Chapter Thirteen.In the French Port.In spite of the knocking about by the storm, the schooner was none the worse, and in the course of the day as the weather rapidly settled down and the western gale seemed to have blown itself out, while the sailors had been busy swabbing the rapidly drying planks, and, the wind having fallen, shaking out the saturated sails to dry, Uncle Paul strolled with his nephew up and down the deck, waiting till the skipper seemed to be less busy before going up to him.“Well,” said Uncle Paul; “are we damaged at all?”“Not a bit,” was the gruff reply. “It’s done her good—stretched her ropes and got the canvas well in shape.”“But how do you feel about the schooner?”“As if she was just what we wanted, sir. Given me a lot of confidence in her.”“Then as the weather is settling down you will sail again to-night?”“No; I want to get a little more ballast aboard, and this is all a little bit of show. We shall have more weather before long. I shan’t sail yet.”The work being pretty well done—that is, as far as work ever is done in a small vessel—Rodd noticed that some of the men had been smartening themselves up, and after hanging about a bit watching the captain till he went below, Rodd saw them gather in a knot together by the forecastle hatch, talking among themselves, till one of the party, a heavy, dull-looking fellow, very round and smooth-faced and plump, with quite a colour in his cheeks, came aft to where Rodd and his uncle were standing watching the busy scene about the wharves of the inner harbour, and discussing as to whether they should go ashore for a few hours to look round the town.“I am thinking, Pickle, that after such a bad night as we had, we might just as well stay aboard and rest, and besides, as far as I can see everything’s muddy and wretched, and I fancy we should be better aboard.”“Oh, I don’t know, uncle. We needn’t be long, and it will be a change. But here’s the Bun coming up to speak to you.”“The what!” cried Uncle Paul.“That man—Rumsey.”“But why do you call him the Bun?”“Oh, it’s the men’s name for him,” said Rodd, laughing. “They nicknamed him because he was such a round-faced fellow.”“Beg pardon, sir,” said the man, making a tug at his forelock.“Yes, my man; you want to speak to me?”“Yes, sir; the lads asked me to say, sir, that as it’s been a very rough night—”“Very, my man—very,” said Uncle Paul, staring.“They’d take it kindly, sir, if you’d give about half of us leave to go ashore for a few hours.”“Oh, well, my man, I have no objection whatever,” said Uncle Paul. “As far as I am concerned, by all means yes.”“Thankye, sir; much obliged, sir,” said the man eagerly, and pulling his forelock again he hurried forward to join the group which had sent him as their spokesman to ask for leave.Rodd turned to speak to his uncle, and caught Joe Cross’s eye instead, wondering at the man’s comical look at him as he closed an eye and jerked one thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the group forward as they began whispering together, and then, thrust forward towards the side by his companions, the Bun began to signal towards the Frenchmen hanging about the nearest landing-place, where several boats were made fast to the side of the dock.Just at that moment the skipper came up from below, saw what was going on at a glance, strode towards the group, which began to dissolve at once, the Bun being the only man whose attention was taken up by a boatman who was answering his signal. Just while the signaller was making his most energetic gestures he leaped round in the most startled way, for the skipper had closed up and given him a very smart slap on the shoulder.“Now, Rumsey, what’s this?” he cried.“Boat, sir. Going ashore, sir.”“Who is?” said the skipper, frowning.“Us six, sir.”“Us six! Why, you’re only one.”“Yes, sir. These ’ere others too, sir.”“What others?” cried the captain, and Rumsey, looking anxiously around, found for the first time that he was alone.“The lads as was here just now, sir—six on us.”“Oh, indeed!” said the skipper sarcastically, and raising his cap he gave his rough hair a rub. “Let me see; when did I give you leave to go ashore?”“No, sir; not you, sir. Dr Robson, sir.”“Oh, I see,” said the skipper.This was all said loud enough for Rodd and Uncle Paul to hear, and Rodd began to grin as he looked at his uncle, whose face assumed a perplexed aspect, one which increased to uneasiness as the captain came up to them at once.“Just a word, sir,” he said. “Did you order these men to go ashore?”“Oh no,” cried Uncle Paul. “One of them came up to me, asking if I had any objections to their going ashore, and I said, not the least. I supposed, of course, that they had got leave from you.”“Of course, sir. Bless ’em for a set of artful babies! They aren’t learned discipline yet. You, Rumsey, go and tell your messmates that if they try that game again with me they’ll stand a fine chance of not going ashore for the rest of the voyage.”“Yes, sir, I’ll tell them, sir,” cried the man hurriedly; and he shuffled off as hard as he could to find those who had left him in the lurch.“Here, you, Joe Cross,” continued the captain, “you signal to that Frenchy boatman that he is not wanted.”“Ay, ay, sir!” cried Cross, hurrying to the side, where he began gesticulating angrily, in spite of which the boatman persisted in coming alongside and in voluble French declaring that he was ordered to come and would not go back until he was paid.Meanwhile a little explanation was going on between the skipper and Uncle Paul.“Don’t want to be bumptious, sir,” said the former, “but there’s only room on board a craft for one captain. Those fellows jump at any chance to get ashore, and when they are there, there’s no knowing when you’ll get them on board again, besides which, they wouldn’t be careful, and French and English don’t get on very well together after all that’s gone by. Here, Cross, tell that jabbering Frenchman if he isn’t off, he’ll have to go back with a hole through the bottom of his boat. No, stop. Go and find Mr Craig. Tell him to set those six men something to do.”“Ay, ay, sir!” cried the sailor, hurrying off.“There, it was all my fault, captain,” said Uncle Paul, smiling. “I won’t offend again. Here, Rodd, my boy, give that poor fellow a shilling for his trouble.”Rodd hurried to the side, hailed the man, and held out the coin, telling him in very bad French what it was for; but the fellow shook his head, held up four fingers, and began shouting “Quatre!” so loudly that the skipper heard.“Cat, indeed!” he shouted. “Just what I should like to give him. Here, come away, Mr Rodd; he shan’t have anything now.”But Rodd did not obey at once.“One or nothing,” he cried to the man, in French.“Quatre! Quatre!” shouted the man.Rodd shook his head and was turning away, but the boatman swarmed up the side, and reaching over the rail, shouted “Quatre!” again, till the skipper made so fierce a rush at him that he lowered his feet quickly down into his boat, catching the shilling that Rodd pitched to him, and then hurriedly pushing off for the landing-place.“Oh, it’s all right, Dr Robson,” said the skipper, “only you must leave all this shore-going to me. I know my lads; you don’t.”Just then Craig, the mate, came up on deck, looking very sour at having been awakened from a comfortable sleep, and did not scruple about setting the delinquents to work upon some very unnecessary task, to the great delight of their messmates, who, headed by Joe Cross, gave them pretty freely to understand what their opinion was of the scheme to get a run ashore.It was towards evening that, after a hasty meal, partaken of in peace in the still waters of the harbour, tempted by a few gleams of sunshine, and for Rodd’s gratification, Uncle Paul and Rodd were rowed ashore in the same boat as the skipper, who had business with the English Consul about his papers, the understanding being that the boat was to go back and meet them at nine o’clock.“That’s as long as we shall want to stay, Rodd,” said Uncle Paul.“Yes, sir,” said the skipper; “and if I were you I’d turn in early for a good night’s rest, for I’m thinking we shall have dirty weather again to-morrow, and there’s no knowing how long it will last.”“But it looks so bright to-night,” cried Rodd.“Just here, sir,” cried the skipper, “and it may be fine enough to tempt me off in the morning; but I don’t feel at all sartain, and to-morrow night we may be having another knocking about.”They separated at the landing-place, and for the next two hours Rodd was making himself acquainted with the principal streets of the old seaport, time going very rapidly and the night coming on.It was growing pretty dark, and after making two mistakes as to their direction, Rodd declared that he knew the way, and his uncle yielding to his opinion, the boy led on, till, turning a corner sharply, they almost came in contact with a couple of French officers walking in the opposite direction, the one a tall, stern, elderly-looking man, talking in a low excited tone to his young companion, whose attention was so much taken up as he deferentially listened to his elder, that he started back to avoid striking against Rodd, who also gave way.It was now almost dark, and the next moment the French officers had passed on, as Uncle Paul exclaimed—“Yes, I believe you are right, Pickle. You are. Those are ships’ lights hoisted up to the stays. Well, don’t you see?”“Yes, uncle, but—”The boy said no more, and Uncle Paul laid his hand upon his shoulder.“What’s the matter?” he cried. “Why don’t you speak? Those are the lights in the harbour.”“Yes—yes. Yes, uncle, I see,” said the boy hastily; “but—er—but—er—”“Why, what’s the matter with you? Don’t feel done up?”“No, uncle,” replied Rodd hurriedly. “I was only puzzled; it seemed so strange.”“You mean you seem so strange,” said the doctor, laughing.“Yes, uncle, I feel so.”“Well, come along, and let’s make haste aboard. I don’t want to keep the captain waiting. We have lost so much time by missing our way. It’s past nine, I’m sure.”“Yes, uncle,” said the boy, speaking more like himself; “it must be. But I felt so startled in coming suddenly upon those two officers.”“Why, there was nothing to startle you, my boy.”“No, uncle, I suppose not; but somehow I felt that I had been close to that one who nearly ran up against me before, and when he said ‘Pardon’—”“I didn’t hear him say ‘Pardon,’” said Uncle Paul.“But he did, uncle, just in a low tone so that I could hardly hear him, and then I felt sure we had met before.”“Nonsense!” cried Uncle Paul. “Look here, my boy, how much sleep did you have last night?”“Sleep, uncle!” cried the boy, in a voice full of surprise.“Why, none at all. Who could sleep through that storm?”“I’ll answer for myself,” said the doctor; “I could not. Well, you were completely tired out, and are half dreaming now. Come along; let’s find the boat and get on board for a light supper and a good night’s rest.”“Yes, uncle,” said Rodd quietly; “but take care; we are on the wharf. I can make out the shipping plainly now;” and as he spoke a familiar hail came out of the darkness, while as they answered the captain strode towards them.“Thought you were lost, gentlemen. Been waiting half-an-hour. Take care; the boat’s down here;” and striding along the top of the harbour wall the skipper led the way to the descending steps, where the boat was waiting, and they were rowed aboard.An hour later Rodd was plunged in the deepest of deep sleeps, but dreaming all the same of the storm and of getting into difficulties with some one who was constantly running against him and whispering softly, “Pardon!”
In spite of the knocking about by the storm, the schooner was none the worse, and in the course of the day as the weather rapidly settled down and the western gale seemed to have blown itself out, while the sailors had been busy swabbing the rapidly drying planks, and, the wind having fallen, shaking out the saturated sails to dry, Uncle Paul strolled with his nephew up and down the deck, waiting till the skipper seemed to be less busy before going up to him.
“Well,” said Uncle Paul; “are we damaged at all?”
“Not a bit,” was the gruff reply. “It’s done her good—stretched her ropes and got the canvas well in shape.”
“But how do you feel about the schooner?”
“As if she was just what we wanted, sir. Given me a lot of confidence in her.”
“Then as the weather is settling down you will sail again to-night?”
“No; I want to get a little more ballast aboard, and this is all a little bit of show. We shall have more weather before long. I shan’t sail yet.”
The work being pretty well done—that is, as far as work ever is done in a small vessel—Rodd noticed that some of the men had been smartening themselves up, and after hanging about a bit watching the captain till he went below, Rodd saw them gather in a knot together by the forecastle hatch, talking among themselves, till one of the party, a heavy, dull-looking fellow, very round and smooth-faced and plump, with quite a colour in his cheeks, came aft to where Rodd and his uncle were standing watching the busy scene about the wharves of the inner harbour, and discussing as to whether they should go ashore for a few hours to look round the town.
“I am thinking, Pickle, that after such a bad night as we had, we might just as well stay aboard and rest, and besides, as far as I can see everything’s muddy and wretched, and I fancy we should be better aboard.”
“Oh, I don’t know, uncle. We needn’t be long, and it will be a change. But here’s the Bun coming up to speak to you.”
“The what!” cried Uncle Paul.
“That man—Rumsey.”
“But why do you call him the Bun?”
