CHAPTER XIII.

The performance ofLove Between Deckshad reached its famous fourth act, in which Tom Taffrail, to protect his sweetheart (who has followed him to sea in man's attire), strikes the infamous First Lieutenant and is marched off between two marines for punishment. This scene, as everyone knows, is laid on the upper deck of his Majesty's shipPoseidon(of seventy-four guns), and the management, as a condition of engaging Mr. Orlando B. Sturge (who was exacting in details), had mounted it, at great expense, with a couple of lifelike guns, R. and L., and for background the overhang of the quarter-deck, with rails and a mizzen-mast of real timber against a painted cloth representing the rise of the poop.

At the moment when our Major entered the gallery, the heated atmosphere of which well nigh robbed him of breath, Tom Taffrail had taken up his position on the prompt side, close down by the footlights, and thrown himself into attitude to deliver the speech of manly defiance which provokes the Wicked Lieutenant to descend into the waist of the ship and receive the well-merited weight of the hero's fist. The hero, with one foot planted on a coil of real rope and one arm supporting the half-inanimate form of his Susan, in deference to stage convention faced the audience, while with his other arm uplifted he invoked vengeance upon the oppressor, who scowled down from the quarterdeck rail.

"Hear me, kyind Heaven!" declaimed Tom Taffrail, "for Heaven at least is my witness, that beneath the tar-stained shirt of a British sailor there may beat the heart of aMan!"—

As a matter of fact, Mr. Sturge was clothed in a clean blue and white striped shirt, with socks to match, white duck trousers no less immaculate, with a huge glittering brass buckle on the front of his belt, two buckles of smaller size but similar pattern on his polished dancing shoes, and wore his hair in a natty pigtail tied with cherry-coloured ribbon.

—"Hear and judge betwixt me and yonder tyrant! Let the storm off Pernambuco declare who first sprang to the foretop and thence aloft to strike t'gallant yards while the good shipPoseidoncareened before its hurricane rage! Ay, and when the main topm'st went smack-smooth by the board, who was it slid like lightning to the deck and, with hands yet glowing from the halliards, plucked forth axe and hewed the wreckage clear? But a truce to these reminders! 'Twas my duty, and, as a seaman, I did it!"

Here, having laid his tender burden so that her back rested against the coil of real rope, Mr. Sturge executed the opening steps of a hornpipe, and advancing to the footlights, stood swaying with crossed arms while the orchestra performed the prelude to his most celebrated song.

At this point Mr. Jope, who for some seconds had been breathing hard at the back of the Major's neck, clutched his comrade by the arm.

"You 'eard that, Bill?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Ay," answered Bill Adams. "He slipped down from the t'gallant yards by the halliards."

"Would ye mind pinchin' me?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere; in the fleshy part of the ham for choice; not too vigorous, but just to make sure. He come down by the halliards.Whichhalliards?"

"Signal halliards, belike. Damme, why not? Aboard a vessel with the decks laid ath'artships—"

"An' the maintopm'st went smack-smooth—you'eardhim? What sort o' spar—"

"Dunno"—Bill paused and audibly shifted his quid—"unless 'twas a parsnip. The mizz'n-m'st seems to have stood it, though her staysdolead to a brass-headed nail in the scuppers."

"In a gale off Pernambuco… 'twas his duty, and as a seaman he did it," quoted Mr. Jope in a low voice thrilled with awe. "Bill, we must 'ave him. If he did but 'alf of it, we must 'ave him. In them togs, aboard theVesuviusnow… Lord love me, he's dancin'!"

"Ay, and he's going to sing."

"Sing!"

"Mark my word, he's going to sing," repeated Bill Adams with confidence; and, sure enough, Mr. Sturge stepped forward and with a reproachful glance at the empty Royal box uplifted his voice:

"When honest Jack across the foamPuts forth to meet the Gallic foe,His tributary tear for homeHe wipes away with a Yow-heave-ho!Man the braces,Take your places,Fill the tot and push the can;He's a lubberThat would blubberWhen Britannia needs aMan!"

"S'help us, Bill, what are they doingnow?" gasped Ben Jope, as two groups of seamen, one at either wing, took up the chorus; tailing on to a cable and heaving while they sang.

"Fishin' the anchor," said Bill pensively; "that'swhat they're doin'. She carries her catheads amidships. The ship's all right, once you get the hang of her."

"Bill, wemust'ave him!"

"Hush it, you swab! He's beginning again."

"But when among the heaving clouds,Aloft, alone, with folded arms,He hangsherportrait in the shroudsAnd feeds on Susan's glowing charms,To th' horizonSoft his sighs onAngel wings the zephyrs fan,While his feelings,Deep revealings,Prove that Jack remains aMan!"

