THE GREEN HAND

THE
GREEN HAND

Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant

BY

GEORGE CUPPLES

AUTHOR OF "THE TWO FRIGATES"

SANDS & COMPANY
23 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
AND EDINBURGH.

LIFE OF GEORGE CUPPLES

(AUTHOR OF "THE GREEN HAND")

Excepting for one short episode—that, indeed, to which we owe "The Green Hand"—the life of George Cupples was almost devoid of those external incidents and vicissitudes which lend the interest of romance to biographical narrative. It is therefore possible, even within the narrow limits assigned to the present sketch, to satisfy reasonable curiosity regarding the mere facts of this distinguished author's career.

Cupples was, by virtue of two or three generations, a son of the manse. His grandfather, the Rev. George Cupples, was the minister of Swinton; and his father, who bore the same name, was also a minister. The George Cupples with whom we have to do was born at Legerwood, in Berwickshire, on the 2nd of August 1822. He was the eldest of the family, which consisted, including George, of three sons and one daughter. The father was a clergyman of orthodox views, and from the descriptions of him that have been left we may infer that the severity of his Calvinism had imparted a decided severity to his character. "He was much respected," says his son Joseph, "and, indeed, a good deal feared." The children were accordingly treated by him with rigid strictness, modified by their mother's greater leniency.

This stern master was George's only teacher during the first ten years of his life. His books were an Arithmetic, Cordery, Ruddiman's Rudiments, and Cornelius Nepos. In his tenth year he and his brother Joseph went to school at Earlston, "walking daily a weary four and a half miles and back again—to lessons at home!"

George was in his twelfth year when his father was "translated" to Stirling. While the family was settled here, the wish to go to sea seems to have grown in the boy's mind to a settled determination, fostered, it appears, by his reading of novels, of which he was extremely fond. He was sixteen years of age when his father, probably much against his will, allowed him to be apprenticed as a sailor. So it came about that the minister's son, nurtured on the classics and Calvinism with quite different purposes in view, made a voyage to India and back—an eighteen months' affair it turned out—as a ship's boy.

On the nature of his experiences we need not speak here, for whoever reads "The Green Hand" will understand it without further aid. As his biographer strikingly says: "It had a physical effect on him ... made him quiet and still in every expression, in every externality of life afterwards." At all events, the young adventurer returned home perfectly cured of his taste for the sea, petitioned his father to get his indentures cancelled, and declared he would content himself for the future on land.

Resuming his interrupted studies, he proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he took the Arts course. One of the professors was Wilson, the famous "Christopher North," for whom Cupples felt an admiration scarcely short of hero-worship, and of whom he afterwards wrote a "Memorial Sketch." Later on he went through the Divinity course, and had the privilege of sitting at the feet of the great Chalmers, of whom he always writes with enthusiasm.

But though prepared and equipped for the paternal calling, Cupples "recoiled from the stairs of the pulpit," more, it would seem, from a growing inclination to literature than from any heterodoxy in his religious views. He became a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, where his essay on Emerson appeared in 1848. In Maga also was first published "The Green Hand," that magnificent story of the sea which we are now sending forth, to delight and enthral, we feel sure, a new generation of readers. Two opinions may here be quoted of the story, to which each of our readers may afterwards add his own. George MacDonald pronounced it "the best sea-novel I have ever read"; and Clark Russell, whose right to speak on such a subject will scarcely be disputed, declares "it is the colours of 'The Green Hand' that I have nailed to my mast."

Cupples was a constant and unwearied writer. Much of his work was done for newspapers and periodicals, but even the most ephemeral of his productions bore testimony to the earnest and solid qualities of the man. That these qualities were duly appreciated is proved by the frequent kindly mention of him by men of the highest literary repute.

He was married, in 1858, to Ann Jane Douglas, an Edinburgh lady, who, though much younger than her husband, was singularly congenial in her tastes and pursuits. She has written a large number of books, mostly for children.

Even before the time of his marriage, Cupples suffered from the sequelæ of hip-joint disease, and all the remainder of his life he seems never to have been quite free from the burden of ill-health. His home during his literary career was in different parts of Edinburgh or its vicinity, latterly in Newhaven, where he succumbed to heart-disease on the 17th of October 1891. His tombstone testifies to the admiration of his friends for his "varied literary gifts, and his simple, upright, and reverent character."

One of the literary projects which Cupples had long cherished has been happily carried out since his death in the publication, by Messrs Blackwood, of a splendid volume on "Scotch Deerhounds and their Masters." This volume contains a fine portrait of the author, and also an interesting memoir, written by Dr. Hutchison Stirling, which is in itself at once a tribute and a testimony to the lasting impression which both the works and the character of George Cupples made upon cultured and critical minds.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The popularity of "The Green Hand," both among seamen and others, as being true to life, has been wide. It has, however, been thought desirable to issue a revised edition, freed from various expressions now to a certain extent obsolete or otherwise unsuitable, so as to make it more thoroughly fit for juvenile readers.

Some considerable time has now elapsed since the period to which these adventures refer, not without producing a good deal of alteration in much that goes on at sea, most especially in the outward accessories of nautical life. The spanking frigate of former days, for instance, is now no more; her place being, to the eye at any rate, ill taken up by the ironclad screw-steamer. The mechanical appliances have been improved, particularly in the merchant service, as, for example, by the Patent-Reefing-Topsail, which is only one of the countless new helps to the seaman. In navigation, instead of now taking five, six, or seven months to reach Australia from this country, the captain of any clipper-line sailing ship would be ashamed of himself if he did not do it within three. Not to multiply cases, Jack himself has, as a rule, added the moustache to his exuberance of whisker; he thinks better than he used to do of these excellent institutions, the Sailors' Homes; he is frequently a temperance man, and has even been known to take the chair at a meeting for vindication of sailors' rights.

But the state of the case, from a plain practical point of view, is pretty well illustrated by an anecdote current at sea among forecastle story-tellers. According to them, a singular discovery was made, some forty years or so back, in Portsmouth harbour, aboard no less conspicuous a craft than that immortal three-decker hulk, H.M.S. Victory herself, when some alterations were being made down in her lower decks. There certain of the dock-yard people, having occasion to lift a small out-of-the-way lazarette hatch, down on the after-part of the orlop, which had been long covered with old coils of hawsers or the like, were surprised to find a man lying beneath, who rubbed his eyes, stretched himself as if waking out of sleep, and was finally brought up on deck. From undoubted evidence, it turned out that he had been shut down in joke, under the effect of some strange potion, his rough messmates having, of course, intended to release him before long; but a sudden commotion of a more important nature had arisen, owing to which they had forgotten him until too late, being themselves appointed on active service abroad. Hence it occurred that he had been left there, fast enclosed and asleep, ever since shortly after Trafalgar, when the Victory had come home with Nelson's body, and been paid off, dismantled, and moored in her place as a hulk. From a young reefer, this gentleman had meanwhile grown into a grizzled oldster, on midshipman's half-pay, not likely to have his services further required, seeing that the French had long ceased to offer battle afloat. He was, however, freely invited into professional society, where his opinions on the changes that had taken place were naturally much looked to. The things he is said to have principally remarked as new, were that pigtails had gone out of fashion; the midshipmen's messes were supplied with silver forks; boatswains—in stimulating the men at work—put more force into their language, less into their rattans, and that the leading-blocks of the mizzen-topsail-reef-tackles hung at the slings of the yard instead of being as formerly at the rim of the round-top; nor did he ever feel sure that such changes were for the better. This yarn, with a good moral tacked on at the end, in one form or another, still affords entertainment to many a tarry audience in ships outward bound, at second dog-watch time, when rolling down the Trades; particularly if spun by some fluent ex-man-o'-war's-man from any of Her Majesty's iron-clads. The said moral generally being to the effect, that little difference is made in essentials at sea by progress in the mere shoregoing world.

In the following story no great amount of correction requires to be made in bringing it up to date; and, except in a few minor points, I have left this to be done by each juvenile reader for himself, supposing the case that he should ever find reason in his own professional experience. The terms larboard and starboard are both left in use throughout the book, although the former has long been replaced by the word port—which, in my time, was chiefly confined to the helm, when the resemblance of sound would always have been dangerous at a sudden emergency. The cry "All larbowlins ahoy!" no longer is added to the summons that rouses the sleepy watch below. But after everything is said, the main realities of sea-life continue to be what they were. There is constant truth in those grand words known to us all:

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save Thee—

Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play,

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow.

The strangeness of foreign sights and tropical wonders has not altered; nor the thrill of excitement amid tempest; wind and weather are no-way different; the sailor feels as much pride as ever in his ship's good qualities; the occasion of danger still brings out his manhood; hearts-of-oak will always be ready to man our floating bulwarks so long as Britain remains.

If it were only in order to express a hearty belief in this, I am glad to have had the opportunity afforded by the few words prefixed to a fresh edition of "The Green Hand." And to all you young readers who must ere long embark upon the troubled sea of life, success and a good voyage to you is the cordial wish of your sincere friend,

THE AUTHOR.

Edinburgh, August 31, 1878.

THE GREEN HAND

CHAPTER I

Ah! Come, old ship, give us a yarn!" said the younger forecastlemen to an old one, on board of an Indiaman then swiftly cleaving the waves of the western Atlantic before the trade-wind, and outward-bound, with a hearty crew and a number of passengers. It was the second of the two dog-watches; and, the ship being still in the region of evening twilights, her men, in a good humour and with leisure, were then usually disposed, as on this occasion, to make fast their roaming thoughts by help of a good yarn, when it could be got. There were plenty of individuals, amongst a crew of forty, calculated by their experience, or else by their flow of spirits and fancy, to spin it. Each watch into which they were divided had its especial story-teller, with whose merits it twitted the other, and on opportunity of a general reunion, they were pitted against one another like two fighting-cocks. The one was a grave, solemn, old North-Sea whaler, with one eye, who professed to look down with contempt upon all raw head-work, on navigation compared with seamanship, and fiction against fact. As for himself, he rested all his fame upon actual experience, and told long dry narratives of old shipmates, of his voyages and adventures, and sometimes of the most incredible incidents, with a genuine briny gusto, which pleased the veteran stagers beyond expression. They were full of points of seamanship—expedients for nice emergencies, tacks, knots, and splices; he gave the very conversation of his characters, with all the "says he" and "says I"; and one long recital of the old fellow's turned upon the question between himself and a new-fangled second-mate, about the right way to set up back-stays, in which he, the sailor, was proved correct by the loss of the ship. The other story-teller, again, was a Wapping man; a lively, impudent young Cockney, who had the most miraculous faculty of telling lies—not only palpable lies, but lies absolutely impossible; yet they were so sublimely told often, and he contrived to lug into them such a quantity of gorgeous tinsel ornament, as, in his happier efforts, decidedly to carry the day against his opponent. The London hand had seen life too, of which, with respect to what is called the world, his competitor was as ignorant as a child. He had his sentimental vein, accordingly, in which he took the last love-tale out of some "Penny Story-Teller" or fashionable novel he had spelled over below, and made of it a parody that would have thrown its unfortunate author into convulsions of horror, and his critics into shrieks of laughter. The fine language of lords and ladies, of romantic heroines, or of foreign counts and bandits, was gravely retailed, and gravely listened to by a throng of admiring jack-tars; while the old whaler smoked his pipe sulkily apart, gave now and then a scornful glance out of his weather-eye, and called it "all high-dic' and soger's gammon."

On this occasion, however, the group for'ard did not solicit the services of either candidate, as they happened to have present among them a shipmate who, by general confession, "took the shine" out of both, although it was rarely they could get hold of him. "Old Jack," the captain's private steward, was the oldest seaman on board, and having known the captain when the latter went to sea, had sailed with him almost ever since he commanded a ship, as well as lived in his house on shore. He did not now keep his watch, nor take his "trick at the helm," except when he chose, and was altogether a privileged sort of person, or one of "the idlers." His name was Jacobs, which afforded a pretext for calling him "Old Jack," with the sailor's fondness for that Christian cognomen, which it is difficult to account for, unless because Jonah and St John were seafaring characters, and the Roman Catholic holy clerk St Nicholas was baptised "Davy Jones," with sundry other reasons good at sea. But Old Jack was, at any rate, the best hand for a yarn in the Gloucester Indiaman, and had been once or twice called upon to spin one to the ladies and gentlemen in the cuddy. It was partly because of his inexhaustible fund of good-humour, and partly from that love of the sea which looked out through all that the old tar had seen and undergone, and which made him still follow the bowsprit, although able to live comfortably ashore. In his blue jacket, his white canvas trousers edged with blue, and glazed hat, coming forward to the galley to light his pipe, after serving the captain's tea of an evening, Old Jack looked out over the bulwarks, sniffed the sharp sea-air, and stood with his shirt-sleeve fluttering as he put his finger in his pipe, the very embodiment of the scene—the model of a prime old salt who had ceased to "rough it," but could do so yet if needful.

"Come, old ship!" said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack came forward, "give us a yarn, will ye?" "Yarn!" said Jack, smiling—"what yarn, mates? 'Tis a fine night, though, for that same—the clouds flies high, and she's balling off a good ten knots sin' eight bells." "That she is, bo'—so give us a yarn now, like a reg'lar old A1, as you are!" said one. "'Vast there, mate," said a man-o'-war's-man, winking to the rest—"you're always a-cargo-puddling, Bill! D'ye think Old Jack answers to any other hail nor the Queen's? I say, old three-decker in or'nary, we all wants one o' your close-laid yarns this good night. Whaling Jim here rubs his down with a thought overmuch o' the tar, an' young Joe dips 'em in yallow varnish—so if you says nay, why, we'll all save our grog, and get slewed as soon as may be." "Well, well, mates," said Jack, endeavouring to conceal his flattered feelings, "what's it to be, though?" "Let's see," said the man-o'-war's-man—"ay, give us the Green Hand!" "Ay, ay, the Green Hand!" exclaimed one and all. This "Green Hand" was a story Old Jack had already related several times, but always with such amusing variations, that it seemed on each repetition a new one—the listeners testifying their satisfaction by growls of rough laughter, and by the emphatic way in which, during a pause, they squirted their tobacco-juice on the deck. What gave additional zest to this particular yarn, too, was the fact of its hero being no less than the captain himself, who was at this moment on the poop quarter-deck of the ship, pointing out something to a group of ladies by the round-house—a tall good-looking man of about forty, with all the mingled gravity and frank good-humour of a sailor in his firm weather-tinted countenance. To have the power of secretly contrasting his present position and manners with those delineated by Old Jack's episode from the "skipper's" previous biography, was the acme of comic delight to these rude sons of Neptune, and the narrator just hit this point.