“Oh, it’s the men’s name for him,” said Rodd, laughing. “They nicknamed him because he was such a round-faced fellow.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the man, making a tug at his forelock.
“Yes, my man; you want to speak to me?”
“Yes, sir; the lads asked me to say, sir, that as it’s been a very rough night—”
“Very, my man—very,” said Uncle Paul, staring.
“They’d take it kindly, sir, if you’d give about half of us leave to go ashore for a few hours.”
“Oh, well, my man, I have no objection whatever,” said Uncle Paul. “As far as I am concerned, by all means yes.”
“Thankye, sir; much obliged, sir,” said the man eagerly, and pulling his forelock again he hurried forward to join the group which had sent him as their spokesman to ask for leave.
Rodd turned to speak to his uncle, and caught Joe Cross’s eye instead, wondering at the man’s comical look at him as he closed an eye and jerked one thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the group forward as they began whispering together, and then, thrust forward towards the side by his companions, the Bun began to signal towards the Frenchmen hanging about the nearest landing-place, where several boats were made fast to the side of the dock.
Just at that moment the skipper came up from below, saw what was going on at a glance, strode towards the group, which began to dissolve at once, the Bun being the only man whose attention was taken up by a boatman who was answering his signal. Just while the signaller was making his most energetic gestures he leaped round in the most startled way, for the skipper had closed up and given him a very smart slap on the shoulder.
“Now, Rumsey, what’s this?” he cried.
“Boat, sir. Going ashore, sir.”
“Who is?” said the skipper, frowning.
“Us six, sir.”
“Us six! Why, you’re only one.”
“Yes, sir. These ’ere others too, sir.”
“What others?” cried the captain, and Rumsey, looking anxiously around, found for the first time that he was alone.
“The lads as was here just now, sir—six on us.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the skipper sarcastically, and raising his cap he gave his rough hair a rub. “Let me see; when did I give you leave to go ashore?”
“No, sir; not you, sir. Dr Robson, sir.”
“Oh, I see,” said the skipper.
This was all said loud enough for Rodd and Uncle Paul to hear, and Rodd began to grin as he looked at his uncle, whose face assumed a perplexed aspect, one which increased to uneasiness as the captain came up to them at once.
“Just a word, sir,” he said. “Did you order these men to go ashore?”
“Oh no,” cried Uncle Paul. “One of them came up to me, asking if I had any objections to their going ashore, and I said, not the least. I supposed, of course, that they had got leave from you.”
“Of course, sir. Bless ’em for a set of artful babies! They aren’t learned discipline yet. You, Rumsey, go and tell your messmates that if they try that game again with me they’ll stand a fine chance of not going ashore for the rest of the voyage.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll tell them, sir,” cried the man hurriedly; and he shuffled off as hard as he could to find those who had left him in the lurch.
“Here, you, Joe Cross,” continued the captain, “you signal to that Frenchy boatman that he is not wanted.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” cried Cross, hurrying to the side, where he began gesticulating angrily, in spite of which the boatman persisted in coming alongside and in voluble French declaring that he was ordered to come and would not go back until he was paid.
Meanwhile a little explanation was going on between the skipper and Uncle Paul.
“Don’t want to be bumptious, sir,” said the former, “but there’s only room on board a craft for one captain. Those fellows jump at any chance to get ashore, and when they are there, there’s no knowing when you’ll get them on board again, besides which, they wouldn’t be careful, and French and English don’t get on very well together after all that’s gone by. Here, Cross, tell that jabbering Frenchman if he isn’t off, he’ll have to go back with a hole through the bottom of his boat. No, stop. Go and find Mr Craig. Tell him to set those six men something to do.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” cried the sailor, hurrying off.
“There, it was all my fault, captain,” said Uncle Paul, smiling. “I won’t offend again. Here, Rodd, my boy, give that poor fellow a shilling for his trouble.”
Rodd hurried to the side, hailed the man, and held out the coin, telling him in very bad French what it was for; but the fellow shook his head, held up four fingers, and began shouting “Quatre!” so loudly that the skipper heard.
“Cat, indeed!” he shouted. “Just what I should like to give him. Here, come away, Mr Rodd; he shan’t have anything now.”
But Rodd did not obey at once.
“One or nothing,” he cried to the man, in French.
“Quatre! Quatre!” shouted the man.
Rodd shook his head and was turning away, but the boatman swarmed up the side, and reaching over the rail, shouted “Quatre!” again, till the skipper made so fierce a rush at him that he lowered his feet quickly down into his boat, catching the shilling that Rodd pitched to him, and then hurriedly pushing off for the landing-place.
“Oh, it’s all right, Dr Robson,” said the skipper, “only you must leave all this shore-going to me. I know my lads; you don’t.”
Just then Craig, the mate, came up on deck, looking very sour at having been awakened from a comfortable sleep, and did not scruple about setting the delinquents to work upon some very unnecessary task, to the great delight of their messmates, who, headed by Joe Cross, gave them pretty freely to understand what their opinion was of the scheme to get a run ashore.
It was towards evening that, after a hasty meal, partaken of in peace in the still waters of the harbour, tempted by a few gleams of sunshine, and for Rodd’s gratification, Uncle Paul and Rodd were rowed ashore in the same boat as the skipper, who had business with the English Consul about his papers, the understanding being that the boat was to go back and meet them at nine o’clock.
“That’s as long as we shall want to stay, Rodd,” said Uncle Paul.
“Yes, sir,” said the skipper; “and if I were you I’d turn in early for a good night’s rest, for I’m thinking we shall have dirty weather again to-morrow, and there’s no knowing how long it will last.”
“But it looks so bright to-night,” cried Rodd.
“Just here, sir,” cried the skipper, “and it may be fine enough to tempt me off in the morning; but I don’t feel at all sartain, and to-morrow night we may be having another knocking about.”
They separated at the landing-place, and for the next two hours Rodd was making himself acquainted with the principal streets of the old seaport, time going very rapidly and the night coming on.
It was growing pretty dark, and after making two mistakes as to their direction, Rodd declared that he knew the way, and his uncle yielding to his opinion, the boy led on, till, turning a corner sharply, they almost came in contact with a couple of French officers walking in the opposite direction, the one a tall, stern, elderly-looking man, talking in a low excited tone to his young companion, whose attention was so much taken up as he deferentially listened to his elder, that he started back to avoid striking against Rodd, who also gave way.
It was now almost dark, and the next moment the French officers had passed on, as Uncle Paul exclaimed—
“Yes, I believe you are right, Pickle. You are. Those are ships’ lights hoisted up to the stays. Well, don’t you see?”
“Yes, uncle, but—”
The boy said no more, and Uncle Paul laid his hand upon his shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” he cried. “Why don’t you speak? Those are the lights in the harbour.”
“Yes—yes. Yes, uncle, I see,” said the boy hastily; “but—er—but—er—”
“Why, what’s the matter with you? Don’t feel done up?”
“No, uncle,” replied Rodd hurriedly. “I was only puzzled; it seemed so strange.”
“You mean you seem so strange,” said the doctor, laughing.
“Yes, uncle, I feel so.”
“Well, come along, and let’s make haste aboard. I don’t want to keep the captain waiting. We have lost so much time by missing our way. It’s past nine, I’m sure.”
“Yes, uncle,” said the boy, speaking more like himself; “it must be. But I felt so startled in coming suddenly upon those two officers.”
“Why, there was nothing to startle you, my boy.”
“No, uncle, I suppose not; but somehow I felt that I had been close to that one who nearly ran up against me before, and when he said ‘Pardon’—”
“I didn’t hear him say ‘Pardon,’” said Uncle Paul.
“But he did, uncle, just in a low tone so that I could hardly hear him, and then I felt sure we had met before.”
“Nonsense!” cried Uncle Paul. “Look here, my boy, how much sleep did you have last night?”
“Sleep, uncle!” cried the boy, in a voice full of surprise.
“Why, none at all. Who could sleep through that storm?”
“I’ll answer for myself,” said the doctor; “I could not. Well, you were completely tired out, and are half dreaming now. Come along; let’s find the boat and get on board for a light supper and a good night’s rest.”
“Yes, uncle,” said Rodd quietly; “but take care; we are on the wharf. I can make out the shipping plainly now;” and as he spoke a familiar hail came out of the darkness, while as they answered the captain strode towards them.
“Thought you were lost, gentlemen. Been waiting half-an-hour. Take care; the boat’s down here;” and striding along the top of the harbour wall the skipper led the way to the descending steps, where the boat was waiting, and they were rowed aboard.
An hour later Rodd was plunged in the deepest of deep sleeps, but dreaming all the same of the storm and of getting into difficulties with some one who was constantly running against him and whispering softly, “Pardon!”