"'Ear that, Bill?"

"O' course I 'ears it. Why not? Iknewthere was something funny wi' them shrouds. They carries the family portraits on 'em—it's all right, I tell you."

"But 'feeds,' he said."

"Meanin' the picter; though maybe they sling the meat-safe there as well. Theyoughtto."

"Theycouldn't!"

"Why not? Well, then, p'raps they strikes it now and thenina gale—off Pernambuco—along wi' the t'gallant yards. Stow yer talk, Ben Jope, and let a man listen."

The audience encored Mr. Sturge's song vociferously; and twice he had to repeat it before they would suffer him to turn again and defy the still scowling Lieutenant.

"Ay, sir; the British seaman, before whose collective valour the crowned tyrants of Yurope shrink with diminished heads, dares to proclaim himself aMan, and in despite of any petty tyrant of the quarter-deck. Humble his lot, his station, may be. Callous he himself may be to the thund'ring of the elements or the guns of his country's foemen; but never will he be found irresponsive to female distress in any shape or form. Leftenant Vandeloor, you have upraised your hand against A Woman; you have struck her a Blow. In your teeth I defy you!" (Frantic applause.)

"My word, Bill, the Duke ought to been here to 'ear that!"

"But why isn't he here?" asked the Major.

"Well," answered Ben Jope slowly, with a glance along the crowded gallery and a wink at Bill Adams (but the Major saw neither the glance nor the wink), "to-night, d'ye see, 'twouldn't ha' been altogether the thing. He's not like you and me, the Duke isn't. He has to study appearances."

"I should have thought that, if his Royal Highness studied popularity, he could scarcely have found a better occasion."

"Look here," put in Mr. Jope sharply, "if the Duke chooses to be drunk to-night, you may lay to it he knows his business. And look here again; I took you for a victim o' misfortun', but if so be as you're startin' to teach the R'yal family tact, w'y, I changes my opinion."

"If I could only find my friend Basket, or get a message taken to him," ingeminated the Major, whose teeth were chattering despite the tropical atmosphere of the gallery.

"Eh? What's that you're sayin'?" the seaman demanded in a sudden sharp tone of suspicion. "If there's a friend o' your'n in the gallery, you keep by me and point him out when the time comes. I ain't a-makin' no promise, mind; no more than to say it may be the better for him; but contrariwise I don't allow no messages, and you may belay to that!"

"But my friend is not in the gallery. He has a reserved seat somewhere."

"Then you may take it he don'trequireno message, bein' toler'bly safe. As for yourself, you stick to me. Understand? Whatever happens, you stick to me."

The Major did not understand in the least; but their conversation at this moment was interrupted by a roar of applause from all quarters of the house as Tom Taffrail, with a realistic blow from the shoulder, laid his persecutor prostrate on the deck.

"Brayvo!" grunted Bill Adams. "The lad's nimble enough with his fives, I will say, for all his sea-lawyerin'."

"We must 'ave him, Bill; if I take him myself we must 'ave him!" cried Ben Jope, dancing with admiration. '"Tis no more than a mercy, neither, after the trouble he's been and laid up for hisself."

Into what precise degree of mental confusion Mr. Jope had worked himself the Major could never afterwards determine; though he soon had every opportunity to think it out at leisure.

For the moment, as a boatswain's whistle shrilled close behind his ear, he was merely bewildered. He did not even know that the mouth sounding it was Mr. Jope's. Itoughtto have sounded on board H.M.S.Poseidon.

As the crowd to right and left of him surged to its feet, he saw at intervals along the gallery, sailor after sailor leap up with drawn cutlass. He saw some forcing their way to the exits; and as the packed throng, swaying backwards, bore him to the giddy edge of the gallery rails, he saw the whole audience rise from their seats with white upturned faces.

"The Press!" called someone. Half a dozen, then twenty, then a hundred voices took up the cry:

"The Press! The Press!"

He turned. What had become of Mr. Jope?

What, indeed? Cutlass between teeth, Mr. Jope had heaved himself over the gallery rail, caught a pillar between his dangling feet, and slid down it to the Upper Circle; from the Upper Circle to the Dress Circle; from the Dress Circle to the Pit. A dozen seamen hurrahed and followed him. To the audience screaming, scattering before them, they paid no heed at all. Their eyes were on their leader, and in silence, breathing hard, each man's teeth clenched upon his cutlass, they hounded after him and across the Pit at his heels.

It may be that this vivid reproduction of his alleged exploit off Pernambuco for the moment held Mr. Orlando B. Sturge paralysed. At any rate, he stood by the footlights staring, with a face on which resentment faded into amaze, amaze into stupefaction.