"Ye see," began he, "'tis about six-an'-twenty year gone since I was an able seaman before the mast, in a small Indyman they called the Chester Castle, lying at that time behind the Isle of Dogs in sight of Grennidge Hospital. She was full laden, but there was a strong breeze blowing up that wouldn't let us get under weigh; and, besides, we waited for the most part of our hands. I had sailed with the same ship two voyages before; so, says the captain to me one day, 'Jacobs, there's a lady over at Greenwich yonder wants to send her boy to sea in the ship—for a sickening I s'pose. I'm a-going up to town myself,' says he, 'so take the small quarter-boat and two of the boys, and go ashore with this letter, and see the young fool. From what I've heard,' says the skipper, 'he's a jackanapes as will give us more trouble than thanks. However, if you find the lady's bent on it, why she may send him aboard to-morrow if she likes. Only we don't carry no young gentlemen, and if he slings his hammock here, you must lick him into shape. I'll make a sailor of him, or else a cabin boy.' 'Ay, ay, sir,' says I, shoving the letter into my hat; so in half-an-hour's time I knocks at the door of the lady's house, rigged out in my best, and hands over the screed to a fat fellow with red breeches and yaller swabs on his shoulders, like a captain of marines, that looked frightened at my hail, for I thou't he'd been deaf by the long spell he took before he opened the door. In five minutes I hears a woman's v'ice ask at the footman if there was a sailor a-waiting below. 'Yes, marm,' says he; and 'show him up,' says she. Well, I gives a scrape with my larboard foot, and a tug to my hair, when I gets to the door of sich a fine room above decks as ever you see, all full o' tables, an' chairs, an' sofers, an' piangers, an' them sort o' high-flying consarns. There was a lady all in silks and satins on one of the sofers, dressed out like a widow, with a pretty little girl as was playing music out of a large portmankey—and a picter of a man upon the wall, which I at once logged it down for his as she'd parted company from. 'Sarvint, marm,' says I. 'Come in, my good man,' says the lady. 'You're a sailor?' says she—asking, like, to be sure if I warn't the cook's mate in dish-guise, I fancy. 'Well, marm' I raps out, 'I make bould to say as I hopes I am!'—an' I catches a sight o' myself in a big looking-glass behind the lady, as large as our sky-sail—and, being a young fellow in them days, thinks I, 'Blow me, if Betsy Brown axed me that now, I'd up an' hax her if she war a woman!' 'Well,' says she, 'Captain Steel tells me, in this here letter, he's a-going to take my son. Now,' says she, 'I'm sore against it——couldn't you say some'at to turn his mind?' 'The best way for that, yer ladyship,' says I, 'is for to let him go, if it was only the length of the Nore. The sea'll turn his stomich for him, marm,' I says, 'an' then we can send him home by the pilot.' 'He wanted for to go into the navy,' says the lady again, 'but I couldn't think on that for a moment, on account of this here fearful war; an', after all, he'll be safer in sailing at sea nor in the army or navy—doesn't you think so, my good man?' 'It's all you knows about it,' thinks I; hows'ever, I said there wasn't a doubt on it. 'Is Captain Steel a rash man?' says she. 'How so, marm?' says I, some'at taken aback. 'I hope he does not sail at night, or in storms, like too many of his profession, I'm afeard,' says she; 'I hope he always weighs the anchor in such cases, very careful.' 'Oh, in course,' says I, not knowin', for the life of me, what she meant. I didn't like to come the rig over the poor lady, seein' her so anxious like; but it was no use, we was on such different tacks, ye see. 'Oh yes, marm,' I says, 'Captain Steel al'ays reefs taups'ls at sight of a squall brewing to wind'rd; and then we're as safe as a church, ye know, with a man at the wheel as knows his duty.' 'This relieves my mind,' the lady says, 'wery much'; but I couldn't think why she kept sniffing all the time at her smelling-bottle, as she wor agoin' to faint. 'Don't take it to heart so, yer ladyship,' I says at last; 'I'll look after the young gentleman till he finds his sea-legs.' 'Thank you,' says she; 'but I beg your parding, would ye be kind enough for to open the winder, and look out if you see Edward? I think he's in the garding—I feel sich a smell of pitch and tar!' I hears her say to the girl! and says she to me again, 'Do you see Edward there?—give a call to him, please. Accordently, I couldn't miss sight of three or four young slips alongside, for they made plenty of noise—one of 'em on top of a water-barrel smoking a sea-gar; another singing out inside of it for mercy; and the rest roaring round about it, like so many Bedlamites. 'No wonder the young scamp wants off to sea,' thinks I, 'he's got nothin' arthly to do but mischief.' 'Which be's the young gentleman, marm?' says I, lookin' back into the room—'is it him with the sea-gar and the red skull-cap?' 'Yes,' says the lady—'call him up, please.' 'Hallo!' I sings out, and all runs off but him on the barrel, and 'Hallo!' says he. 'You're wanted on deck here, sir,' I says; and in five minutes in comes my young gemman, as grave as you please. 'Edward,' says his mother, 'this is one of Captain Steel's men.' 'Is he going to take me?' says the young fellow, with his hands in his pockets. 'Well, sir,' I says, ''tis a very bad look-out, is the sea, for them as don't like it. You'll be sorry ten times over you've left sich a berth as this here, afore you're down Channel.' The young chap looks me all over from clue to earing, and says he, 'My mother told you to say that!' 'No, sir,' says I, 'I says it on my own hook.' 'Why did you go yourself, then?' says he. 'I couldn't help it,' answers I. 'Oh,' says the impertinent little beggar, 'but you're only one of the common sailors, ain't you?' 'Split me!' thinks I, 'if I doesn't show you the odds betwixt a common sailor, as ye call it, and a lubber of a boy, before long!' But I wasn't goin' to let him take the jaw out o' me, so I only laughed, an' says I, 'Why, I'm captain of the foretop at sea, anyhow.' 'Where's your huniform, then?' says the boy, lowering his tone a bit. 'Oh,' I says, 'we doesn't al'ays wear huniform, ye know, sir. This here's what we call ondress.' 'I'm sorry, sir,' says the lady, 'I didn't ax you to sit down.' 'No offence at all, marm,' I says, but I took a couple o' glasses of brandy as was brought in. I saw 'twas no use goin' against the young chap; so, when he asked what he'd have to do aboard, I told him nothing to speak of, except count the sails now and then, look over the bows to see how the ship went, and go aloft with a spy-glass. 'Oh,' says his mother at this, 'I hope Captain Steel won't never allow Edward to go up those dangerous ladders! It is my pertic'lar request he should be punished if he does.' 'Sartinly, marm, I'll mention it to the captain,' I says, 'an' no doubt he'll give them orders as you speak on. The captain desired me to say the young gentleman could come aboard as soon as he likes,' says I before goin' out of the door. 'Very well, sir,' says the lady, 'I shall see the tailor this same arternoon, and get his clothes, if so be it must.' The last word I said was, I puts my head half in again to tell 'em, 'There was no use gettin' any huniforms at present, seein' the ship's sailmaker could do all as was wanted arterwards, when we got to sea.'

"Well, two or three days after, the captain sent word to say the ship would drop down with the morning tide, and Master Collins had better be aboard by six o'clock. I went ashore with the boat, but the young gemman's clothes warn't ready yet; so it was reg'lar made up he was to come on board from Gravesend the day after. But his mother and an old lady, a friend of theirs, would have it they'd go and see his bedroom, and take a look at the ship. There was a bit of a breeze with the tide, and the old Indyman bobbed up and down on it in the cold morning; you could hear the wash of the water a-poppling on to her counter, with her running-gear blown out in a bend; and Missus Collins thought they'd never get up the dirty black sides of the vessel, as she called 'em. The other said her husband had been a captain, an' she laid claim to a snatch of knowledge. 'Sailor,' says she to me, as we got under the quarter, 'that there tall mast is the main-bowsprit, ain't it? and that other is the gallant bowling you call it, don't you?' says she. 'No doubt, marm,' says I, winking to the boys not to laugh. 'It's all right,' I says. Howsoever, as to the bedroom, the captain showed 'em over the cabin, and put 'em off by saying the ship was so out of order he couldn't say which rooms was to be which yet, though they needn't fear Master Ned would get all comfortable; so ashore the poor woman went, pretty well pleased, considerin' her heart was against the whole consarn.

"Well, the next afternoon, lying off Gravesend, out comes a wherry with young master. One of the men said there was a midshipman in it. 'Midshipman be blowed!' says I; 'did ye ever see a reefer in a wherry, or sitting anywheres out o' the starn-sheets? It's neither more nor less nor this precious greenhorn as we've got.' 'Why don't the bo'sun pipe to man side-ropes for him?' says t'other; but, 'my eye, Bob,' says he to me, 'what a sight of traps the chap's got in the boat!—'twill be enough to heel the Chester Castle to the side he berths upon, on an even keel. Do he mean to have the captain's cabin, I wonder!' Up the side he scrambles, with the help of a side-ladder, all togged out to the nines in a span-new blue jacket and anchor buttons, a cap with a gould band, and white ducks made to fit—as jemmy-jessamy a looking fellow as you'd see of a cruise along London parks—with the waterman singing out alongside to send down a tackle for the dunnage, which it took a pair of purchase-blocks to hoist them out on board. 'What's all this?' says the mate, coming for'ard from the quarter-deck. ''Tis the young gemman's traps, sir,' I says. Says the mate, 'D'ye think we've got spare room to stow all this lumber? Strike it down into the fore-hold, Jacobs—and get out a old blue shirt or two, and a Scotch cap, for the young whelp first, if he wants to save that smooth toggery of his for his mammy. You're as green as cabbage, I'm feared, my lad!' says he. By this time the boy was struck all of a heap, an' didn't know what to say when he saw the boat pulling for shore, except he wanted to have a sight of his bedroom. 'Jacobs,' says the mate, laughing like an old bear, 'take him below, and show him his bedroom, as he calls it!' So down we went to the half-deck, where the carpenter, bo'sun, and three or four of the 'prentices, had their hammocks slung. There I leaves him to overhaul his big donkey of a chest, which his mother had stowed it with clothes enough for a lord ambassador, but not a blessed thing fit to use—I wouldn't 'a given my bit of a black locker for the whole on it, ten times over. There was another choke-full of gingerbread, pots o' presarves, pickles, and bottles; and, thinks I, 'The old lady didn't know what shares is at sea I reckon. 'Twill all be gone for footing, my boy, before you've seen blue water, or I'm a Dutchman.'

"In a short time we was up anchor, going down with a fast breeze for the Nore; and we stood out to sea that night, having to join a convoy off Spithead. My gentleman was turned in all standing, on top o' some sails below; and next day he was as sick as a greenhorn could be, cleaning out his land-ballast where he lay, nor I didn't see him till he'd got better. 'Twas blowing a strong breeze, with light canvas all in aloft, and a single reef in the tops'ls; but fine enough for the Channel, except the rain—when what does I see but the 'Green Hand' on the weather quarter-deck, holding on by the belaying pins, with a yumbereller over his head. The men for'ard was all in a roar, but none of the officers was on deck save the third mate. The mate goes up to him, and looks in his face. 'Why,' says he, 'you confounded longshore, picked-up son of a greengrocer, what are you after?' an' he takes the article a slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff of smoke. 'Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber,' says he, giving him a wheel down into the lee-scuppers—'it's well the captain didn't catch ye! Come aft here, some of ye,' sings out the third mate again, 'to brace up the main-yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment and pull!' At this the greenhorn looks round doubtful, like, then at last he takes out a pair o' double gloves, shoves his fingers into 'em, and tails on to the rope behind. 'Well!' says the mate, 'if I ever see the likes o' that! Jacobs, get a tar-bucket and dip his fists in it; larn him what his hands were made for! I never could a-bear to see a fellow ashore with his flippers shoed like his feet; but at sea, confound me, it would make a man green-sick over again.' If you'd only seen how Master Collins looked when I shoved his missy fingers into the tar, and chucked them gloves o'board! The next moment he ups fist and made a slap at me, when in goes the brush in his mouth; the mate gives him a kick astarn; and the young chap went sprawling down into the half-deck ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to crop his chin—and there he gets another clip across the jaws from Chips. 'Now,' says the mate, 'the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow. He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my lad,' says he; 'that fellow'll either catch the cat or spoil the monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad,' says the third mate; 'he's in my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the ropes, and let him taste an end now an' then. Ha, ha, ha!' says he, again, laughing, ''tis the first time I ever see a embrella loosed out at sea, and but the second I've seen brought aboard even. He's the greenest hand, sure enough, it's been my luck to come across! But green they say's nigh to blue, so look out if I don't try to make a sailor of the young spark!'