Chapter Fourteen.The Suspicious Craft.“Oh, I say, Uncle Paul, isn’t it horrible?” cried Rodd the next morning.Breakfast was just over, and Captain Chubb had gone on deck, while the wind was howling furiously as if in a rage to find its playthings, some two or three hundred vessels of different tonnage, safely moored in the shelter of the harbour, and out of its power to toss here and there and pitch so many helpless ruins to be beaten to pieces upon the shore.Down it kept coming right in amongst them, making them check at their mooring cables and chains, but in vain, for their crews had been too busy, and the only satisfaction that the tempest could obtain, was to hearken to the miserable dreary groans that were here and there emitted as some of the least fortunate and worst secured ground against each other.“Isn’t it horrible, uncle?” shouted Rodd, for the rain just then was mingled with good-sized hailstones, and was rattling down upon the deck and skylight in a way that half-drowned the lad’s voice.“Miserable weather, Pickle; but never mind. We must settle down to a good morning’s work in the laboratory.”“Oh no, not yet, uncle; we don’t seem to have started. It will only be a makeshift.”“But we might put things a little more straight, boy.”“Oh no, uncle; they are too straight now, and I want to go on deck.”“Bah! It isn’t fit. Wait till the weather holds up.”“Oh, I shall dress up accordingly, uncle. But I say, where does all the rain come from? It must be falling in millions of tons everywhere.”“Ah, you might as well ask me where the wind comes from. Study up some book on meteorology.”“Oh yes, I will, uncle; but not yet.”“Very well; be off.”Rodd hurried out of the cabin, and five minutes later came back rattling and crackling, to present himself before his uncle, who thrust up his spectacles upon his forehead and stared.“There,” cried Rodd; “don’t think I shall get wet. I wish I’d had it the other night. It’s splendid, uncle, and so stiff that if I like to stoop down a little and spread my arms, I can almost rest in it. I say, don’t I look like a dried haddock?”“Humph! Well, yes, you do look about the same colour,” grumbled the doctor, for the boy was buttoned up in a glistening oilskin coat of a buff yellow tint; the turned-up collar just revealed the tips of his ears, and he was crowned by a sou’-wester securely tied beneath his chin.“I say, this will do, won’t it?”“Yes, you look a beauty!” grunted the doctor; “but there, be off; I want to write a letter or two.”Rodd went crackling up the cabin stairs, clump, clump, clump, for he was wearing a heavy pair of fisherman’s boots that had been made waterproof by many applications of oil—a pair specially prepared for fishing purposes and future wading amongst the wonders of coral reef and strand.The deck was almost deserted, the only two personages of the schooner’s crew being the captain and Joe Cross, both costumed so as to match exactly with the boy, who now joined them, to begin streaming with water to the same extent as they.They both looked at him in turn, Cross grinning and just showing a glint of his white teeth where the collar of his oilskin joined, while his companion scowled, or seemed to, and emitted a low grumbling sound that might have meant welcome or the finding of fault, which of the two Rodd did not grasp, for the skipper turned his back and rolled slowly away as if he were bobbing like a vessel through the flood which covered the deck and was streaming away from the scuppers.As the skipper went right forward and stood by the bowsprit, looking straight ahead through the haze formed by the streaming rain, Rodd was thrown back upon Joe Cross, with whom, almost from the day when the man had joined, he had begun to grow intimate; and as he went close up to him, the sailor gave his head a toss to distribute some of the rain that was splashing down upon his sou’-wester, and grinning visibly now, he cried—“Why, Mr Rodd, sir, you’ve forgot your umbrella.”“Get out!” cried Rodd good-humouredly. “But I say, Joe, how long is this rain going to last?”“Looks as if it means to go on for months, sir, but may leave off to-night. I say, though, that’s a splendid fit, sir. You do look fine! Are you comfortable in there?”Rodd did not answer, for he was trying to pierce the streaming haze and make out whether the brig was visible.For a few moments he could not make it out, but there it was, looking faint and strange, about a hundred yards away.“That’s the brig, isn’t it, yonder?” he said at last.“Yes, sir, that’s she, and they seem to have got her fast now; but she wouldn’t hurt us if she broke from her moorings, for the wind’s veered a point or two, and it would take her clear away.”Rodd remained silent as he stood thinking, he did not know why, unless it was that the vessel with the tall, dimly-seen tapering spars bore a French name, and somehow—again he could not tell why, only that it seemed to him very ridiculous—the shadowy vessel associated itself with the two French officers he had encountered in the darkness of the previous night, when he heard one of them after brushing against him murmur the word “Pardon!” And he found himself thinking that if the vessel had been swept up against the schooner when her anchor was dragging, it would have been no use for her crew to cry “Pardon!” as that would not have cured the damage.“Well, sir, what do you make of her?” cried the sailor, putting an end to the lad’s musings.“Can’t see much,” said Rodd, “for the rain, but she seems beautifully rigged.”“Yes, sir, and she can sail well too—for a brig—but I should set her down as being too heavily sparred, and likely to be top-heavy. If she was going along full sail, and was caught in such a squall as we had yesterday, and laid flat like the schooner, I don’t believe she’d lift again. Anyhow, I shouldn’t like to be aboard.”“No, it wouldn’t be pleasant,” said Rodd; “but I say, I can’t see anything of that long gun you talked about.”“No wonder, sir. You want that there long water-glass, as you called it—that there one you showed me as you was unpacking it. Don’t you remember? Like a big pipe with panes of glass in it as you said you could stick down into the sea and make out what was on the bottom. You want that now.”The man passed his hand along the brow edge of his sou’-wester to sweep away the drops, and then took a long look at the deck of the brig.“No, sir; can’t make it out now; but I see it plainly enough this morning, covered with a lashed down tarpaulin as if to hide it, and I knew at once. I can almost tell a big gun by the smell—I mean feel it like, if it’s there.”“But do you still think she’s a privateer?”“Well, I don’t say she is, sir, for that’s a thing you can’t tell for sartain unless you see a ship’s papers; but she is something of that kind, I should say, and— Ay, ay, sir!—There’s the skipper hailed me, sir. I say, Mr Rodd, sir, do mind you don’t get wet!”This was as the man rolled away sailor fashion, and emitting a crackling whishing sound as he made for the vessel’s bows, where he received some order from his captain which sent him to the covered-in hatchway of the forecastle, where he slowly disappeared into a kind of haze, half water, half smoke, for several of the water-bound crew had given up the chewing of their tobacco to indulge in pipes.But Rodd was in a talkative humour, and made his way to the skipper, saluting him with—“I say, Captain Chubb, how do you manage to do it?”“Do what, my lad?”“Why, say for certain what the weather’s going to be.”There was a low chuckling sound such as might have been emitted by a good-humoured porpoise which had just ended one of its underwater curves, and thrust its head above the surface to take a good deep breath before it turned itself over and dived down again.“Second natur’, youngster, and that’s use. Takes a long time to learn, and when you have larnt your lesson perfect as you think, you find that you don’t know it a bit.”“But you did know it,” said Rodd. “You said that the storm would come on again, when it was beautiful and fine yesterday evening; and here it is.”“Well, yes, my lad, if you goes on for years trying to hit something you must get a lucky shot sometimes.”“Oh yes, but there’s something more than that,” said Rodd. “When I have been amongst the fishermen in Plymouth, and over in Saltash, I have wondered to find how exact they were about the weather, and how whenever they wouldn’t take us out fishing they were always right. They seemed to know that bad weather was coming on.”“Oh, of course,” said the skipper. “Why, my lad, if you got your living by going out in your boat, don’t you think the first thing you would try to learn would be to make it your living?”“Why, of course,” cried Rodd.“Ah, you don’t mean the same as I do. I mean, make it your living and not your dying.”“Oh, I see.”“You wouldn’t want,” continued the skipper, “to go out at times that might mean having them as you left at home standing on the shore looking out to sea for a boat as would never come back.”“No,” said the boy, with something like a sigh. “I know what you mean. Ah, it has been very horrible sometimes, and all those little churchyards at the different villages about the coast with that regular ‘Drowned at sea’ over and over and over again.”“Right, my lad. Things go wrong sometimes; but that’s what makes sailors and fishermen get to learn what the moon says and the sun and the clouds, and the bit of haze that gathers sometimes off the coast means. Why, if you’d looked out yesterday afternoon when the wind went down and the glint of sunshine come out, there was a nasty dirty look in the sky. You wait a bit and keep your eyes open, and put that and that together, and as you grow up you’ll find that it isn’t so hard as you’d think to say what the weather is going to be to-morrow. You’ll often be wrong, same as I am.”“Ah! then I shall begin at once,” cried Rodd eagerly, as he looked sharply round. “Well, it can’t go on pelting down like this with hail coming now and then in showers. Showers come and go.”“Right!” said the skipper, clapping him on the shoulder.“Oh!” cried Rodd sharply.“Hullo! Why, you don’t mean to say that hurt?”“Hurt! No,” cried Rodd, shaking his head violently. “You shot a lot of cold water right up into my ear.”“Oh, that will soon dry up. Well, what do you say the weather’s going to be?”“The storm soon over, and a fine day to-morrow.”“Done?” asked the skipper.“Oh yes; but mind, that’s only a try.”“Then it’s my turn now, youngster, so here goes. I say we shall have worse weather to-morrow than we have got to-day.”“Oh, it can’t be!” cried Rodd.“Well,” cried the skipper, chuckling, “we shall see who’s right.”“Oh, but I don’t want for us to have to stop here in this French port.”“More don’t I, my lad, so we think the same there. You going to stop on deck?”“Yes, till dinner-time,” cried Rodd, and just then the haze of rain out seaward opened a little, revealing the brig with its tall spars and web of rigging.This somehow set the boy thinking about the escape from accident when they came into port, and then of the encounter ashore, and he began talking.“It’s no use to go down below. It’s so stuffy, and I want to chat. I say, captain, what do you think of that brig?”“Very smartly built craft indeed, my lad—one as I should like to sail if I could do as I liked.”“Do as you liked?” asked Rodd.“Yes; alter her rig—make a schooner of her. But as she is she’s as pretty a vessel as I ever see—for a brig. Frenchmen don’t often turn out a boat like that.”“What should you think she is?” asked Rodd. “A merchantman?”“No, my lad; I should say she was something of a dispatch boat, though she aren’t a man-of-war. I don’t quite make her out. She’s got a very smart crew, and I saw two of her officers go aboard in some sort of uniform, though it was too dark to quite make it out.”“But if she’s a man-of-war she would carry guns, wouldn’t she?” asked Rodd.“Well, I don’t think she’s a man-of-war, my lad,” replied the skipper; “but she do carry guns, and one of them’s a big swivel I just saw amidships. But men-of-war, merchantmen, and coasters, we’re all alike in a storm, and glad to get into shelter.”“Yes, it is a fine-looking brig. Is she likely to be a privateer?”“Eh? What do you know about privateers?”“Oh, not much,” said Rodd. “But going about at Plymouth and talking to the sailors, of course I used to hear something about them.”“Well, yes, of course,” said the skipper thoughtfully, as he too swept the drops from the front of his sou’-wester, and tried to pierce the falling rain. “She might be a French privateer out of work, as you may say, for their game’s at an end now that the war’s over. Yes, a very smart craft.”“But do you think she’s here for any particular purpose?”“Yes, my lad; a very particular purpose.”“Ah!” cried the boy rather excitedly. “What?”“To take care of herself and keep in harbour till the weather turns right. Why? What were you thinking?”“I was wondering why she came in so close after us, and then anchored where she is.”“Oh, I can tell you that,” said the skipper, chuckling. “It was because she couldn’t help herself.”“Then you don’t think she was watching us?”“No-o! What should she want to watch us for?”“Why, to take us as a prize, seeing what a beautiful little schooner it is.”“Bah! She’d better not try,” said the skipper grimly. “Why, what stuff have you got in your head, boy? We are not at war with France.”“No-o,” said Rodd thoughtfully; “but her captain might have taken a fancy to theMaid of Salcombe, and I’ve read that privateers are not very particular when they get a chance. And the war’s only just over.”“No. But then, you see, my lad, even if you were right, that brig wouldn’t have a chance.”“Why, suppose she waited till we had sailed, and followed till she thought it was a good opportunity, and then her captain led his men aboard and took her?”“Oh, I see,” said the skipper dryly. “Well, my lad, as I say, she wouldn’t have a chance. First, because she couldn’t catch us, for give me sea room I could sail right round her.”“Ah, but suppose it was a calm, and she sent her boats full of men on board to take us?”“Well, what then?”“What then? Why, wouldn’t that be very awkward?” asked Rodd.“Very, for them,” said the skipper grimly. “What would my boys be about?”“Why, they’d be taken prisoners.”“I should just like to see her try,” said the skipper. “If the boats’ crews of that brig were to get a lodgment aboard my craft, how long do you think it would take our lads to clear them off?”“Oh, I am sure our crew would be very brave, but I should say that brig’s got twice as many men as we have.”“What of that?” said the skipper contemptuously.“Well, then,” said Rodd argumentatively, “she’s got her guns, and might sink us.”“And we’ve got our guns, and might sink her,” growled the skipper. “Look here, my lad; why did I give my lads gun drill and cutlass and pike drill, while you and the doctor were taking in your tackle and bags of tricks?”“Why, to defend the schooner against any savages who might attack us when we are off the West Coast or among the islands.”“Right, my lad. Well, as Pat would say, by the same token couldn’t they just as well fight a pack of Frenchies as a tribe of niggers? Bah! You’re all wrong. It’s quite like enough that yon brig may have been fitted out for a privateer, though I rather think she wouldn’t be fast enough. But that game’s all over, and we are all going to be at peace now we have put Bony away like a wild beast in a cage and he can’t do anybody any hurt. There, you needn’t fidget yourself about that. All the same, I don’t quite understand why a craft that isn’t a man-of-war, but carries a long gun amidships and has officers in uniform aboard, should be taking refuge in this port. I dunno. She looks too smart and clean, but it might mean that she’s going to the West Coast, blackbirding.”“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Rodd. “Why, that’s what you thought about us, Captain Chubb.”“So I did; so I did, my lad,” said the skipper good-humouredly. “You see, I am like other men—think I am very wise, but I do stupid things sometimes. Well, I’ll be safe this time, and say I don’t know what she is, and I don’t much care. But I am pretty sure that she aren’t after us, and I dare say, if the truth’s known, she don’t think we are after her. There, squint out yonder to windward. That don’t look like fine weather, does it?”“No; worse than ever!” cried Rodd.“That’s so, my lad, and you may take this for certain; we shan’t sail to-day, and you won’t see another vessel put out to sea. Take my word for it.”“That I will, Captain Chubb!” cried the boy earnestly, and the skipper nodded his head so quickly that the water flew off in a shower.But, as some wag once said, the wisest way is to wait till after something has happened before you begin to prophesy about it.Captain Chubb had probably never heard about the wisdom of this proceeding in foretelling events, for it so happened that in spite of the storm increasing in violence for many hours, his words proved to be entirely wrong.
“Oh, I say, Uncle Paul, isn’t it horrible?” cried Rodd the next morning.
Breakfast was just over, and Captain Chubb had gone on deck, while the wind was howling furiously as if in a rage to find its playthings, some two or three hundred vessels of different tonnage, safely moored in the shelter of the harbour, and out of its power to toss here and there and pitch so many helpless ruins to be beaten to pieces upon the shore.
Down it kept coming right in amongst them, making them check at their mooring cables and chains, but in vain, for their crews had been too busy, and the only satisfaction that the tempest could obtain, was to hearken to the miserable dreary groans that were here and there emitted as some of the least fortunate and worst secured ground against each other.