It is improbable that he dreamed of any personal danger until the moment when Mr. Jope, leaping the orchestra and crashing, on his way, through an abandoned violoncello, landed across the footlights and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Never you mind, lad!" cried Mr. Jope cheerfully, taking the cutlass from between his teeth and waving it. "You'll get better treatment along o' we."

"What mean you? Unhand me—Off, I say, minion!"

"It'll blow over, lad; it'll blow over. You take my advice and come quiet—Oh, but wewantyou!—an' if you hear another word about this evening's work I'll forfeit my mess."

"Hands off, ruffian! Help, I say, there—Help!"

"Shame! Shame!" cried a dozen voices. But nine-tenths of the audience were already pressing around the doors to escape.

At a nod from Mr. Jope, two seamen ran and cut the cords supporting the drop-scene.

"Heads, there! Heads!"

The great roller fell upon the stage with a resounding bang.

With the thud of it, a hand descended and smote upon the Major's shoulder.

"Come along o' me.You'llgive no trouble, anyway."

"Eh?" said the Major. "My good man, I assure you that I have not the slightest disposition to interfere. These scenes are regrettable, of course. I have heard of them, but never actually assisted at one before; still, I quite see the necessity of the realm demands it, and the realm's necessity is—or should be—the supreme law with all of us."

"And you canswim. You'd be surprised, now, how few of 'em could take a stroke to save their lives. Leastways," Mr. Adams confessed, "that'smyexperience."

"I beg your pardon."

"Ben's impulsive. I over'eard him tellin' you to stick fast to him; but, all things considered, that's pretty difficult, ain't it? Never you mind;I'llsee you aboard the tender."

"Aboard the tender?"

The Major stepped back a pace as the fellow's absurd mistake dawned on him. "Why, you impudent scoundrel, I'm a Justice of the Peace!"

But here a rush of the driven crowd lifted and bore him against the gallery rail. A hand close by shattered the nearest lamp into darkness, and the flat of a cutlass (not Bill Adams's) descending upon our hero's head, put an end for the while to speech and consciousness.

He awoke with a racking headache in pitchy darkness; and with the twilight of returning consciousness there grew in him an awful fear that he had been coffined and buried alive. For he lay at full length in a bed which yet was unlike any bed of his acquaintance, being so narrow that he could neither turn his body nor put out an arm to lift himself into a sitting posture; and again, when he tried to move his legs, to his horror they were compressed as if between bandages. In his ear there sounded, not six inches away, a low lugubrious moaning. It could not come from a bed-fellow, for he had no bed-fellow.… No, it could be no earthly sound.

With a strangled cry he flung a hand upwards, fending off the horrible darkness. It struck against a board, and at the same instant his cry was echoed by a sharp scream close beside him.

"Angels and ministers of Gerrace defend us!" The scream sank to a hoarse whisper and was accompanied by a clank of chains. "Not dead? You—you are not dead?"

The Major lay back in a cold sweat. "I—I thought I was," he quavered at length. But at this point his mysterious bed seemed to sway for a moment beneath him, and he caught his breath. "Where am I?" he gasped.

"At sea," answered the voice in a hollow tone.

"At sea!" In a sudden spasmodic attempt to sit upright, the Major almost rolled himself out of his hammock.

"Ay, poor comrade—if you are indeed he whom I saw lifted aboard unconscious from the tender—'tis the dismal truth."

"Beneath the Orlop's darksome shadeUnknown to Sol's bright ray,Where no kind chink's assistant aidAdmits the cheerful day.

"I am not, in the practical sense, seaman enough to determine if this noisome den be the precise part of the ship alluded to by the poet under the name of Orlop. But the circumstances correspond; and my stomach informs me that the vessel is in motion."

"The vessel?" echoed the Major, incredulous yet. "Whatvessel?"

"As if to omit no detail of horror, she is called, I believe, theVesuviusbomb. Phoebus, what a name!"

It drummed for some seconds in the Major's ear like an echo.

"Yes, yes… the theatre," he murmured.

"The theatre? You were in the theatre? Then you sawme?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Me—Orlando B. Sturge. Yes, sir, if it be any consolation to you, know that I, Orlando B. Sturge, of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, am your temporary partner in adversity, your co-mate and brother in exile, with the added indignity of handcuffs; and all by an error which would be absurd if it weren't so infernally serious."

"There has been some horrible mistake."

"A mistake, sir, for which these caitiffs shall pay dearly," Mr. Sturge promised in his deepest tragedy voice.

"A Justice of the Peace!"

"Eh?"