"Well, for the next three or four days the poor fellow was knocked about on all hands; he'd got to go aloft to the 'gallant cross-trees, and out on the yard foot-ropes the next morning, before breakfast; and, coming down, in course, ye know, the men made him fast till he sent down the key of his bottle-chest to pay his footing. If he closed his eyes a moment in the watch, slash comes a bucketful o' Channel water over him. The third mate would keep him two hours on end, larnin' to rig out a sterns'l boom, or grease a royal mast. He led a dog's life of it, likewise, in the half-deck; bein' last come, in course, he had al'ays to go and fill the bread-barge, scrub the planks, an' do all the dirty jobs. Them owners' 'prentices, sich as he had for messmates, is always worse to their own kind by far nor the 'comming sailors,' as the longshore folks calls a foremast-man. I couldn't help takin' pity on the poor lad, bein' the only one as had known the way of his upbringing, and I feels a sort of a charge of him like; so one night I gets a quiet spell with him in the watch, an' as soon 's I fell to speak kind-ways, there I seed the water stand i' the boy's eyes. 'It's a good thing,' says he, tryin' to gulp it down—'it's a goo—good thing mother don't see all this!' 'Ho, ho!' says I, 'my lad, 'tis all but another way of bein' sea-sick! You doesn't get the land cleared out, and sniff the blue breeze nat'ral like, all at once! Hows'ever, my lad,' says I, 'take my advice—bring your hammock an' chest into the foc'sle; swap half your fine clothes for blue shirts and canvas trousers; turn to, ready and willing, an' do all that's asked you—you'll soon find the differings betwixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men'll soon make a sailor of you; you'll see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous on!'

"Well, next night, what does he do but follers what I said, and afore long most of his troubles was naterally over; nor there wasn't a willin'er nor a readier hand aboard, and every man was glad to put Ned through anything he'd got to do. The mates began to take note on him; and though the 'prentices never left off calling him the Green Hand, before we rounded the Cape he could take his wheel with the best of them, and clear away a sternsail out of the top in handsome style. We were out ten months, and Ned Collins stuck to the foc'sle throughout. When we got up the Thames, he went ashore to see his mother in a check shirt and canvas trousers made out of an old royal, with a tarpaulin hat I built for him myself. He would have me to come the next day over to the house for to have a supper; so, havin' took a kindness to the young chap, why, I couldn't say nay. There I finds him in the midst of a lot o' soft-faced slips and young ladies, a spinning the wonderfullest yarns about the sea and the East Ingees, makin' em swallow all sorts of horse-marines' nonsense, about marmaids, sea-serpents, and sich like. 'Hallo, my hearty!' says he, as soon as he saw me, 'heave a-head here, and bring to an anchor in this here blessed chair. Young ladies,' says he, 'this is Bob Jacobs, as I told you kissed a marmaid hisself. He's a wonderful hand, is Bob, for the fair ones!' You may fancy how flabbergasted I was at this, though the young scamp was as cool as you please, and wouldn't ha' needed much to make him kiss 'em all round; but I was al'ays milk-and-water alongside of women, if they topped at all above my rating. 'Well,' thinks I, 'my lad, I wouldn't ha' said five minutes agone, there was anything of the green about ye yet, but I see 'twill take another voy'ge to wash it all out.' For to my thinkin', mates, 'tis more of a land-lubber to come the rig over a few poor creaters that never saw blue water, than not to know the ropes you warn't told. 'Oh, Mister Jacobs!' says Missus Collins to me that night, before I went off, 'd'ye think Edward is tired of that 'ere horridsome sea yet?' 'Well, marm,' I says, 'I'm afeared not. But I'll tell ye, marm,' says I, 'if you wants to make him cut the consarn, the only thing ye can do is to get him bound apprentice to it. From what I've seen of him, he's a lad that won't bear aught again his liberty; an' I do believe, if he thought he couldn't get free, he'd run the next day!' Well, after that, ye see, I didn't know what more turned up of it; for I went round to Hull, myself, and ships in a timber-craft for the Baltic, just to see som'at new.

"Now, one day, the third voy'ge from that time, no sooner does we get up to Blackwall than we hears of a strong press from the men-o'-war; and as I'd got a desperate mislike to the sarvice, there was a lot of us marchantmen kept stowed away close in holes an' corners till we could suit ourselves. At last we got well tired, and a shipmate o' mine and I wanted to go and see our sweethearts over in the town. So we hired the slops from a Jew, and makes ourselves out to be a couple o' watermen, with badges to suit, a-carrying of a large parcile and a ticket on it. In the afternoon we came back again within sight of the Tower, where we saw the coast was clear, and makes a fair wind along Rosemary Lane and Cable Street. Just then we saw a tall young fellow, in a brown coat, an' a broad-brim hat, a-standing in the door of a shop, with a paper under his arm, on the look-out for someone. 'Twig the Quaker, Bob!' my shipmate says to me. As soon as he saw us, out the Quaker steps, and says he to Bill, in a sleepy sort of a v'ice, 'Friend, thou'rt a waterman, I b'lieve?' 'Yes,' says Bill, with an oath, 'that's what we hails for. D'ye want a boat, master?' 'Swear not, friend,' says the broad-brim; 'but what I want is this, you see. We have a large vessel, belonging to our house, for to send to Havannah, and willin' to give double wages, but we can't find any marineers at this present time for to navigate. Now,' says he, 'I s'pose this onfortunate state o' things is on account of the sinful war as is a-goin' on—they're afraid of the riskses. Hows'ever, my friends,' says he, 'perhaps, as you knows the river, thee could put us upon a way of engagin' twenty or more bold marineers, as is not afeared of venturing for good pay?' and with this he looks into his papers; and says Bill, 'Well, sir, I don't know any myself—do you, Bob?' and he gives me a shove, and says under the rose, 'No fear, mate,' says Bill, 'he's all over green—don't slip the chance for all hands of us at Jobson's.' 'Why, master,' I says, 'what 'ud ye give them marineers you speaks on, now?' 'Four pound a month, friend,' says he, looking up; 'but we gives tea in place of spirits, and we must have steady men. We can't wait, neither,' says he, 'more nor three days, or the vessel won't sail at all.' 'My eye!' says Bill, ''twon't do to miss, Bob!—stick to him, that's all.' 'Well, sir,' I says, 'I thinks I does have a notion of some'at of the sort. If you sends your papers to Jobson's Tavern to-night, second lane 'twixt Barnaby Street and the Blue Anchor Road, over the water, why, I might get ye as many hands for to sign as you wants.' 'Thanks, friend,' says the young broad-brim, 'I will attend to thine advice.' So he bids us good-day, and stepped into his door again. 'Bill,' says I, as we went off, 'now I think on it, I can't help a notion I've seen that chap's face afore.' 'Very like,' says Bill; 'for the matter o' that, 'tis the same with me—them broad-brims is so much of a piece. But that 'ere fellow don't know nothin' of ships, sure enough, or he wouldn't offer what he did, and the crimps' houses all of a swarm with hands!'

"'Take my word, mate,' says I, 'it's a paying trip, or he wouldn't do it—leave a Quaker alone for that. Why, the chap's a parfit youngster, but I am blessed if he don't look as starched as if he'd sat over a dask for twenty year!'

"Well, strike me lucky, mates all, if the whole affair warn't a complete trap! Down comes a clerk with the papers, sure enough; but in ten minutes more the whole blessed lot of us was puckalowed, and hard an' fast, by a strong press-gang. They put us into a cutter off Redriff Stairs, and the next noon all hands was aboard of the Pandora frigate at Sheerness. The first time of being mustered on deck, says Bill to me, 'Cuss my eyes, Bob, if there isn't the 'farnal Quaker!' I looked, and sees a midshipman in uniform like the rest, and so it was. 'The sly, soft-sawderin' beggar!' says I. 'All fair in war, and a press, mate!' says one o' the frigate's men. All the while I kept looking and looking at the midshipman; and at last I says to Bill when we got below, giving a slap to my thigh, 'Blessed if it ain't! It's the Green Hand himself!' 'Green Hand!' says Bill, sulky enough, 'who's the Green Hand? Blow me, Bob, if I don't think we're the green hands ourselves, if that's what you're upon!' So I told him the story about Ned Collins. 'Well,' says he, 'if a fellow was green as Chinee rice, cuss me if the reefers' mess wouldn't take it all out on him in a dozen watches. The softest thing I know, as you say, Bob, just now, it's to come the smart hand when you're a lubber; but to sham green after that style, ye know, why, it is a mark or two above either you or I, messmate. So, for my part, I forgives the young scamp, 'cause I ought to ha' known better.'

"By the time the frigate got to sea the story was blowed over the whole main-deck; many a good laugh it gived the different messes; and Bill, the midshipman, and me, got the name of the 'Three Green Hands.'

"One middle-watch Mister Ned comes for'ard by the booms to me, and says he, 'Well, Bob Jacobs, you don't bear a grudge, I hope?' 'Why,' says I, 'Mister Collins, 'twould be mutiny now, I fancy, you being my officer.' So I gave a laugh; but I couldn't help feelin' hurt a little, 'twas so like a son turnin' against his father, as 'twere. 'Why, Bob,' says he, 'did ye think me so green as not to know a seaman when I saw him? I was afeared you'd know me that time.' 'Not I, sir,' I answers; 'why, if we hadn't sailed so long in company, I wouldn't know ye now!' So Master Ned gived me to understand it was all for old times he wanted to ship me in the same craft; but he knew my misliking to the sarvice, though he said he'd rather ha' lost the whole haul of 'em nor myself. So many a yarn we had together of a dark night, and for a couple of years we saw no small sarvice in the Pandora. But if ye'd seen Ned, the smartest reefer aboard, and the best liked by the men, in the fore-tops'l bunt in a gale, or over the main-deck hatch, with an enemy's frigate to leeward, or on a spree ashore at Lisbon or Naples, you wouldn't ha' said there was anything green in his eye, I warrant ye! He was made acting-leftenant of a prize he cut out near Chairboorg, before he passed examination; so he took me for his prize-bo'sun, and carried her into Plymouth. Soon after that the war was ended, and all hands of the Pandora paid off. Master Ned got passed with flying colours, and confirmed leftenant besides, but he had to wait for a ship. He made me say where I'd be found, and we parted company for about a year.

"Well, I was come home from a short trip, and one day Leftenant Collins hunts me up at Wapping Docks, where I'd had myself spliced, six years before, to Betsy Brown, an' was laid up for a spell, having seen a good deal of the sea. Ye must know the young leftenant was fell deep in love with a rich Indy naboob's daughter, which had come over to take her back to the East Ingees. The old fellow was hard close-hauled again the match, notwithstanding of the young folks makin' it all up; so he'd taken out berths aboard of a large company's ship, and bought over the captain on no account to let any king's navy man within the gangways, nor not a shoulder with a swab upon it, red or blue, beyond the ship's company. But, above all, the old tyrant wouldn't have a blue-jacket, from stem to starn, if so be he'd got nothing ado but talk sweet; I s'pose he fancied his girl was mad after the whole blessed cloth. The leftenant turns over this here log to me, and, says he, 'I'll follow her to the world's end, if need be, Bob, and cheat the old villain!' 'Quite right, too, sir,' says I. 'Bob,' says he,' I'll tell you what I wants you for to do. Go you and enter for the Seringapatam at Blackwall, if you're for sea just now; I'm goin' for to s'cure my passage myself, an' no doubt doorin' the voy'ge something'll turn up to set all square; at any rate, I'll stand by for a rope to pull!' 'Why, here's a rum go!' thinks I to myself. 'Is Ned Collins got so green again, spite of all that's come and gone, for to think the waves is a-goin' to work wonders, or ould Neptune under the line's to play the parson and splice all!' 'Well, sir,' I says, 'but don't you think the skipper will smoke your weather-roll, sir, at sea, as you did Bill Pikes an' me, you know, sir?' says I. 'Oh, Bob, my lad,' says the leftenant, 'leave you that to me. The fellow most onlikest to a sailor on the Indyman's poop will be me, and that's the way you'll know me.'

"Well, ship I does with the Seringapatam for Bombay—plenty of passengers she had; but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o' Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel; I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy, yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes a note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap a-treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After awhile there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a-singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from—mizzen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as 'Rule Britannia,' 'Bay of Biscay,' 'Britannia's Bulwarks,' and 'All in the Downs.' The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and 'Well, I'm blessed, mates,' says he on the foc'sle, 'but that chap aft yonder with the lady—he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across. What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallow-chops an hour agone?' 'What was it, mate?' I says. 'Says he, "Do you know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reelly green at the line—green ye know, Sar Chawls, reelly green?" "No, sir," says the old naboob, "'tis blue." "Whoy, ye don't sa—ay so!" says the young chap, pullin' a long face.' 'Why, Jim,' another hand drops in, 'that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night. I seed him myself come out o' the mizzen-chains!' 'Hallo!' says another at this, 'then there's some'at queer i' the wind! I thought he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning. I'll bet a week's grog that chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates!' Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands not to blow the gaff, [1] an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very day, about the Green Hand—for somehow or another I was al'ays a yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn, not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats when they went past.

"Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But, as for the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with him; though, as the naboob had never clapped eyes on him to know him like, 'twan't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the Indyman was a rum, old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old ways—I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the old boy drawling out, 'As 'twas in the beginning—'then, in the one key, 'Haul aft the mainsheet——' 'is now, and ever shall be——' 'Small pull with the weather brace——' 'Amen——' 'Well the main-yard——' 'The Lord be with you——' 'Taups'l yard well!' As for the first orficer, he was a dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own, except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may well fancy the craft stood often a poor chance of being rightly handled.

"'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day as I ever mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as it got down smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, about south-east-and-by-sou', as near as may be. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer on deck. I was at the wheel myself, and I hears him say to the second as how the land breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' he begins to squint over the starn to nor'west'ard. 'Jacobs, my lad,' whispers he to me, 'how do ye like the looks o' things?' 'Not overmuch, sir,' says I; 'small enough sea-room, leastways for a sky like that 'ere.' Up goes he to the first officer, after a bit. 'Sir,' says he, 'do ye notice how we've risen the land within the last hour and a half?' 'No, sir,' says the first mate. 'What d'ye mean?' 'Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point,' says he. 'Sir,' says the Company's man, 'if I didn't know what's what, d'ye think I'd learn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green? There's nothing of the sort,' he says. 'Look on the starboard quarter, then,' says the leftenant, 'at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with its wings spread. Take three minutes' look!' says he. Well, the mate did take a minute or two's squint through the mizzen-shroud, and pretty blue he got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time.