“Isn’t it horrible, uncle?” shouted Rodd, for the rain just then was mingled with good-sized hailstones, and was rattling down upon the deck and skylight in a way that half-drowned the lad’s voice.
“Miserable weather, Pickle; but never mind. We must settle down to a good morning’s work in the laboratory.”
“Oh no, not yet, uncle; we don’t seem to have started. It will only be a makeshift.”
“But we might put things a little more straight, boy.”
“Oh no, uncle; they are too straight now, and I want to go on deck.”
“Bah! It isn’t fit. Wait till the weather holds up.”
“Oh, I shall dress up accordingly, uncle. But I say, where does all the rain come from? It must be falling in millions of tons everywhere.”
“Ah, you might as well ask me where the wind comes from. Study up some book on meteorology.”
“Oh yes, I will, uncle; but not yet.”
“Very well; be off.”
Rodd hurried out of the cabin, and five minutes later came back rattling and crackling, to present himself before his uncle, who thrust up his spectacles upon his forehead and stared.
“There,” cried Rodd; “don’t think I shall get wet. I wish I’d had it the other night. It’s splendid, uncle, and so stiff that if I like to stoop down a little and spread my arms, I can almost rest in it. I say, don’t I look like a dried haddock?”
“Humph! Well, yes, you do look about the same colour,” grumbled the doctor, for the boy was buttoned up in a glistening oilskin coat of a buff yellow tint; the turned-up collar just revealed the tips of his ears, and he was crowned by a sou’-wester securely tied beneath his chin.
“I say, this will do, won’t it?”
“Yes, you look a beauty!” grunted the doctor; “but there, be off; I want to write a letter or two.”
Rodd went crackling up the cabin stairs, clump, clump, clump, for he was wearing a heavy pair of fisherman’s boots that had been made waterproof by many applications of oil—a pair specially prepared for fishing purposes and future wading amongst the wonders of coral reef and strand.
The deck was almost deserted, the only two personages of the schooner’s crew being the captain and Joe Cross, both costumed so as to match exactly with the boy, who now joined them, to begin streaming with water to the same extent as they.
They both looked at him in turn, Cross grinning and just showing a glint of his white teeth where the collar of his oilskin joined, while his companion scowled, or seemed to, and emitted a low grumbling sound that might have meant welcome or the finding of fault, which of the two Rodd did not grasp, for the skipper turned his back and rolled slowly away as if he were bobbing like a vessel through the flood which covered the deck and was streaming away from the scuppers.
As the skipper went right forward and stood by the bowsprit, looking straight ahead through the haze formed by the streaming rain, Rodd was thrown back upon Joe Cross, with whom, almost from the day when the man had joined, he had begun to grow intimate; and as he went close up to him, the sailor gave his head a toss to distribute some of the rain that was splashing down upon his sou’-wester, and grinning visibly now, he cried—
“Why, Mr Rodd, sir, you’ve forgot your umbrella.”
“Get out!” cried Rodd good-humouredly. “But I say, Joe, how long is this rain going to last?”
“Looks as if it means to go on for months, sir, but may leave off to-night. I say, though, that’s a splendid fit, sir. You do look fine! Are you comfortable in there?”
Rodd did not answer, for he was trying to pierce the streaming haze and make out whether the brig was visible.
For a few moments he could not make it out, but there it was, looking faint and strange, about a hundred yards away.
“That’s the brig, isn’t it, yonder?” he said at last.
“Yes, sir, that’s she, and they seem to have got her fast now; but she wouldn’t hurt us if she broke from her moorings, for the wind’s veered a point or two, and it would take her clear away.”
Rodd remained silent as he stood thinking, he did not know why, unless it was that the vessel with the tall, dimly-seen tapering spars bore a French name, and somehow—again he could not tell why, only that it seemed to him very ridiculous—the shadowy vessel associated itself with the two French officers he had encountered in the darkness of the previous night, when he heard one of them after brushing against him murmur the word “Pardon!” And he found himself thinking that if the vessel had been swept up against the schooner when her anchor was dragging, it would have been no use for her crew to cry “Pardon!” as that would not have cured the damage.
“Well, sir, what do you make of her?” cried the sailor, putting an end to the lad’s musings.
“Can’t see much,” said Rodd, “for the rain, but she seems beautifully rigged.”
“Yes, sir, and she can sail well too—for a brig—but I should set her down as being too heavily sparred, and likely to be top-heavy. If she was going along full sail, and was caught in such a squall as we had yesterday, and laid flat like the schooner, I don’t believe she’d lift again. Anyhow, I shouldn’t like to be aboard.”
“No, it wouldn’t be pleasant,” said Rodd; “but I say, I can’t see anything of that long gun you talked about.”
“No wonder, sir. You want that there long water-glass, as you called it—that there one you showed me as you was unpacking it. Don’t you remember? Like a big pipe with panes of glass in it as you said you could stick down into the sea and make out what was on the bottom. You want that now.”
The man passed his hand along the brow edge of his sou’-wester to sweep away the drops, and then took a long look at the deck of the brig.
“No, sir; can’t make it out now; but I see it plainly enough this morning, covered with a lashed down tarpaulin as if to hide it, and I knew at once. I can almost tell a big gun by the smell—I mean feel it like, if it’s there.”
“But do you still think she’s a privateer?”
“Well, I don’t say she is, sir, for that’s a thing you can’t tell for sartain unless you see a ship’s papers; but she is something of that kind, I should say, and— Ay, ay, sir!—There’s the skipper hailed me, sir. I say, Mr Rodd, sir, do mind you don’t get wet!”
This was as the man rolled away sailor fashion, and emitting a crackling whishing sound as he made for the vessel’s bows, where he received some order from his captain which sent him to the covered-in hatchway of the forecastle, where he slowly disappeared into a kind of haze, half water, half smoke, for several of the water-bound crew had given up the chewing of their tobacco to indulge in pipes.
But Rodd was in a talkative humour, and made his way to the skipper, saluting him with—
“I say, Captain Chubb, how do you manage to do it?”
“Do what, my lad?”
“Why, say for certain what the weather’s going to be.”
There was a low chuckling sound such as might have been emitted by a good-humoured porpoise which had just ended one of its underwater curves, and thrust its head above the surface to take a good deep breath before it turned itself over and dived down again.
“Second natur’, youngster, and that’s use. Takes a long time to learn, and when you have larnt your lesson perfect as you think, you find that you don’t know it a bit.”
“But you did know it,” said Rodd. “You said that the storm would come on again, when it was beautiful and fine yesterday evening; and here it is.”
“Well, yes, my lad, if you goes on for years trying to hit something you must get a lucky shot sometimes.”
“Oh yes, but there’s something more than that,” said Rodd. “When I have been amongst the fishermen in Plymouth, and over in Saltash, I have wondered to find how exact they were about the weather, and how whenever they wouldn’t take us out fishing they were always right. They seemed to know that bad weather was coming on.”
“Oh, of course,” said the skipper. “Why, my lad, if you got your living by going out in your boat, don’t you think the first thing you would try to learn would be to make it your living?”
“Why, of course,” cried Rodd.
“Ah, you don’t mean the same as I do. I mean, make it your living and not your dying.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You wouldn’t want,” continued the skipper, “to go out at times that might mean having them as you left at home standing on the shore looking out to sea for a boat as would never come back.”
“No,” said the boy, with something like a sigh. “I know what you mean. Ah, it has been very horrible sometimes, and all those little churchyards at the different villages about the coast with that regular ‘Drowned at sea’ over and over and over again.”
“Right, my lad. Things go wrong sometimes; but that’s what makes sailors and fishermen get to learn what the moon says and the sun and the clouds, and the bit of haze that gathers sometimes off the coast means. Why, if you’d looked out yesterday afternoon when the wind went down and the glint of sunshine come out, there was a nasty dirty look in the sky. You wait a bit and keep your eyes open, and put that and that together, and as you grow up you’ll find that it isn’t so hard as you’d think to say what the weather is going to be to-morrow. You’ll often be wrong, same as I am.”
“Ah! then I shall begin at once,” cried Rodd eagerly, as he looked sharply round. “Well, it can’t go on pelting down like this with hail coming now and then in showers. Showers come and go.”
“Right!” said the skipper, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Oh!” cried Rodd sharply.
“Hullo! Why, you don’t mean to say that hurt?”
“Hurt! No,” cried Rodd, shaking his head violently. “You shot a lot of cold water right up into my ear.”
“Oh, that will soon dry up. Well, what do you say the weather’s going to be?”
“The storm soon over, and a fine day to-morrow.”
“Done?” asked the skipper.
“Oh yes; but mind, that’s only a try.”
“Then it’s my turn now, youngster, so here goes. I say we shall have worse weather to-morrow than we have got to-day.”
“Oh, it can’t be!” cried Rodd.
“Well,” cried the skipper, chuckling, “we shall see who’s right.”
“Oh, but I don’t want for us to have to stop here in this French port.”
“More don’t I, my lad, so we think the same there. You going to stop on deck?”
“Yes, till dinner-time,” cried Rodd, and just then the haze of rain out seaward opened a little, revealing the brig with its tall spars and web of rigging.
This somehow set the boy thinking about the escape from accident when they came into port, and then of the encounter ashore, and he began talking.
“It’s no use to go down below. It’s so stuffy, and I want to chat. I say, captain, what do you think of that brig?”
“Very smartly built craft indeed, my lad—one as I should like to sail if I could do as I liked.”
“Do as you liked?” asked Rodd.
“Yes; alter her rig—make a schooner of her. But as she is she’s as pretty a vessel as I ever see—for a brig. Frenchmen don’t often turn out a boat like that.”
“What should you think she is?” asked Rodd. “A merchantman?”
“No, my lad; I should say she was something of a dispatch boat, though she aren’t a man-of-war. I don’t quite make her out. She’s got a very smart crew, and I saw two of her officers go aboard in some sort of uniform, though it was too dark to quite make it out.”
“But if she’s a man-of-war she would carry guns, wouldn’t she?” asked Rodd.
“Well, I don’t think she’s a man-of-war, my lad,” replied the skipper; “but she do carry guns, and one of them’s a big swivel I just saw amidships. But men-of-war, merchantmen, and coasters, we’re all alike in a storm, and glad to get into shelter.”
“Yes, it is a fine-looking brig. Is she likely to be a privateer?”
“Eh? What do you know about privateers?”
“Oh, not much,” said Rodd. “But going about at Plymouth and talking to the sailors, of course I used to hear something about them.”
“Well, yes, of course,” said the skipper thoughtfully, as he too swept the drops from the front of his sou’-wester, and tried to pierce the falling rain. “She might be a French privateer out of work, as you may say, for their game’s at an end now that the war’s over. Yes, a very smart craft.”
“But do you think she’s here for any particular purpose?”
“Yes, my lad; a very particular purpose.”
“Ah!” cried the boy rather excitedly. “What?”
“To take care of herself and keep in harbour till the weather turns right. Why? What were you thinking?”
“I was wondering why she came in so close after us, and then anchored where she is.”
“Oh, I can tell you that,” said the skipper, chuckling. “It was because she couldn’t help herself.”
“Then you don’t think she was watching us?”
“No-o! What should she want to watch us for?”
“Why, to take us as a prize, seeing what a beautiful little schooner it is.”
“Bah! She’d better not try,” said the skipper grimly. “Why, what stuff have you got in your head, boy? We are not at war with France.”
“No-o,” said Rodd thoughtfully; “but her captain might have taken a fancy to theMaid of Salcombe, and I’ve read that privateers are not very particular when they get a chance. And the war’s only just over.”
“No. But then, you see, my lad, even if you were right, that brig wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Why, suppose she waited till we had sailed, and followed till she thought it was a good opportunity, and then her captain led his men aboard and took her?”
“Oh, I see,” said the skipper dryly. “Well, my lad, as I say, she wouldn’t have a chance. First, because she couldn’t catch us, for give me sea room I could sail right round her.”
“Ah, but suppose it was a calm, and she sent her boats full of men on board to take us?”
“Well, what then?”
“What then? Why, wouldn’t that be very awkward?” asked Rodd.
