as the belt of foam came broadening out of it; the ship gave two or three wild bounds, the wheel jolting and creaking; up swelled the black waves again over one side, the topsails flapped full as the squall rushed roaring into them, and away she rose; then tore into it like a scared horse, shaking her head and throwing the snow-white foam into her fore-chains. 'Twas as much as three men could do to grind down her wheel, leaning and grinning to it; you saw just the Indiaman herself, scarce so far forward as the booms, and the broad swell mounting with her out of the dark, as she slowly squared yards before it, taking in to'gallant-sails while she did so with her topsail-yards lowered on the caps. However, the look of it was worse than its force,else the swell wouldn't have risen so fast, as every sailor knew; and by two bells of the mid-watch she was bowling under all, as easy as before, the mate of the watch setting a stunsail.
"When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, readingDon Quixotein Spanish. 'Bless me, Ned!' said he, 'you seem to like it! paying fair and weathering it too!' 'Only a little adventure, Westwood!' said I, laughing. 'Why, here have I been enjoying better adventures than we seem likely to have,' said he, 'without stirring a hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here'sDon Quixote——' 'Don Quixote be hanged!' said I: 'I'd rather wear ship in a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened—outof an old play-book. What's the use ofthinkingyou see service, when you don't? After all, you couldn'texpectmuch till we've crossed the Line—nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot, Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!' 'Well, we'll see,' said Westwood, lazily, and half asleep.
"The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient, by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and before crossing it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang besides.
"Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies—so he got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood scot-free; but, for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind the studding-sail curtain into three feet water, where I absolutely saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog.
"Late at night the breeze held and freshened, and, being Saturday night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their troubles; drinking and singing songs—Tom Little's and your sentimental affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through the water; so 'Hang it!' thought I, 'somehow or other I'll have out a stave of "Black-eyed Susan" at the top of my pipe, though overboard I go for it.
"There was an old square topsail-yard slung alongside to larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend the fat midshipman was in the boat itself, 'caulking'12his watch out, as he did every night in a fresh place.
"I was no sooner there again, than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in my head if I sungthere, why, in place of being afraid there was someone under her casement, that and the wind and water together would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night—in fact, I may say I was a little 'slewed'13at the time. How to get there, though, was the matter, it being rather a nice practice to sling over an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter; accordingly, first I took the end of coil round the mizzen-shrouds, and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising away, with a light at his mast-head, back to the Line.
"'Twas curious, but when I was 'two or three sheets in the wind,' far from growing stupid, I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and cheat apurser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet, slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got, how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his baby. All at once I felt the rope wasgivingoff the belaying-pin, till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash of the waves the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace; now and then there came a sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell out of the dark for miles.
"I fancied I didn't care for the water, but I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into such an infernally flame-looking stream; I was actually in a fright at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul myself up, when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute, and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to make known.
"'Ford!' said he. 'Ay,' said Ford, feeling to haul off his trousers—'ay—avast you—blub-lub-lubber!' 'I say, Ford!' said the cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marling-spike, and then fell to cry—Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp out, carefully enough, but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw a spark catch in the stuff, and there it was, swinging slowly away in the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers, ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew Winterton keptpowder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. 'Confound it,' I thought, quite cooled by the sight, 'the sooner I get on deck the better.'
"However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys; so I held on till they'd go forward again; suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know 'what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail cluelinehere?' Down I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to save myself by a clutch of the port-sill at arm's-length—where, heaven knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the moulding. 'Man overboard,' shouted he, and the men after him; however, I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat, where I clung like a cat.
"How to get on deck again without being seen was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning train inside, when out jumped someone over my head; I heard a splash in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits. I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming up was the ship's lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after, the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round to the wind, and we were very shortly on board again.
"'Confound it, Simm, what took you overboard, man?' asked the mid in the boat at his dripping messmate, the fat reefer. 'Oh, bother!' said he,'if you must know—why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas theotherI was in when you kicked up that shindy. Now I remember, though, there was too muchrainin it for comfort.' 'Well, youngster,'said Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, 'this here gentleman saved your life, anyhow!' 'Why, mate,' whispered Bill, ''tis the wery same greenhorn we puckalowed so to-day. Didn't he jump sharp over, too?' 'Pull! for your lives, my lads!' said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing up he got; the men swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the judge's cabins; especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside.
"You must surely be tired by this time, ma'am, of this long-winded yarn of mine?" said the commander of theGloucesterto the elder of his fair listeners, next evening they met with the evident expectation of hearing further; "but after all, this voyage must be dull work for you at present, so I daresay you are amused with anything by way of a change.
"Well, one morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, it was a stark staring calm; as dead as a mill-pond, save for the long winding heave that seemed to come miles up out of the stale blue water, and get tired with the journey—from the horizon to us in one lazy coil, and on every side, just serving to jerk the wheel a spoke back and forward, with nobody at it. The very bits of pumpkin-paring and fat which the cook had thrown overboard the night before lay still alongside, with an oily track oozing round about them from the 'slush'14—the sails hanging from the yards, up and down, like clothes on a screen—and when you looked over the side away from the sun, you saw your own face, like a fellow's that had been long drowned, peering back at you, as it were, round the keel—in fact, there you scarce knew where the waterwas.
"Somehow or other the ship kept sheering round, by little and little, till, although one had chosen a shady spot, all of asudden the blazing sun came right into his eyes; or the single streak of white cloud lying behind you, to starboard, a while after stuck itself before your face from the very opposite quarter—you fancying, too, you had your eye the whole time on the same bit of water. Being lost in a wood or a fog was nothing to it, especially with the sun at noon drawn up right overhead, so that you couldn't look aloft, and staring down into the sea out of a pool of bright light; 'like one tremendously keen little eye,' as some of the passengers said, 'examining a big blind one.' 'Why,' put in one of the writers, 'I fear he wants to take themoteout of his brother's eye—this vessel, that is to say!' 'Hang it, I hope not!' said Winterton, rather alarmed. 'He promises well to do it, then,' said another young civilian, 'but I wish he'd take thebeamout of his own first, ha, Smythe?' However, few men have the spirit to laugh at little in a calm near the Line, so Smythe gave no more than a sickly grin, while Westwood looked the clergyman very properly.
