"Mr Newland (the first lieutenant) and I set out early in the day, accordingly, with a couple of theHebe'smidshipmen, mounted on as many of the little island ponies, to go up inland for a cruise about the hills. You take Side Path along the crags, with a wall betwixt the hard track and the gulf below, till you lose sight of Jamestown like a cluster of children's toy-houses under you, and turn up above a sloping hollow full of green trees and tropical-like flowering shrubs, round a pretty cottage called The Briars—where one begins to have a notion, however, of the bare blocks, the red bluffs, and the sharp peaks standing up higher and higher round the shell of the island. Then you had another rise of it to climb, on which you caught sight of Jamestown and the harbour again, even smaller than before, and saw nothing before your beast's head but a desert of stony ground, running hither and thither into wild staring clefts, grim ravines, and rocks of every size tumbled over each other like figures of ogres and giants in hard fight. After two or three miles of all this, we came in view of Longwood Hill, lying green on a level to north and east, and clipping to windward against the sea beyond; all round it elsewhere was the thick red crust of the island, rising in ragged points and sharp spires—the greenish sugar-loaf of Diana's Peak shooting in the middle over the high ridge that hid the Plantation House side of St Helena to leeward.
"Between the spot where we were and Longwood is a huge fearful-looking black hollow, called the Devil's Punch-bowl, as round and deep as a pitch-pot for caulking all the ships in the world—except on a slope into one corner of it, where you saw a couple of yellow cottages with gardens about them; while every here and there a patch of grass began to appear, a clump of wild weeds and flowers hanging off the fronts of the rocks, or the head of some valley widening away out of sight, with the glimpse of a house amongst trees, where some stream of water came leaping down off the heights and vanished in the boggy piece of green below. From here over the brow of the track it was all like seeing into an immense stone basin half-hewn out, with all the lumps and wrinklesleft rising in it and twisting every way about—the black Devil's Punch-bowl for a hole in the middle, where some infernal liquor or other had run through; the soft bottoms of the valleys just bringing the whole of it up distincter to the green over Longwood Hill; while the ragged heights ran round on every side like a rim with notches in it, and Diana's Peak for a sort of a handle that the clouds could take hold of. All this time we had strained ourselves to get as fast up as possible, except once near the Alarm House, where there was a telegraph signal-post, with a little guard-hut for the soldiers; butthereeach turned round in his saddle, letting out a long breath the next thing to a cry, and heaving-to directly, at sight of the prospect behind. The Atlantic lay wide away round to the horizon from the roads, glittering faint over the ragged edge of the crags we had mounted near at hand; only the high back of the island shut out the other side—save here and there through a deep-notched gully or two—and accordingly you saw the sea blotched out in that quarter to the two sharp bright ends, clasping the dark-coloured lump between them, like a mighty pair of arms lifting it high to carry it off. Soon after, however, the two mids took it into their wise heads the best thing was to go and climb Diana's Peak, where they meant to cut their names at the very top; on which the first lieutenant, who was a careful middle-aged man, thought needful to go with them, lest they got into mischief; for my part, I preferred the chance of coming across the mysterious Yankee and his comrade, as I fancied not unlikely, or, what was less to be looked for, a sight of Bonaparte himself.
"Accordingly, we had parted company, and I was holding single-handed round one side of the Devil's Punch-bowl, when I heard a clatter of horse-hoofs on the road, and saw the Admiral and Lord Frederick riding quickly past on the opposite side, on their way to Longwood—which, curiously enough, was half-covered with mist at the time, driving down from the higher hills, apparently before a regular gale, or rather some kind of a whirlwind. In fact, I learned after, that such was often the case, the climate up there being quite different from below, where they never feel a gale from one year's end to the other. In the next hollow I got into, it was hot and still as it would have been in India, the blackberrytrailers and wild aloes growing quite thick, mixed with prickly-pear bushes, willows, gumwood, and an African palm or two; though from the look of the sea, I could notice the southeast trade had freshened below, promising to blow a good deal stronger that night than ordinary, and to shift a little round.
"Suddenly the fog began to clear by degrees from over Longwood, till it was fairly before me, nearer than I thought; and just as I rode up a rising ground, out came the roof of a house on the slope amongst some trees, glittering wet as if the sun laid a finger on it; with a low bluish-coloured stretch of wood farther off, bringing out the white tents of the soldiers' camp pitched about the edge of it. Nearly to windward there was one sail in sight on the horizon, over an opening in the rocks beyond Longwood House, that seemingly let down toward the coast; however, I just glanced back to notice the telegraph on the signal-post at work, signalling to thePodargusin the offing, and next minute Hut's Gate was right ahead of me, not a quarter of a mile off—a long-shaped bungalow of a cottage, inside of a wall with a gate in it, where I knew I needn't try farther, unless I wanted the sentries to take me under arrest. Betwixt me and it, however, in the low ground, was a party of man-o'war's-men under charge of a midshipman, carrying some timber and house-furniture for Longwood, as I remembered, from seeing them come ashore from thePodargusthat morning; so I stood over to give my late shipmates a hail. But the moment I got up with them, it struck me not a little, as things stood, to find three of the four blacks we had taken aboard from that said burnt barque of the American mate's trudging patiently enough under the heaviest loads of the gang. Jetty-black, savage-looking fellows they were, as strong as horses, and reminded me more of our wild friends in the Nouries River, than of States niggers; still, what caught my notice most wasn't so much their being there at all, as the want of the fourth one, and wherehemight be. I don't know yet how this trifling bit of a puzzle got hold on me, but it was the sole thing that kept me from what might have turned a scrape to myself—namely, passing myself in as officer of the party; which was easy enough at the time, and the tars would have entered into the frolic as soon as I started it.On second thoughts, nevertheless, I bade them good-day, steering my animal away round the slant of the ground, to see after a good perch as near as possible; and I daresay I was getting within the bounds before I knew it when another sentry sung out to me off the heights to keep lower down, first bringing his musket to salute for my uniform's sake, then letting it fall level with a ringing slap of his palm, as much as to say it was all the distinction I'd get over plain clothes.
"At this, of course, I gave it up, with a blessing to all lobster-backs, and made sail down to leeward again as far as the next rise, from which there was a full view of the sea, at any rate, though the face of a rough crag over behind me shut out Longwood House altogether. Here I had to get fairly off the saddle—rather sore, I must say, with riding up St Helena roads after so many weeks at sea—and flung myself down on the grass, with little enough fear of the hungry little beast getting far adrift. This said crag, by-the-way, drew my eye to it by the queer colours it showed, white, blue, grey, and bright red in the hot sunlight; and being too far off to make out clearly, I slung off the ship's glass I had across my back, just to overhaul it better. The hue of it was to be seen running all down the deep rift between, that seemingly wound away into some glen toward the coast; while the lot of plants and trailers half covering the steep front of it, would no doubt, I thought, have delighted my old friend the Yankee, if hewasthe botanising gentleman in question.
"By this time it was a lovely afternoon far and wide to Diana's Peak, the sky glowing clearer deep-blue at that height than you'd have thought sky could do, even in the tropics—the very peaks of bare red rock being softened into a purple tint, far off round you. One saw into the rough bottom of the huge Devil's Punch-bowl, and far through without a shadow down the green patches in the little valleys, and over Deadwood Camp—there wasnothing, as it were, between the grass, the ground, the stones, and leaves, and the empty hollow of the air; while the sea spread far round underneath, of a softer blue than the sky over you. You'd have thought all the world was shrunk into St Helena, with the Atlantic lying three-quarters round it in one's sight, like the horns of the bright new moon round the dim old one; which St Helena pretty much resembled, if what the star-gazers say ofits surface be true, all peaks and dry hollows—if, indeed, you weren't lifting up out of the world, so to speak, when one looked through his fingers right into the keen blue overhead!