“Very, for them,” said the skipper grimly. “What would my boys be about?”
“Why, they’d be taken prisoners.”
“I should just like to see her try,” said the skipper. “If the boats’ crews of that brig were to get a lodgment aboard my craft, how long do you think it would take our lads to clear them off?”
“Oh, I am sure our crew would be very brave, but I should say that brig’s got twice as many men as we have.”
“What of that?” said the skipper contemptuously.
“Well, then,” said Rodd argumentatively, “she’s got her guns, and might sink us.”
“And we’ve got our guns, and might sink her,” growled the skipper. “Look here, my lad; why did I give my lads gun drill and cutlass and pike drill, while you and the doctor were taking in your tackle and bags of tricks?”
“Why, to defend the schooner against any savages who might attack us when we are off the West Coast or among the islands.”
“Right, my lad. Well, as Pat would say, by the same token couldn’t they just as well fight a pack of Frenchies as a tribe of niggers? Bah! You’re all wrong. It’s quite like enough that yon brig may have been fitted out for a privateer, though I rather think she wouldn’t be fast enough. But that game’s all over, and we are all going to be at peace now we have put Bony away like a wild beast in a cage and he can’t do anybody any hurt. There, you needn’t fidget yourself about that. All the same, I don’t quite understand why a craft that isn’t a man-of-war, but carries a long gun amidships and has officers in uniform aboard, should be taking refuge in this port. I dunno. She looks too smart and clean, but it might mean that she’s going to the West Coast, blackbirding.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Rodd. “Why, that’s what you thought about us, Captain Chubb.”
“So I did; so I did, my lad,” said the skipper good-humouredly. “You see, I am like other men—think I am very wise, but I do stupid things sometimes. Well, I’ll be safe this time, and say I don’t know what she is, and I don’t much care. But I am pretty sure that she aren’t after us, and I dare say, if the truth’s known, she don’t think we are after her. There, squint out yonder to windward. That don’t look like fine weather, does it?”
“No; worse than ever!” cried Rodd.
“That’s so, my lad, and you may take this for certain; we shan’t sail to-day, and you won’t see another vessel put out to sea. Take my word for it.”
“That I will, Captain Chubb!” cried the boy earnestly, and the skipper nodded his head so quickly that the water flew off in a shower.
But, as some wag once said, the wisest way is to wait till after something has happened before you begin to prophesy about it.
Captain Chubb had probably never heard about the wisdom of this proceeding in foretelling events, for it so happened that in spite of the storm increasing in violence for many hours, his words proved to be entirely wrong.
Chapter Fifteen.An Exciting Time.About mid-day there was a sudden lull. The wind blew nearly as hard as ever, but the clouds were broken up, allowing a few gleams of sunshine to pass through, and soon after the sky seemed to be completely swept; the streaming wharves and streets began to show patches of dry paving, and nearly every vessel near was hung with the men’s oilskins, Rodd being one of the first to shed his awkward garments and come out looking more like himself.There was such a transformation scene, and all looked so bright in the sunshine, that the boy took the first opportunity to ask the skipper what he thought of it now.“Just the same as I did before, my lad,” he replied bluntly. “Here, it’s only mid-day, and mid-day aren’t to-night, and to-night aren’t to-morrow morning. Just you wait.”“Oh, I’ll wait,” said Rodd, “but I think we ought to start off as soon as we can, and get right away to sea.”“Do you?” said the captain gruffly. “Well, I don’t.”After dinner Uncle Paul had a few words with the skipper, and then shook his head at his nephew, who was watching them inquiringly.“No, my lad,” he said, “it won’t do; the captain says there’s more bad weather coming; but we’ll go and have a look round the town if you like.”Rodd did like as a matter of course, and with the sun now shining brightly as if there were no prospect of more rain for a month, they were rowed ashore, Rodd noticing as they went that the crew of the brig seemed to be very busy, a couple of boats going to and fro fetching stores of some kind from the nearest wharf, but what he could not make out.Then came a good ramble through the busy place, where everybody seemed to be taking advantage of the cessation of the storm, and Rodd noted everything to as great an extent as a hurried visit would allow.There was plenty to see, the forts, one each side of the harbour, and a couple more on the higher ground, displaying their grinning embrasures and guns commanding the harbour and the town, while soldiery in their rather shabby-looking uniforms could be seen here and there, and sentries turned the visitors back upon each occasion when they went near.“Rather an ugly place to tackle, Rodd, from the sea, but I suppose our fellows wouldn’t scruple about making an attack if there were any need. But here, I think we had better get back on board.”“Oh, not yet, uncle. I haven’t half seen enough.”“But I am getting sick of this tiresome wind,” said Uncle Paul. “One can’t keep on one’s hat, and it is just as if these gusts were genuine French, and kept on making a rush at us from round the corners of the streets as if they wanted to blow us into the harbour.”“Yes, it is rather tiresome,” replied Rodd. “But I should have liked to have had a look inside one of those batteries.”“Pooh! What do you want to see them for?”“Why, just because they are French, uncle.”“Nonsense! You have seen all ours on the heights of Plymouth, and they are a deal better-looking than these. We have a good way to walk, so let’s go down at once. There, look yonder.”“What at, uncle?”“What at? Why, at the clouds gathering there in the wind’s eye. You see Captain Chubb’s right, and we shall have the rain pouring down again before long.”Rodd laughed as if he did not believe it, but making no farther opposition, they began to descend towards the harbour; but before they were half-way there the wind had increased to a furious pitch, the sea became a sheet of foam, and with wonderful rapidity the clouds had gathered overhead, till a black curtain was sweeping right over, and a few heavy drops of rain began to fall. Then down came a drenching shower, and they were glad to run for refuge to the nearest shelter, which presented itself in the shape of a great barrack-like building that seemed to be built about a square, and at whose arched entrance a couple of sentries with shouldered muskets were pacing up and down.As Uncle Paul and Rodd approached at a trot, with the intention of getting under the archway, both sentries stopped short, and one of them held his weapon across breast high, scowling fiercely, and barred their way.“Here, it’s all right,” cried Rodd. “We only want to shelter out of the rain for a few minutes;” and he pressed forward. “Come on, uncle. Never mind him!”“Halte là!” cried the sentry.But Uncle Paul’s hand went to his pocket, and drawing out half-a-crown he pointed quickly at the falling rain and the archway under which they now stood, taking out his handkerchief the while, and beginning to brush off the drops which bedewed his coat.The man glanced at the coin, then at his brother sentry, and both looked inward at the square behind them. The exchange of glances was very quick, and then the first sentry opened one hand, but kept it very close to his side, again looking inward to see that he was not observed, before grumbling out—“Eh bien! Restez!” And then as if perfectly unconscious of the bribe he had received, he resumed his slow pace up and down under the shelter of the great archway.It was all a matter of minutes, but long enough for the wind and rain to have gathered force, and while the former raved and shrieked, down came the latter in a sheet, or rather in a succession of sheets which made the roadways seem as if full of dancing chess pawns, and the gullies turn at once into so many furious little torrents tearing down the slopes towards the harbour.“Nice, isn’t it, uncle?” said Rodd merrily.“Nice!” grumbled Uncle Paul. “I don’t know what I was thinking about to give way to you in such treacherous weather. Why, it’s worse than ever. How are we going to get back to the schooner?”“Oh, it will soon be over, uncle, and if it isn’t we must get to know where the nearest place is from that sentry, and make a rush for it to get some tea, and wait there till the shower is over.”“Shower!” said Uncle Paul. “It looks to me like a night of storm coming on, and as if we shan’t get back to the schooner to-night.”“Well, it doesn’t matter, uncle,” cried the boy coolly. “There’s sure to be a good hotel, and Captain Chubb will know why we haven’t come back. As soon as there’s a bit of a lull we will make a run for it, and we shall be able to get a lesson in French.”“Bah!” said Uncle Paul impatiently. “How the wind comes whistling through this archway! We shall be getting wet even here.”The two men on guard were evidently of the same opinion, for they turned to their sentry boxes and began to put on their overcoats, after standing their muskets inside.But before this was half done, each snatched up his piece again and faced the entrance, for all at once there was the clattering of hoofs in the cobbled paved street, and a cavalry officer, followed at a short distance by a couple of men, dashed up to the front and turned in under the archway, drenched with rain, the officer saying something sharply to one of the sentries.The man replied by pointing to a doorway at the back of the great entrance, while the officer swung himself from his horse, threw the rein to one of his men, and then lifting his sabre-tache by the strap he gave it a swing or two to throw off the water from its dripping sides, and then opened the great pocket to peer inside as if to see that its contents were safe.The next moment, as if satisfied, he let it fall to the full length of its slings, gave a stamp or two to shake off the water that dripped from him, and then raised his hands to give a twist to the points of his wet moustache. He scowled fiercely at Rodd the while, and then marched towards the doorway with the steel scabbard of his sabre clinking and clanking over the stones.“Pretty good opinion of himself, Pickle,” said Uncle Paul quietly.“Yes, uncle; but what a pair of trousers—no, I mean long boots—no, I don’t; I mean trousers.—Which are they, uncle?” added the boy, who was rather tickled by the size and the way in which they were finished off at the bottoms with leather as if they were jack-boots.“Wait till he comes out, Pickle, and ask him,” said the doctor dryly.“No, thank you, uncle; my French is so bad,” said the boy, with his eyes sparkling. “But, my word, they must have been galloping hard to escape the rain! Look at those poor horses. They are breathed.”Rodd had hardly spoken when they became fully aware that they had taken refuge in the entrance to the town barracks, for the notes of a bugle rang out, echoing round the inner square of the building, and seeming to be thrown back in a half-smothered way from wall to wall, while the wind and rain raged down more fiercely than ever.“Something must be the matter,” said Rodd, with his lips close to his uncle’s ear.“Seems like it, boy. That officer must have brought a dispatch.”The object of the bugle was shown directly, for in spite of the rain the interior of the barracks began to assume the aspect of some huge wasps’ nest that had suddenly been disturbed.Soldiers came hurrying out into the rain, hurriedly putting on their overcoats; the great arched gateway filled up at once with men seeking its shelter, and the sentry who had received his half-crown came to roughly order the English intruders to go elsewhere; but it was only outside militarism, for he said in a low hurried tone in French—“Run outside to the end of the barracks. Grand café.”“Come along, uncle. Never mind the rain,” cried Rodd, catching at his uncle’s wrist, as he fully grasped the sentry’s meaning; and stepping outside the archway they ran together, or rather, were half carried by the shrieking wind, for some thirty or forty yards, almost into the doorway of a large lit-up building, for already it seemed to be almost night.“Never mind the rain, indeed!” grumbled Uncle Paul. “Why, I’m nearly soaked. Oh, come, we have got into civilised regions, at all events;” for a couple of waiters, seeing their plight, literally pounced upon them and hurried them through the building into a great kitchen where a huge fire was burning and the smell of cookery saluted their nostrils.The attentions of the waiters of what was evidently one of the principal hotels of the town were very welcome, and a glance teaching them that their visitors were people of some standing, they made use of their napkins to remove as much of the superabundant moisture as was possible, and then furnished themselves with a fresh relay to operate upon their backs.“Queer, isn’t it, uncle? I am quite dry in front. My word, how the rain did come down!”“Messieurs will dine here?” said one of the waiters smilingly.“Oh, oui, pour certain” replied Uncle Paul. “If you don’t mind, Pickle.”“Mind, uncle? Oh, yes, of course. I am horribly hungry.”“You always are, my boy. Well, we must make the best of a bad business,” continued the doctor, as, nodding to the waiter, he moved a little closer to the fire and turned his back, an example followed by Rodd.“It makes a dreadful time, monsieur,” said the smiling waiter. “Will he choose, or trust his servant to prepare a dinner upon the field of which the English milor’ will be proud?”“You speak capital English,” said the doctor, rather sarcastically.“I have been many times in public in London.”“Ah, that’s right. Then give us a snug little dinner while we dry ourselves. But what’s the meaning of all that upset at the barracks next door?”“It is not quite that I know, sir,” said the man eagerly; “but two officers came in upon the instant to put their cloaks where they should not water themselves so much, and I hear them say, a dispatch come quickly for monsieur the Governor to seize upon a ship. Oh, faith of a man! Hark at that!”For there was a sudden crash and an echoing roar, while some of the utensils in the great kitchen clattered together, and a piece of earthenware fell from a shelf upon the stone floor, to be shivered to atoms.“Tonnerre, eh?” said the doctor.