"With a Major's commission!"

"Pardon, I think you must be confusing me with some other person. Orlando B. Sturge is my name, sir, and familiar—as I may say without vanity—wherever the Thespian art is honoured. But yesterday the darling of the public; and now, in the words of our national bard:"

"'—Now lies he here,And none so poor to do him reverence.'

"You are familiar with the works of Shakespeare, sir? Your speech, if you will allow me to say so, suggests a respectable education."

"I have dipped into them," answered the Major inattentively, absorbed in his own woes.

"My consolation is, this will get into the newspapers; and then let these ignorant ruffians beware!"

"The newspapers! God forbid!" The Major shuddered.

"Ha?" Mr. Sturge drew back in dark surprise. "'Tis the language of delirium. He raves. What ho, without there!" he called aloud.

"What the devil's up?" responded a voice from the darkness behind the Major's head. It belonged to a marine standing sentry outside a spare sail which shut off theVesuvius'ssick bay from the rest of the lower deck.

"A surgeon, quick! Here's a man awake and delirious."

"All right. You needn't kick up such a row, need you?" growled the marine.

"Like Nero, I am an angler in a lake of darkness. You have handcuffed me, moreover, so that even if this accursed sty contains a bell-rope—which is improbable—I am debarred from using it. A light, there, and a surgeon, I say!"

The marine let fall the sail flap and withdrew, grumbling. But apparently Mr. Sturge's mode of giving an order, being unlike anything in his experience, had impressed him; for by and by a faint ray illumined the dirty whitewashed beams over the Major's hammock, and four persons squeezed themselves into the sick bay—the marine holding a lantern and guiding the ship's surgeon, who was followed in turn by our friends Mr. Jope and Mr. Bill Adams.

TheVesuviusbomb, measuring but a little more than ninety feet over all, with a beam of some twenty-seven feet, and carrying seventy odd men and boys, with six long six-pounder guns and a couple of heavy mortars, could spare but scanty room for hospital accommodation. At a pinch, a dozen hammocks could be slung in the den which the marine's lantern revealed; but how a dozen sick men could recover there, and how the surgeon could move between the hammocks to perform his ministrations, were mysteries happily left unsolved. As it was, the two invalids and their visitors crowded the place to suffocation.

"Delirious, you say?" hemmed the surgeon, a bald little man with a twinkling eye, an unshaven chin and a very greasy shirt frill. "Well, well, give me your pulse, my friend. Better a blister on the neck than a round shot at your feet, hey? I near upon gave you up when they brought you aboard—upon my word I did." The Major groaned. "You seemed a humane man, sir," he answered feebly. "Spare me your blisters and get me put ashore, for pity's sake!"

The doctor shook his head. "My good fellow, we weighed an hour ago with a fresh northerly breeze. I haven't been on deck, but by the cant of her we must be clear of the Sound already and hauling up for Portsmouth."

"On your peril you detain me, sir! I'll have your fool of a captain broken for this—cashiered, sir—kicked out of the service, by Heaven! I am a Justice of the Peace, I tell you!"

"Andcoram," put in Mr. Sturge, "andcustalorum. He'll make a Star-Chamber matter of it.… The poor fellow's raving, I tell you. A curse on your inhumanity! But I can wait for my revenge at Portsmouth. Approach, fellows, and knock off those gyves."

"Justice of the Peace!" echoed Ben Jope, paying no attention whatever to Mr. Sturge, but turning on Bill Adams with round, wondering eyes. "Itoldyou he was something out o' the common. And you ain't had no more sense than to knock him over the head with a cutlass!"

"I did not," protested Bill Adams. "He took it accidental, you being otherwise engaged; an' I stuck to the creatur', thinkin' as how youwantedhim."

"Butwhyshould I want him?"

"Damned if I know. If it comes to that"—Bill Adams jerked a thumb towards the hammock containing Mr. Sturge—"what d'ye wanthimfor?"

"Oh,him?" answered Mr. Jope with a grin. "In a gale off Pernambuco—"

"What on earth are you two talking about?" asked the surgeon, who had seated himself on the deck and, with the lantern between his feet, was busily preparing a blister.

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but you haven't been on deck yet? You haven'tseenthe ducks we brought aboard last night?"

"My good man, can I be in two places at once? I have been up all night with Mr. Wapshott, and the devil of a time he's given me. When they brought me this poor fellow, I hadn't time to do more than order him into hammock—indeed I hadn't. Now, then"—he stood on his feet again and addressed the marine—"fetch me a basin of water and I'll bathe his head."

"Is Mr. Wapshott bad, sir?" asked Ben Jope.