"'It's a underdrift,' says the leftenant, wonderful knowing-like—'though it's nothing on the surfage, look ye, why, with the draught the ship has it's a-taking her along like a tideway, below! Now, d'ye think you'd weather that there point two hours after this, if a gale come on from the nor'-west, sir?' 'Well,' says the first mate, 'I dare say we shouldn't—but what of that?' 'Why, if you'd cruised for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done,' says the leftenant, 'you'd think there was something ticklish about that white spot in the sky, to nor'-west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is fell a good bit since four bells.' 'Weather-glass!' the mate says, 'why, that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy.' Ye must understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time, except in the Royal Navy. 'Sir,' says the mate again, 'mind your business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!' 'If I was you,' the leftenant says, 'I'd call the captain.' 'Thank ye,' says the mate—'call the captain for nothing!' Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins. The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. 'Why, sir,' says the mate, 'I'd no notion you was a seaman at all! What would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?' 'Well, sir,' says Mr Collins, 'if you'll do the thing, I'll put ye up to it at once——'"

At this point of Old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket pocket, and got up off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a short yarn again?" "Can't help it, bo'," said old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "if the yarn's been overhauled before, what was the upshot of it? I didn't hear it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several—"Old Jack didn't get the length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o'-war's-man; "'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!"

CHAPTER II

We left the forecastle group of the Gloucester disappointed by the abrupt departure of their story-teller, Old Jack, at so critical a thread of his yarn. As old Jacobs went aft on the quarter-deck, where the binnacle-lamp before her wheel was newly-lighted, he looked in with a seaman's instinct upon the compass-boxes, to see how the ship headed; ere ascending to the poop, he bestowed an approving nod upon his friend the steersman, hitched up his trousers, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in a proper deference to female society, and then proceeded to answer the captain's summons. The passengers, in a body, had left the grand cabin to the bustling steward and his boys, previously to assembling there again for tea—not even excepting the little coterie of inveterate whist-players, and the pairs of inseparable chess-men, to whom an Indian voyage is so appropriately the school for future nice practice in etiquette, war, and commerce. Everybody had at last got rid of sea-sickness, and mustered for a promenade; so that the lofty poop of the Indiaman, dusky as it was, and exposed to the breeze, fluttered with gay dresses like the midway battlement of a castle by the waves, upon which its inmates have stolen out from some hot festivity. But the long heave from below, raising her stern-end slowly against the western space of clear-obscure, in the manner characteristic of a sea abaft the beam, and rolling her to either hand, exhibited to the eyes on the forecastle a sort of alto relievo of figures, amongst whom the male, in their blank attempts to appear nautical before the ladies, were distinguished from every other object by their variety of ridiculous postures. Under care of one or two bluff, good-humoured young mates—officers polished by previous opportunities of a kind unknown either to Navy-men or mere "cargo-fenders," along with several roguish little quasi-midshipmen—the ladies were supported against the poop-rail, or seated on the after-gratings, where their contented dependence not only saved them from the ludicrous failures of their fellow-passengers, but gained them, especially the young ones, the credit of being better sailors. An accompaniment was contributed to this lively exercise on the part of the gentlemen promenaders, which otherwise in the glimmering sea-twilight, would have been striking in a different sense; by the efforts, namely, of a little band of amateur musicians under the break of the poop, who, with flute, clarionet, bugles, trombone, and violin, after sundry practisings by stealth, had for the first time assembled to play "Rule Britannia." What, indeed, with the occasional abrupt checks, wild flourishes, and fantastic variations caused by the ship's roll; and what with the attitudes overhead, of holding on refractory hats and caps, of intensely resisting and staggering legs, or of sudden pausing above the slope which one moment before was an ascent, there was additional force in the designation quaintly given to such an aspect of things by the foremast Jacks—that of a "cuddy jig." As the still increasing motion, however, shook into side-places this central group of cadets, civilians, and planters adrift, the grander features of the scene predominated: the broad mass of the ship's hull—looming now across and now athwart the streak of sinking light behind—drawn out by the weltering outline of the waters; the entire length of her white decks ever and anon exposed to view, with their parallel lines, their nautical appurtenances, the cluster of hardy men about the windlass, the two or three "old salts" rolling to and fro along the gangway, and the variety of forms blending into both railings of the poop. High out of, and over all, rose the lofty upper outline of the noble ship, statelier and statelier as the dusk closed in about her—the expanse of canvas whitening with sharper edge upon the gloom; the hauled-up clues of the main-course, with their huge blocks, swelling and lifting to the fair wind—and the breasts of the topsails divided by their tightened buntlines, like the shape of some full-bosomed maiden, on which the reef-points heaved like silken fringes, as if three sisters, shadowy and goddess-like, trod in each other's steps towards the deeper solitude of the ocean; while the tall spars, the interlacing complicated tracery, and the dark top-hamper showing between gave graceful unity to her figure; and her three white trucks, far overhead, kept describing a small clear arc upon the deep blue zenith as she rolled: the man at the wheel midway before the doors of the poop-cabin, with the light of the binnacle upon his broad throat and bearded chin, was looking aloft at a single star that had come out beyond the clue of the main-topsail.

The last stroke of "six bells," or seven o'clock, which had begun to be struck on the ship's bell when Old Jack broke off his story, still lingered on the ear as he brought up close to the starboard quarter-gallery, where a little green shed or pent-house afforded support and shelter to the ladies with the captain. The erect figure of the latter, as he lightly held one of his fair guests by the arm, while pointing out to her some object astern, still retained the attitude which had last caught the eyes of the forecastle group. The musical cadets had just begun to pass from "Rule Britannia" to "Shades of Evening"; and the old sailor, with his glazed hat in his hand, stood waiting respectfully for the captain's notice. The ladies, however, were gazing intently down upon the vessel's wake, where the vast shapes of the waves now sank down into a hollow, now rose seething up into the rudder-trunk, but all marked throughout with one broad winding track, where the huge body of the ship had swiftly passed. From foaming whiteness it melted into yesty green, that became in the hollow a path of soft light, where the sparks mingled like golden seed; the wave-tops glimmered beyond; star-like figures floated up or sank in their long undulations; and the broad swell that heaped itself on a sudden under the mounting stern bore its bells, and bubbles, and flashes upwards to the eye. When the ship rose high and steady upon it, and one saw down her massy taffrail, it looked to a terrestrial eye rather like some mystic current issuing from the archway under a tall tower, whose foundations rocked and heaved; and so said the romantic girl beside the captain, shuddering at the vividness of an image which so incongruously brought together the fathomless deep and the distant shores of solid old England. The eye of the seaman, however, suggested to him an image more akin to the profession, as he directed his fair companion's attention to the trough of the ship's furrow, where, against the last low gleam of twilight, and by the luminous wake, could be seen a little flock of black petrels, apparently running along it to catch what the mighty ploughshare had turned up; while a grey gull or two hovered aslant over them in the blue haze. As he looked round, too, to aloft, he exchanged glances with the old sailor who had listened—an expression which even the ladies understood. "Ah! Jacobs," said the captain, "get the lamp lighted in my cabin, and the tea-kettle aft. With the roll she has on her, 'twill be more ship-shape there than in the cuddy." "Ay, ay, sir," said the old seaman. "How does she head just now, Jacobs?" "Sou'-west-and-by-south, sir." "She'd lie easier for the ladies though," said the captain, knowing his steward was a favourite with them, "were the wind a point or two less fair. Our old acquaintance, Captain Williamson of the Seringapatam now, Jacobs, old-fashioned as he was, would have braced in his lee-yard only to steady a lady's tea-cup." "Ay, your honour," replied Jacobs, and his weather-eye twinkled, "and washed the foc'sle under, too! But ye know, sir, he'd got a reg'lar-built naboob aboard, and a beauty besides!" "Ah, Mr Jacobs!" exclaimed the romantic young lady, "what was that? Is it one of your stories?" "Well, your ladyship, 'tis a bit of a yarn, no doubt, and some'at of a cur'ous one." "Oh!" said another of the captain's fair protégées, "I do love these 'yarns,' as you call them; they are so expressive, so—and all that sort of thing." "Nonsense, my love," said her mother; "you don't understand them, and 'tis better you should not—they are low, and contain a great many bad words, I fear." "But think of the imaginative feeling, aunt," rejoined the other girl, "and the adventures! Oh, the ocean of all places for that! Were it not for sea-sickness, I should dote upon it! As for the storm just now, look how safe we are, and see how the dear old ship rises up from the billows, with all her sails so delightfully mysterious one over another!" "Bless your heart, marm, yes," responded Old Jack, chuckling; "you talks just like a seaman, beggin' your pardon. As consarns the tea, sir, I make bold to expect the'll be a shift o' wind directly, and a slant deck, as soon as we get fair into the stream, rid o' this bit of a bubble the tail of it kicks up hereabouts." "Bear a hand then, Jacobs," said the captain, "and see all right below for the party in the cabin—we shall be down in a few minutes." The captain stood up on the quarter-gallery, to peer round into the dusk and watch the lifting of the main-royal; but the next minute he called to the ladies, and their next neighbours, to look towards the larboard bow, and see the moon rise. A long edge of gray haze lay around the eastern horizon, on which the dark rim of the sea was defined beyond the roll of the waves, as with the sweep of a soft brush dipped in indigo; while to westward it heaved up, weltering in its own watery light against the gloom. From behind this low fringe of vapour was silently diffusing, as it were, a pool of faint radiance, like a brook bubbling from under ice; a thread of silver ran along the line of haze, growing keener at one point, until the arch of the moon shot slowly up, broad and fair: the wave-heads rising between were crested here and there with light; the bow of the ship, the bellies of her fore-canvas, her bowsprit with the jibs hanging idly over it, and the figure-head beneath, were tinged by a gentle lustre, while the hollow shadows stole out behind. The distant horizon, meanwhile, still lay in an obscure streak, which blended into the dark side of the low fog-bank, so as to give sea and cloud united the momentary appearance of one of those long rollers that turn over on a beach, with their glittering crest: you would expect to see next instant what actually seemed to take place—the whole outline plashing over in foam, and spreading itself clearly forward, as soon as the moon was free. With the airy space that flowed from her came out the whole eastern seaboard liquid and distinct, as if beyond either bow of the lifting Indiaman one sharp finger of a pair of compasses had flashed round, drawing a semi-circle upon the dull background, still cloudy, glimmering, and obscure. From the waves that undulated towards her stern, the ship was apparently entering upon a smoother zone, where the small surges leapt up and danced in moonshine, resembling more the current of some estuary in a full tide. To north-westward, just on the skirts of the dark, one wing of a large, soft-grey vapour was newly smitten by the moon-gleam; and over against it on the south-east, where the long fog-bank sank away, there stretched an expanse of ocean which, on its farthest verge, gave out a tint of the most delicate opal blue. The ship, to the south-westward of the Azores, and going large before the trade-wind, was now passing into the great Gulf Stream, which there runs to the south-east; even the passengers on deck were sensible of the rapid transition with which the lately cold breeze became warmer and fitful, and the motion of the vessel easier. They were surprised, on looking into the waves alongside, to perceive them struggling, as it were, under a trailing network of seaweed; which, as far as one could distinctly see, appeared to keep down the masses of water, like so much oil—flattening their crests, neutralising the force of the wind, and communicating a strangely sombre green to the heaving element. In the winding track of the ship's wake the eddies now absolutely blazed; the weeds she had crushed down rose to the surface again in gurgling circles of flames, and the showers of sparks came up seething on either side amongst the stalks and leaves; but as the moonlight grew more equally diffused, it was evident that she was only piercing an arm of that local weed-bed here formed, like an island, in the bight of the stream. Farther ahead were scattered patches and bunches of the true Florida Gulf-weed, white and moss-like; which, shining crisp in the level moonlight, and tipping the surges as it floated past, gave them the aspect of hoary-bearded waves, or the garlanded horses of Neptune. The sight still detained the captain's party on deck, and some of the ladies innocently thought these phenomena indicative of the proximity of land.

"I have seldom seen the Stream so distinct hereabouts," said Captain Collins to his first officer, who stood near, having charge of the watch. "Nor I, sir," replied the chief mate; "but it no doubt narrows with different seasons. There goes a flap of the fore-topsail, though! The wind fails, sir." "'Tis only drawing ahead, I think," said the captain; "the stream sucks the wind with its heat, and we shall have it pretty near from due nor'-west immediately." "Shall we round in on the starboard hand, then, sir, and keep both wind and current aft?" "I think not, Mr Wood," said the captain. "'Twould give us a good three knots more every hour of the next twenty-four, sir," persisted the officer eagerly—and chief mates generally confine their theories to mere immediate progress. "Yes," rejoined the captain, "but we should lose hold of the 'trade' on getting out of the stream again. I intend driving her across, with the nor'-wester on her starboard beam, so as to lie well up afterwards. Get the yards braced to larboard as you catch the breeze, Mr Wood, and make her course south-west by west." "Very well, sir." "Ladies," said the captain, "will you allow me to hand you below, where I fear Jacobs will be impatient with the tea?"