"If I lived a thousand years, I couldn't tell half what I felt lying there; but, as you may imagine, it had somewhat in it of the late European war by land and sea. Not that I could have said so at the time, but rather a sort of half-doze, such as I've known one have when a schoolboy, lying on the green grass the same way, with one's face turned up into the hot summer heavens; half of it flying glimpses, as it were, of the French Revolution, the battles we used to hear of when we were children—then the fears about the invasion, with the Channel full of British fleets, and Dover Cliffs—Trafalgar and Nelson's death, and the battle of Waterloo, just after we heardhehad got out of Elba. In the terrible flash of the thing altogether, one almost fancied them all gone like smoke; and for a moment I thought I was falling away off,downinto the wide sky, so up I started to sit. From that, suddenly I took to guessing and puzzling closely again how I should go to work myself, if I were the strange Frenchman I saw in the brig at sea, and wanted to manage Napoleon's escape out of St Helena. And first, there was how to get into the island and puthimup to the scheme—why, sure enough, I couldn't have laid it down better than they seemed to have done all along: what could one do but just dodge about that latitude under all sorts of false rig, then catch hold of somebody fit to cover one's landing? No Englishmanwoulddo it, and no foreigner but would set Sir Hudson Lowe on his guard in a moment. Next we should have to get put on the island—and really a neat enough plan it was to dog one of the very cruisers themselves, knock up a mess of planks and spars in the night-time, set them all ablaze with tar, and pretend we were fresh from a craft on fire; when even Captain Wallis of thePodargus, as it happened, was too much of a British seaman not to carry us straight to St Helena! Again, I must say it was a touch beyond me; but to hit the Governor's notions of a hobby, and go picking up plants round Longwood, was a likely enough way to get speech of the prisoner, or at least let him see one was there!
"How should I set about carrying him off to the coast, though? That was the prime matter. Seeing that even ifthe schooner—which was no doubt hovering out of sight—were to make a bold dash for the land with the trade-wind, in a night eleven hours long—there were sentries close round Longwood from sunset, the starlight shining mostly always in the want of a moon; and at any rate there was rock and gully enough, betwixt here and the coast, to try the surest foot aboard theHebe, let alone an emperor. With plenty of woods for a cover, one might steal up close to Longwood, but the bare rocks showed you off to be made a mark of. Whew! but why were those same blacks on the island? I thought; just strip them stark-naked, and let them lie in the Devil's Punch-bowl, or somewhere, beyond military hours, when I warrant me they might slip up, gully by gully, to the very sentries' backs! Their colour wouldn't show them, and savages as they seemed, couldn't they settle as many sentries as they needed, creep into the very bed-chamber where Bonaparte slept, and man-handle him bodily away down through some of the nearest hollows, before anyone was the wiser? The point that still bothered me was, why the fourth of the blacks was wanting at present, unless he had his part to play elsewhere. If it was chance, then thewholemight be a notion of mine, which I knew I was apt to have sometimes. If I could only make out the fourth black, so as to tally with the scheme, on the other hand, then I thought it was all sure; but of course this quite checked me, and I gave it up, to work out my fancy case by providing signals betwixt us plotters inside and the schooner out of sight from the telegraphs.
"There was no use for her to run in and take the risk, without good luck having turned up on the island; yet any sign she could profit by must be both sufficient to reach sixty miles or so, and hidden enough not to alarm the telegraphs or the cruisers. Here was a worse puzzle than all, and I only guessed at it for my own satisfaction—as a fellow can't help doing when he hears a question he can't answer—till my eye lighted on Diana's Peak, near three thousand feet above the sea. There it was, by Jove! 'Twas quite clear at the time; but by nightfall there was always more or less cloud near the top; and if you set a fire on the very peak, 'twould only be seen leagues off: a notion that brought to mind a similar thing which I told you saved the Indiaman from a lee-shoreone night on the African coast—and again, by George! I sawthatmust have been meant at first by the negroes as a smoke to help the French brig easier in! Putting that and that together, why it struck me at once what the fourth black's errand might be—namely, to watch for the schooner, and kindle his signal as soon as he couldn't see the island for mist, I was sure of it; and as for a dark night coming on at sea, the freshening of the breeze there promised nothing more likely; a bright white haze was softening out the horizon already, and here and there the egg of a cloud could be seen to break off the sky to windward, all of which would be better known afloat than here.
"The truth was, I was on the point of tripping my anchor to hurry down and get aboard again, but, on standing up, the head of a peak fell below the sail I had noticed in the distance, and, seeing she loomed large on the stretch of water, I pretty soon found she must be a ship of the line. The telegraph over the Alarm House was hard at work again, so I e'en took down my glass and cleaned it to have a better view, during which I caught sight, for a minute, of some soldier-officer or other on horseback, with a mounted red-coat behind him, riding hastily up the gully a good bit from my back, till they were round the red piece of crag, turning at times as if to watch the vessel. Though I couldn't have a better spy at him for want of my glass, I had no doubt he was the Governor himself, for the sentries in the distance took no note of him.
"There was nobody else visible at the time, and the said cliff stood fair up like a look-out place, so as to shut them out as they went higher. Once or twice after, I fancied I made out a man's head or two lower down the gully than the cliff was, which, it occurred to me, might possibly be the botanists, as they called themselves, busy finding out how long St Helena had been an island; however, I soon turned the glass before me upon the ship, by this time right opposite the ragged opening of Prosperous Bay, and heading well up about fourteen miles or so off the coast, as I reckoned, to make Jamestown harbour. The moment I had the sight of the glass right for her—though you'd have thought she stood still on the smooth soft blue water—I could see her whole beam rise off the swells before me, from the dark side and white band,checkered with a double row of ports, to the hamper of her lofty spars, and the sails braced slant to the breeze, the foam gleaming under her high bows, and her wake running aft in the heave of the sea. She was evidently a seventy-four; I fancied I could make out her men's faces peering over the yards toward the island, as they thought of 'Boneypart'; a white rear-admiral's flag was at the mizzen-royal-mast-head, leaving no doubt she was theConquerorat last, with Admiral Plampin, and, in a day or two at farthest, theHebewould be bound for India.
"I had just looked over my shoulder toward Longwood, letting theConquerorsink back again into a thing no bigger than a model on a mantelpiece, when, all at once, I saw someone standing near the brow of the cliff I mentioned, apparently watching the vessel, with a long glass at his eye, like myself. 'Twas farther than I could see to make out anything, save so much; and, ere I had screwed the glass for such a near sight, there were seven or eight figures more appearing half over the slope behind; while my hand shook so much with holding the glass so long, that at first I brought it to bear full on the cracks and blocks in the front of the crag, with the large green leaves and trailers on it flickering idly with the sunlight against my eyes, till I could have seen the spiders inside, I daresay. Next I held it too high, where the Admiral and Lord Frederick were standing by their horses, a good way back; the Governor, as I supposed, sitting on his, and two or three others along the rise. At length, what with kneeling down to rest it on one knee, I had the glass steadily fixed on the brow of the rocks, where I plainly saw a tall dark-whiskered man, in a rich French uniform, gazing to seaward—I knew him I sought too well by pictures, however, not to be sadly galled.
"Suddenly a figure came slowly down from before the rest, with his hands behind his back, and his head a little drooped. The officer at once lowered the telescope and held it to him, stepping upward, as if to leave him alone—what dress he had on I scarce noticed; but there he was standing, single, in the round bright field of the glass I had hold of like a vice—his head raised, his hands hiding his face, as he kept the telescope fixed fair in front of me—only I saw the smooth, broad round of his chin. I knew, as if I'd seen him in the Tuileries atParis, or known him by sight since I was a boy—Iknewit was Napoleon!