"Both passengers and crew, all of us that could swim, gave wistful looks now and then alongside at the water, hot as it seemed, for a bathe; just floating up, as it were, with the mere huge size of it, under a dazzle of light, and so blue and smooth you couldn't see a hair's-breadth below; while, a bit off, the face of it and the very air appeared to dance and quiver like little streams of glass. However, all thoughts of bathing were put out of your head when you saw the black three-cornered affair, with a rake aft, somewhat like the end of a scythe, that went steering slowly round us; then cruising hither and thither, till its infernal horn was as dry as the deck; and at times driving straight off, as if it ran in a groove through the level surface; when back again it came from the other side, creeping lazily towards us, till it sank with a lighttip, and a circle or two on the blue water. The hook and chain were hanging up and down over the taffrail, with the piece of rank pork looking green in the shadow near the rudder, where you read the white figures of her draught as plain as in dock; but the shark, a fifteen-feet customer, if he was an inch, was too knowing to have touched it.
"'Pity he's gone, Collins,' said Ford to me, after we had watched him at last out of sight; 'wasn't there any plan of catching him, I wonder! Now we shall have a bathe though,at any rate.' 'Gone?' said I, 'he won't leave us in a hurry, if we don't leavehim!' 'Poh, man!' said Ford, 'I tell you he's tired out and gone away!' Five minutes after Ford was leaning over the quarter and wiping his face, while he fanned himself with his straw hat, which fell out of his hand into the water. He had got over into the mizzen-chains to throw a line round it, when he gave a loud shriek, and jumped in-board again. Two or three fathoms of green came up from the keel, balancing on a pair of broad fins under Ford's hat, and a big round snout touched it; then a dozen feet of white belly gleamed in the water, the hat gave a gulp as it was drawn down, and a few small air-bells rose to the top. 'He prefers some flavours to others, you see, Ford,' said I. ''Tis the second hat I've seen you lose: I hope your head won't be in thethird; but you mariners, you see——' However, Ford had bolted to his cabin.
"On turning round I perceived Miss Hyde, with the general's lady, under the awning on the other side, where the old lady leant against a cushion, with her hands crossed and her bonnet strings loose—though a strapping raw-boned Irishwoman she was—and kept Miss Hyde's maid fanning her from behind with a large featherpunkah. The old lady had started at Ford's cry, and gave a look round at me, half fierce and half orderly, as if she expected to know what was the matter at once. 'Only my friend lost his hat, ma'am,' said I, stepping forward. 'These cadets are so 'tagious, my dear!' said she to the young lady, falling back again without the least more notice of me. 'They plague the life of me, but the brigadier can't drill them as he would if this were a troopship—I wish he could, for the sake of the profession!—now, my dear,youkape out of the s-hun!' However, I stuck where I was, fancying I caught the slightest bit of an arch twinkle in the corner of the young lady's eye, though she didn't look at me. 'Keep going, can't ye!' said the old lady crossly to the maid. 'No, ma'am, indeed!' said the girl, glancing over to her young mistress, 'I'm ready to drop!' 'Send up papa'skitmagar, then, Wilkins,' said Miss Hyde; and the girl went off toward the gallery stair, muttering she 'hoped she didn't come—here to be—made a black Indian slave of—at least to a old'—the remainder being lost in the stair.
"As I leant on the rail-netting, behind the old lady, I happened to tread on her fat pug-dog's tail, whereupon the ugly brute made its teeth meet, without further notice, in the small of my leg, after which it gave a yelp, and ran beneath the chairs. 'What's that, Die?' exclaimed its mistress; 'good hivens! is that same griffin hereyet, my dear! Hadn't he ayven the spirit to take a hint?—I say, was ityouhurt Dianny, young man?' 'Oh dear no, ma'am, not for the world!' said I, looking at my trousers, hard as the thing was to stand, but thinking to smooth her over, though I wasn't quite up to the old Irishwoman it turned out. 'Ha! ha! so she bit you?' said she, with a flash of her hawk's eye, and leaning back again coolly. 'If he'd only kicked poor Die for it under my chair now, I'd have forgiven him; but he hadn't ayven the heart at the time to drop her a curse—andIthinking all the while, too, by the luke of his eye he was from the County Clare! My heart warms to the County Clare always, because, although I'm not Irish myself, you know, I'd once a schoolfellow was born in it—without counting all my relations! Oh, the smooth spalpeen!' continued she, harder than before, glancing at me as I looked all abroad from one to the other; 'listen, niver you let that fellow spake to you, my dear! he's too——' But here I walked quietly off to put the poop's length betwixt me and the talking old vixen, cursing her and her dog both, quite enough to have pleased her Irish fancy.
"On the quarter-deck, the judge and the general seemed really to enjoy the heat and quiet, sitting with their feet up before the round-house, and smoking their long red twisted hookahs, while they watched the wreaths of smoke go whirling straight up from the bowls to the awning, and listened to the faint bubble of it through the water in the bottles, just dropping a word now and then to each other. A tall, thin 'native' servant with long sooty hair hanging from his snow-white turban, stood behind the judge's chair, bolt upright, with his arms folded, and twice as solemn as Sir Charles himself; you saw a stern-window shining far abaft, through one of the round-house doors, and the fat old fellow of aconsumah15busy laying the cloth for tiffin, while the sole breath of air there was came out of thereaway.
"Suddenly eight bells struck, and everyone seemed gladof something new; the judge'sconsumahcame out salaaming to say tiffin was ready; the cuddy passengers went below for wine-and-water and biscuit; and the men were at dinner. There being nothing to take care of on deck, and the heat of course getting greater, not a soul stayed up but myself; but I preferred at the moment lighting a cheroot, and going up aft to see clear of the awnings. The cockatoo had been left on the poop-rail, with its silver chain hitched round one of the mizzen back-stays, where it shifted from one leg to the other, hooked itself up the back-stay as far as it could go, then hurried down again, and mused a bit, as wise as Solomon—then screamed out at the top of its voice—'Tip—tip—pr-r-retty cacka—tippoo— cok-ka—whee-yew-ew-ew!' finishing by a whistle of triumph fit to have split one's ears, or brought a gale of wind—though not on account of skill in its books, at any rate. Again it took to swinging quietly head-down, at furious rate, and then slewed upright to plume its feathers, and shake the pink tuft on its head.