"What a pity, Captain Collins," remarked the romantic Miss Alicia, looking up as they descended the companion—"what a pity that you cannot have that delicious moonlight to shine in at your cabin windows just now; the sailors yonder have it all to themselves." "There is no favour in these things at sea, Miss Alicia," said the captain, smiling. "Jack shares the chance there, at least, with his betters; but I can promise those who honour my poor suite of apartments this evening both fine moonshine and a steadier floor." On reaching the snug little after-cabin, with its swinging lamp and barometer, its side "state-room," seven feet long, and its two stern-windows showing a dark glimpse of the rolling waters, they found the tea-things set, nautical style, on the hard-a-weather, boxed-up table—the surgeon and one or two elderly gentlemen waiting, and old Jacobs still trimming up the sperm-oil lights. Mrs St Clair, presiding in virtue of relationship to their host, was still cautiously pouring out the requisite half-cups, when, above all the bustle and clatter in the cuddy, could be heard the sounds of ropes thrown down on deck, of the trampling watch, and the stentorian voice of the first officer. "Jacobs!" said the captain, a minute or two afterwards; and that worthy factotum instantly appeared from his pantry alongside of the door—from whence, by-the-way, the old seaman might be privy to the whole conversation—"stand by to dowse the lamp when she heels," an order purposely mysterious to all else but the doctor. Everyone soon felt a change in the movement of their wave-born habitation; the rolling lift of her stern ceased; those who were looking into their cups saw the tea apparently take a decided inclination to larboard—as the facetious doctor observed, a "tendency to port." The floor gradually sloped down to the same hand, and a long, wild, gurgling wash was suddenly heard to run careering past the timbers of the starboard side.

"Dear me!" fervently exclaimed every lady at once; when the very next moment the lamps went out, and all was darkness. Captain Collins felt a little hand clutch his arm in nervous terror, but the fair owner of it said nothing; until, with still more startling effect than before, in a few seconds there shot through both stern windows the full rays of the moon, pouring their radiance into the cabin, shining on the backs of the books in the hanging shelves by the bulkhead, on the faces of the party, and the bald forehead of old Jacobs "standing by" the lamp—lastly, too, revealing the pretty little Alicia with her hand on the captain's arm, and her pale, terrified face. "Don't be alarmed, ladies!" said the surgeon, "she's only hauled on the starboard tack!" "And her counter to the east," said the captain.

"But who put out the lamp?" rejoined the doctor. "Ah, I see, sir!—'But when the moon, refulgent lamp of night.'" "Such a surprise!" exclaimed the ladies, laughing, although as much frightened for a moment by the magical illumination as by the previous circumstances. "You see," said the captain, "we are not like a house—we can bring round our scenery to any window we choose." "Very prettily imagined it was, too, I declare!" observed a stout old Bombay officer, "and a fine compliment to the ladies, by Jingo, sir!" "If we had any of your pompous Bengal 'Quy hies' here though, colonel," said the doctor, "they wouldn't stand being choused so unceremoniously out of the weather side, I suspect." "As to the agreeable little surprise I meant for the ladies," said Captain Collins, "I fear it was done awkwardly, never having commanded an Indiaman before, and laid up ashore these half-a-dozen years. But one's old feelings get freshened up, and without knowing the old Gloucester's points, I can't help reckoning her as a lady too—a very particular old 'Begum,' that won't let anyone else be humoured before herself—especially as I took charge of her to oblige a friend." "How easily she goes now!" said the doctor, "and a gallant sight at this moment, I assure you, to anyone who chooses to put his head up the companion." "Ah, mamma!" said one of the girls, "couldn't you almost think this was our own little parlour at home with the moonlight coming through the window on both sides of the old elm, where we were sitting a month ago hearing about India and papa?"

"Ah!" responded her cousin, standing up, "but there was no track of moonshine dancing beyond the track of the ship yonder! How blue the water is, and how much warmer it has grown of a sudden!"

"We are crossing the great Gulf Stream," said the captain—"Jacobs! open one of the stern-ports." "'Tis the very place and time, this is," remarked a good-humoured cotton-grower from the Deccan, "for one of the colonel's tiger-hunts, now!" "Sir!" answered the old officer, rather testily, "I am not accustomed to thrust my tiger-hunts, as you choose to call my humble experiences, under people's noses!" "Certainly not, my dear sir," said the planter—"but what do you say, ladies, to one of the captain's sea-yarns, then? Nothing better, I'm sure, here now, sir—eh?" Captain Collins smiled, and said he had never spun a yarn in his life, except when a boy, out of matter-of-fact old junk and tar. "Here is my steward, however," continued he, "who is the best hand at it I know, and I daresay he'll give you one." "Charming!" exclaimed the young ladies; and "What was that adventure, Mr Jacobs," said Miss Alicia, "with a beauty and a nabob in it, that you alluded to a short time ago?" "I didn't to say disactly include upon it, your ladyship," replied old Jacobs, with a tug of his hair, and a bow not just à la maître; "but the captain can give you it better nor I can, seeing as his honour were the Nero on it, as one may say." "Oh!" said the surgeon, rubbing his hands, "a lady and a rupee-eater in the case!" "There seems something curious about this said adventure of yours, my dear captain," said Mrs St Clair, archly, "and a beauty too! It makes me positively inquisitive, but I hope your own fair lady has heard the story?" "Why, not exactly, ma'am," replied Captain Collins, laughing as he caught the doctor looking preternaturally solemn, after a sly lee-wink to the colonel, who, having his back to the moonlight, stretched out his legs and indulged in a grim, silent chuckle, until his royal-tiger countenance was unhappily brought so far flush [2] in the rays as to betray a singular daguerreotype, resembling one of those cut-paper phantasmagoria thrown on a drawing-room wall, unmistakably black and white, and in the character of Malicious Watchfulness. The rubicund, fidgety little cotton-grower twiddled his thumbs, and looked modestly down on the deck, with half-shut eyes, as if expecting some bold revelation of nautical depravity; while the romantic Miss Alicia coloured and was silent. "However," said the captain, coolly, "it is no matrimonial secret, at any rate! We both talk of it sometimes when we read the Church Service of a Sunday night at home, with Jacobs for the clerk." "Do, Mr Jacobs, oblige us!" requested the younger of the girls. "Well, miss," said he, smoothing down his hair in the doorway, and hemming, "'tain't neither for the likes o' me to refuse a lady, nor accordin' to rules for to give such a yarn in presence of a supperior officer, much less the captain; with a midship helm, ye know, marm, ye carn't haul upon one tack nor the other. Not to say but next forenoon watch——" "I see, Jacobs, my man," interrupted Captain Collins, "there's nothing for it but to fore-reach upon you, or else you'll be 'Green-Handing' me aft as well as forward; so I must just make the best of it, and take the winch in my own fashion at once!" "Ay, ay, sir—ay, ay, your honour!" said Old Jack demurely, and concealing his gratification as he turned off into the pantry, with the idea of for the first time hearing the captain relate the incidents in question. "My old shipmate," said the latter, "is so fond of having trained his future captain, that it is his utmost delight to spin out everything we ever met with together into one endless yarn, which would go on from our first acquaintance to the present day, although no ship's company ever heard the last of it. Without falling knowingly to leeward of the truth, he makes out every lucky coincidence almost to have been a feat of mine, and puts in little fancies of his own, so as to give the whole thing more and more of a marvellous air the farther it goes. The most amusing thing is, that he almost always begins each time, I believe, at the very beginning, like a capstan without a paul—sticking in one thing he had forgot before, and forgetting another; sometimes dwelling longer on one part—a good deal like a ship making the same voyages over again. I knew, now, this evening, when I heard the men laughing, and saw Old Jack on the forecastle, what must be in the wind. However, we have shared so many chances, and I respect the old man so much, not to speak of his having dandled my little girls on his knee, and being butler, steward, and flower-gardener at home, that I can't really be angry at him, in spite of the sort of every man's rope he makes of me!" "How very amusing a character he is!" said one young lady. "A thought too tarry, perhaps?" suggested the surgeon. "So very original and like a—a seaman!" remarked Miss Alicia, quietly, but as if some other word that crossed her mind had been rejected, as descriptive of a different variety, probably higher. "Original, by Jove!" exclaimed the colonel; "if my Khansa-man, or my Abdar, [3] were to make such a dancing dervish and tumasha [4] of me behind back, by the holy Vishnu, sir, I'd rattan him myself within an inch of his life!" "Not an unlikely thing, colonel," put in the planter; "I've caught the scoundrels at that trick before now." "What did you do?" inquired the colonel, speculatively. "Couldn't help laughing, for my soul, sir; the puckree-bund [5] rascals did it so well, and so funnily!" The irascible East-Indian almost started up in his imaginative fury, to call for his palkee, and chastise his whole verandah, when the doctor reminded him that it was a long way there. "Glorious East!" exclaimed the medico, looking out astern, "where we may cane our footmen, and whence, meanwhile, we can derive such Sanscrit-sounding adjurations, with such fine moonlight!"

The presence of the first officer was now added to the party, who came down for a cup of tea, fresh from duty, and flavouring strongly of a pilot cheroot. "How does she head, Mr Wood?" asked the captain. "Sou'-west-by-west, sir—a splendid night, under everything that will draw—spray up to the starboard cathead!"

"But as to this story, again, Captain Collins?" said Mrs St Clair, as soon as she had poured out the chief mate's cup. "Well," said the captain, "if you choose to listen till bedtime to a plain draught of the affair, why I suppose I must tell it you; and what remains then may stand over till next fine night. It may look a little romantic, being in the days when most people are such themselves, but, at any rate, we sailors—or else we should never have been at sea, you know; so you'll allow for that, and a spice to boot of what we used to call at sea 'lovemaking'; happily there were no soft speeches in it, like those in books, for then I shouldn't tell it at all.

"By the time I was twenty-four, I had been nine years at sea, and at the end of the war, was third lieutenant of a crack twenty-eight, the saucy Iris—as perfect a sloop-model, though over-sparred certainly, as ever was eased off the ways of Chatham, or careened to a north-easter. The Admiralty had almost learned to build by that day, and a glorious ship she was, made for going after the small fry of privateers, pirates, and slavers, that swarmed about the time. Though I had roughed it in all sorts of craft, from a first-rate to a dirty French lugger prize, and been eastward, so as to see the sea in its pride at the Pacific, yet the feeling you have depends on the kind of ship you are in. I never knew so well what it was to be fond of a ship and the sea; and when I heard of the poor Iris, that had never been used to anything but blue water on three parts of the horizon at least, laying her bones not long after near Wicklow Head, I couldn't help a gulp in the throat. I once dreamt I had gone down in her, and risen again to the surface with the loss of my brains, such as I had had; while at the same moment, there I was, still sitting below on a locker in the wardroom, with the arms of her beautiful figure-head around me, and her mermaid's tail like the best-bower cable, with an anchor at the end of it far away out of soundings, over which I bobbed and dipped for years and years, in all weathers, like a buoy. We had no Mediterranean time of it, though, in the Iris, off the Guinea coast, from Cape Palmas to Cape Negro; looking out to windward for white squalls, and to leeward for black ones, and in-shore for Spanish cattle-dealers, as we called them, had made us all as sharp as so many marling-spikes; and our captain was a man that taught us seamanship, with a trick or two beyond. The slavers had not got to be so clever then, either, with their schooners and clippers: they built for stowage, and took the chance, so that we sent in bale after bale to the West India admiral, made money, and enjoyed ourselves now and then at the Cape de Verdes. However, this kind of thing was so popular at home, as pickings after the great haul was over, that the Iris had to give up her station to a post-frigate, and be paid-off. The war was over, and nobody could expect to be promoted without a friend near the blue table-cloth, although a quiet hint to a secretary's palm would work wonders, if strong enough. But most of such lucky fellows as ourselves dissipated their funds in blazing away at balls and parties, where the gold band was everything, and the ladies wore blue ribbons and anchor brooches in honour of the navy. The men spent everything in a fortnight, even to their clothes, and had little further chance of eating the king's biscuit with hopes of prize-money; I used to see knots of them, in red shirts and dirty slops, amongst the foremast Jacks in outward-bound ships, dropping past Greenwich, and waving their hats to the Hospital. You knew them at once by one of them giving the song for the topsail-halliards, instead of the merchantmen's bull's chorus; indeed, I could always pick off the dashing men-o'-war's-men, by face and eye alone, out from among the others, who looked as sober and solitary, with their serious faces and way of going about a thing, as if everyone of them was the whole crew. I once read a bit of poetry called the 'Ancient Mariner,' to old Jacobs, who by-the-by is something of a breed betwixt the two kinds, and his remark was: 'That old chap warn't used to hoisting altogether with a run, your honour! By his looks I'd say he was bred where there was few in a watch, and the watch-tackle laid out pretty often for an eke to drag down the fore-tack.'

"As I was riding down to Croydon in Surrey, where my mother and sister had gone to live, I fell in with a sample of the hard shifts the men-o'-war's-men were put to in getting across from harbour to some merchant port, when all their money was chucked away. It was at a little town called Bromley, where I brought to by the door of a tavern and had a pail for the horse, with a bottle of cider for myself at the open window, the afternoon being hot. There was a crowd of townspeople at the other end of the street, country bumpkins and boys—women looking out at the windows, dogs barking, and children shouting—the whole concern bearing down upon us.

"'What's all this?' said I to the ostler.

"'Don't know, sir,' said he, scratching his head; ''tis very hodd, sir! That corner is rather a sharp turn for the coach, sir, and she do sometimes run over a child there, or somethink. But 'tain't her time yet! Nothink else hever 'appens 'ere, sir.'

"As soon as I could hear or see distinctly for the confusion, I observed the magnet of it to be a party of five or six regular blue-jackets, a good deal battered in their rig, who were roaring out sea-songs in grand style as they came along, leading what I thought at first was a bear. The chief words I heard were what I knew well. 'We'll disregard their tommy-hawks, likewise their scalping-knives—and fight alongside of our mates to save our precious lives—like British tars and sowldiers in the North Americay!'