"During that minute the rest of them were out of sight, so far as the glass went—you'd have supposed there was no one there but himself, as still as a figure in iron, watching the same thing, no doubt, as I'd done myself five minutes before, where the noble seventy-four was beating slowly to windward. When Ididglance to the knot of officers twenty yards back, 'twas as if one saw a ring of his generals waiting respectfully while he eyed some field of battle or other, with his army at the back of the hill; but next moment the telescope fell in his hands, and his face, as pale as death, with his lip firm under it, seemed near enough for me to touch it—his eyes shot stern into me from below his wide white forehead, and I started, dropping my glass in turn. That instant the whole wild lump of St Helena, with its ragged brim, the clear blue sky and the sea, swung round about the dwindled figures above the crag, till they were nothing but so many people together against the slope beyond.
"'Twas a strange scene to witness, let me tell you; never can I forget the sightless, thinking sort of gaze from that head of his, after the telescope sank from his eye, when theConquerormust have shot back with all her stately hamper into the floor of the Atlantic again!
"Once more I brought my spy-glass to bear on the place where he had been, and was almost on the point of calling out to warn him off the edge of the cliff, forgetting the distance I was away. Napoleon had stepped, with one foot before him, on the very brink, his two hands hanging loose by his side, with the glass in one of them, till the shadow of his small black cocked hat covered the hollows of his eyes, and he stood, as it were, looking down past the face of the precipice. What he thought of, no mortal tongue can say, whether he was master at the time over a wilder battle than any he'd ever fought—but just then, what was the surprise it gave me to see the head of a man, with a red tasselled cap on it, raised through amongst the ivy from below, while he seemed to have his feet on the cracks and juts of the rock, hoisting himself by one hand round the tangled roots, till no doubt he must have looked right aloft into the French Emperor's face; and perhaps he whispered something—though,for my part, it was all dumb show to me, where I knelt peering into the glass. I saw evenhimstart at the suddenness of the thing—he raised his head upright, still glancing down over the front of the crag, with the spread hand lifted, and the side of his face half-turned toward the party within earshot behind, where the Governor and the rest apparently kept together out of respect, no doubt watching both Napoleon's back and the ship of war far beyond. The keen sunlight on the spot brought out every motion of the two in front—theoneso full in my view, that I could mark his look settle again on the other below, his firm lips parting and his hand out before him, like a man seeing a spirit he knew; while a bunch of leaves on the end of a wand came stealing up from the stranger's post to Napoleon's very fingers.
"The head of the man on the cliff turned round seaward for one moment, ticklish as his footing must have been; then he looked back, pointing with his loose hand to the horizon—there was one minute between them without a motion, seemingly—the captive Emperor's chin was sunk on his breast, though you'd have said his eyes glanced up out of the shadow of his forehead; and the stranger's red cap hung like a bit of the bright-coloured cliff, under his two hands, holding amongst the leaves. Then I saw Napoleon lift his hand calmly, he gave a sign with it—it might have been refusing, it might have been agreeing, or it might be farewell, I never expect to know; but he folded his arms across his breast, with the bunch of leaves in his fingers, and stepped slowly back from the brink towards the officers. I was watching the stranger below it, as he swung there for a second or two, in a way like to let him go dash to the bottom; his face sluing wildly seaward again. Short though the glance I had of him was—his features set hard in some bitter feeling or other, his dress different, too, besides the moustache being off, and his complexion no doubt purposely darkened—it served to prove what I'd suspected: he was no other than the Frenchman I had seen in the brig, and, mad or sensible, the very look I caught was more like that he faced the thunder squall with than aught besides. Directly after, he was letting himself carefully down with his back to my glass; the party above were moving off over the brow of the crags, and theGovernor riding round apparently to come once more down the hollow between us.
"In fact, the seventy-four had stood by this time so far in, that the peaks in the distance shut her out; but I ran the glass carefully along the whole horizon in my view, for signs of the schooner. The haze was too bright, however, to make sure either way; though, dead to windward, there were some streaks of cloud risen with the breeze, where I once or twice fancied I could catch the gleam of a speck in it. ThePodarguswas to be seen through a notch in the rocks, too, beating out in a different direction, as if the telegraph had signalled her elsewhere; after which you heard the dull rumble of the forts saluting theConquerordown at Jamestown as she came in; and being late in the afternoon, it was high time for me to crowd sail downward, to fall in with my shipmates.
"I was just getting near the turn into Side Path, accordingly, after a couple of mortal hours' hard riding, and once more in sight of the harbour beneath, when the three of them overtook me, having managed to reach the top of Diana's Peak, as they meant. The first lieutenant was full of the grand views on the way, with the prospect of the peak, where one saw the sea all round St Helena like a ring, and the sky over you as blue as blue water. 'But what do you think we saw on the top, Mr Collins?' asked one of the urchins of me—a mischievous imp he was himself, too, pock-marked, with hair like a brush, and squinted like a ship's two hawse-holes. 'Why, Mister Snelling,' said I, gruffly—for I knew him pretty well already, and he was rather a favourite with me for his sharpness, though you may suppose I was thinking of no trifles at the moment—'why, the devil, perhaps.' 'I must say I thought at first it was him, sir,' said the reefer, grinning; ''twas a black nigger, though, sir, sitting right on the very truck of it, with his hands on his two knees, and we'd got to shove him off before we could dig our knives into it!' 'Bythe Lord Harry!' I rapped out, 'the very thing that——' ''Twas really the case, though, Mr Collins,' said the first lieutenant; 'and I thought it curious; but there are so many negroes in the island.' 'If you please, sir,' put in the least of the mids, 'perhaps they haven't all of 'em room to meditate, sir!' 'Or sent to the mast-head, eh, Roscoe?' said Snelling.'Which you'll be, sirrah,' broke in the first lieutenant, 'the moment I get aboard, if you don't keep a small helm.' We were clattering down over Jamestown by this time, the sun blazing red off the horizon, into it and the doors of the houses, and the huge hull and spars of theConqueroralmost blocking up the harbour, as she lay anchored outside the Indiaman. The evening gun fired as we pulled aboard theHebe, which immediately got under weigh by order, although Lord Frederick was not come down yet; but it fell to her turn that night to supply a guard-boat to windward, and she stood up under full sail round Sugarloaf Point, just as the dusk fell like a shadow over the island.
"TheNewcastle'sboat was on the leeward coast that night, and one of our cutters was getting ready to lower, nearly off Prosperous Bay, to windward, while the frigate herself would hold farther out to sea. One of the master's mates should have taken the cutter; but after giving the first lieutenant a few hints as far as I liked to go, I proposed to go in charge of her that time, myself—which was laid to the score of my freshness on the station; and the mate being happy to get rid of a tiresome duty, I got leave at once.
"The sharp midshipman, Snelling, took it into his ugly head to keep me company, and away we pulled into hearing of the surf. The moment things took the shape of fair work, in fact, I lost all thoughts of a late kind. In place of seeing the ragged heights against the sky, and musing all sorts of notions about the French Emperor, there was nothing but the broad bulk of the island high over us, the swell below, and the sea glimmering wide from our gunwale to the stars; so no sooner did we lose sight of theHebeslowly melting into the gloom, than I lit a cheroot, gave the tiller to the mid, and sat stirring to the heart at the thought of something to come, I scarce knew what. As for Bonaparte, with all that belonged to him, 'twas little to me in that mood, in spite of what I'd seen during the day, compared with a snatch of old Channel times; the truth was, next morning I'd feel for him again.
"The night for a good while was pretty tolerably starlit, and in a sort of way you could make out a good distance. One time we pulled right round betwixt the two points, though slowly enough; then again the men lay on their oars, letting her float in with the long swells, till the surfcould be heard too loud for a safe berth. Farther on in the night, however, it got to be dark—below at least—the breeze holding steady, and bringing it thicker and thicker; at last it was so black all round that on one side you justknewthe rocks over you, with the help of a faint twinkle of stars right aloft. On the other side there was only, at times, the two lights swinging at the mast-head of thePodargusandHebe, far apart, and one farther to sea than the other; or now and then their stern-window and a port, when the heave of the water lifted them, or the ships yawed a little. One hour after another, it was wearisome enough waiting for nothing at all, especially in the key one was in at the time, and with a long tropical night before you.