"No sooner had I got up the stair, however, than, to my perfect delight, I saw Violet Hyde was still sitting aft, and the old Irishwoman gone; so I stepped to the taffrail at once, and, for something to be about, I hauled up the shark-hook from astern. The moment I caught her eye, the young lady smiled—by way of making up, no doubt, for the old one. 'Howverysolitary it is!' said she, rising and looking out; 'the ship almost seems deserted, except by us!' 'By Jove! I almost wish it were,' thought I. 'A dead calm, madam,' I said, 'and likely to hold—the under-swell's gone quite down, and a haze growing.' 'Are we sureeverto leave this spot then?' asked she, with a slight look of anxiety. 'Never fear it, ma'am,' said I; 'as soon as the haze melts again, we're near a breeze, I assure you—only, by the length of the calm and the heat together, not to speak of our being so far to east'ard, I'm afraid we mayn't get rid of it without a gale at the end to match.' 'Indeed?' said Miss Hyde.
"The fact was, Westwood and I had been keeping a log, and calculated just now we were somewhere to south-eastward of Ascension; whereas, by the captain and mate's reckoning she was much farther to west.
"'I never thought the sea could appear so dreadful,' said she, as if to herself—'much more than in a storm.' 'Why,madam,' said I, 'you haven't exactly seen one this voyage—one needs to be close-hauled off the Cape for that.'
"Somehow or other, in speaking toher, by this time I forgot entirely about keeping up the sham cadet, and slipped into my own way again; so all at once Ifelther two dark-blue eyes looking at me curiously. 'How!—why,' exclaimed she suddenly, and then laughing, 'you seem to know all about it!—why, you speak—have you been studying sea affairs so thoroughly, sir, with your friend, who—but Idothink, now, one can scarcelytrustto what you have said?' 'Well—why—well,' said I, fiddling with the shark-hook, 'I don't know how it is, but I feel as if I must have been at sea some time or other before; you wouldn't suppose it, ma'am, but whenever I fix my eyes on a particular rope, I seem almost to know the name of it.' 'And itsusetoo?' asked she, merrily. 'I shouldn't wonder!' said I; 'perhaps I wasbornat sea, you know, madam!' and I gave a side-look to notice how she took it. 'Ah! perhaps!' said Miss Hyde, laughing: 'but do you know one sometimes fancies these things; and now I think of it, sir, I even imagined for a moment I had seenyourselfbefore!' 'Oh,' said I, 'that couldn't be the case; I'm sure, for my part, I should recollect clear enough if I'd seen—a—aladyanywhere! I think you said something of the kind, ma'am, that night of the last squall—about the water and the clouds, ma'am, you remember?' The young lady looked away, though a notion seemed to flash through her mind. 'Yes,' said she, 'that terrible rain,youwere——' 'Washed into the lee-scuppers,' said I, indifferently, for I didn't want her to suspect it wasIthat had kissed her hand in the dark as I carried her in. 'I hope Sir Charles and yourself got in safe, Miss Hyde?' However, she was watching the water alongside, and suddenly she exclaimed, 'Dear! what a pretty little fish!' 'By heavens!' said I, seeing the creature with its sharp nose and blue bars, as it glanced about near the surface, and then swam in below the ship's bilge again, 'that's one of the old villain's pilots—he's lying right across our keel! I wish I could catch that shark!'
"The pork was of no use for such an old sea-lawyer, and I cast a wistful eye on the Irishwoman's fat pug-dog stretched asleep on her shawl by the bulwark; 'he'd takethatin a trice though!' I even laid out some marline from a stern-locker,and noticed how neatly one could pass the hook under her belly round to the tail, and seize her so snugly on, muzzled and all; but it was no go, with the devil to pay afterwards. All of a sudden I heard somebody hawking and spitting above the awning forward, near where the cockatoo kept still trying to master his own name. 'The Yankee, for a thousand!' thought I; 'is Daniel trying to walk along the spanker-boom?' Next, someone sung out, 'Hal-loo-oo-oo!' as if there was a tomahawk over him, ready to split his brain. Miss Hyde looked alarmed, when the Scotch mate, as I thought, roared, 'Shiver my tops'ls!' Then it was a sailor hailing gruffly, 'Bloody Capting Brown—bloody Capting Brown—Capting Brown!'
"'Somebody drunk aloft!' thought I, walking forward to see; when a funny little black head peeped round the awning with a yellow nose as sharp as a marling-spike, and red spectacles, seemingly, round its keen little eyes; then, with a flutter and a hop, the steward's pet mina-bird16came down, and lighted just under the cockatoo. 'Ha!' said I, laughing, 'it's only Parson Barnacle!' as the men called him—a sooty little creature scarce bigger than a blackbird, with a white spot on each wing, and a curious pair of natural glasses on his head, which they kept in the forecastle and taught all sorts of 'jaw,' till they swore he could have put the ship about, took kindly to tar, and hunted the cockroaches like a cat.
"No doubt he was glad to meet his countryman the cockatoo, but Tippoo stuck up his crest, swelled his chops, and looked dreadfully frightened; while the mina-bird cocked his head on one side, gave a knowing wink as it were, though all the time as grave, with his spectacles, as a real parson. 'How's her head?' croaked he, in a voice like a quartermaster's; 'blowing hard!' 'Old Capting Brown!' and hopped nearer to the poor cockatoo, who could stand it no longer, but hooked himself up the back-stay as fast as possible, out of sight, the chain running with him; and just as I swung myself clear of the awning to run aloft for a catch of it, out flew Parson Barnacle to the end of the crojack-yard,while the cockatoo gave a flap that loosed thekitmagar'slubberly hitch, and sent him down with his wings spread on the water.