“Non, non, monsieur” cried the man, relapsing into his native tongue for a moment. “It is what you English gentlemen call a great gun from the fort; and look, look! The poorcuisinièremuch alarm, as you call it.”For just then, as if catching the contagion from the shrieking of the storm, one of the cook-maids threw herself back into a chair and began to scream.It was a busy scene for a few minutes while the frightened hysterical woman was hurried out, while with the storm seeming to increase in violence, and amid the trampling of armed men outside, who were hurrying from the barracks, the two English visitors gradually picked up scraps of information which explained the excitement that in spite of the storm was going on outside.“Messieurs would like to see,” said the friendly waiter. “They will come up-stairs to the longsallewhose windows give upon the harbour.”“But what’s the matter?” cried Rodd. “Is there a wreck?”“A wreck, sare?” said the waiter, shaking his head. “No, I know not wreck.”“Has a ship come ashore and is breaking up?”“Ha, ha! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You would saynaufrage. Non, non, non! It is a sheep in the harbour; a foreign spy. They say it has come to set fire to the town.”“Then they have chosen a very bad night for it,” said Uncle Paul, laughing.“Monsieur is right. Nosing would burn. But the enemies of la France, my great country, not stop to think of zat.”“Oh, but that must be a rumour, Rodd,” said Uncle Paul uneasily. “Why, surely they are not going to fancy that our English schooner is a spy and an enemy!”The waiter’s ears were sharp, and he cried at once—“English! Oh non, monsieur. You are from the little two-mast. It is not you. It is some enemy of the King whose sheep is in the harbour, and great dispatches have come to the Governor that she is to be seized. Ah, there again, monsieur! Anozzer gun from the fort.”It was plain enough to hear, for the windows of the big badly-lit room into which the man had conducted them clattered in their frames, while the dull, heavy report was preceded by a vivid flash as of lightning.“Ha, ha! You see. The sheep will not get away, for at the forts they are alert and will sink her if she try.”“Oh, but no vessel could try to put out in a storm like this, Rodd,” said Uncle Paul.“No, sare,” continued the waiter excitedly; “the boats will go out with the soldiers and take the sheep.”“She is a man-of-war, I suppose?”“Yes, sare. Not very big, but an enemy; but if she fight they will shoot from all the forts and sink her.”“But how do you know all this?” said Rodd.“Many soldiers, horsemen, came galloping up to bring dispatches to the Governor. There, sare; you will look from the window,” continued the man, using a clean serviette that he took from under his arm to rub the steamy window-panes, for the cold blast of the storm had caused the warm air inside to blur the glass with a thick deposit of vapour. “There, sare,” continued the man; “zat is ze sheep.”“Oh, it’s too thick to see for the rain.”“Yes, sare; but you see out zare in ze arbour ze two lights.”“Nonsense man!” cried Uncle Paul, half angrily. “That is the English schooner—ours.”“Oh, non, non, non, monsieur! Away to zegauche—ze left hand. Ze sheep with two high, tall mast, that we all see here when she come in ze storm yesterday. We all here with ze officer of ze regiment see you come in through ze storm, and ze enemy sheep, a stranger, come after, and ze officer say she will run you down and sink you in ze harbour!”“Oh, that one!” cried Rodd excitedly.“Ah, I see, monsieur knows. You see her lights swing in the wind—two;” and the man held up a couple of fingers.“Yes, I see where you mean,” cried Rodd; “but she has only one light.”“Ah, ha! Monsieur is right. Zare is only one. Ze vind storm has blow out ze uzzer. Look, now zare is no light at all. Ze sheep put im out.”The violence of the rain was now abating, but the wind beat against and shook the window-panes and shrieked as it rushed by. It was evening, and a few minutes before it had been dark as night, but with the cessation of the rain the heavy forms and light rigging of the many vessels gradually became more and more visible, while fresh lights began to come into view, but in every case not moving and swinging about like those in the rigging of the safely moored ships, but gliding about from various directions as if they were in the sterns of boats that had put off from the harbour side.“Messieurs see?” said the waiter excitedly. “Two boats come now from the fort on ze uzzer side. Look, look! Ze lights shine on ze soldiers’ bayonet. They go to take ze sheep.”As the man was speaking the brig that had previously taken up so much of Rodd’s attention stood out more clearly. Her riding lights were indeed gone, but there was a peculiar misty look forward, and it was now Rodd’s turn to speak excitedly about what he saw.“Why, uncle,” he cried, “she’s moving! They’ve slipped their cable and hoisted the jib!”“Nonsense, boy! Not in a storm like this.”“I don’t care, uncle; she has. Look; you can see her gliding along.”“Impossible!”“It isn’t, uncle. Look, you can see them plainly now; two boats full of men, and they are rowing hard, but getting no nearer to the brig. Here, I want to see; let’s get right down to the harbour.”“What, to get wet again?” cried Uncle Paul.“It doesn’t rain now a drop. There’s nothing but wind; and look, look; the people are running down now in crowds, and there goes a company of soldiers at the double. Oh, there’s going to be something very exciting, uncle, and we must see.”“But the dinner, boy, the dinner! What is this to us?”“Dinner, uncle!” cried the lad indignantly. “Who’s going to stop for dinner when there are boats out yonder full of men going to board and take a ship?”“Humph! Well,” grunted Uncle Paul, “I suppose it would be rather exciting, and we shall be able to see; but I don’t know, though. There’ll be firing, and who knows which way the bullets will fly?”“Oh, they; won’t hit us, uncle. Come on.”Uncle Paul was rapidly growing as excited as his nephew, while the waiter, if it were possible, was as full of eagerness as both together, and forgetting all his duties and the dinner that he had ordered to be prepared, he cried—“Ze rain is ovare; you come vith me. I take you out ze back way and down ze little rue which take us to the quay.”That was enough for Rodd, and the next minute they were following the waiter down the big staircase through the great kitchen once more, which was now quite deserted, and out into a walled yard to a back gateway, beyond which, mingling with the roaring of the wind, they could hear the trampling of many feet.“Zis way; zis way!” the bare-headed waiter kept crying, as he put his serviette to quite a new use, battling with the wind as he folded it diagonally and then turned it into a cover for his head by tying the corners under his chin.“Here, I say,” cried Rodd, as the man kept on at a trot; “I want to get to the harbour.”“Oui,oui; zis way!” panted their guide, who nearly put the visitors out of patience by turning off two or three times at right angles and apparently taking them quite away from where they wished to go. “Zis way! Zis way!” he kept on crying, till at last the trio were alone, others who had been hurrying onward having taken different directions.Bang went another gun from the fort, a report which seemed to be sent back instantly from the harbour walls, apparently close at hand.“Yes, zis way; zis way!” shouted the man. “I show you before zey sink ze sheep.”And now he suddenly turned into a narrow alley formed by two towering warehouses so close together that there was not room for two people to walk comfortably abreast; but “Zis way, zis way,” shouted the guide, “and you shall be zere upon ze field—sur le champ, sur le champ. Ah ha!” he cried directly after, as he suddenly issued from out of the darkness of the alley into the comparative light of a narrow wharf encumbered with casks, just beyond which was the dripping stone edge of the great harbour, and below them boats, barges, and lighters swinging from the great rusty iron rings and mooring posts of the quay.“Vat you say to dat?” cried the waiter, turning round to face his companions, beginning loudly and ending in a choking whisper, for he had met a gust of wind face to face which stopped him for the moment from taking his breath and forced him to turn his back and make a snatch at the corner of one of the warehouses. “Faith of a good man!” he panted. “The vind blow me inside out! Aha! What did I say?”“Capital!” panted Rodd, almost as breathlessly as the waiter, at whom upon any other occasion he would have burst out into a roar of laughter, so grotesque was his appearance with the white napkin tied under his chin. “Oh, this is a splendid place!”“Here, you look out, Pickle,” cried Uncle Paul. “Lay hold of something, or we shall be blown right off.”“All right, uncle. Why, if one of those gusts sent us into the harbour we should be drowned.”“Come a little farther this way, then, and if the wind is too much for us, why we shall only go down into this barge.”At that moment, as they looked across and downward towards the mouth of the harbour, there were the flashes of bright light to illumine the gloom of the evening, and the reports of a ragged volley of musketry coming from one of the two boats which they could now make out being rowed hard after the brig, as it glided rapidly along in the direction where the watchers now stood.Then for a short space it passed out of sight behind a group of four vessels which were safely moored. Then it was out again, and as the lookers-on excitedly watched, they made out dimly that the vessel answered her helm readily and was gliding round in a tack for the other side of the harbour, while the two boats in pursuit altered their direction, the men rowing with all their might, as if to cut the brig off during her next tack.There was another ragged volley, this time from the second boat; but if they were firing to bring down the steersman, it was in vain, for the brig sailed swiftly on, gaining a little way, as she made for the mouth of the harbour.This was far distant yet, and her chances of reaching it even in the shelter of the harbour, with such a gale blowing, were almost nil.“She’ll do it, though, uncle,” shouted Rodd, with his lips close to Uncle Paul’s ear.“Yes, my boy, I expect she will,” was the reply; “but they’ve got some daring people on board, and I shouldn’t like to be the man at the wheel.”“Ah, why don’t they shoot? Why don’t they shoot?” cried the waiter. “She is an enemy, and—”The rest of his speech was unheard, for another flash cut the darkness, followed by the thud of a big gun, the shot coming as it were instantly upon the waiter’s question; but it had no effect upon the brig, which came nearer and nearer to the pier-like wharves of the harbour, glided round again with the two stay-sails rilling upon the other tack, and then went off once more.“She’ll get away, uncle,” cried Rodd excitedly, “and I don’t know what they are, but one can’t help admiring such a brave deed.”There was another report, this time from quite another direction.“That must be from the fort up behind the town, Rodd,” cried Uncle Paul. “It’s too thick to see any splash, but they must be in earnest now, and will not be firing blank charges. It looks as if they mean to sink her if she doesn’t stop.”“They’ve got to hit her first, uncle,” cried Rodd excitedly. “Oh, I can’t help it, uncle,” he continued, with his lips close to his uncle’s ear so that the waiter should not catch his words, “but I do hope they won’t.”“Well, my boy, I can’t help feeling the same, though she’s neither enemy nor friend of ours, and we don’t know what it all means; for I don’t suppose,” he said, with a half-laugh, “that she has got Napoleon Bonaparte on board.”Uncle Paul had not taken his nephew’s precaution, and as a heavy gust was just dying out, the excited waiter caught a part of his speech.“Ha, ha!” he cried. “You sink so? You say le Petit Caporal is on board?”“No, no,” cried Uncle Paul; “I didn’t say so.”“No, sare; you think so, and zat is it. He has escape himself from ze place where you English shot him up safe, and he come in zat sheep to burn down ze town. But ah–h–h, again they will sink him. Faith of a man, no!” he cried angrily, for there was a shot from another battery, this time nearer the harbour mouth. “They cannot shoot straight.”For onward glided the brig, making tack after tack, and zigzagging her way through the narrow entrance of the harbour, at times partly sheltered by the great pier to windward, then as she glided farther out careening over in spite of the small amount of reefed sail she carried, but all the while so well under control that she kept on gaining and leaving the two boats farther and farther behind.“Oh, if it were only lighter!” cried Rodd, stamping his foot with vexation. “Why, she’ll soon be out of sight.”“Before she gets much farther,” said Uncle Paul gravely, “she’ll be getting within the light cast by one or other of the harbour lights, and that will be one of her critical times.”“Why critical, uncle?” cried the boy earnestly. “Because the men in the fort will have a better chance of hitting her, I should say.”“Oh, I hope they won’t,” said Rodd beneath his breath. “Why, it would be horrible, uncle,” he half whispered, with his lips close to his uncle’s face. “She must have a brave captain to dare all this.”“A very brave captain,” said Uncle Paul earnestly. “But you think she’ll get away, uncle?”“No, Rodney,” said the doctor, laying his hand with a firm grip upon his nephew’s shoulder. “She may pass through the harbour mouth without being hit by the gunners, for it would require a clever marksman to hit so swiftly moving an object, rising and falling as the brig does now that she is getting into the disturbed water near the mouth.”“But suppose she passes through untouched, uncle? What then?”“What then, boy? She will be out of the shelter given by the end of the jetty. It’s too dim now to see, but once or twice I had just a glimpse of the waves washing over the harbour light, and there must be a terrific sea out there. Why, you can hear it plainly even here.”“No, uncle; that’s the wind.”“And waves, my boy. Why, trying to sail out there in the teeth of such a gale as this, it will be almost impossible for her to escape. It seems to me to be an act of madness to attempt such an escapade, and cleverly as the brig is handled I think it is doubtful whether she will ever clear the mouth. But if she does she will catch the full force of the storm and—”“And what, uncle?”“Be carried away yonder to the east somewhere and cast ashore.”“Oh–h!” sighed Rodd; and it was almost a groan.