"All of a sudden, fairly between the brig and the frigate, I fancied I caught a glimpse for one moment of another twinkle; then it was out again, and I had given it up, when I was certain I saw it plainly once more, as well as a third time, for as short a space as before. We were off a cove in the coast, inside Prosperous Bay, where a bight in the rocks softened the force of the surf, not far from the steep break where one of these same narrow gullies came out—a good deal short of the shore, indeed; but I knew by this time it led up somewhere toward the Longwood side. Accordingly the idea struck me of a plan to set agoing, whether I hit upon the right place or not; if itwasthe schooner, she would be coming down right from windward, on the look-out for a signal, as well as for the spot to aim at; the thing was to lure her boat ashore there before their time, seize her crew, and take the schooner herself by surprise, as if we were coming back all right; since signal the ships we couldn't, and the schooner would be wary as a dolphin.
"No sooner said than done. I steered cautiously for the cove, fearfully though the swell bore in, breaking over the rocks outside of it; and the reefer and I had to spring one after the other for our lives, just as the bowman prized her off into the back-wash.
"As for the cutter, it would spoil all to keep her off thereabouts; and I knew, if a boat did come in of the kind I guessed, why she wouldn't lay herself out for strength of crew. Snelling and I were well armed enough to manage half-a-dozen, if they fancied us friends; so I ordered the men topull clear off for an hour, at least leaving fair water. In fact there were sentries about the heights, I was aware, if they could have heard or seen us; but the din of the surf, the dark, and the expectation of the thing, set us both upon our mettle; while I showed the boat's lantern every now and then, like the light I had noticed, such as the Channel smugglers use every thick night on our own coast. I suppose we might have waited five or ten minutes when the same twinkle was to be caught, dipping dark down into the swell again, about opposite the cove; next we had half-an-hour more, every now and then giving them a flash of the lantern, when suddenly the reefer said he saw oars glisten over a swell, which he knew weren't man-o'-war's strokes, or else the fellows ought to have their grog stopped. I had the lantern in my hand, slipping the shade once more, and the other to feel for my cutlass-hilt, when the mid gave a cry behind me, and I turned just in time to see the dark figure of a black spring off the stones at our backs. One after another three or four more came leaping past me out of the gloom—the Frenchman's red cap and his dark fierce face glared on me by the light of the lantern; and next moment it was down, with him and me in a deadly struggle over it in the thick black of the night. Suddenly I felt myself lose hold of him in the heave of the swell, washing away back off the rock; then something else trying to clutch me, when down I swept with the sea bubbling into my mouth and ears.
"I came up above water again by the sheer force of the swell, as it seemed to me, plunging into the shore; with the choice, I thought, of either being drowned in the dark, or knocked to a jelly on the rocks; but out I struck, naturally enough, rising on the huge scud of the sea, and trying to breast it, though I felt it sweep me backwards at every stroke, and just saw the wide glimmer of it heave far and wide for a moment against the gloom of the cliffs behind. All at once, in the trough, I heard the panting of someone's breath near alongside of me, and directly after I was caught hold of by the hair of the head, somebody else grabbing at the same time for my shoulder. We weren't half-a-dozen fathoms from the stranger's boat, the blacks who had fallen foul of me swimming manfully together, and the boat lifting bow-on to the run of the sea, as her crew looked about for us by thelight of their lantern. I had just got my senses enough about me to notice so much, when they were hauling me aboard; all four of the negroes holding on with one hand by the boat's gunnel, and helping their way with the other; while the oars began to make for the light, which was still to be caught by fits, right betwixt those of the two cruisers, as the space widened slowly in the midst of them, standing out to sea. Scarce had I time to feel some one beside me as wet as myself, whether the reefer or the Frenchman I didn't know, when crash came another boat with her bows fairly down upon our gunwale, out of the dark.
"The spray splashed up betwixt us, I saw the glitter of the oar-blades, and heard Snelling's shrill voice singing out to 'sink the villains, my lads—down with 'em—remember the second lieutenant!' The lantern in the French boat flared, floating out for a single instant amongst a wreck of staves and heads, bobbing wildly together on the side of a wave. One of my own men from the cutter pulled me by the cuff of the neck off the crest of it with his boat-hook, as it rose swelling away past, till I had fast grip of her quarter; the blacks could be seen struggling in the hollow, to keep up their master's body, with his hands spread helplessly hither and thither above water. The poor devils' wet black faces turned so wistfully, in their desperation, towards the cutter, that I gasped out to save him. They kept making towards us, in fact, and the bowman managed to hook him at last, though not a moment too soon, for the next heave broke the unlucky wretches apart, and we lost sight of them; the cutter hanging on her oars till they had both him and me stowed into the stern-sheets, where the Frenchman lay seemingly dead or senseless, and I spitting out the salt water like a cockney after a bathe.
"'Why, Mr Snelling,' said I, as soon as I came fully to myself, 'I can't at all understand how I got into the water.' 'Nor I either, sir,' said he; 'I'll be hanged, sir, if I didn't think it was a whirlwind of niggers off the top of Diana's Peak, seeing I made out the very one we found there this afternoon—the four of them took you and this other gentleman up in their arms in a lump, as you were floundering about together, and took to the water like so many seals, sir!' I looked down into the Frenchman's face, where helay stretched with his head back and his hair dripping. 'Is he gone?' said I. 'Well, sir,' said the mid, who had contrived to light the lantern again, 'I'm afraid he's pretty near it. Is he a friend of yours, sir?—I thought as much, by-the-way, you caught him the moment you clapped eyes on each other, sir.' 'Silence, sirrah!' said I. 'D'ye see anything of the light to seaward?'
"For a minute or two we peered over the swells into the dark, to catch the twinkle of the signal again, but to no purpose; and I began to think the bird was flown. All of a sudden, however, there it was once more, dipping as before beyond the heave of the sea, and between the backs of it, sliding across the open space, with the blind side to the cruisers. 'Hallo, my lads!' said I, quickly, and giving myself another shake as I seized the tiller, 'give way seaward—stretch your backs for ten minutes, and we have her!' We were pulling right for the spot, when the light vanished, but a show of our lantern brought it gleaming fairly out again, till I could even catch a glimpse by it of some craft or other's hull, and the iron of one boom-end, rising over the swells. 'Bow-oar, there!' whispered I. 'Stand by, my lad, and look sharp!' 'Hola!' came a short, sharp hail over the swells, 'd'où venez-vous?' 'Oui, oui!' I sang out boldly, through my hand, to cover the difference as much as possible; then a thought occurred to me, recollecting the French surgeon's words on board this very craft the first time we saw her—'De la cage de l'Aigle,' I hailed; 'bonne fortune, mes amis!' 'C'est possible! c'est possible, mon capitaine!' shouted several of the schooner's crew, jumping upon her bulwarks, 'que vous apportezlui-même?'
"We are pulling for her side as lubberly as possible, all the time—a man ran up on her quarter with a coil of line ready to heave—but still the main boom of the schooner was already jibbing, her helm up, and she under way; they seemed half doubtful of us, and another moment might turn the scales. 'Vite, vite!' roared I, choosing my French at hap hazard. 'Oui, oui, jettez votre corde—venez au lof, mes amis!'—luff, that was to say. I heard somebody aboard say it was the American—the schooner came up in the wind, the line whizzing off her quarter into our bows, and we came sheering down close by her lee-quarter, grindingagainst her bends in the surge, twenty eager faces peering over at us in the confusion; when I sung out hoarsely to run for brandy and hot blankets, as he was half-drowned. 'Promptement—promptement, mes amis!' shouted I, and as quickly there was a rush from her bulwarks to bring what was wanted, while Snelling and I made dash up her side, followed by the men, cutlass in hand. Three minutes of hubbub, and as many strokes betwixt us, when we had driven the few that stood in our way pell-mell down the nearest hatchway. The schooner was completely our own.