"At another time it wouldn't have cost me a thought to go head-foremost after him, when I heard his young mistress exclaiming, 'Oh, poor dear Tippoo will be drowned!' but recollecting our hungry green friend on the other side, I jumped down for the end of a rope to slip myself quietly alongside with. However, at the very moment, Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, happening to come up from the forehatchway to throw something overboard, and seeing Miss Hyde's cockatoo, off went his shoes and jacket at once, and I heard the splash as he struck the water. I had scarce time to think, either, before I saw Mick O'Hooney's red head shoot up on deck, and heard him sing out, 'Man overboard, be the powers, boys! Folly my lader! Hurroo!' and over he sprang. 'Here's dip,' said another, and in half a minute every man that could swim was floundering in the smooth water alongside, or his head showing as it came up—pitching the cockatoo to each other, and all ready to enjoy their bathe; though, for my part, I made but one spring to the ship's starboard quarter, to use the only chance of saving the thoughtless fellows from a bloody fate to some of them.
"I knew the shark would be cautious at first, on such a sudden to-do, and I had marked his whereabouts while the men were well toward the bows; and 'hang it,' thought I, seeing the old woman's fat pug in my way, 'Dianny, or die all; I bear no malice, but you must go for it, my beauty!' As quick as thought, I made one turn of marline round her nose, took off the pork, and lashed her fast on to the hook all standing, in spite of her squeaks; then twisted the lady's shawl round the chain for a blind to it, and flung the whole right over the larboard quarter, where I guessed the old fellow would be slewing round astern to have a look out before he went fairly in chase. I watched the line sink slowly with the weight over the gunwale for half a minute, afraid to let him see my head, and trembling for fear I should hear a cry from one of the men: when jerk went the rope clear of a belaying-pin as he ran off with his bait. I took a quick turn to hook him smartly in the throat, and then eased off again till the 'cleets' brought him up with a 'surge' fit to have parted theline, had it not been good new inch-and-a-half rope—though, as it was, the big Indiaman would soon have sheered stern-round to the force of it, if he'd only pulled fair.
"The young lady stood noticing what I did, first in a perplexed sort of a way, and then with no little surprise, especially when the shark gave every now and then a fiercer tug, as he took a sweep astern; by this time, however, everybody was on deck in a crowd, the passengers all in a flurry, and half of the men scrambling up from alongside to tail on to the line, and run him out of water. So away they went with it full-speed towards the bows, as soon as the ladies were out of the way—dragging two or three cadets back-foremost, head over heels, down the poop stair—till, in spite of his tugging, the shark's round snout showed over the taffrail, with the mouth wide open under his chin, as it were, and one row of teeth laid flat behind another, like a comb-maker's shop-counter. A running bowline passed round his handsome waist, then another pull, and over he came on the poop, floundering fourteen feet long, and flourishing his tail for room, till the carpenter chopped it across, in a lucky moment with his axe.
"All hands gathered round the shark to see him cut up, which was as good as a play to them, becalmed as we were; when, to my no small dismay, I heard Mrs Brigadier Brady's loud voice asking where her dog was; and the brigadier himself, who seemed more afraid of his wife than anybody else, kept poking about with his red-faced English butler to find the animal. 'For God's sake,' said he, in a half whisper, twenty times over, 'haven't ye seen Mrs Brady's dog, any of ye?—she'll rout the ship inside out for it, captain, if we don't soon ase her mind.' However, I knew only Miss Hyde was aware who caught the shark, and as she didn't appear to have told, why of course I kept all fast myself. 'Here's a 'baccy-box!' sung out the big old boatswain, standing astride over the tail, while the cook and his black mate ripped away from the tail up. 'Hand over, if ye please, sir,' said 'ugly' Harry, 'it's mine, Mr Burton!' Harry gave it a wipe on his knee, and coolly bit a quid off the end of his lost pigtail. The next thing was Ford's hat, which no one claimed, so black Sambo clapped it on his woolly head.
"'What's that you've got there now, Sambo?' said theboatswain: 'out with it, my lad!' 'Golly!' chuckled the nigger, rolling the whites of his eyes and grinning like mad; 'oh sar, Misser Barton! dis 'ere shark riglar navligator! I 'clare to you, sar, um got chr'ometer aboard. Oh gum; berry much t'ink dis your own lost silber tickler, Misser Barton.' 'Bless me, so it is, my lad,' said the boatswain, as the black handed him a silver watch as big as a turnip, and he looked at the cook, who was busy fumbling with his knife. 'Sorry as you wastaxedwith it, doctor,'17said he, doubtfully; 'well, I'm blowed, though, it only goes an hour and a half—and here it's a-ticking yet.' Here a burst of laughter went round, and somebody sung out, 'Maybe the ould pawn-broking Judas of a shark winded it up hisself, just to mark the time o' his "goin' off the hooks."' 'I say, doctor,' hailed another, 'too bad, ain't it though, to cut upyour uncle?' 'Ha, ha, ha,' cried the cadets and writers, looking at the Scotch surgeon; 'd' ye hear that, doctor? I wouldn't stand it. They say you ain't particular in Edinbro', though. Some rum mistakes happened there, eh, doctor?'
"The Scotchman got into a passion at this, being the worst cut they could give any fellow from a country where they were famous for kindred and body-snatching at once—but all of a sudden there was a 'Hulloo! Shiver my taw'sels! What's this? Let's see'; and the whole poopful of us were shoving together, and jumping on each other's shoulders to have a look. 'Well, we-ell,' said the old boatswain, as he peered curiously into the mess of shark's bowels—'I'll be blowed.' 'The likes o' that now!' croaked the old sailmaker, lifting up his two hands, ''tain't lucky, Mr Burton!' 'My eye! them's not youngsharks, anyhow!' said one of the men. 'What's t'ou think they be, mun,' said the north-country Chips, 'but litter o' young blind poops? an' here's t' ou'd un, see, as deed's mutton! Dang him, but someun's got an' baited t' hook wi't, there's nou't else in 's guts.'
"The whole poop was one roar of laughing, when Mrs Brady's pug was found delivered of four pups inside the shark, since she went overboard, and two of 'em alive; the news ran fore and aft in a moment. 'Took shortshe's been, Jack!' said one. 'Beats the prophet Joney!' 'I say, mate,them whelps is born twice over. Blessed if my Sal at home, now, wouldn't give a year's 'lotment for one on 'em.'