"H'm," the surgeon hesitated. "Well, I don't mind admitting to you that he was very bad indeed; but about six bells I got a draught to take effect, and he has been sleeping ever since."

"And you didn't see the Captain brought aboard, sir?"

"I did not. 'Brought,' you say?"

Ben Jope nodded his head, and for a moment or two watched in silence the sponging of our Major's scalp. "I've known this here ship in the variousest kinds o' weathers," he announced at length, with quiet conviction, "but they was fool's-play one and all compared with what's ahead of us."

"If it comes to that again," put in Bill Adams, "I don't see but this here Justice o' the Peace is the plum o' the whole bunch. Maybe"—he turned to his friend—"you ain't never seen a Justice o' the Peace? I hev'."

"W'y," asked Ben Jope, "what's there peculiar about 'em?"

"I got committed by one some years ago," Mr. Adams answered, with a grave effort of memory. "At a place called Farnham, it was, a way inland up the Portsmouth Road. Me and the landlord of a public there came to words, by reason he called his house 'The Admiral Howe,' but on his signboard was the face of a different man altogether. Whereby I asked him why he done so. Whereby he said the painter didn't know How. Whereby I knocked him down, and he called in the constables and swore he'd meant it for a joke; and they took me afore a Justice; and the Justice said he wouldn't yield to nobody in his respect for our Navy, but here was a case he must put his foot down, and if necessary with an iron hand; and gave me seven days. Which I mention because I couldn't pay the fine, having no more than a few coppers besides what I stood up in, and was then on my way home from the wreck of theDuck Sammybrig, which went ashore on the back of the Wight. But if you ask me what was peculiar about the man, he was called Bart.—Sir Samuel Brooks Bart.—and lived in a fine house as big as Greenwich Hospital, with a gold watch-chain across his belly you could have moored a pinnace by, and gold in his pockets correspondin'. Whereby I larned ever since to know my betters when ashore, and behave myself lowly and give 'em a wide berth. But this isn't one, nor the beginnings of one, for I took the liberty to s'arch his pockets."

"Indeed, sir," our hero appealed to the surgeon, "my name is Hymen— Major Solomon Hymen—of Troy, in Cornwall. On inquiry you will find that I am actually Chief Magistrate of that borough. Nay, I implore you—"

The surgeon, having bathed the wound and bound it with three strips of plaster, took up the blister, and was on the point of applying it, using persuasions indeed, but with the air of one who would take no denial, when a terrible outcry at once arrested him and drowned the Major's protestations.

The cry—it sounded like the roar of a wounded bull—came from the deck overhead. Its echoes sounded the very bowels of the ship; but at the first note of it Ben Jope had clutched Bill Adams by the arm.

"He's seen 'em!" he gasped. "Run, doctor, run—there's a dear soul— or he'll be doin' murder!"

"Seen what?"

"Run, I tell you! Come!" Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Jope, still gripping his comrade's arm, rushed him out of the sick bay, the doctor and the marine at their heels. In the excitement, the Major tumbled out of his hammock, tore aside the sail-flap, and staggered after them along the dim and empty lower-deck to a ladder which led up to daylight.

How to describe the spectacle which met his dazzled eyes as he thrust his head above the hatchway? Aloft theVesuviusspread her full sails in cloud upon cloud of dove-coloured grey (for, in fact, she carried very dingy canvas) against the blue of heaven, and reached along with the northerly breeze on her larboard quarter, heeling gently, yet just low enough for the Major to blink as his gaze, travelling beyond the lee bulwarks, caught the dazzle of foam knocked up and spreading off her blunt bows. But not long did he gaze on this; for in the scuppers under the bulwarks, in every attitude of complete woe, some prostrate, some supine, all depicted with the liveliest yellows and greens of seasickness beneath their theatrical paint, lay the crew of H.M.S.Poseidon. Yes, even the wicked Lieutenant reclined there with the rest, with one hand upraised and grasping a ring-bolt, while the soft sway of the ship now lifted his garish tinselled epaulettes into the sunlight, now sank and drew across them, as upon a dial, the edge of the bulwarks' shadow.

Right above this disconsolate group, and almost right above the Major's head as he thrust it through the hatchway—or, to be more precise, at the head of the ladder leading to theVesuvius'spoop— clung a little wry-necked, red-eyed, white-faced man in dishevelled uniform, and capered in impotent fury. But as when a child is chastised he yells once and there follows a pause of many seconds while he gathers up lung and larynx for the prolonged outcry, so after his first bull-roar Captain Crang, of theVesuviusbomb, clung to the rail of the poop-ladder and wrestled for speech, while a little forward of the waist his crew huddled before the storm, yet (although the Major failed to perceive this) not without exchanging winks.