"On getting abreast of the inn door, and finding an offing with good holding-ground, I suppose, they hove to and struck up the 'Buffalo,' that finest of chants for the weather forecastle with a spanking breeze, outward bound, and the pilot lately dropped:

"Come, all you young men and maidens, that wishes for to sail,

And I will let you hear of where you must a-roam;,

We'll embark into a ship which her taups'ls is let fall,

And all unto an ileyand where we never will go home;,

Especiallye you ladies that's anxious for to rove—,

There's fishes in the sea, my love, likewise the buck an' doe,

We'll lie down—on the banks—of yon pleasant shadye gro-ove,

Through the wild woods we'll wander and we'll chase the buffalo—ho—ho—,

We'll chase the buffalO!,

"I really couldn't help laughing to see the slapping, big-bearded fellows, like so many foretopmen, showing off in this manner—one mahogany-faced thoroughbred leading, the rest thundering in at the chorus, with a tremendous stress on the 'Lo—ho—ho,' that made the good Bromley folks gape. As to singing for money, however, I knew no true tar with his members whole would do it; and I supposed it to be merely some 'spree ashore,' until the curious-looking object from behind was lugged forward by a couple of ropes, proving to be a human figure above six feet high, with a rough canvas cover as far as the knees. What with three holes at the face, and the strange colour of the legs, which were bare—with a pair of turned-up India shoes, and the whole shape like a walking smoke-funnel over a ship's caboose—I was puzzled what they would be at. The leading tar immediately took off his hat, waved it round for a clear space, and gave a hem! while he pointed to the mysterious creature. 'Now my lads!' said he, 'this here wonderful bein' is a savitch we brought aboard of us from the Andyman Isles, where he was caught one mornin' paddling round the ship in a canoe made out of the bark of a sartain tree. Bein' the ownly spice of the sort brought to this country as yet is, and we havin' run short of the needful to take us to the next port, we expects every lady and gemman as has the wherewithal will give us a lift by consideration of this same cur'ous sight, and doesn't——' 'Heave ahead, Tom, lad!' said another encouragingly, as the sailor brought up fairly out of breath. 'Doesn't want no man's money for nou't d' ye see, but all fair an' above board. We're not agoin' to show this ere sight excep' you makes up half-a-guinea amongst ye—arter that all hands may see shotfree—them's the articles!' 'Ay, ay, Tom, well said, old ship!' observed the rest; and, after a considerable clinking of coin amongst the crowd, the required sum was poured, in pence and sixpences, into Tom's hat. 'All right!' said he, as soon as he had counted it—'hoist away the tarpaulin, mates!' For my part, I was rather surprised at the rare appearance of this said savage, when his cover was off—his legs and arms naked, his face streaked with yellow, and both parts the colour of red boom-varnish; his red hair done up in a tuft, with feathers all round it, and a bright feather tippet over his shoulders, as he stood, six feet in his yellow slippers, and looking sulkily enough at the people. 'Bobbery puckalow!' said the nautical head-showman, and all at once up jumped the Andaman islander, dancing furiously, holding a little Indian punkah over his head, and flourishing with the other hand what reminded me strongly of a ship's top-maul—shouting 'Goor—goor—gooree!' while two of the sailors held on by the ropes. The crowd made plenty of room, and Tom proceeded to explain to them very civilly, that 'in them parts 'twas so hot the natives wouldn't fight, save under a portiable awning.' Having exhibited the points of their extraordinary savage, he was calmed again by another uncouth word of command, when the man-o'-war's-man attempted a further traverse on the good Bromley folks, for which I gave him great credit. 'Now, my lads and lasses,' said he, taking off his hat again, 'I s'pose you're all British subjects and Englishmen!' at which there was a murmur of applause. 'Very good, mates all!' continued the foretopman, approvingly. 'Then, in course, ye knows as how whatsomever touches British ground is free!' 'Britons never, never shall be slaves!' sung out a boy, and the screaming and hurrahing was universal. Tom stuck his tongue in his cheek to his messmates, and went on: 'Though we was all pressed ourselves, and has knocked about in sarvice of our king and country, an' bein' poor men, we honours the flag, my lads!' 'Hoorah! hoorah! hoor-r-ray!' 'So you see, gemmen, my shipmates an' me has come to the resolve of lettin' this here wild savidge go free into the woods—though bein' poor men, d' ye see, we hopes ye'll make it up to us a bit first! What d' ye say, all hands?—slump together for the other guinea, will ye, and off he goes this minute, and—Eh? what d' ye say, shipmates?' 'Ay, ay, Tom, sink the damage, too!' said his comrades; 'we'll always get a berth at Blackwall, again!'

"'Stand by to ease off his tow-lines, then,' said Tom—'now look sharp with the shiners there, my lads—ownly a guinea!' 'No, no!' murmured the townspeople, 'send for the constable—we'll all be scalped and murdered in our beds!—no, no, for God's sake, mister sailors!' A grocer ran out of his door to beg the tars wouldn't think of such a thing, and the village constable came shoving himself in with the beadle. 'Come, come,' said the constable, in a soothing style, while the beadle tried to look big and blustering, 'you mustn't do it, my good men—not on no desideration, here—in his majesty's name. Take un on to the next parish—I horder all good subjects to resist me!' 'What!' growled the foretopman, with an air of supreme disgust, 'han't ye no feelin's for liberty hereaway? Parish be blowed! Bill, my lad, let go his moorings, and give the poor wretch his nat'ral freedom!' 'I'm right down ashamed on my country,' said Bill. 'Hullo, shipmates, cast off at once, an' never mind the loss—I hasn't slept easy myself sin' he wor cotched!' 'Nor me either,' said another; 'but I'm feared he'll play old Harry when he's loose, mate.'

"I had been watching the affair all this time from inside, a good deal amused, in those days, at the trick—especially so well carried out as it was by the sailors. 'Here, my fine fellows,' said I at last, 'bring him in, if you please, and let me have a look at him.' Next minute in came the whole party, and supposing from my plain clothes I was merely some longshore traveller, they put their savage through his dance with great vigour. 'Wonderfully tame he's got, your honour!' said the topman; 'it's nothing to what he does if you freshens his nip.' 'What does he eat? 'I asked, pretending not to understand the hint. 'Why, nought to speak on, sir,' said he; 'but we wonst lost a boy doorin' the cruise, nobody know'd how—though 'twas thought he went o'board, some on us had our doubts.' 'Curiously tatooed, too,' I said; 'I should like to examine his arm.' 'A bit obstropolous he is, your honour, if you handles him.' 'Never mind,' said I, getting up and seizing the wrist of the Andaman islander, in spite of his grins; and my suspicions were immediately fulfilled by seeing a whole range of familiar devices marked in blue on the fellow's arm—amongst them an anchor with a heart transfixed by a harpoon, on one side the word 'Sal,' and on the other 'M. O., 1811.' 'Where did you steal this top-maul, you rascal?' said I, coolly looking in his face; while I noticed one of the men overhauling me suspiciously out of his weather-eye, and sliding to the door. 'I didn't stale it at all,' exclaimed the savage, giving his red head a scratch, ''twas Bill Green there—by japers! whack pillalew, mates, I'm done!' 'Lor! oh lor!' said Bill himself, quite crestfallen, 'if I didn't think 'twas him. We're all pressed again, mate, it's the leftenant.' 'Pressed, bo'?' said Tom; 'more luck, I wish we was—but they wouldn't take ye now for a bounty, you know.' Here I was fain to slack down and give a hearty laugh, particularly at recognising Bill, who had been a shipmate of Jacobs and myself in the old Pandora, and was nicknamed 'Green'—I believe from a small adventure of ours—so I gave the men half-a-guinea a piece to carry them on. 'Long life to your honour,' said they; and said Tom, 'If I might make so bould, sir, if your honour has got a ship yet, we all knows ye, sir, and we'd enter, if 'twas for the North Pole itself.' 'No, my lad,' said I, 'I'm sorry to say I have not got so far yet. Dykes, my man, can you tell me where your old messmate Jacobs has got to?' 'Why, sir,' replied Bill, 'I did hear he was livin' at Wapping with his wife, where we means to give him a call too, sir.' 'Good day, your honour,' said all of them, as they put on their hats to go, and covered their curiosity again with his tarpaulin. 'I'm blessed, Bill,' said Tom, 'but we'll knock off this here carrivanning now, and put before the wind for Blackwall,' 'Won't you give your savage his freedom, then?' I asked. 'Sartinly, your honour,' replied the roguish foretopman, his eye twinkling as he saw that I enjoyed the joke. 'Now, Mick, my lad, ye must run like the devil so soon as we casts ye off.' 'Oh, by the powers, thry me!' said the Irishman; 'I'm sick tired o' this cannible minnatchery. By the holy Moses, though, I must have a dhrop o' dew in me, or I'll fall!' Mick accordingly swigged off a noggin of gin, and declared himself ready to start. 'Head due nor'-east from the sun, Mick, and we'll pick you up in the woods, and rig you out all square again,' said the captain of the gang, before presenting himself to the mob outside. 'Now, gemmen and ladies all,' said the sailor coolly, 'ye see we're bent on givin' this here poor unfort'nate his liberty—an' bein' tould we've got the law on our side, why, we means to do it. More by token, there's a leftenant in the Roy'l Navy aboard there, as has made up the little salvage-money, bein' poor men, orderin' us for to do it—so look out. If ye only gives him a clear offing, he'll not do no harm. Steady, Bill—slack off the starboard sheet, Jack—let go—all!' 'Oh! oh!—no! no!—for God's sake!' screamed the bystanders, as they scuttled off to both hands—'shame, shame—knock un down, catch un—tipstaff, beadle!' 'Hurrah!' roared the boys, and off went Mick O'Hooney in fine style, flourishing his top-maul, with a wild 'hullaloo,' right away over a fence, into a garden, and across a field towards the nearest wood. Everybody fell out of his way as he dashed on; then some running after him, dogs barking, and the whole of the seamen giving chase with their tarpaulins in their hands, as if to drive him far enough into the country. The whole thing was extremely rich, seen through the open air from the tavern window, where I sat laughing till the tears came into my eyes, at Jack-tars' roguishness and the stupefied Kent rustics, as they looked to each other; then at the sailors rolling away full speed along the edge of the plantation where the outlandish creature had disappeared; and, lastly, at the canvas cover which lay on the spot where he had stood. They were actually consulting how to guard against possible inroads from the savage at night, since he might be lurking near, when I mounted and rode off; I daresay even their hearing that I was a live and real lieutenant would cap the whole story.

"Croydon used to be a pretty, retired little town, you know, so quiet and old-fashioned that I enjoyed the unusual rest of it, and the very look of the canal, the market-place, the old English trees and people—by comparison with even the Iris's white decks, and her circumference of a prospect, so different every morning or hour of the day. My mother and my sister Jane were so kind—they petted me so, and were so happy to have me down to breakfast and out walking, even to feel the smell of my cigar—that I hardly knew where I was. I gave them an account of the places I had seen, with a few tremendous storms and a frigate-fight or two, instead of the horse-marine stories about mermaids and flying Dutchmen I used to pass upon them when a conceited youngster. Jane, the little gipsy, would listen with her ear to a large shell, when we were upon sea matters, and shut her eyes, saying she could fancy the things so well that way. Or was it about India, there was a painted sandal-wood fan carved in open-work like the finest lace, which she would spread over her face, because the seeing through it, and its scent, made her feel as if she were in the tropics. As for my mother, good simple woman, she was always between astonishment and horror, never having believed that lieutenants would be so heartless as to mast-head a midshipman for the drunkenness of a boat's crew, nor being able to understand why, with a gale brewing to seaward, a captain tried to get his ship as far as he could from land. The idea of my going to sea again never entered her head, the terrible war being over, and the rank I had gained being invariably explained to visitors as at least equal to that of a captain amongst soldiers. To the present day, this is the point with respect to seafaring matters on which my venerated and worthy parent is clearest: she will take off her gold spectacles, smoothing down her silver hair with the other hand, and lay down the law as to reform in naval titles, showing that my captain's commission puts me on a level with a military colonel. However, as usual, I got tired by little and little of this sort of thing; I fancy there's some peculiar disease gets into a sailor's brain that makes him uneasy with a firm floor and no offing beyond; certainly the country about Croydon was to my mind, at that time, the worst possible—all shut in, narrow lanes, high hedges and orchards, no sky except overhead, and no horizon. If I could only have got a hill, there would have been some relief in having a look-out from it. Money I had no want of; and as for fame or rank, I neither had the ambition, nor did I ever fancy myself intended for an admiral or a Nelson; all my wish was to be up and driving about, on account of something that was in me. I always enjoyed a good breeze as some do champagne; and the very perfection of glory, to my thinking, was to be the soul of a gallant ship in a regular Atlantic howler: or to play at long bowls with one's match to leeward, off the ridges of a sea, with both weather and the enemy to manage. Accordingly, I wasn't at all inclined to go jogging along in one of your easy merchantmen, where you have nothing new to find out; and I only waited to hear, from some friends who were bestirring themselves with the Board, of a ship where there might be something to do. These were my notions in those days, before getting sobered down, which I tell you for the sake of not seeming such a fool in this said adventure.