"'Look out, all hands of ye,' cried someone, 'there's the old girl herself coming on deck; sharp's the word.' And away we scuttled right and left, some aloft, and some down one poop-ladder, as Mrs Brady, with the brigadier and his butler after her, came fuming up the other. The black made one spring over the quarter as soon as he saw her; but the Irish topman, Mick, slipped his foot amongst the shark's blood, and rolled on his back, while the old bo'sun made stand in the thick of it behind. 'Saze the villains, I charge ye, brigadier,' screamed Mrs Brady, though he and his manservant only kept dodging the boatswain round a sort of a quagmire of blood and grease, while the old vixen caught Mick by his red hair and whiskers. 'Where's my dog, ye murderous spalpeen?' said she, panting for breath; 'what have ye done with my Dianny, ye monsther? Spake, or I'll——' 'Be the holy elaven thousand, yer ladyship!' said Mick, 'an' it'slostdid ye think she wor! Isn't therefiveof 'em back! Whisper! yer ladyship's riv'rence—she'slaid in, poor craythure, an'——' 'Oh!you Irish thief!' Tug came both Mrs Brady's hands through his hair, while the butler caught a kick in the stomach from Mick's foot. 'Murther!' gasped the poor fellow, 'sure an' I dun' know she was ayven a faym'le, fur me own part; bad luck t' ye mates, give uz a hand. Och, an' is this the road ye thrate a counthryman, mim?' 'Meyour countryman! ye bog-trottin' wretch ye!' screamed the old fury, her brogue getting worse the more she heated—'takethat!—don't rise, if ye dare.' 'Faix thin, yer ladyship darlin',' said O'Hooney, grinning in spite of his hard usage, 'I tould a lie—och, lave some o' me hair!—murther intirely! I'm——'
"All the time none of us could stir for sheer laughing, but seeing poor Mike like to fare hard with the old vixen, who was near as big as himself, and as strong as a horse, I whispered to the men to run round and let go the poop awning—so down it came, with a few buckets of water in it, over the five of them; and you just saw Mrs Brady's sharp elbow through the canvas, lifted for the next slap, when we had her all fast, struggling like a cat in a bag, while O'Hooney and the boatswain crept out below. 'Stiff breeze that aswe've had!' said the bo'sun shaking himself on the forecastle. 'Couldn't ye've bowsed over on the old jade's pitticuts, Mick?' said one of his shipmates, 'and capsized her all standing?' 'Sorra fut you'd stir, yourself, mate,' said he, wiping his face, 'wid such a shay grinnydeer! she'd man-handle ye as asy's twurl a mop!'
"After all this, you may suppose one didn't weary so much, even of the calm. As soon as the decks were clear, most of us took tea on the poop, for fear of meeting the brigadier's lady below, everyone holding his cup ready for a start. Rollock, the planter, who had slept and swung in his cot half the day, was like to split his sides when he heard the story; by-the-way, I believe both the little pups lived and throve on goat's milk, and the men called one of them 'Young Jonah,' though he had so much of the terrier that the old lady disowned him.
"It was quite dark, and cool for a night near the Line, though not a ripple stirred, and I stayed after the rest to smoke a cigar, stopping every now and then near the aftermost bull's-eye, that shone through the deck, and thinking of Lota. 'By Jove!' thought I, 'she hasn't said a word to the judge about our having met before. Think of having a secret, almost, withher!' After all, though, I felt well enough I might as soon hope for the Emperor of China's daughter as for such a creature, unless something wonderfully strange fell out; deucedly in love as I was, I wasn't puppy enough to fancy I'd ever succeed by mere talk; 'but here's for a bold heart and a weather eye,' I thought; 'and if these can't do it, Iwill!' said I aloud, when someone clapped me on the shoulder.
"'Well, Tom, are you there?' said I, thinking it was Westwood. 'Why,' answered old Rollock, laughing, 'not so far wrong, my boy—but as it's thirty years since anyone called me so, I thought youwere, for a moment!—Meditating, eh?' 'Only a cigar before bedtime—will you have one, sir?' 'Ah—well,' said the planter, 'I'll take a light at least—queerlife this, eh? Shouldn't know thiswaswater, now—more like train-oil! Looksjunglisha little under the stars yonder.' 'Nothing but the haze come down,' said I; ''tis clear enough aloft, though—look out for squalls ere long.' 'As your friend Ford would have it,' said Rollock; 'but how a lad of your spirit can manage to stand this so well, I can't think!' 'Deyvilish dull, sir!' said I, with a lazy drawl, 'but can't be helped, you know.' 'Come, come, now, don't mend it by copying poor Winterton,' chuckled Rollock; 'you're no fool, Collins, so don't pretend to be. I say though, Collins, my boy,' continued he rather gravely, 'there is one really soft piece I begin to notice in you lately—I fear you're falling in love with that girl!' 'I, sir!' said I; 'dear me, what makes you——' 'My dear boy,' went on the kind-hearted old fellow, 'I take an interest in you; no lad of your stuff practises all this tomfoolery without something under it, and I see you'vesomeserious meaning or other. Did you know her before?' 'Oh—why—not exactly,' I dropped out, taken rather short. 'I see, I see!' he went on; 'but I tell you what, Collins, a cadet can do nothing madder than marry at first landing; she had better be a cold-hearted flirt, after all—though, God knows, no man can say whatthatdoes but one that's—felt it!—I—I mean Iknew—a young fellow that went out as ambitious as you can be, and he——'
"Here the planter's voice shook a little, and he stopped, puffing at his cheroot till the short end of it just lighted up his hook nose and part of his big white whiskers in the dark, only you saw his eye glistening, too. 'Devil take it!' thought I, 'who'd have expected the old boy to be so sharp, though?' 'Well but, Collins,' said he at last, 'just you enter heart and soul into your profession; I'd stake my life you'll rise, who knows how far—when you get captain's pay even,thenyou may think of it—that is, if she——' 'Why,' said I, 'd'ye suppose the judge would——' 'Judge!' exclaimed Mr Rollock—'worse and worse! Weren't we talking of pretty little Kate Fortescue? Mydearboy, you don't intend to say you mean Miss Hyde! I leftthatto your puppy of a "first officer," as they call him! Why, that young girl will be the beauty of Calcutta.' At this I fancied someone else gave a whistle near us. 'Of course, sir,' said I, raising my voice, 'you didn't suppose me such a fool.' In fact, Miss Fortescue had neverentered my head at all. 'Something strange aboutyou, Collins!' said the planter, a little shortly; 'you puzzle me, I must say.' As we turned to go below, I heard somebody walk down the poop-ladder, and then the mate's voice sung out from the binnacle to 'strike eight bells!'