"Wha—what? In the name of ten thousand devils, what the '—' isthat?" yelled the Captain, and choked again.

"Ina gale—offPernambuco," murmured Mr. Jope. "Steady, Bill; steady does it, mind!" Advancing to the foot of the ladder, he touched his forelock and stood at attention. "Pressed men, sir. Found in the theayter and brought aboard, asperspecial order."

The Captain's throat could be seen working within his disordered cravat. "Them! But—Oh, help me—look at 'em, Bos'n!"

"Sir!"

"Look at' em!"

"It's not for me to object, sir. As you was sayin', they don't look it; but bein' ear-marked, so to speak—"

"Where is Mr. Wapshott?"

"Below, sir, as I understand," answered Mr. Jope demurely.

"You mean to tell me, you '—' '—', that Mr. Wapshott allowed—"

But just then, from a hatchway immediately behind Captain Crang, there slowly emerged—there uprose—a vision whereat our Major was not the only spectator to hold his breath. A shock of dishevelled red hair, a lean lantern-jawed face, desperately pallid; these were followed by a long crane-neck, and this again was continued by a pair of shoulders of such endless declivity as surely was never seen but in dreams. And still, as the genie from the fisherman's bottle, the apparition evolved itself and ascended, nor ceased growing until it overlooked the Captain's shoulder by a good three-fourths of a yard, when it put out two hands as if seeking support and stood swaying, with a vague, uneasy smile.

"D'ye hear me?" thundered the Captain, leaning forward over the ladder.

"Ay, ay, sir," Ben Jope answered cheerfully.

"Then what the '—' are ye staring at, you son of a '—'? Like a stuck pig, '—' you! Like a clock-face! Like a glass-eyed cat in a '—' thunderstorm! Like a—"

Here, as Captain Crang drew breath to reload, so to speak, a slight yawing of the ship (for which the helmsman might be forgiven) brought the tall shadow of the apparition athwart his shoulder, and fetched him about with an oath.

"Eh? Sothereyou are!"

Mr. Wapshott, still with his vague smile, titubated a moment, advanced with a sort of circumspect dancing motion to the rail of the poop, laid two shaking hands upon it, heaved a long sigh, and nodded affably.

"Tha'sall right. Where else?"

"Look there, sir!" Captain Crang wagged a forefinger at the crowd in the scuppers. "I want your explanation ofthat!"

Mr. Wapshott brought his gaze to bear on the point indicated; but not until he had scanned successively the deck gratings, the rise of the forecastle and the main shrouds.

"Re-markable," he answered slowly. "Mos' remarkable. One funniest things ever saw in my life. Wha's yours?"

"My what, sir?"

"Eggs. Eggs-planation. Mus' ask you, sir, be so good hear me out."

"Good Lord!" With a sudden look of horror Captain Crang let go his hold of the poop-ladder and staggered back against the bulwarks. "You don't mean—you're not telling me—thatIbrought that menagerie aboard last night!" His gaze wandered helplessly from the first officer to the crew forward.

"Now then, Bill, steady does it," whispered Mr. Jope, and saluted again. "You'll excuse me, sir, but Mr. Wapshott was below last night when we brought you aboard from dinin' with his R'yal Highness."

"I remember nothing," groaned Captain Crang. "I neverdoremember when—and before the Duke too!"

Mr. Jope coughed. "His R'yal Highness, sir—if you'll let me say so—was a bit like what you might call everyone else last night. He shook hands very affectionate, sir, at parting, an' hoped to have your company again before long."

"Did he so? Did he so?" said Captain Crang. "And—er—could you at the same time call to mind what I answered?"

Mr. Jope looked down modestly. "Well, sir, having my hands full at the time wi' this here little lot, I dunno as I can remember precisely. Was it something about the theayter, Bill?" he demanded, turning to Mr. Adams.

"It wor," answered Mr. Adams sturdily.

"And as how you'd never shipped a crew o' playactors afore, but you'd do your best?"

"Either them very words or to that effect," confirmed Mr. Adams, breathing hard and staring defiantly at the horizon.

"The theatre?… I was at the theatre?" Captain Crang passed a shaking hand over his brow. "No, damme!… and yet I remember now at dinner I heard the Duke say—"

Here it was Captain Crang's turn to stare dumbfounded at an apparition, as a pair of handcuffed wrists thrust themselves up through the main hatchway and were painfully followed by the rest of Mr. Orlando B. Sturge.

"Oh, good Lord! Look! Is the ship full of 'em?" shouted the Captain.