"We hoisted up the cutter, with the French captain still stretched in the stern-sheet—hauled aft the schooner's headsheets, let her large mainsail swing full again, and were soon standing swiftly out toward the light at the frigate's mast-head.
"When theHebefirst caught sight of us, or rather heard the sound of the schooner's sharp bows rushing through the water, she naturally enough didn't know what to make of us. I noticed our first luff's sudden order to clear away the foremost weather-gun, with the rush of the men for it; but my hail set all to rights. We hove-to off her weather quarter, and I was directly after on board, explaining, as simply as possible, how we had come to get a hold of a French craft thereabouts in such a strange fashion.
"Accordingly, you may fancy the surprise at Jamestown in the morning, to see theHebestanding in with her prize, let alone the Governor's perfect astonishment at suspecting some scheme to carry off Napoleon, apparently, so far brought to a head. The upshot of it was, to cut this bit of my story short, he and the military folks would have it, at last, that there was nothing of the kind, but only some slaver from the African coast wanting to land a cargo, especially as there were so many blacks aboard of her; and the Frenchman at once took the cue, the little Monsieur of a mate swearing he had been employed by several of the islanders some months before to bring them slaves. For my own part, all things considered, I had nothing to say, and after some likelihood of a shine being kicked up about it at first, the matter was hushed up. However, the schooner was of course condemned in the meantime, as theHebe'sfair prize, till such time as the Admiralty Court at the Cape should settle it on our outward-bound voyage.
"As theHebewas to sail at once for India, the Governor took the opportunity to send two or three supernumeraries out in the vessel along with us to the Cape of Good Hope, amongst whom was the Yankee botanist; and though being in the frigate I didn't see him, I made as sure as if I had, it was my old shipmate Daniel.
"Well, the morning came, when we weighed anchor from St James's Bay for sea, in company with the prize. It wasn't more than ten or eleven days since we had arrived in thePodargus, but I was as weary with the sight of St Helena as if I'd lived there a year. The frigate's lovely hull, and her taut spars, spreading the square stretch of her white canvas sideways to the Trade, put new life into me. Slowly as we dropped the peaks of the island on our lee-quarter, 'twas something to feel yourself travelling the same road as the Indiaman once more, with the odds of a mail coach, too, to a French diligence. What chance might turn up to bring us together, I certainly didn't see; but that night, when we and the schooner were the only things in the horizon, both fast plunging, close-hauled, on a fresh breeze, at the distance of a mile, I set my mind, for the first time, more at ease. 'Luck and the anchors stowed!' thought I, 'and hang all forethoughts!' I walked the weather quarter-deck in my watch as pleasantly as might be, with now and then a glance forward at Snelling, as he yarned at the fife-rail beside a groggy old mate, and at times a glimmer of the schooner's hull on our lee-beam, rising wet out of the dusk, under charge of our third lieutenant.
"It was about a week afterwards, and we began to have rough touches of Cape weather, pitching away on cross seas, and handing our gallant-sails oftener of a night, that Lord Frederick said to me one evening, before going down to his cabin, 'Mr Collins, I really hope we shall not find your Indiaman at Cape Town, after all!' 'Indeed, Lord Frederick!' said I respectfully enough; but it was the very thing I hoped myself. 'Yes, sir,' continued he; 'as I received strict injunctions by Admiral Plampin to arrest Lieutenant Westwood if we fell in with her there, and otherwise, to send the schooner in her track, even if it were to Bombay.' 'The deuce!' I thought, 'are we never to be done with this infernal affair?' ''Tis excessively disagreeable,' continued the captain, swinging his gold eyeglass round his finger by the chain, aswas his custom when bothered, and looking with one eye all the while at the schooner. 'A beautiful craft, by-the-way, Mr Collins,' said he, 'even within sight of theHebe.' 'She is so, my lord,' said I; 'if she had only had a sensible boatswain, even, to put the sticks aloft in her.' 'I say, Mr Collins,' went on his lordship, musingly, 'I think I have it, though—the way to get rid of this scrape!'
"I waited and waited, however, for Lord Frederick to mention this; and to no purpose, apparently, as he went below without saying a word more about it."
"Well, ma'am," continued our narrator, addressing himself, as usual, to his matronly relative in the chair, and with the accustomed catch-word, which was like the knotting together of his interrupted yarn: "well—it was between a fortnight and three weeks after losing sight of St Helena, that, being at last fairly in the latitude of the Cape, the frigate and schooner tacked in company, and stood close-hauled on a wind to the eastward. By the middle watch that night, when the moon set, we could make out the long flat top of Table Mountain heaving in sight off the horizon over against her. Next day, in fact, we were both of us quietly at anchor outside of the shipping in Table Bay; Cape Town glittering along on the green flat amongst the trees to southward, with the hills on each side of it like some big African lion lying on guard close by; while Table Mountain hove up, square-shouldered, blue to the left, four thousand feet high, as bare and steep as a wall, with the rocks and trees creeping up from the foot, and the wreaths of light cloud resting halfway, like nothing else but the very breakwater of the world's end. The sea stretched broad off to north and west, and a whole fleet of craft lay betwixt us and the land—half of them Indiamen—amongst which, you may be sure, I kept a pretty sharp look-out with the glass, to see if theSeringapatamwere there still.
"I was soon saved further pains on this head, however, when shortly afterwards the frigate was beset by a whole squadron of bumboats, shoving against each other, and squabblingin all sorts of nigger tongues, who should be first: the chief of them being in evident command of a fat old Dutch Vrouw, with an immense blue umbrella over her, two greasy-looking Hottentot rowers in blankets, and a round-faced Dutch boy, the picture of herself, steering the boat; as the old lady made a clear berth for herself, by laying about her with her blue umbrella, till she was close under our quarter, sitting all the while with the broad round stern of her bright-coloured gown spread over a couple of beer-barrels, like a peacock's train. In two minutes more the little fellow was up the side, flourishing a bundle of papers under the first lieutenant's very nose, and asking the ship's custom, even whilst the sentries were ordering them all off. A midshipman took this youth by the cuff of the neck, and was handing him rather roughly along to the care of the purser's steward, when I stepped betwixt them; and a bumboat being the best directory on the point, of course, I soon found the old lady had had dealings with theSeringapatam, which her bluff-built little progeny described as a very good ship indeed, all having paid their bills, except one young officer, who had left a balance standing, for which he had given a letter to his brother in a ship that was to come after. As for the Indiaman herself, the Dutch boy said she had sailed about a week before our arrival, along with two others; and he was anxious to know if we were the vessel in question. I accordingly unfolded the open letter, which was addressed: 'Thomas Spoonbill Simm, Esquire, of His Britannic Majesty's shipNincompoop(or otherwise)'; and it ran somehow thus:—'Hon. East India Company's shipSeringapatam,Table Bay, September 1, 1816.—My dear Brother,—This is to certify that I have eaten four dozen and a half of eggs, supplied by the worthy Vrouw Dulcken, the bearer of this, whom I can recommend as an old screw, and am due her for the same the sum of nine shillings and sixpence sterling, which you will kindly pay her, taking her receipt or mark, unless you are willing to forfeit our family watch, herewith deposited by me in the hands of said Mother Dulcken. I may add that, in justice to the worthy Vrouw, three of the above-mentioned eggs ought to be charged asfowls, which, by-the-way, I did not consume; and, with love to all at home, remain your affectionate brother,John Simm, H.E.I.C.S.—P.S.The watchI have discovered to be pinchbeck, and it does not go; so that a sad trick must have been originally played upon our venerated uncle, from whom it descended.—J. S.'