"The calm was as dead as ever next morning, and, if possible, hotter than before—not a rope changed aloft, nor a cloth in the sails moved; but it was pretty hazy round us, which made the water a sort of pale old-bottle blue, that sickened you to look at; and a long dipping and drawling heave gradually got up as if there were blankets on it; the ship, of course, shifting round and round again slowly, like a dog going to lie down, and the helm giving every now and then a sudden jolt. Near noon it cleared up with a blaze of light, as it were; the sole difference at first being, that what looked like melting lead before now turned into so many huge bright sheets of tin, every sudden bend of it as good as flashing up thousands of needles in your eyes. A good deal surprised we were, however, shortly after, to find there was a sail in sight, another square-rigged vessel, seemingly standing up on the horizon six or seven miles off. Being end on to us at the time, though every glass in the ship was brought to bear on her, 'twas hard to say what she was; then she and we went bobbing and going up and down with a long round heave between us, slowly enough, but always at cross purposes, like two fellows see-sawing on a plank over a dyke. When she was up, we were down, and we just caught sight of her royal, no bigger than a gull on the water; jerk went our rudder, and next time she seemed to have vanished out of the glasses altogether, till we walked round to the other side, and made her out again under the awning on the opposite beam. At length she lifted broad to us for a moment or two, showing a long pale sort of hull with a red streak, apparently without ports, and brig-rigged, though the space betwixt her two masts was curious for that kind of craft.
"'Wonderful light-sparred for her size that brig, sir,' said the third officer, dropping his glass. 'Ay, so she is, Mr Small,' replied Captain Williamson; 'what would you call her then? You've as good knowledge of craft as any man, Mr Small, I think.' 'Why,' said the old mate, screwing his eye harder for a long look, 'I'd say she's—not a cruiser, CaptainWilliamson—no, nor a Greenock Indyman—nor a——' 'Oh!' said Finch, 'some African timberer or other, I daresay, Small.' 'Well, Mr Finch,' said the third mate, handing him the glass, 'mayhap you'll just say yourself, sir.' 'No, no, Mr Small,' said the captain; 'I'd trust to you as soon as any man, sir, in a matter of the kind.' 'Why, the hull of her's wonderful Yankee-like, sir,' said Small again; 'I'm thinking they've been andsquaredher out of a schooner—and made a bad job of it too, sir! Bless us! what a lean-headed pair o' taups'ls—as high as our fore one, sir.' Suddenly the old mate gave his thigh a slap, and laid down his glass on the capstan; 'Lor', sir!' said he, 'that's the thing; she's nothing more nor less but a John Crapeau, Captain Williamson!'
"'I daresay you're right, Mr Small,' said the skipper, taking the glass; 'just so—ay, ay—I thought it myself!' 'Pity Old Nap's boxed up yonder nowadays, then, sir,' said the first officer, rubbing his hands and pointing to eastward, where he thought St Helena was; 'why, sir, we should have the peppering of the Frenchman; I don't suppose we'd need to care though she were twice the size—and what's more, we want fresh water before seeing the Cape, sir!' 'Well,' said the old skipper, laughing, 'that is the worst of it, Finch! As for spirit, you've as much as any man, Mr Finch, and Idothink we'd know how to take the weather-hand of him—eh?' 'I'll be bound we should!' said Finch, laughing too. As for the Frenchman, both Westwood and I had made him out by his rig at once, thanks to man-o'-war practice; but we smiled to each other at the notion of making a prize of Monsieur, under Finch's management, with not a gun that could have been used for half a day, and everything else at sixes and sevens.
"In a little while it was proposed amongst the cadets, hot as the calm was, to make a party to go and see the French vessel. Ford of course was at the head of it. Winterton thought they would no doubt have plenty of champagne on board, and some others, who could row, wanted to try their hands. Accordingly the captain's gig was got ready, a sort of awning rigged over it, and two or three of them got in; when one, who was Miss Fortescue's cousin, persuaded her to join, if Mr Rollock would come. Then the brigadier, being rather a good-humoured man, said he should like to face the Frenchonce more, and Daniel Snout shoved himself eagerly in without asking, by your leave. One of the men was sent to take charge; and as there was room still, I was just going to jump in too, for the amusement of it, when Mrs Brady hurried to the taffrail with her parasol up, and said, if the brigadier went she should go as well—in fact, the old woman's jealousy of her rib was always laughably plain. 'Hang it! then,' thought I, 'catch me putting myself in the same boat withher! the same ship is enough in all conscience!' So away they were lowered off the davits, and began pulling in tolerable style for the brig, a couple of hours' good work for such hands at midday, smooth water as it was.
"'Now, gentlemen,' said the first officer briskly, as we looked after them dipping over the long bright blue heave—'now, gentlemen, and ladies also, if you please, we'll have another party as soon as the men get their dinner—give these gentlemen a full hour's law, we'll overhaul them. See the larboard quarter-boat clear, Jacobs.' It was just the least possible hazy again behind the brig in the distance, and as the judge stood talking to his daughter on the poop, I heard her say, 'Is the other vessel not coming nearer already, papa? See how much more distinct its sails are this moment—there!—one almost observes the white canvas!' 'Pooh, Lota, child!' answered Sir Charles, 'that cannot be—'tis perfectly calm, don't you know?' In fact, however, Lota showed a sailor's eye for air, and I was noticing it myself; but it wasonlythe air made it look so. 'Ah! now,' exclaimed she again, ''tis as distant as ever! That must have been the light'; besides, the brig had been lifting on a wide swell.