"They ain't real," murmured Mr. Wapshott soothingly. "You'll get accustomed. They began by being frogs," he explained, with the initiatory air of an elder brother, and waved a feeble hand. "Eggs— if you'll 'low me, sir, to conclude—egg-sisting in the 'magination only. Go 'way—shoo!"

But Mr. Sturge was not to be disembodied so easily. On the contrary, as the vessel lurched, he sat down suddenly with a material thud and clash of handcuffs upon the poultry-coop, nor was sooner haled to his feet by the strong arm of Mr. Adams than he struck an attitude and opened on the Captain in his finest baritone.

"'Look,' say'st thou? Ay, then, look! Nay, gloat if thou wilt, tyrant—miscreant shall I say?—in human form! Yielding, if I may quote my friend here"—Mr. Sturge laid both handcuffed hands on the shoulder of Bill Adams—"yielding to none, I say, in my admiration of Britain's Navy, I hold myself free to protest against the lawlessness of its minions. I say deliberately, sir, its minions. My name, sir, is Orlando B. Sturge. If that conveys aught to such an intelligence as yours, you will at once turn this vessel round and convey us back to Plymouth with even more expedition than you brought us hither."

Captain Crang fell back and caught at the mizzen shrouds.

"Was I so bad as all that?" he stammered, as Ben Jope, believing him attacked by apoplexy, rushed up the poop-ladder and bent over him.

"Lor' bless you, sir," said Mr. Jope, "the best of us may be mistaken at times. But as I've al'ays said, and will maintain, gentlemen will be gentlemen."

But Captain Crang, letting slip his grasp of the shrouds, plumped down on deck in a sitting posture and with a sound like the echo of his own name.

"A wet sheet and a flowing sea,"

(Sings Allan Cunningham),

"A wind that follows fast,And fills the white and rustling sailAnd bends the gallant mast;And bends the gallant mast, my boys,When, like an eagle free,Away the good ship flies, and leavesOld England on the lee."

I quote these famous lines for their spirit rather than their accuracy. It is not every ship that can so defy the laws of nature as to run off a lee shore with a shore wind; and theVesuviusbomb, reaching up Channel with a rare nor'-nor'-westerly breeze, kept old England well to windward all the time. But as Mr. Sturge explained to the Major, later in the day, "Without being a practical seaman, an artist can yet catch the spirit of these things and impart it to his fellow-men."

Mr. Sturge was not criticising (by anticipation) Allan Cunningham's lines, but talking, as usual, about himself. Many circumstances combined to induce a cheerful mood in him. To begin with, his manacles had been removed. Also he had overcome the morning's nausea. TheVesuvius—a deep vessel for her size—was by no means speedy off the wind, and travelled indeed like a slug; but her frame, built for the heavy mortars, was extraordinarily stout in comparison with her masts, and this gave her stability. She was steering a course, too, which kept her fairly close inshore and in smooth water.

Indeed, so far as physical conditions went, Mr. Sturge was enjoying a pleasure trip. His bold expostulations, moreover (for he did not lack courage), had considerably impressed Captain Crang, who, though not easily cowed as a rule, met them at a double disadvantage, being at once unable to recall the events of overnight, and firmly convinced that the whole misadventure was a trick of his Royal Highness. In this state of mind the Captain, shaken by his debauch, had almost collapsed before Mr. Sturge's demand that the ship should be put about—or, as he expressed it, turned round—and navigated to the nearest point of shore.

"If," said Mr. Sturge, with a comprehensive wave of the hand, "if along yon coast, in cove or bay or any natural recess—call it how you will—there lurk a bench of magistrates insensate enough, as you believe, to uphold this violation of a British subject's liberty, steer for them, sir! I challenge you to steer for them! I can say no fairer than that. Select what tribunal you please, sir, and I will demonstrate before it that I and my companions, in spite of appearances, arenoseamen. You are to understand that by this disclaimer I cast no reflection upon even the humblest toiler of the deep. Nay, while myself inept either to trim the sail or net the finny tribes, I respect those hardy callings—no man more so. Only I claim that my own profession exempts me from this respectable but un-congenial service; and that in short, sir, by forcibly trepanning me, you have rendered yourself liable to swingeing damages, besides inviting public attention to the fact that you were senselessly intoxicated last night."

This harangue, admirably delivered, took Captain Crang between wind and water. It was in vain he looked to his first officer for help. Mr. Wapshott, still swaying by the poop rail, lifted and wagged an admonitory forefinger.

"No use y'r asking me," said Mr. Wapshott. "Ididn't dine with the Duke." He paused and asked with sudden inconsequent heartiness, "Well, and how did you get along, you two?"

"If only I could tell!" murmured Captain Crang, passing a hand over his brow.