About mid-day there was a sudden lull. The wind blew nearly as hard as ever, but the clouds were broken up, allowing a few gleams of sunshine to pass through, and soon after the sky seemed to be completely swept; the streaming wharves and streets began to show patches of dry paving, and nearly every vessel near was hung with the men’s oilskins, Rodd being one of the first to shed his awkward garments and come out looking more like himself.
There was such a transformation scene, and all looked so bright in the sunshine, that the boy took the first opportunity to ask the skipper what he thought of it now.
“Just the same as I did before, my lad,” he replied bluntly. “Here, it’s only mid-day, and mid-day aren’t to-night, and to-night aren’t to-morrow morning. Just you wait.”
“Oh, I’ll wait,” said Rodd, “but I think we ought to start off as soon as we can, and get right away to sea.”
“Do you?” said the captain gruffly. “Well, I don’t.”
After dinner Uncle Paul had a few words with the skipper, and then shook his head at his nephew, who was watching them inquiringly.
“No, my lad,” he said, “it won’t do; the captain says there’s more bad weather coming; but we’ll go and have a look round the town if you like.”
Rodd did like as a matter of course, and with the sun now shining brightly as if there were no prospect of more rain for a month, they were rowed ashore, Rodd noticing as they went that the crew of the brig seemed to be very busy, a couple of boats going to and fro fetching stores of some kind from the nearest wharf, but what he could not make out.
Then came a good ramble through the busy place, where everybody seemed to be taking advantage of the cessation of the storm, and Rodd noted everything to as great an extent as a hurried visit would allow.
There was plenty to see, the forts, one each side of the harbour, and a couple more on the higher ground, displaying their grinning embrasures and guns commanding the harbour and the town, while soldiery in their rather shabby-looking uniforms could be seen here and there, and sentries turned the visitors back upon each occasion when they went near.
“Rather an ugly place to tackle, Rodd, from the sea, but I suppose our fellows wouldn’t scruple about making an attack if there were any need. But here, I think we had better get back on board.”
“Oh, not yet, uncle. I haven’t half seen enough.”
“But I am getting sick of this tiresome wind,” said Uncle Paul. “One can’t keep on one’s hat, and it is just as if these gusts were genuine French, and kept on making a rush at us from round the corners of the streets as if they wanted to blow us into the harbour.”
“Yes, it is rather tiresome,” replied Rodd. “But I should have liked to have had a look inside one of those batteries.”
“Pooh! What do you want to see them for?”
“Why, just because they are French, uncle.”
“Nonsense! You have seen all ours on the heights of Plymouth, and they are a deal better-looking than these. We have a good way to walk, so let’s go down at once. There, look yonder.”
“What at, uncle?”
“What at? Why, at the clouds gathering there in the wind’s eye. You see Captain Chubb’s right, and we shall have the rain pouring down again before long.”
Rodd laughed as if he did not believe it, but making no farther opposition, they began to descend towards the harbour; but before they were half-way there the wind had increased to a furious pitch, the sea became a sheet of foam, and with wonderful rapidity the clouds had gathered overhead, till a black curtain was sweeping right over, and a few heavy drops of rain began to fall. Then down came a drenching shower, and they were glad to run for refuge to the nearest shelter, which presented itself in the shape of a great barrack-like building that seemed to be built about a square, and at whose arched entrance a couple of sentries with shouldered muskets were pacing up and down.
As Uncle Paul and Rodd approached at a trot, with the intention of getting under the archway, both sentries stopped short, and one of them held his weapon across breast high, scowling fiercely, and barred their way.
“Here, it’s all right,” cried Rodd. “We only want to shelter out of the rain for a few minutes;” and he pressed forward. “Come on, uncle. Never mind him!”
“Halte là!” cried the sentry.
But Uncle Paul’s hand went to his pocket, and drawing out half-a-crown he pointed quickly at the falling rain and the archway under which they now stood, taking out his handkerchief the while, and beginning to brush off the drops which bedewed his coat.
The man glanced at the coin, then at his brother sentry, and both looked inward at the square behind them. The exchange of glances was very quick, and then the first sentry opened one hand, but kept it very close to his side, again looking inward to see that he was not observed, before grumbling out—
“Eh bien! Restez!” And then as if perfectly unconscious of the bribe he had received, he resumed his slow pace up and down under the shelter of the great archway.
It was all a matter of minutes, but long enough for the wind and rain to have gathered force, and while the former raved and shrieked, down came the latter in a sheet, or rather in a succession of sheets which made the roadways seem as if full of dancing chess pawns, and the gullies turn at once into so many furious little torrents tearing down the slopes towards the harbour.
“Nice, isn’t it, uncle?” said Rodd merrily.
“Nice!” grumbled Uncle Paul. “I don’t know what I was thinking about to give way to you in such treacherous weather. Why, it’s worse than ever. How are we going to get back to the schooner?”
“Oh, it will soon be over, uncle, and if it isn’t we must get to know where the nearest place is from that sentry, and make a rush for it to get some tea, and wait there till the shower is over.”
“Shower!” said Uncle Paul. “It looks to me like a night of storm coming on, and as if we shan’t get back to the schooner to-night.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter, uncle,” cried the boy coolly. “There’s sure to be a good hotel, and Captain Chubb will know why we haven’t come back. As soon as there’s a bit of a lull we will make a run for it, and we shall be able to get a lesson in French.”
“Bah!” said Uncle Paul impatiently. “How the wind comes whistling through this archway! We shall be getting wet even here.”
The two men on guard were evidently of the same opinion, for they turned to their sentry boxes and began to put on their overcoats, after standing their muskets inside.
But before this was half done, each snatched up his piece again and faced the entrance, for all at once there was the clattering of hoofs in the cobbled paved street, and a cavalry officer, followed at a short distance by a couple of men, dashed up to the front and turned in under the archway, drenched with rain, the officer saying something sharply to one of the sentries.
The man replied by pointing to a doorway at the back of the great entrance, while the officer swung himself from his horse, threw the rein to one of his men, and then lifting his sabre-tache by the strap he gave it a swing or two to throw off the water from its dripping sides, and then opened the great pocket to peer inside as if to see that its contents were safe.
The next moment, as if satisfied, he let it fall to the full length of its slings, gave a stamp or two to shake off the water that dripped from him, and then raised his hands to give a twist to the points of his wet moustache. He scowled fiercely at Rodd the while, and then marched towards the doorway with the steel scabbard of his sabre clinking and clanking over the stones.
“Pretty good opinion of himself, Pickle,” said Uncle Paul quietly.
“Yes, uncle; but what a pair of trousers—no, I mean long boots—no, I don’t; I mean trousers.—Which are they, uncle?” added the boy, who was rather tickled by the size and the way in which they were finished off at the bottoms with leather as if they were jack-boots.
“Wait till he comes out, Pickle, and ask him,” said the doctor dryly.
“No, thank you, uncle; my French is so bad,” said the boy, with his eyes sparkling. “But, my word, they must have been galloping hard to escape the rain! Look at those poor horses. They are breathed.”
Rodd had hardly spoken when they became fully aware that they had taken refuge in the entrance to the town barracks, for the notes of a bugle rang out, echoing round the inner square of the building, and seeming to be thrown back in a half-smothered way from wall to wall, while the wind and rain raged down more fiercely than ever.
“Something must be the matter,” said Rodd, with his lips close to his uncle’s ear.
“Seems like it, boy. That officer must have brought a dispatch.”
The object of the bugle was shown directly, for in spite of the rain the interior of the barracks began to assume the aspect of some huge wasps’ nest that had suddenly been disturbed.
Soldiers came hurrying out into the rain, hurriedly putting on their overcoats; the great arched gateway filled up at once with men seeking its shelter, and the sentry who had received his half-crown came to roughly order the English intruders to go elsewhere; but it was only outside militarism, for he said in a low hurried tone in French—
“Run outside to the end of the barracks. Grand café.”
“Come along, uncle. Never mind the rain,” cried Rodd, catching at his uncle’s wrist, as he fully grasped the sentry’s meaning; and stepping outside the archway they ran together, or rather, were half carried by the shrieking wind, for some thirty or forty yards, almost into the doorway of a large lit-up building, for already it seemed to be almost night.
“Never mind the rain, indeed!” grumbled Uncle Paul. “Why, I’m nearly soaked. Oh, come, we have got into civilised regions, at all events;” for a couple of waiters, seeing their plight, literally pounced upon them and hurried them through the building into a great kitchen where a huge fire was burning and the smell of cookery saluted their nostrils.
The attentions of the waiters of what was evidently one of the principal hotels of the town were very welcome, and a glance teaching them that their visitors were people of some standing, they made use of their napkins to remove as much of the superabundant moisture as was possible, and then furnished themselves with a fresh relay to operate upon their backs.
“Queer, isn’t it, uncle? I am quite dry in front. My word, how the rain did come down!”
“Messieurs will dine here?” said one of the waiters smilingly.
“Oh, oui, pour certain” replied Uncle Paul. “If you don’t mind, Pickle.”
“Mind, uncle? Oh, yes, of course. I am horribly hungry.”
“You always are, my boy. Well, we must make the best of a bad business,” continued the doctor, as, nodding to the waiter, he moved a little closer to the fire and turned his back, an example followed by Rodd.
“It makes a dreadful time, monsieur,” said the smiling waiter. “Will he choose, or trust his servant to prepare a dinner upon the field of which the English milor’ will be proud?”
“You speak capital English,” said the doctor, rather sarcastically.
“I have been many times in public in London.”
“Ah, that’s right. Then give us a snug little dinner while we dry ourselves. But what’s the meaning of all that upset at the barracks next door?”
“It is not quite that I know, sir,” said the man eagerly; “but two officers came in upon the instant to put their cloaks where they should not water themselves so much, and I hear them say, a dispatch come quickly for monsieur the Governor to seize upon a ship. Oh, faith of a man! Hark at that!”
For there was a sudden crash and an echoing roar, while some of the utensils in the great kitchen clattered together, and a piece of earthenware fell from a shelf upon the stone floor, to be shivered to atoms.
“Tonnerre, eh?” said the doctor.
“Non, non, monsieur” cried the man, relapsing into his native tongue for a moment. “It is what you English gentlemen call a great gun from the fort; and look, look! The poorcuisinièremuch alarm, as you call it.”
For just then, as if catching the contagion from the shrieking of the storm, one of the cook-maids threw herself back into a chair and began to scream.
It was a busy scene for a few minutes while the frightened hysterical woman was hurried out, while with the storm seeming to increase in violence, and amid the trampling of armed men outside, who were hurrying from the barracks, the two English visitors gradually picked up scraps of information which explained the excitement that in spite of the storm was going on outside.
“Messieurs would like to see,” said the friendly waiter. “They will come up-stairs to the longsallewhose windows give upon the harbour.”
“But what’s the matter?” cried Rodd. “Is there a wreck?”
“A wreck, sare?” said the waiter, shaking his head. “No, I know not wreck.”
“Has a ship come ashore and is breaking up?”