"'I beg pardon, Sir Charles,' said the mate, coming up and taking off his cap, 'but might I use the freedom—perhaps yourself and Miss Hyde would like to visit the French brig?' The judge looked at his daughter as much as to ask if she would like it. 'Oh yes! so much!' exclaimed she, her bright eyes sparkling, 'shall we?' 'No! NotI!' said Sir Charles. 'I shall take my siesta. Quite safe, sir—eh?' 'Oh, quite safe, Sir Charles!' said Finch, 'a dead calm, sir—I'll take the utmost care you may be sure, Sir Charles—as safe as the deck, sir!' 'Oh, very well,' replied the judge, and he walked down to see after his tiffin. The young lady was going down the quarter-gallery stair, when I caught my opportunity to say—'I hope you'll excuse it, Miss Hyde, ma'am—but Idotrust you'll not risk going in the boat so far, just now!' Half a minute after I spoke, she turned round, and looked at me with a curious sort of expression in her charming face, which I couldn't make out—whether it was mischievous, whether it was pettish, or whether 'twas inquisitive.
'Dear me!' said she, 'why—do you——' 'The weather might change,' I said, looking round about, 'and I shouldn't wonder if it did—or a swell might get up—or——' 'I must say, Mr—Mr Collins,' said she, laughing slightly, 'you are very gloomy in your anticipations—almost timorous, I declare! I wonder how you came to be so weather-wise! But why did you not advise poor Mrs Brady, now?' I couldn't see her face as she spoke, but the tone of the last words made me feel I'd have given worlds to look round and see what it was like at the moment. 'Perhaps, ma'am,' said I, 'you may remember therain?' 'Well, we shall see, sir!' replied she, glancing up with a bright sparkle in her eye for an instant, but only toward the end of the spanker-boom, as it were; and then tripping down the stair.
"I kept watching the gig pull slowly toward the brig in the distance, and the cutter making ready on our quarter till the men were in, with Jacobs amongst them; where they sat waiting in no small glee for the mate and his party, who came up a few minutes after; and I was just beginning to hope that Violet Hyde had taken my advice, when she and another young lady came out of the round-house, dressed for the trip, and the captain gallantly handed them in. 'My compliments to the French skipper, Mr Finch,' said the captain, laughing, 'and if he ain't better engaged, happy to see him to dinner at—two bells18in the dog-watch, we'll make it!' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Finch. 'Now then!—all ready?' 'Smythe's coming yet.' said a 'writer.' 'We can't wait any longer for him,' replied the mate; 'ease away the falls, handsomely, on deck!' 'Stop,' said I, 'I'll go then!' 'Too late, young gentleman,' answered the mate, sharply, 'you'll cant us gunnel up, sir!—lower away, there!' However, I caught hold of a rope and let myself down the side, time enough to jump lightly into her stern-sheets the moment they touched the water. The officer staredat me as he took the yoke-lines to steer, but he said nothing, and the boat shoved off; while Miss Hyde's blue eyes only opened out, as it were, for an instant, at seeing me drop in so unceremoniously; and her companion laughed.
"'I shouldn't have supposed you so nimble, Mr Collins!' said the writer, looking at me through his eyeglass. 'Oh,' said I, 'Ford and I have practised climbing a good deal lately.' 'Ha! ha!' said the civilian, 'shouldn't be surprised, now, if your friend were to take the navigation out of Mr Finch's hands, some day!' 'Bless me, yes, sir!' said Finch, with a guffaw, as he sat handling the lines carelessly, and smiling to the ladies, with his smart cap over one ear; 'to be sure—ha! ha! ha!—it's certain, Mr Beveridge! Wouldn't you take the helm here, sir?' to me. 'Oh, thank you, no, sir!' replied I, modestly, 'I'm not quite so faryet—but we've got a loan of Hamilton Moore and Falconer's Dictionary from the midshipmen, and mean to——' 'No doubt you'll teach us a trick or two yet!' said Finch, with a sneer. 'Now, for instance,' said I, coolly, 'aloft yonder, you've got thethroat halliardsjammed in the block with a gasket, and the mizzen-topsail cluelines rove wrong side of it, which Hamilton Moore distinctly——'
"'Hang the lubber that did it, so they are!' exclaimed the mate, looking through the spy-glass we had with us. 'Now you've yourjibshauled down, sir,' continued I, 'and if a squall came on abeam, no doubt they'd wish to shorten sail fromaft, and keep her away—however, she would broach-to at once, as Hamilton Moore shows must——' 'You and Hamilton Moore may——Well, no fear of a squall just now, at any rate, ladies,' said he. 'Stretch out, men—let's head upon Mr Ford and his gig, yet!'
"Terribly hot it was, close to the water, and so stifling that you scarce could breathe, while the long glassy swell was far higher than one thought it from the ship's deck; however, we had an awning hoisted, and it refreshed one a little both to hear the water and feel it below again, as the cutter went sliding and rippling over it to long slow strokes of the oars; her crew being all men-o'-war's-men, that knew how to pull together and take it easy. The young ladies kept gazing rather anxiously at the big oldSeringapatam, as she rose and dropped heavily on the calm, amused though they were at first by a sight of their late home turning 'gable' on to us, withher three masts in one, and a white straw hat or two watching us from her taffrail; whereas, ahead, they only now and then caught a glimpse of the brig's upper canvas, over a hot, hazy, sullen-looking sweep of water as deep-blue as indigo—with six hairy brown breasts bending before them to the oars, and as many pair of queer, rollicking, fishy sort of eyes, fixed steadily on the bonnets aft, in a shame-faced, down-hill kind of way, like fellows that couldn't help it. In fact, I noticed a curious grin now and then on every one of the men's faces, and a look to each other when they caught sight of myself sitting behind the mate, as he paid out his high-flying speeches; Jacobs, again, regarding me all the while out of the whites of his eyes, as it were, in a wooden, unknowing fashion fit to have made a cat laugh—seeing he never missed his mark for one moment, and drew back his head at every pull with the air of a drunken man keeping sight of his own waistcoat buttons.