CHAPTER III

"Well, one evening my sister Jane and I went to a race-ball at Epsom, where, of course, we saw all the 'beauty and fashion,' as they say, of the country round, with plenty of the army men, who were in all their glory, with Waterloo and all that; we two or three poor nauticals being quite looked down upon in comparison, since Nelson was dead, and we had left ourselves nothing at the end to fight with. I even heard one belle ask a dragoon 'what uniform that was—was it the horse-artillery corps?' 'Haw!' said the dragoon, squinting at me through an eyeglass, and then looking with one eye at his spurs, and with the other at his partner, 'not at all sure! I do think, after all, Miss——, 'tis the—the marine body—a sort of amphibious animals! They weren't with us, though, you know—couldn't be, indeed, though it was Waterloo! Haw! haw! you'll excuse the joke, Miss——?' 'Ha! ha! how extremely witty, Captain——!' said the young lady, and they whirled away towards the other end of the hall. I never felt more inclined to pull a fellow's nose, till all of a sudden my head turned, and I forgot there was such a thing as a dragoon in the world, for I saw what I thought the loveliest young creature ever crossed my eyes, coming out of the refreshment-room with two ladies, an old and an elderly one. The first was finely dressed out, and I set her down for an aunt, she was so unlike; the other for a governess. The young lady was near sixteen to appearance, all in white. There were many beauties in the ball-room you would have called handsomer; but there was something about her altogether I could compare to nothing else but the white figure-head of the Iris, sliding gently along in the first curl of a breeze, with the morning sky far out on the bow—curious as you may think it, ladies! Her hair was brown, and her complexion remarkably pale notwithstanding; while her eyes were as dark blue, too, as—as the ocean near the line, that sometimes, in a clear calm, gets to melt till you scarcely know it from the sky. 'Look, Edward!' whispered my sister, 'what a pretty creature! She can't be English, she looks so different from everybody in the room. And such pearls in her hair! such a beautifully large diamond in that brooch! Who can she be, I wonder?' I was so taken up, however, that I never recollected at all what Jane said till at night, in thinking the matter over; and then a whole breeze of whisperings seemingly came from every corner of the cloakroom, of 'Who is she?' 'Who can she be?' 'Who's her father?' and so on, which I remembered to have heard. I only noticed at the time that somebody said she was the daughter of some rich East India nabob or other, just come home. A post-captain who was present—one of Collingwood's flag-lieutenants—went up to the old chaperon, whom he seemed to know, and got into talk with her: I found afterwards she was an admiral's widow. In a little I saw him introduced to the young lady, and ask her to dance; I fancied she hung back for a moment, but the next she bowed, gave a slight smile to the captain's gallant sea-fashion of deep respect to the sex, and they were soon swimming away in the first set. Her dancing was more like walking with spread wings upon air than upon planks with one's arms out, as the captain did. I'd have given my eyes, not to speak of my commission and chances to come, to have gone through that figure with her. When the captain had handed her to her seat again, two or three of the dragoons sauntered up to Lady Somers's sofa: it was plain they were taken; and after conversing with the old lady, one of them, Lord Somebody, as I understood, got introduced, in his turn, to the young beauty. As may be supposed, I kept a look-out for his asking her to dance, seeing that, if she had done so with one of the embroidered crew, and their clattering gear, I'd have gone out that instant, found out the Waterloo fellow next day, and, if not shot myself, have drilled him with an anchor button for a bullet, and run off in the first craft I could get. The cool, easy, impertinent way this second man made his request, though—just as if he couldn't be refused, and didn't care about it—it was as different from the captain of the Diomede's as red from blue! My heart went like the main-tack blocks thrashing when you luff too much; so you may guess what I felt to see the young lady, who was leaning back on the sofa, give her head a pettish sort of turn to the old one, without a word, as much as to say she didn't want to. 'My love!' I heard the old lady say, 'I fear you are tired! My Lord, your lordship must excuse Miss Hyde on this occasion, as she is in delicate health!' The dragoon was a polite nobleman, according to his cloth; so he kept on talking and smiling, till he could walk off without seeming as if he'd got his sabre betwixt his feet; but I fancied him a little down by the head when he did go. All the time the young beauty was sitting with her face as quiet and indifferent as may be, only there was a sparkle in her blue eyes, and in nothing else but the pearls in her hair, as she looked on at the dancing; and, to my eye, there was a touch of the rose came out on her pale cheek, clear though it was before the dragoon spoke to her. Not long after, an oldish gentleman came out with a grey-haired old general from the refreshment-room: a thin yellow-complexioned man he was, with no whiskers and bald forehead, and a bilious eye, but handsome, and his face as pompous and solemn-looking as if he'd been First Lord, or had got a whole court-martial on his shoulders for next day. I should have known him from a thousand for a man that had lived in the East, were it nothing but the quick way he looked over his shoulder for a servant or two, when he wanted his carriage called—no doubt just as one feels when he forgets he's ashore, like I did every now and then, looking up out to windward, and getting a garden-wall or a wood slap into one's eyesight, as 'twere. I laid down the old gentleman at once for this said nabob; in fact, as soon as a footman told him his carriage was waiting, he walked up to the young lady and her companions, and went off with them, a steward and a lady patroness convoying them to the break of the steps. The only notion that ran in my head, on the way home that night with my sister, was, 'By heavens! I might just as well be in love with the bit of sky at the end of the flying-jibboom!' and all the while the confounded wheels kept droning it into me, till I was as dizzy as the first time I looked over the fore-royal-yard. The whole night long I dreamt I was mad after the figure-head of the Iris, and asked her to dance with me, on which she turned round with a look as cold as water, or plain 'No.' At last I caught firm hold of her and jumped overboard; and next moment we were heaving on the blue swell in sight of the black old Guinea coast—when round turned the figure and changed into Miss Hyde; and the old nabob hauled us ashore upon a beautiful island, where I woke and thought I was wanted on deck, although it was only my mother calling me.

"All I had found out about them was, that Sir Charles Hyde was the name of the East Indian, and how he was a Bengal judge newly come home; where they lived, nobody at the ball seemed to know. At home, of course, it was so absurd to think of getting acquainted with a rich Indian judge and his daughter, that I said no more of the matter; although I looked so foolish and care-about-nothing, I suppose, that my mother said to Jane she was sure I wanted to go to sea again, and even urged me to 'take a trip to the Downs, perhaps.' As for going to sea, however, I felt I could no more stir, then, from where I was, than with a best bower down, and all hands drunk but the captain. There was a favourite lazy spot of mine near the house, where I used to lie after dinner, and puff away amongst the grass, at the back of a high garden-wall with two doors in it, and a plank across a little brook running close under them. All round was a green paddock for cows; there was a tall tree at hand, which I climbed now and then half-mast high, to get a look down a long lane that ran level to the sky, and gave you a sharp gush of blue from the far end. Being a luxurious dog in those days, like the cloth in general when hung up ashore, I used to call it 'The Idler's Walk,' and 'The Lazy Watch,' where I did duty somewhat like the famous bo'sun that told his boy to call him every night and say the captain wanted him, when he turned over with a polite message, and no good to the old tyrant's eyes.

"Well, one afternoon I was stretched on the softest bit of this retreat, feeling unhappy all over, and trying to think of nothing in particular, as I looked at the wall and smoked my cheroot. Excuse me if I think that, so far as I remember, there is nothing so consolatory, though it can't of course cure one, as a fine Manilla for the 'green sickness,' as our foremast fellows would say. My main idea was that nothing on earth could turn up to get me out of this scrape, but I should stick eternally, with my head sails shivering aback, or flapping in a sickening dead calm. It was a beautiful hot summer afternoon, as quiet as possible, and I was weary to death of seeing that shadow of the branch lying against the white wall, down to the keyhole of the nearest door. All of a sudden I heard the sweetest voice imaginable, coming down the garden as it were, singing a verse of a Hindostanee song I had heard the Bengal girls chant with their pitchers on their heads at the well, of an evening:

La li ta la, ta perisi,

La na comalay ah sahm-rè,

Madna, ca—rahm

Ram li ta, co-ca-la lir jhi!

La li ta la, vanga-la ta perisi.

'Coc-coka-cokatoo!' screamed a harsh voice, which I certainly could distinguish from the first. 'Pretty cockatoo!' said the other coaxingly; and the next minute the large pink-flushed bird itself popped his head over the top-stones above the door, floundering about with his throat foul of the silver chain fast to his leg, till he hung by his beak on my side of the wall, half-choked, and trying to croak out—'Pretty—pretty cocky!' Before I had time to think, the door opened, and, by heavens! there was my very charmer herself, with the shade of the green leaves showered over her distressed face. She had scarcely seen me before I sprang up and caught the cockatoo, which bit me like an imp incarnate, till the blood ran down my fingers as I handed it to its mistress, my heart in my mouth, and more than a quarter-deck bow in my cap. The young lady looked at me first in surprise, as may be supposed, and then, with a smile of thanks that set my brain all afloat, 'Oh, dear me!' exclaimed she, 'you are hurt!' 'Hurt!' I said, looking so bewildered, I suppose, that she couldn't help laughing. 'Tippoo is very stupid,' continued she, smiling, 'because he is out of his own country, I think. You shall have no sugar to-night, mister cockatoo, for biting your friends.'

"'Were you—ever in India—madam?' I stammered out. 'Not since I was a child,' she answered; but just then I saw the figure of the nabob sauntering down the garden, and said I had particular business and must be off. 'You are very busy here, sir?' said the charming young creature archly. 'You are longing till you go to sea, I daresay—like Tippoo and me.' 'You?' said I, staring at the keyhole whilst she caught my eye, and blushed a little, as I thought 'Yes, we are going—I long to see India again, and I remember the sea, too, like a dream.'

"Oh, heavens! thought I, when I heard the old gentleman call out—'Lota! Lota, beebee-lee! Kabultah, meetoowah?' [6] and away she vanished behind the door, with a smile dropped to myself. The tone of the judge's voice, and his speaking Hindoo, showed he was fond of his daughter at any rate. Off I went, too, as much confused as before, only for the new thought in my head. 'The sea, the sea!' I shouted, as soon as out of hearing, and felt the wind, as 'twere, coming from aft at last, like the first ripple. 'Yes, by George!' said I, 'outward bound for a thousand. I'll go, if it was before the mast.' All at once I remembered I didn't know the ship's name, or when. Next day, and the next again, I was skulking about my old place, but nobody appeared—not so much as a shadow inside the keyhole. At last one evening, just as I was going away, the door opened; I strolled slowly along, when, instead of the charming Lota, out came the flat brown turban of an ugly kitmagar, with a moustache, looking round to see who was there. 'Salaam, sah'b,' said the brown fellow, holding the door behind him with one paw. 'Burra judge sahib bhote bhote salaam send uppiser [7] sah'b—'ope not dekhe [8] after sahib cook-maid.' 'Joot baht, hurkut-jee,' [9] said I, laughing. 'Sah'b been my coontree?' inquired the Bengalee more politely. 'Jee, yes,' I said, wishing to draw him out 'I Inglitsh can is-peek,' continued the dark footman, conceitedly; 'ver well sah'b, but one misfortune us for come i-here. Baud carry make—plenty too much poork—too much graug drink. Termeric—chili—banana not got—not coco-tree got—pah! Baud coontree, too much i-cold, sah'b?' 'Curse the rascal's impudence,' I thought, but I asked him if he wasn't going back. 'Yis, sah'b, such baht [10] Al-il aláh? Mohummud burra Meer-kea. Bote too much i-smell, my coontree.' 'When are you going?' I asked, carelessly. 'Two day this time, sah'b.' 'Can you tell me the name of the ship?' I went on. The kitmagar looked at me slyly, stroked his moustache, and meditated; after which he squinted at me again, and his lips opened so as to form the magic word, Buckshish? 'Jee,' said I, holding out a crown piece, 'the ship's name and the harbour?' 'Se,' began he; the coin touched his palm—'ring'; his fingers closed on it, and 'patahm,' dropped from his leathery lips. 'The Seringapatam?' I said. 'Ahn, sah'b.' 'London, eh?' I added; to which he returned another reluctant assent, as if it wasn't paid for, and I walked off. However, I had not got round the corner before I noticed the figure of the old gentleman himself looking after me from the doorway; his worthy kitmagar salaaming to the ground, and no doubt giving information how the 'cheep uppiser' had tried to pump him to no purpose. The nabob looked plainly as suspicious as if I had wanted to break into his house, since he held his hand over his eyes to watch me out of sight.

"At night, I told my mother and sister I should be off to London next day for sea. What betwixt their vexation at losing me, and their satisfaction to see me more cheerful, with talking over matters, we sat up half the night. I was so ashamed, though, to tell them what I intended, considering what a fool's chase it would seem to anyone but myself, that I kept all close; and, I am sorry to say, I was so full of my love-affair, with the wild adventure of it, the sea, and everything besides, as not to feel their anxiety enough. How it was to turn out I didn't know; but somehow or other I was resolved I'd contrive to make a rope if I couldn't find one; at the worst, I might carry the ship, gain over the men, or turn pirate and discover an island. Early in the morning I packed my traps, drew a cheque for my prize-money, got the coach, and bowled off for London, to knock up Bob Jacobs, my sea godfather; this being the very first step, as it seemed to me, in making the plan feasible. Rough sort of confidant as he may look, there was no man living I would have trusted before him for keeping a secret. Bob was true as the topsail sheets; and if you only gave him the course to steer, without any of the 'puzzlement,' as he called the calculating part, he would stick to it, blow high, blow low. He was just the fellow I wanted for the lee brace, as it were, to give my weather one a purchase, even if I had altogether liked the notion of setting off all alone on what I couldn't help suspecting was a sufficiently harebrained scheme as it stood; and, to tell the truth, it was only to a straightforward, simple-hearted tar like Jacobs that I could have plucked up courage to make it known. I knew he would enter into it like a reefer volunteering for a cutting out, and make nothing of the difficulties—especially when a love matter was at the bottom of it: the chief question was how to discover his whereabouts, as Wapping is rather a wide word. I adopted the expedient of going into all the tobacco-shops to inquire after Jacobs, knowing him to be a more than commonly hard smoker, and no great drinker ashore. I was beginning to be tired out, however, and give up the quest, when, at the corner of a lane near the docks, I caught sight of a little door adorned with what had apparently been part of a ship's figure-head—the face of a nymph or nereid, four times as large as life, with tarnished gilding, and a long wooden pipe in her mouth that had all the effect of a bowsprit, being stayed up by a piece of marline to a hook in the wall, probably in order to keep clear of people's heads. The words painted on its two head-boards, as under a ship's bow, were 'Betsy Jacobs,' and 'licensed' on the top of the door; the window was stowed full of cakes of cavendish, twists of negrohead, and coils of pigtail; so that, having heard my old shipmate speak of a certain Betsy, both as sweetheart and partner, I made at once pretty sure of having lighted, by chance, on his very dry-dock, and went in without more ado. I found nobody in the little shop, but a rough voice, as like as possible to Jacobs' own, was chanting the sea-song of 'Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,' in the back-room, in a curious sleepy kind of drone, interrupted every now and then by the suck of his pipe, and a mysterious thumping sound, which I could only account for by the supposition that the poor fellow was mangling clothes, or gone mad. I was obliged to kick on the counter with all my might, in competition, before an eye was applied from inside to the little window; after which, as I expected, the head of Jacobs was thrust out of the door, his hair rough, three days' beard on his chin, and he in his shirt and trousers. 'Hisht!' said he, in a low voice, not seeing me distinctly for the light, 'you're not calling the watch, my lad! Hold on a bit, and I'll serve your orders directly.' After another stave of 'Hearts of oak are our ships,' etc., in the same drawl, and a still more vigorous thumping than before, next minute out came Bob again; with a wonderful air of importance, though, and drawing in one hand, to my great surprise, the slack of a line of 'half-inch,' on which he gave now and then a tug and an ease off, as he came forward, like a fellow humouring a newly-hooked fish. 'Now, then, my hearty!' said he, shading his eyes with the other hand, 'bear a——' 'Why, Jacobs, old ship,' I said, 'what's this you're after? Don't you know your old apprentice, eh?'