"This precious epistle was, without doubt, a joke of the fat mid Simm, who used to come such rigs over Ford the cadet, and that jumped overboard one night by mistake out of the Indiaman's quarter-boat, during the voyage. As for the existence of his brother Thomas, or the chance of his touching at that port, I set them down with the coming home of Vanderdecken; though the thought of this young scamp of a sea-lawyer breakfasting for a fortnight so comfortably, only a few feet distant from my charmer's state-room, sent me all abroad again, and right into the Indiaman's decks, by this time far out of sight of land. Piece of impudent roguery though it was, I was actually loath to part with the scrawl, which the reefer had fisted, no doubt, on the lid of his chest—probably with a pipe in his mouth at the time, it smelt so of tobacco—only seven days before: I could even see the grin on his fat face as he wrote it below in the steerage, with his chin up, and his eyes looking down past his pipe; while the little Dutch boy's round flat frontispiece glistened as he peered up at me, in the evident notion of my being the brother expected.
"In fact, ma'am, I was so soft as to intend paying the nine-and-sixpence myself, and keeping the letter, when I was startled to see the old lady herself had contrived to be hoisted on board amongst her cabbages; and having got wind of the thing, seemingly, she came waddling towards me to hand over Simm's watch to boot. In another half-minute the letter was being read aloud in the midst of the whole gun-room officers, amongst roars of laughter; the honest old Dutchwoman holding aloft the precious article, and floundering through to find out the rightful owner, as everyone claimed it and offered the nine-and-sixpence; while for my part I tried first to get down one hatchway, then another; and Lord Frederick himself came up on the starboard side of the quarter-deck in the height of the scene. Indeed, I believe it was a joke for months after in theHebe, of a night, to say it was 'the second lieutenant's watch'; the sole revenge I had being to leave Mother Dulcken and her boy to expect the 'ship that was coming after.'
"A Government boat came aboard in the afternoon; and assoon as it left us Lord Frederick took his gig and steered for a frigate lying some distance off, which had the harbour-flag hoisted at her main, being the only man-o'-war besides ourselves, and commanded by a senior captain.
"Till it got dark I could see the crews of the nearest merchantmen looking over their bulwarks at us and our prize, apparently comparing the schooner with the frigate, and speculating on her character, as she lay a few fathoms off theHebe'squarter, both of us rising and falling in turn on the long heave of the Cape swell from seaward. 'Twas hard to say, in fact, so far as their hulls went, which was the most beautiful sample of its kind; though the schooner's French-fashioned sticks and offhand sort of rigging, showed rather like jury-gear beside the tall regular sticks aloft of theHebe'sdecks, with all her hamper perfect to a tee. TheHebe'smen very naturally considered their own ship a model for everything that floated—a sort of a Solomon's temple, in short; and to hear the merciless way they ran down the Indiamen all round would have raised the whole homeward-bound fleet against us; whereas the schooner was our own, at any rate, and she was spoken of much in the manner one mentions an unfortunate orphan, as good as already christened by the name of theYoung Hebe.
"This our learned chaplain said was quite improper, and he gave another name in place of it—theAniceta—which meant, as he observed, theHebe'syoungest daughter; so theAnicetashe was called, happening to be a title that went, according to the boatswain, full as sweetly through the sheave-hole.
"Next day the schooner had landed not only her passengers from St Helena, but the prisoners also, as we still understood the French and their Kroomen to be. Not long after that Lord Frederick came back from Cape Town, looking grave, and went straight down to his cabin, or 'cabins,' as his lordship preferred to have it said. The first lieutenant dined that day with the captain; but they could scarcely have finished when the 'young gentlemen,' who had been as usual from the reefer's mess, came up with a message from the captain, that his lordship would be glad if I would join the first lieutenant and himself in a glass of wine. I found them sitting at the side of the table nearest the open port, with the decantersbetween them, and the broad bright bay in full sight to the shore and the foot of Table Mountain, which rose up blocking the port with the top of it beyond view; the sounds of the merchantmen clicking at their heavy windlasses, and hoisting in water-casks, floated slowly in from every side, while the schooner had hauled on her cable more abreast of the frigate, leaving the sight clear over the eddy round her low counter.
"'A lovely piece of workmanship, certainly!' observed Lord Frederick thoughtfully, as he leant back swinging his eyeglass round his finger, with the other hand in the breast of his waistcoat, and looking out at what was seen of the schooner. 'And how one might have improved her spars, too!' said Mr Hall, wistfully. 'I should have recommended longer lower-masts altogether, Lord Frederick, and a thorough overhaul, I may say, from the combings upwards!' 'I would not have her hull touched for the world, Mr Hall!' said the captain; ''tis too——excessively provoking, at least! But pass the bottles to Mr Collins, if you please.' I had taken a chair, and quietly filled my glass, wondering what could be the matter, when his lordship turned to me and said, 'Do you know, Mr Collins, this schooner of ours is likely to be laid up in Chancery, heaven knows how long. The Admiralty Court ashore are doubtful of condemning her, apparently, and she must either be sent home or to Monte Video, or somewhere, where the master of her claims to belong!' 'Indeed, my lord,' said I, setting down my glass, 'that is curious.' 'Curious, indeed, sir!' replied he, biting his lips, 'though, after all, we really can scarce say what she is to be condemned for—only in the meantime I sail to-morrow for India.' 'She's French to the backbone, that I'll swear, Lord Frederick!' I said; 'and what's more, she was——' 'Ah,' broke in the captain, 'I know, I know; but the less we say of that, in present circumstances, the better! Once get her entangled with politics, and we may give her up altogether.' Lord Frederick twisted his eyeglass round his forefinger faster than before, still watching the schooner; the first lieutenant held up his claret betwixt himself and the light, and I sipped mine. 'I tell you what, gentlemen,' exclaimed his lordship, suddenly, 'Imusthave that schooner at any cost!—What is to be done, Mr Hall?' 'She'd be of great service in the China seas, my lord, certainly,' said thefirst lieutenant, looking thoughtfully into his empty glass; 'a perfect treasure for light service, especially if new sparred and——' I noticed Lord Frederick glancing sideways at me, as I thought, with a slight gleam in his eye; and accordingly I suggested that he might buy her from the Frenchman himself; a very poor idea, no doubt, as both the captain and first luff seemed to think, and we all three kept eyeing her doubtfully through the port, without a word.
"At this time the schooner's counter had been slowly sheering towards the frigate's beam, owing to the ebb-tide, and her holding only by a single cable, till her stern began to show right opposite the cabin, I should say not twenty feet off. Lord Frederick put his glass to his eye, and was peering through it, when he remarked that they had brought up rather too near, leaving scarce room for the schooner to swing as she did, earlier than we, so that she would be in danger in getting foul of the frigate's cables. 'The worst of it is, Lord Frederick,' said I, 'that in case of a gale from seaward here, she might have to slip and run upon very short warning, whereas theHebehas plenty of ground-tackle to let her ride it out. Considering it was Table Bay, at this season, he ought to have kept her a clearer berth for herself, or else have gone well outside!' 'Ah!' said Lord Frederick quickly, meeting my eye for half-a-minute, till the gleam came into his again; and somehow or other mine must have caught it, though I must say the notion that struck me then all at once wasn't in my head before. 'Do you know, that's well thought of, Collins!' said his lordship. 'You've weathered the Cape before, by-the-by?' 'A dozen times, Lord Frederick,' said I; when a regularly jovial roar of laughter broke fair through the port into the cabin from the schooner's taffrail, as she sheered end-on to the frigate's quarter, and Lord Frederick leant forward with the glass screwed into his right eye to see along their decks, which were covered aft with an awning like the open gable of a tent at a fair. 'Singular!' said he; 'by the Lord Harry, who or what can that be Mr Hammond has got there?' Dangling over the French schooner's taffrail were to be seen the soles of two immense boots, with calves and knees to match, and a pair of tightish striped trousers worked up more than halfway, till you saw the tops of thestockings; just beyond the knees was the face leaning back in the shade of the awning and a straw hat together, out of which a huge green cabbage-leaf hung like a flap over one eye, while the other kept gazing in a half-closed sleepy sort of way at the sky, and the red end of a cigar winked and glowed in the midst of the puffs of smoke lower down. The first lieutenant started up shocked at the sight, the noble captain of theHebesat with his eyeglass fixed, between amusement and wonder; for my own part, when the voice of this same prodigy broke all of a sudden on us out of the awning, in a mixture of stuttering, hiccuping, Yankee drawling, and puffs at the cigar, 'twas all I could do to hold on, with the knowledge of where I was. 'Wall now, general,' said the American, as if he were talking to someone aloft or in the sky, 'ye-you're qui-quite wrong—I ki-kick-calc'late I've fit a deal more be-be-battles than you have—I re-respect you, Ge-Ge-General Washington; but I ho-ho-hope you know who—hic—who I am!' Here Mr Daniel Snout, who was in a state of beastly intoxication, swayed himself up bodily into the schooner's taffrail, and sat with his arms folded, his long legs swinging over the stern, and his head trying to keep steady, as he scowled solemnly aloft over the frigate's mizzenroyal-mast-head; while the third lieutenant, Mr Hammond, and the master's mate he had aboard with him, could be heard laughing at his back, as if they had gone mad—Hammond being a wild sprig of an Irishman, who would go any length for a piece of fun.