“Ha, ha! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You would saynaufrage. Non, non, non! It is a sheep in the harbour; a foreign spy. They say it has come to set fire to the town.”
“Then they have chosen a very bad night for it,” said Uncle Paul, laughing.
“Monsieur is right. Nosing would burn. But the enemies of la France, my great country, not stop to think of zat.”
“Oh, but that must be a rumour, Rodd,” said Uncle Paul uneasily. “Why, surely they are not going to fancy that our English schooner is a spy and an enemy!”
The waiter’s ears were sharp, and he cried at once—
“English! Oh non, monsieur. You are from the little two-mast. It is not you. It is some enemy of the King whose sheep is in the harbour, and great dispatches have come to the Governor that she is to be seized. Ah, there again, monsieur! Anozzer gun from the fort.”
It was plain enough to hear, for the windows of the big badly-lit room into which the man had conducted them clattered in their frames, while the dull, heavy report was preceded by a vivid flash as of lightning.
“Ha, ha! You see. The sheep will not get away, for at the forts they are alert and will sink her if she try.”
“Oh, but no vessel could try to put out in a storm like this, Rodd,” said Uncle Paul.
“No, sare,” continued the waiter excitedly; “the boats will go out with the soldiers and take the sheep.”
“She is a man-of-war, I suppose?”
“Yes, sare. Not very big, but an enemy; but if she fight they will shoot from all the forts and sink her.”
“But how do you know all this?” said Rodd.
“Many soldiers, horsemen, came galloping up to bring dispatches to the Governor. There, sare; you will look from the window,” continued the man, using a clean serviette that he took from under his arm to rub the steamy window-panes, for the cold blast of the storm had caused the warm air inside to blur the glass with a thick deposit of vapour. “There, sare,” continued the man; “zat is ze sheep.”
“Oh, it’s too thick to see for the rain.”
“Yes, sare; but you see out zare in ze arbour ze two lights.”
“Nonsense man!” cried Uncle Paul, half angrily. “That is the English schooner—ours.”
“Oh, non, non, non, monsieur! Away to zegauche—ze left hand. Ze sheep with two high, tall mast, that we all see here when she come in ze storm yesterday. We all here with ze officer of ze regiment see you come in through ze storm, and ze enemy sheep, a stranger, come after, and ze officer say she will run you down and sink you in ze harbour!”
“Oh, that one!” cried Rodd excitedly.
“Ah, I see, monsieur knows. You see her lights swing in the wind—two;” and the man held up a couple of fingers.
“Yes, I see where you mean,” cried Rodd; “but she has only one light.”
“Ah, ha! Monsieur is right. Zare is only one. Ze vind storm has blow out ze uzzer. Look, now zare is no light at all. Ze sheep put im out.”
The violence of the rain was now abating, but the wind beat against and shook the window-panes and shrieked as it rushed by. It was evening, and a few minutes before it had been dark as night, but with the cessation of the rain the heavy forms and light rigging of the many vessels gradually became more and more visible, while fresh lights began to come into view, but in every case not moving and swinging about like those in the rigging of the safely moored ships, but gliding about from various directions as if they were in the sterns of boats that had put off from the harbour side.
“Messieurs see?” said the waiter excitedly. “Two boats come now from the fort on ze uzzer side. Look, look! Ze lights shine on ze soldiers’ bayonet. They go to take ze sheep.”
As the man was speaking the brig that had previously taken up so much of Rodd’s attention stood out more clearly. Her riding lights were indeed gone, but there was a peculiar misty look forward, and it was now Rodd’s turn to speak excitedly about what he saw.
“Why, uncle,” he cried, “she’s moving! They’ve slipped their cable and hoisted the jib!”
“Nonsense, boy! Not in a storm like this.”
“I don’t care, uncle; she has. Look; you can see her gliding along.”
“Impossible!”
“It isn’t, uncle. Look, you can see them plainly now; two boats full of men, and they are rowing hard, but getting no nearer to the brig. Here, I want to see; let’s get right down to the harbour.”
“What, to get wet again?” cried Uncle Paul.
“It doesn’t rain now a drop. There’s nothing but wind; and look, look; the people are running down now in crowds, and there goes a company of soldiers at the double. Oh, there’s going to be something very exciting, uncle, and we must see.”
“But the dinner, boy, the dinner! What is this to us?”
“Dinner, uncle!” cried the lad indignantly. “Who’s going to stop for dinner when there are boats out yonder full of men going to board and take a ship?”
“Humph! Well,” grunted Uncle Paul, “I suppose it would be rather exciting, and we shall be able to see; but I don’t know, though. There’ll be firing, and who knows which way the bullets will fly?”
“Oh, they; won’t hit us, uncle. Come on.”
Uncle Paul was rapidly growing as excited as his nephew, while the waiter, if it were possible, was as full of eagerness as both together, and forgetting all his duties and the dinner that he had ordered to be prepared, he cried—
“Ze rain is ovare; you come vith me. I take you out ze back way and down ze little rue which take us to the quay.”
That was enough for Rodd, and the next minute they were following the waiter down the big staircase through the great kitchen once more, which was now quite deserted, and out into a walled yard to a back gateway, beyond which, mingling with the roaring of the wind, they could hear the trampling of many feet.
“Zis way; zis way!” the bare-headed waiter kept crying, as he put his serviette to quite a new use, battling with the wind as he folded it diagonally and then turned it into a cover for his head by tying the corners under his chin.
“Here, I say,” cried Rodd, as the man kept on at a trot; “I want to get to the harbour.”
“Oui,oui; zis way!” panted their guide, who nearly put the visitors out of patience by turning off two or three times at right angles and apparently taking them quite away from where they wished to go. “Zis way! Zis way!” he kept on crying, till at last the trio were alone, others who had been hurrying onward having taken different directions.
Bang went another gun from the fort, a report which seemed to be sent back instantly from the harbour walls, apparently close at hand.
“Yes, zis way; zis way!” shouted the man. “I show you before zey sink ze sheep.”
And now he suddenly turned into a narrow alley formed by two towering warehouses so close together that there was not room for two people to walk comfortably abreast; but “Zis way, zis way,” shouted the guide, “and you shall be zere upon ze field—sur le champ, sur le champ. Ah ha!” he cried directly after, as he suddenly issued from out of the darkness of the alley into the comparative light of a narrow wharf encumbered with casks, just beyond which was the dripping stone edge of the great harbour, and below them boats, barges, and lighters swinging from the great rusty iron rings and mooring posts of the quay.
“Vat you say to dat?” cried the waiter, turning round to face his companions, beginning loudly and ending in a choking whisper, for he had met a gust of wind face to face which stopped him for the moment from taking his breath and forced him to turn his back and make a snatch at the corner of one of the warehouses. “Faith of a good man!” he panted. “The vind blow me inside out! Aha! What did I say?”
“Capital!” panted Rodd, almost as breathlessly as the waiter, at whom upon any other occasion he would have burst out into a roar of laughter, so grotesque was his appearance with the white napkin tied under his chin. “Oh, this is a splendid place!”
“Here, you look out, Pickle,” cried Uncle Paul. “Lay hold of something, or we shall be blown right off.”
“All right, uncle. Why, if one of those gusts sent us into the harbour we should be drowned.”
“Come a little farther this way, then, and if the wind is too much for us, why we shall only go down into this barge.”
At that moment, as they looked across and downward towards the mouth of the harbour, there were the flashes of bright light to illumine the gloom of the evening, and the reports of a ragged volley of musketry coming from one of the two boats which they could now make out being rowed hard after the brig, as it glided rapidly along in the direction where the watchers now stood.
Then for a short space it passed out of sight behind a group of four vessels which were safely moored. Then it was out again, and as the lookers-on excitedly watched, they made out dimly that the vessel answered her helm readily and was gliding round in a tack for the other side of the harbour, while the two boats in pursuit altered their direction, the men rowing with all their might, as if to cut the brig off during her next tack.
There was another ragged volley, this time from the second boat; but if they were firing to bring down the steersman, it was in vain, for the brig sailed swiftly on, gaining a little way, as she made for the mouth of the harbour.
This was far distant yet, and her chances of reaching it even in the shelter of the harbour, with such a gale blowing, were almost nil.
“She’ll do it, though, uncle,” shouted Rodd, with his lips close to Uncle Paul’s ear.
“Yes, my boy, I expect she will,” was the reply; “but they’ve got some daring people on board, and I shouldn’t like to be the man at the wheel.”
“Ah, why don’t they shoot? Why don’t they shoot?” cried the waiter. “She is an enemy, and—”
The rest of his speech was unheard, for another flash cut the darkness, followed by the thud of a big gun, the shot coming as it were instantly upon the waiter’s question; but it had no effect upon the brig, which came nearer and nearer to the pier-like wharves of the harbour, glided round again with the two stay-sails rilling upon the other tack, and then went off once more.
“She’ll get away, uncle,” cried Rodd excitedly, “and I don’t know what they are, but one can’t help admiring such a brave deed.”
There was another report, this time from quite another direction.
“That must be from the fort up behind the town, Rodd,” cried Uncle Paul. “It’s too thick to see any splash, but they must be in earnest now, and will not be firing blank charges. It looks as if they mean to sink her if she doesn’t stop.”
“They’ve got to hit her first, uncle,” cried Rodd excitedly. “Oh, I can’t help it, uncle,” he continued, with his lips close to his uncle’s ear so that the waiter should not catch his words, “but I do hope they won’t.”
“Well, my boy, I can’t help feeling the same, though she’s neither enemy nor friend of ours, and we don’t know what it all means; for I don’t suppose,” he said, with a half-laugh, “that she has got Napoleon Bonaparte on board.”
Uncle Paul had not taken his nephew’s precaution, and as a heavy gust was just dying out, the excited waiter caught a part of his speech.
“Ha, ha!” he cried. “You sink so? You say le Petit Caporal is on board?”
“No, no,” cried Uncle Paul; “I didn’t say so.”
“No, sare; you think so, and zat is it. He has escape himself from ze place where you English shot him up safe, and he come in zat sheep to burn down ze town. But ah–h–h, again they will sink him. Faith of a man, no!” he cried angrily, for there was a shot from another battery, this time nearer the harbour mouth. “They cannot shoot straight.”
For onward glided the brig, making tack after tack, and zigzagging her way through the narrow entrance of the harbour, at times partly sheltered by the great pier to windward, then as she glided farther out careening over in spite of the small amount of reefed sail she carried, but all the while so well under control that she kept on gaining and leaving the two boats farther and farther behind.
“Oh, if it were only lighter!” cried Rodd, stamping his foot with vexation. “Why, she’ll soon be out of sight.”
“Before she gets much farther,” said Uncle Paul gravely, “she’ll be getting within the light cast by one or other of the harbour lights, and that will be one of her critical times.”
“Why critical, uncle?” cried the boy earnestly. “Because the men in the fort will have a better chance of hitting her, I should say.”
“Oh, I hope they won’t,” said Rodd beneath his breath. “Why, it would be horrible, uncle,” he half whispered, with his lips close to his uncle’s face. “She must have a brave captain to dare all this.”
“A very brave captain,” said Uncle Paul earnestly. “But you think she’ll get away, uncle?”
“No, Rodney,” said the doctor, laying his hand with a firm grip upon his nephew’s shoulder. “She may pass through the harbour mouth without being hit by the gunners, for it would require a clever marksman to hit so swiftly moving an object, rising and falling as the brig does now that she is getting into the disturbed water near the mouth.”
“But suppose she passes through untouched, uncle? What then?”
“What then, boy? She will be out of the shelter given by the end of the jetty. It’s too dim now to see, but once or twice I had just a glimpse of the waves washing over the harbour light, and there must be a terrific sea out there. Why, you can hear it plainly even here.”
“No, uncle; that’s the wind.”
“And waves, my boy. Why, trying to sail out there in the teeth of such a gale as this, it will be almost impossible for her to escape. It seems to me to be an act of madness to attempt such an escapade, and cleverly as the brig is handled I think it is doubtful whether she will ever clear the mouth. But if she does she will catch the full force of the storm and—”
“And what, uncle?”
“Be carried away yonder to the east somewhere and cast ashore.”
“Oh–h!” sighed Rodd; and it was almost a groan.