"By the time we were halfway, the swell began to get considerable, and the mate stepped up abaft to look for the gig. 'Can't see the boat yet,' said he; 'give way there, my lads—stretch out and bend your backs! there's the brig!' 'Hallo!' exclaimed he again, 'she's clued up royals and to'gallants'ls! By heavens! there go her tops'ls down too! Going to bend new sails, though, I daresay, for it looks clear enough there.' 'The ship's run up a flag, aft sir,' said Jacobs. 'The——so she has,' said Finch, turning round; 'recall signal! What's wrong? Sorrywecan't dine aboard the French vessel this time, ladies!' said he, 'extremelyso—and the griffins there after all, too. I hopeyouwon't be disappointed in any great measure, Miss Hyde; but if you wished it now, miss, I'd evenkeepon, and——'
"The young lady coloured a little at this, and turned to her companion just as I remembered her doing from the dragoon in the ball-room. 'Do you not think, Miss Wyndham,' said she, 'weought not to wish any officer of the ship should get reproved, perhaps, onouraccount?' 'Oh dear, no,' said Miss Wyndham: 'indeed, Mr Finch, you had better go back, if the captain orders you.'
"'Hold on there with your larboard oars, you lubbers!' sang out Finch, biting his lip, and round we went, pulling for the Indiaman again; but by this time the swell was becoming so heavy as to make it hard work, and it was soon rarely wecould see her at all; for nothing gets up so fast as a swell, sometimes, near the Line; neither one way nor the other, but right up and down, without a breath of wind, in huge smooth hills of water darker than lead, not a speck of foam, and the sky hot and clear. 'Twas almost as if a weight had been lifted from off the long heaving calm, and the whole round of it were going up dark into the sky, in one weltering jumble, the more strange that it was quiet; sweep up it took the boat, and the bright wet oar-blades spread feathering out for another stroke to steady her, let alone making way; though that was nothing to the look of the Indiaman when we got near. She was rolling her big black hull round in it as helpless as a cask; now one side, then the other, dipping gunwale to in the round swell that came heaping up level with her very rail, and went sheeting out bright through the bulwarks again; the masts jumping, clamps and boom-irons creaking on the yards, and every sail on her shaking, as her lower yard-arms took it by turns to aim at the water—you heard all the noise of it, the plunge of her flat broadside, the plash from her scuppers, the jolts of her rudder, and voices on board; and wet you may be sure shewasfrom stem to stern.
"'Comfortable,' thought I; 'we've come home too soon of a washing-day, and may wait at the door, I fear!' 'Oh dear,' exclaimed the three griffins, 'how are we to get in!' and the young ladies looked pale at the sight. The mate steered for her larboard quarter without saying a word, but I saw he lost coolness and got nervous—not at all the man for a hard pinch: seemingly, he meant to make a dash alongside and hook on. 'If you do, sir,' said I, 'you'll be smashed to staves'; and all at once the ship appeared almost over our heads, while the boat took a send in. I looked to Jacobs and the men, and they gave one long stroke off, that seemed next heave to put a quarter of a mile between us. 'Close shave that,' said the bowman. 'Begs pardon, sir,' said Jacobs, touching his hat, with his eyes still fixed past the mate, upon me; 'hasn't we better keep steadying off, sir, till such time as a sulk in the swell——' 'Hold your jaw, sirrah,' growled Finch, as he looked ahead still more flurried; 'there's asquallcoming yonder, gentlemen, and if we don't get quick aboard, we may lose the ship in it! Pull round, d' ye hear there!' Sure enough, when we lifted, there was the French brig clear outagainst a sulky patch of dark-grey sky, growing in, as it were, far off behind the uneven swell, tillitbegan to look pale; the Indiaman's topsails gave a loud flap out, too, one after the other, and fell to the mast again.
"Suddenly I caught the glance of Violet Hyde's eyes watching me seriously, as I sat overhauling the Indiaman for a notion of what to do, and I fancied the charming girl had somehow got nearer to me during the last minute or two, whether she knew it or not; at any rate, the thought of having such a creature to protect made all my blood tingle. 'Never fear, ma'am,' said I, in a half whisper; when Finch's eye met mine, and he threw me a malicious look, sufficient to show what a devil the fellow would be if ever he had occasion; however, he gave the sign for the men to stretch out again, and high time it was, as the Indiaman's main-topsail made another loud clap like a musket-shot. Still he was holding right for herquarter—the roll the ship had on her was fearful, and it was perfect madness to try it; but few merchant mates have chanced to be boating in a Line swell, I daresay; when just as we came head on for her starboard counter, I took the boat's tiller a sudden shove with my foot, as if by accident, that sent us sheering in close under herstern. The bowman prized his boat-hook into the rudder-chains, where the big hull swung round us on both sides like an immense wheel round its barrel, every stern window with a face watching us—though one stroke of the loose rudder would have stove us to bits, and the swell was each moment like to make the men let go, as it hove us up almost near enough to have caught a hand from the lower-deck.
"'For God's sake steady your wheel,' said I; 'hard a port!' while the mate was singing out for a line. 'Now, up you go,' said I to Jacobs in the hubbub, 'look sharp, and send us down a whip and basket from the boom-end, as we did once in thePandora, you know!' Up the rope went Jacob like a cat, hand over hand; and five minutes after, down came the 'basket' over our heads into the boat, made out of a studding-sail and three capstan-bars, like a big grocer's scale dangling from the spanker-boom. The mate proposed to go up first with Miss Hyde, but she hung back in favour of her companion; so away aloft went Miss Wyndham and he, swinging across the Indiaman's stern as she rolled again, with a gant-line to steadythem in—Finch holding on to the whip by one hand, and the other round the young lady, while my blood crept at the thought how it might have been Lota herself!
"As soon as it came down again, she looked for a moment from me to Jacobs, when Captain Williamson himself shouted over the taffrail! 'Sharp, sharp, there! the squall's coming down! she'll be up in the wind! let's get the helm free!' and directly after I found myself swinging twenty feet over the water with Violet Hyde, as the ship heeled to a puff that filled the spanker, and rose again on a huge swell, gathering steerage way, while every bolt of canvas in her flapped in again at once like thunder. I felt her shudder and cling to me—there was one half-minute we swung fairly clear of the stern; they stopped hoisting—and I almost thought I'd have wished that same half-minute half-a-day; but a minute after she was in the judge's arms on the poop; the men had contrived to get the cadets on board, too, and the boat was dragging astern, with the line veered out, and her crew still in it baling her out.