"Just then the American's one eye lighted on the side of the frigate, till it settled lazily on the port of the captain's cabin: first he seemed to notice Lord Frederick Bury, and then myself, the first lieutenant having just recovered himself enough to rush toward the door to get on deck. Daniel himself surveyed me scornfully for a moment, then with a sort of doubtful frown, and a gravity that passes me to describe, unless by the look of an old cock a-drinking—evidently trying to recollect me. 'Hallo, mister!' shouted he suddenly, 'you haven't touched thosenotionsof mine, I hope.' With that he made a spring off where he sat, as if to come towards us—no doubt thinking of theSeringapatam, and the valuables he had left aboard, without seeing the water between; and a pretty deep dive Mr Snout would have made of it, into an ebb-tidethat would have swept him under the frigate's bottom, if Mr Hammond and the midshipman hadn't both sprung forward in time to catch him by the neck of the coat. There, accordingly, was the Yankee hanging like a spread eagle over the schooner's taffrail, yelling and turning round at the same time like a fowl on a spit—the third lieutenant's and the mate's faces two pictures of dismay, as they held on, at finding for the first time where the schooner had shied them round to, with their two pairs of eyes fair in front of the captain's eyeglass—while Mr Hall was singing out like thunder from the deck above us, 'The schooner ahoy!—d'ye see where you've got to, sir? Haul ahead on that cable, d'ye hear, you lubbers, and keep clear of the ship!'
"'Mr Collins,' said his lordship quietly to me, as soon as he could keep his countenance, and looking the sterner for the trouble he was put to in doing it, 'you will get your things and go aboard the schooner directly—take her in charge, sir, and send Mr Hammond back here.' 'Very well, my lord,' said I, waiting in the doorway for something more, which, from something in Lord Frederick's look, I had reason to expect, knowing it of old. 'I can only spare you a dozen of the men she has,' added he; 'but if you choose, you can send ashore at once to pick up a few makeshifts, or anything you find!' 'Ay, ay, my lord,' said I; 'the best hand for that would be Mr Snelling, if I may take him, Lord Frederick?' 'Oh, certainly,' was the answer; 'and harkye, Collins, you had better shift your berth a few cable-lengths farther off, or more, if you please.' 'One thing, my lord,' said I, stooping down to see through the port, 'I don't much like the heavy ground-swell that begins to meet the ebb, and I fancy it won't be long ere Table Mountain spreads its supper-cloth—in which case I'd consider it necessary to slip cable and run out at once, though I mightn't get in again so easily. Am I to find the frigate here again, Lord Frederick?'
'Deuce take it, man—no!' said his lordship. He turned his back to hide the evident twinkle of his eye. 'Should we part company, of course you make for the Bay of Bengal! You can't be sure of theHebe, short of the Sandheads—and if not there, then opposite Fort William, at Calcutta.' 'Very good, my lord,' said I, and had made my bow to go on deck, when Lord Frederick called me back. 'By-the-by,' said hehastily, 'about that Indiaman of yours, Collins—she is here no doubt?' 'No, Lord Frederick,' answered I, 'I believe she sailed a week ago.' 'Dear me, the deuce!' exclaimed he; 'why, I meant to have sent to-morrow to have your friend Westwood arrested and brought aboard!' I started at this, on which his lordship explained that if Westwood got to Bombay, whither theSeringapatamwas bound, the authorities there would have news of the thing by this time, and could send him overland at once to England, which would be far worse for him than being carried to Calcutta, where his uncle the Councillor's interest might do something for him. 'The best thing you can do, Collins,' added Lord Frederick, 'if you are obliged to run out to sea, is to look after that Indiaman! With such a neat thing of a sea-boat under you, you might do anything you please; so cruise to windward or leeward in chase, find her out and take out Westwood bodily—lose him afterwards in the Hoogley, if you like—carry away those old spars of hers, and send up new ones—only don't lose the schooner, I beg; so good-bye to you, my dear fellow, lest we should not meet on this side the line again!' 'Good-bye, my lord!' said I cheerfully, and hurried on deck, understanding all he wanted as well as if I'd been ordered to set her jib that moment and heave up anchor. In ten minutes I was over the frigate's side, and in ten more Hammond was back in her, with the men who were to leave; while I sent my baggage below, set the hands to work shifting the schooner's berth, and by sundown we were lying beyond hail of the ship, opposite the custom-house, and a long line of a main street in Cape Town, where we could see the people, the carriages, and the Dutch bullock-carts passing up and down; while Table Mountain hove away up off the steep Devil's Hill and the Lion's Rump, to the long level line a-top as blue and bare as an iron monument, and throwing a shadow to the right over the peaks near at hand.
"Our friend from the United States being by this time in quite an oblivious condition, the first thing I did was to have him put quietly into the boat with which Mr Snelling was to go ashore for fresh hands, and I instructed the reefer to get clear of him anyhow he liked, if it was only above tide-mark. When they were gone I walked the schooner's little quarter-deck in the dusk by myself, till the half-moon rosewith a ghostly copper-like glare over the hollow in the Lion's Rump, streaking across the high face of Table Mountain, and bringing out all its rifts and wrinkles again. The land-breeze began to blow steadily with a long sighing sweep from the north-east, meeting the heavy swell that set into the broad bay; and the schooner, being a light crank little craft, got rather uneasy; whereas you could see the lights of the frigate heaving and settling leisurely, less than half-a-mile off. I had only six or seven good hands aboard altogether at the time, which, with those the midshipman had, were barely sufficient to work her in such seas; so with all I had to do, with the difficulty of getting men in the circumstances, a long voyage before us, and things that might turn up, as I hoped, to require a touch of the regular service, why the very pleasure of having a command made me a good deal anxious. Even of that I didn't feel sure; and I kept watching Table Mountain, eager for the least bit of haze to come across the top of it, as well as sorry I had sent Snelling ashore. 'I'd give a hundred pounds at this moment,' thought I, 'to have had Bob Jacobs here!'
"As the moon got higher, I could see the swell washing up between the different merchantmen in sight, into their shadows, and heavy enough some of them seemed to roll round their cables, betwixt a breeze and a swell running the contrary ways; first one let go a second anchor, and then another, to help their heads shoreward; but still there was no danger, as things went. It wasn't long before I made out two boats coming from toward the town, round the stern of one of the ships, the frigate lying betwixt her and us, so that they took her by the way, and a good deal of hailing seemed to pass between them. I could even see epaulets glisten over theHebe'squarter, as if there was a stir made aboard; after which the boats were plainly pulling for the schooner. What all this might mean I couldn't very well conceive, unless it were either Snelling come back already, or else some hands Lord Frederick himself had provided before this, as I saw both boats were full of people. 'Forward there!' I sung out, 'hail those boats.' 'Ay, ay, the schooner ahoy!' was the answer in a sharp voice from the headmost of them, 'from the shore—all right! Stand by to heave us a line, will ye?' Next came a hail from Snelling, in our own gig;so I at once gave orders to heave them a rope and have both boats brought under the gangway, naturally supposing the sharp little fellow had come some marvellous good speed in shipping hands. As soon as he jumped on deck, I accordingly inquired how many men he had brought, when to my great surprise he informed me there was only one, 'a scuffy sort of a swab,' as he expressed it, 'who would do for cook!' 'The devil he will! you young rascal,' I broke out.