"Not stuck-up, I hope? Affable? I'll bet any man sixpence he was affable. Mind you, I don't speak from 'xperience," went on Mr. Wapshott, more in sorrow than in anger. "Idon't dine out with Admirals of the Fleet. The Blood Royal don't invite James Wapshott to take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne, for auld lang syne, my dear, for auld.… You'll excuse me, sir, some little emotion; Robert Burns—Robbie—affecting beggar, mor' specially in his homelier passages. A ploughman, sir; and from Ayrshire, damme!"

"'Wee sleekit crimson-tippit beastie—'"

"Are you addressing me, sir?" roared Captain Crang.

"Norratall. Field-mouse.That"—Mr. Wapshott drew himself up— "that'sthe 'stonishing thing about it."

"Go to your cabin, sir," the Captain commanded; "and you, Mr. What's-your-name, come below and explain yourself."

Thus, not without dignity, he withdrew from the field. But he was beaten; and in his cabin a few minutes later he capitulated. Mr. Sturge having been convinced that the ship could not be turned around and headed back for Plymouth without grave inconvenience, and perhaps detriment to his Majesty's service, it was agreed that he and his company should be packed ashore immediately on reaching Portsmouth. The question of compensation was waived by consent; though Captain Crang shrewdly expressed his hope that, whatever steps Mr. Sturge might take after consulting a solicitor, his Royal Highness would not be dragged into the affair.

In short, Mr. Sturge reappeared on deck in high spirits. He had bearded a British officer—and a formidable one—in his den and had come off victorious. He had secured his own liberty and his comrades', and (as reflection told him) a first-class advertisement to boot. Altogether, he had done very well indeed; and Mr. Jope, chastened by his own narrow escape from a situation which at one moment had promised to be serious, wisely left him all the credit of this lucky turn of affairs. Mr. Jope, who ranked next to the Captain and First Officer on the ship's executive, and actually ruled her during their indisposition, exacted no work from his prisoners; but was content to admire them from a distance—as, indeed, did the rest of the crew—retiring from time to time behind convenient shelters to hide their indecorous mirth. During the afternoon it may be said that Mr. Sturge's troupe had the deck aft of the forecastle to themselves. Being unacquainted with naval usage, they roamed the poop indifferently with the main deck, no man forbidding them, while Captain Crang and Mr. Wapshott slumbered below; the one of set purpose, in the hope of recapturing through the gates of horn, if not the complete data of last night's imbroglio, at least sufficient for a plausible defence; the other under the influence of sedatives administered by the Doctor.

"I should soon get used to this life, d'ye know?" announced Mr. Sturge, approaching the Major with a jaunty, almost extra-nautical step, and clapping him, seaman fashion, on the shoulder.

It was the hour of sunset. TheVesuvius, bowling along merrily, a bare three miles off Berry Head, had opened the warm red-sandstone cliffs of Torbay; and the Major, leaning over the larboard bulwark, gazed on the slowly moving shore in gloomy abstraction. He had been less fortunate than Mr. Sturge in his encounter with the Captain, whom he had interrupted in the act of retiring to slumber.

"One moment, sir," he had begun, confidently enough. "The accomplishedartisteto whose representations you have been good enough to listen, has told you—so far as he is concerned—the simple truth. To a certain extent I can corroborate him. But I beg you to understand that he and I—if I may employ a nautical phrase—are not in the same boat."

"Who the devil mayyoube?" Captain Crang interposed.

"That, sir," answered the Major with dignity, "is precisely what I propose to explain. By an accident I find myself without a visiting-card; but my name, sir, is Hymen—Major Hymen, sir—of the Troy Volunteer Artillery (better known to you, perhaps, as the Gallants), and Chief Magistrate of that ancient and picturesque little borough."

Captain Crang stared at him for a moment with lowered brows and jaw working as if it chewed the cud of his wrath.

"Look here," he replied. "You're the funny man of the troupe, I suppose? Comic Irishman and that sort of thing, hey?"

"I assure you, sir—"

"And I assureyou, sir, that if you come the funny dog over me, I'll have you up to the gratings in two shakes of a duck's tail, and tickle your funny ribs with three dozen of the best. Understand?" The Captain paused, trembling with rage. "Understand, hey, you '—' little barnstorming son of a '—'? Made a mistake, have I? Cut your capers at my expense, would you, you little baldheaded runt? By '—' if you pull another face at me, sir, you shall caper off the yardarm, sir; on a string, sir; high as Haman, sir! I hope, sir," wound up Captain Crang, recovering his calm, "that on this point, at any rate, I have left no room for misunderstanding."

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