"'Hush, sir, for heaven's sake,' said he, making some extraordinary sign, which I didn't understand; 'it'll all be right in the end, Mr Collins. Now then, sir,' to someone in the boat alongside, as he carefully handed him the accommodation-ropes, 'here you are—hold on, sir—so-o!' This was a rather youngish fellow in a huge pilot-coat and a glazed cap, with some kind of uniform inside, and a large breastpin in his shirt, who handed me a paper the moment he stood firm on deck, without speaking a word; though, by the light of the deck-lantern, I didn't much like the look of his foxy sort of face, with the whiskers on it coming forward from both cheeks to his mouth, nor the glance he gave round the schooner with his pair of quick sharp little eyes. 'Much more like a custom-house officer than a cook!' thought I, 'unless we mean to have a French one'; but what was my astonishment, on opening the paper, to find him called 'Gilbert Webb, harbour master's assistant, hereby authorised by the Admiralty Court, sitting in Cape Town, to take charge of the doubtful vessel described in her papers as theLudovico, belonging to Monte Video—from the officer commanding the prize crew of his Brittanic Majesty's shipHebe.' My first thought was to have Mr Gilbert Webb pitched over into his boat again, when Lord Frederick's own signature met my eye at the bottom of the paper, addressed below to 'Lieutenant Collins of His Majesty's schoonerAniceta at sea.'
"A wonderfully mysterious squint from Snelling, behind the officer, was sufficient to clinch the matter in my own mind, showing that the reefer was as sharp as a needle; and I handed back the document to the harbour gentleman, with a 'Very well, sir, that will do.' 'I suppose I'd better have my men up, Lieutenant Collins?' said he, with a quick pert kind of accent, which made me set him down at once for a Londoner,while at the same time he seemed impatient, as I thought, to get the management. 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I suppose you had.'
"Hereupon up mounted four or five decent enough lookingstevedores24—one or two of whom had rather the air of sailors, the rest being broad-beamed, short-legged Dutchmen, with trousers like pillow-slips—followed by a whole string of fourteen or fifteen Indian Lascars, their bundles in their hands, and an ugly oldserdugat their head; while a lame, broken-down, debauched-like fellow of a man-o'-war's-man, that Snelling had found sitting on a timberhead ashore, got aboard with our own boat's crew. Our gangway was choke-full, to my fresh dismay, for, to get rid of such a tagrag-and-bobtail, in case of running to sea, was impossible; even if they weren't odds against us, here was it likely to get a thick night, the swell growing under the schooner till she began to jerk at her anchor, head to wind, like a young filly at a manger; so that dropping them back into their boat when needful, as I intended at first, was out of the question for the present. I found from the harbour officer that the number of hands would all be required with the morning tide, when his orders were to have the schooner towed in opposite the Battery Dock, especially as there was much chance of the wind blowing strong from seaward next day. The swell on the water, he said, was such that, after putting off, he thought of going back again till the tide began to turn; if he had not been encouraged to stick to it and keep on by the midshipman, whom he fell in with near the quay. This piece of news was the finish to the rage I felt brewing in me, vexed as I naturally was to give up the notion of a free cruise, in command of a craft like the schooner; and as soon as Mr Webb was comfortable in the cabin, over a tumbler of stiff grog and some cold beef, I sent for Snelling to my own cupboard of a state-room.
"'You cursed unlucky little imp, you!' I burst out, the moment he made his appearance, 'what's the meaning of this, sirrah, eh?' 'What is it, if you please, sir?' said Snelling, pretending to hold down his shock-head like a frightened schoolboy, and looking up all the time both at me and the lamp at once, while he swayed with the uneasy heave of thedeck in such a way as made me grip him by the arm in a perfect fury, fancying he had got drunk ashore. 'You young blackguard, you!' said I, shaking him, 'didn't I tell you to get hands—didn't you know I meant to—to——' 'Oh yes, Mr Collins,' gasped the reefer, 'I did indeed—you meant to cut and run—I saw it by your eye, sir, and—don't shake me any more, sir, or you'll spoil my hair—and I don't deserve it—it's—all right!' And on my letting him go, the ugly little scamp sunk down on a chair with his eyes starting from his head, and a leer like a perfect demon incarnate: but so perfectly laughable it was, not to mention the air of complete confidence between us that he threw into it, that I sat down myself, ready to grin at my bad luck. 'Well, Mister Snelling,' said I quietly, 'youarea touch beyond me! Let's have the joke, at least—out with it, man, else another shake may be——'
"The reefer pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the cabin, shoved his chin forward, and whispered, 'Why, sir, I'm only doubtful whether you could make him third officer—but at any rate, he'll always be useful at a rope, Mr Collins—won't he, sir?' I gave Snelling one look, meant to be as grave as an Old Bailey chaplain's, but it wouldn't do—my conscience wouldn't stand it—in fact the very self-same notion seemed to me to have been creeping into my mind. 'You—young—rascal!' was all I could manage to say, before making bolt to go on deck. 'By-the-by, Mister Snelling,' said I, turning and looking down from the hatchway, 'you must want a glass of grog—tell the boy to let you have some—and go and keep the officer company, sir.'
"By this time it was raining hard, the half-moon coming out at moments and shining through it with a sudden sharp gleam, in some gust of the wind off the land—showing the swell in as far as the wet white custom-house and the bare quays, the ships with their hazy lights all hither and thither, while Table Mountain was to be seen now and then peering half over the mist, first one corner and then another, of a colour like dead ashes. One time I looked down toward the dusky little cabin, where the midshipman, quite in his element, was sitting with the harbour officer, the lamp jerking and making wild swings betwixt them, while Snelling evidently egged on his companion to drink; then I gave a glance seaward,where there was nothing but a glimmer of rain and spray along the dark hollows of the water.
"I couldn't make up my mind, all I could do—it was too barefaced a thing to slip from the roadstead with a breeze blowing off-shore; but the worst of it was, that I didn't feel easy at the idea of parting with an anchor in the circumstances, not to say carrying off the Government people, unless forced to it. I accordingly went below to mix myself a stiffener, and found the officer a cool head, for, in spite of all Snelling could do, the reefer himself had got provoked, whereas the sharp Mr Webb was only a little brisker than before. 'A rough sort of night,' said I, nodding to him, as I knocked the water out of my cap. 'Well, it seems,' said he, free and easy. 'S'pose I go on deck then, gentlemen—I've refreshed, I assure you, so you needn't trouble about this 'ere schooner no farther—glad to get quit of it and turn in, I desay lieutenant?' 'No trouble in the world, Mr Webb,' said I, going on with my mixture, 'far from it; but sit down a minute, pray, sir—Mr Snelling here will take charge of the deck for us in the meantime'; and Snelling vanished at once, Mr Webb apparently flattered at my wishing his company. 'Will that cable of yours hold, think ye, Lieutenant Collins?' asked he, filling up another glass. 'Why,' said I, almost laughing, 'to tell you the truth, I begin to feel rather doubtful of it.' 'What!' broke out the harbour officer, starting up, 'then I must 'ave another put down immediately: why, what's the effect, sir—we'll be carried out to sea!' 'You said it exactly, Mr Webb,' I said: ''twould have been much worse, I suppose, if we were driven ashore, though! Now look you, if I were to let go a second anchor at present, I couldn't light upon a better plan either to break her back or lose both anchors in the end, from the difference of strain on the two cables with this ground-swell. The fact is, my good fellow, you're evidently not fit to take charge at present.'