"Jacobs looked at my cap and epaulette, and gave out his breath in a whistle, the only other sign of astonishment being that he let go his unaccountable-looking piece of cord. 'Lord bless me, Master Ned!' said he—'I axes pardon, Lieutenant Collins, your honour!' 'Glad you know me this time, Bob, my lad, 'said I, looking round—'and a comfortable berth you've got of it, I daresay. But what the deuce are you about in there? You haven't a savage, too, like some friends of yours I fell in with a short time ago! Or perhaps a lion or a tiger, eh, Jacobs?' 'No, no, your honour—lions be blowed!' replied he, laughing, but fiddling with his hands all the while, and standing between me and the room, as if half-ashamed. ''Tis ownly the tiller-ropes of a small craft I am left in charge of, sir. But won't ye sit down, your honour, till such time as my old 'ooman comes aboard to relieve me, sir? Here's a cheer, and may be you'd make so free for to take a pipe of prime Americane, your honour?' 'Let's have a look into your cabin though, Bob, my man,' said I, curious to know what was the secret; when all at once a tremendous squall from within let me sufficiently into it. The old salt had been rocking the cradle, with a fine little fellow of a baby in it, and a line made fast to keep it in play when he served the shop. 'All the pitch is in the fire now, your honour,' said he, looking terribly nonplussed; 'I've broached him to, and he's all aback till his mammy gets a hold of him.' 'A good pipe the little rogue's got though,' said I; 'and a fine child he is, Jacobs—do for a bo'sun yet.' 'Why, yes, sir,' said he, rubbing his chin with a gratified smile, as the urchin kicked, threw out his arms, and roared like to break his heart; 'I'm thinking he's a sailor all over, by natur', as one may say. He don't like a calm no more nor myself; but that's the odds of being ashore, where you needs to keep swinging the hammocks by hand, instead of havin' it done for you, sir.' In the midst of the noise, however, we were caught by the sudden appearance of Mistress Jacobs herself—a good-looking young woman, with a market-basket full of bacon and greens, and a chubby little boy holding by her apron, who came through the shop. The first thing she did was to catch up the baby out of the cradle, and begin hushing it, after one or two side-glances of reproach at her husband, who attempted to cover his disgrace by saying, 'Betsy, my girl, where's your manners? why don't you off hats to the leftenant?—it's my wife, your honour.' Mrs Jacobs curtsied twice very respectfully, though not particularly fond of the profession, as I found afterwards; and I soon quite gained her smiles and good graces by praising her child, with the remark that he was too pretty ever to turn out a sailor; for, sharp as mothers are to detect this sort of flattery to anybody else's bantling, you always find it take wonderfully with respect to their own. Whenever Jacobs and I were left to ourselves, I struck at once into my scheme—the more readily for feeling I had the weather hand of him in regard of his late appearance. It was too ridiculous, the notion of one of the best foretopmen that ever passed a weather-earing staying at home to rock his wife's cradle and attend the shop; and he was evidently aware of it as I went on. It was a little selfish, I daresay, and Mrs Jacobs would perhaps have liked me none the better for it; but I proposed to him to get a berth in the Indiaman, sail with me for Bombay, and stand by for a foul hitch in something or other. 'Why, sir,' said he,' it shan't be said of Bob Jacobs he were ever the man to hang back where a matter was to be done that must be done. I doesn't see the whole bearings of it as yet, but ownly you give the orders, sir, and I'll stick to 'em.' ''Tis a long stretch between this and Bombay, Jacobs,' said I, 'and plenty of room for chances.' 'Ay, ay, sir, no doubt,' said he, 'your honour can talk the length of the best bower cable.' 'More than that, Bob, my lad,' said I, 'I know these Company men; if they once get out of their regular jog, they're as helpless as a pig adrift on a grating; and before they grow used to sailing out of convoy, with no frigates to whip them in, depend upon it Mother Carey will have to teach them a new trick or two.' 'Mayhap, sir,' put in Jacobs, doubtfully, 'the best thing 'ud be if they cast the ship away altogether, as I've seen done myself for the matter of an insurance. Ye know, sir, they lets it pass at Lloyd's now the war's over, seein' it brings customers to the underwriters, if so be ownly it don't come over often for the profits. Hows'ever it needs a good seaman to choose his lee-shore well, no doubt.' 'Oh!' answered I, laughing, 'but the chances are, all hands would want to be Robinson Crusoe at once! No, no—only let's get aboard, and take things as they come.' 'What's the ship's name, sir?' inquired Jacobs, sinking his voice, and looking cautiously over his shoulder toward the door. 'The Seringapatam—do you know her?' I said. 'Ay, ay, sir, well enough,' said he, readily—'a lump of a ship she is, down off Blackwall in the stream, with two more—country-built, and tumbles home rather much from below the plank-sheer for a sightly craft, besides being flat in the eyes of her, and round in the counter, just where she shouldn't, sir. Them Parchee Bombay shipwrights does clap on a lot of onchristien flummeries and gilt mouldings, let alone quarter-galleries fit for the king's castle!' 'In short, she's tea-waggon all over,' said I, 'and just as slow and as leewardly, to boot, as teak can make her?' 'Her lines is not that bad, though, your honour,' continued Jacobs, 'if you just knocked off her poop—and she'd bear a deal o' beating for a sea-boat. They've got a smart young mate, too; for I seed him t'other day a-sending up the yards, and now she's as square as a frigate, all ready to drop down river.' The short and long of it was, that I arranged with my old shipmate, who was fully bent on the cruise, whether Mrs Jacobs should approve or not, that, somehow or other, we should both ship our hammocks on board of the Seringapatam—he before the mast, and I wherever I could get. On going to the agent's, however—which I did as soon as I could change my uniform for plain clothes—I found, to my great disappointment, from a plan of the accommodations, that not only were the whole of the poop-cabins taken, but those on the main-deck also. Most of the passengers, I ascertained, were ladies, with their children and nurses, going back to India, and raw young cadets, with a few commercial and civilian nondescripts; there were no troops or officers, and room enough, except for one gentleman having engaged the entire poop, at an immense expense, for his own use. This I, of course, supposed was the nabob, but the clerk was too close to inform me. 'You must try another ship, sir,' said he, coolly, as he shut the book. 'Sorry for it, but we have another booked to sail in a fortnight. A1, sir; far finer vessel—couple of hundred tons larger—and sails faster.' 'You be hanged!' muttered I, walking out; and a short time after I was on board. The stewards told me as much again; but on my slipping a guinea into the fingers of one, he suddenly recollected there was a gentleman in state-room No. 14, starboard side of the main skylight, who, being alone, might perhaps be inclined to take a chum, if I dealt with him privately. 'Yankee, sir, he is,' said the steward, by way of a useful hint. However, I didn't need the warning, at sight of the individual's long nose, thin lips, and sallow jaw-bones, without a whisker on his face, and his shirt-collar turned down, as he sat overhauling his traps beside the carronade, which was tethered in the state-room, with its muzzle through the port. He looked a good deal like a jockey beside his horse; or, as a wit of a schoolboy cadet said afterwards, the Boston gentleman, calling himself Daniel C. Snout, Esquire—like Daniel praying in the lion's den, and afraid it might turn round and roar. I must say the idea didn't quite delight me, nor the sight of a fearful quantity of baggage which was stowed up against the bulkhead; but after introducing myself and objecting to the first few offers, I at last concluded a bargain with the American for a hundred guineas, provisions exclusive, which, he remarked, was 'considerable low, I prognosticate, mister!' 'However,' said he, 'I expect you're a conversationable individual a little: I allowed for that, you know, mister. One can't do much of a trade at sea—that's a fact; and I calculate we'll swap information by the way. I'm water-pruff, I tell you, as all our nation is. You'll not settle at Bumbay, I reckon, mister?' But though I meant to pay my new messmate in my own coin at leisure afterwards, and be as frank and open as day with him—the only way to meet a Yankee—I made off at present as fast as possible to bring my things aboard, resolving to sleep at Blackwall, and then to stow myself out of sight for sick, until there was somebody to take off the edge of his confounded talk.

"Next afternoon, accordingly, I found myself once more afloat, the Indiaman dropping down with the first breeze. The day after, she was running through the Downs with it pretty strong from north-east, a fair wind—the pilot-boat snoring off close-hauled to windward, with a white spray over her nose; and the three dungaree topsails of the Seringapatam lifting and swelling, as yellow as gold, over her white courses in the blue Channel haze. The breeze freshened till she rolled before it, and everything being topsyturvy on deck, the lumber in the way, the men as busy as bees setting her ship-shape—it would have been as much as a passenger's toes were worth to show them from below; so that I was able to keep by myself, just troubling my seamanship so much as to stand clear of the work. Enjoy it I did, too; the first sniff of the weather was almost enough to make me forget what I was there for. I was every now and then on the point of fisting a rope, and singing out to the men; till at length I thought it more comfortable, even for me, to run up the mizzen shrouds when everybody was forward, where I stowed myself out of sight in the cross-trees.

"About dusk, while I was waiting to slip down, a stronger puff than ordinary made them clue up the mizzen-royal from deck, which I took upon myself to furl offhand—quick enough to puzzle a couple of boys that came aloft for the purpose, especially as, in the meantime, I had got down upon the topsail-yard-arm out of their notice. When they got on deck again, I heard the little fellows telling some of the men, in a terrified sort of way, how the mizzen-royal had either stowed itself, or else it was Dick Wilson's ghost, that fell off the same yard last voyage—more by token, he used always to make fast the gaskets just that fashion. At night, however, the wind having got lighter, with half moonlight, there was a muster of some passengers on deck, all sick and miserable, as they tried to keep their feet, and have the benefit of air—the Yankee being as bad as the worst. I thought it wouldn't do for me to be altogether free, and accordingly stuck fast by Mr Snout, with my head over the quarter-deck bulwarks, looking into his face, and talking away to him, asking all sorts of questions about what was good for sea-sickness, then giving a groan to prevent myself laughing, when the spray splashed up upon his 'water-pruff' face, he responding to it as Sancho Panza did to Don Quixote, when the one examined the other's mouth after a potion. All he could falter out was, how he wondered I could speak at all when sick. 'Oh! oh dear!' said I with another howl. 'Yes—'tis merely because I can't think! And I daresay you are thinking so much you can't talk—the sea is so full of meditation, as Lord Byron——oh—oh—this water will be the death of me!' 'I feel as if—the whole—tarnation Atlantic was—inside of my bowels!' gasped he through his nostrils. 'Oh!' I could not help putting in, as the ship and Mr Snout both gave a heave up, 'and coming out of you!'

"During all this time I had felt so sure of my ground as scarcely to trouble myself about the Bengal judge and his treasure of a daughter; only in the midst of the high spirits brought up by the breeze, I hugged myself now and then at the thought of their turning out by degrees as things got settled. Nobody would suspect the raw chap I looked, with smooth hair and a high collar, of any particular cue: I must say there was a little vanity at the bottom of it, but I kept thinking more and more how snug and quietly I'd enjoy all that went on, sailing on one tack with the passengers and the old nabob himself, and slipping off upon the other when I could come near the charming young Lota. The notion looks more like what some scamp of a reefer, cruising ashore, would have hit upon, than suits my taste nowadays; but the cockpit had put a spice of the imp in me, which I never got clear of till this very voyage, as you'll see, if we get through the log of it.

"The first time I went down into the cuddy was that evening to tea, where all was at sixes and sevens like the decks; the lamps ill-trimmed, stewards out of the way, and a few lads trying to bear up against their stomachs by the help of brandy and biscuits. The main figure was a jolly-looking East Indian, an indigo-planter, as he turned out, with a bald forehead, a hook nose, and his gills covered with white whiskers that gave him all the cut of a cockatoo. He had his brown servant running about on every hand, and being an old stager, did his best to cheer up the rest; but nothing I saw showed the least sign of the party I looked after. I was sure I ought to have made out something of them by this time, considering the stir such a grandee as Sir Charles Hyde would cause aboard; in fact, there didn't seem to be many passengers in her, and I began to curse the lying scoundrel of a kitmagar for working 'Tom Cox's traverse' on me, and myself for being a greater ass than I'd fancied. Indeed, I heard the planter mention by chance that Sir Charles Hyde, the district judge, had come home last voyage from India in this very Seringapatam, which, no doubt, I thought, put the Mahommedan rascal up to his trick.

"I was making up my mind to an Indian trip, and the pure pleasure of Daniel Catoson Snout, Esquire's, company for two blessed months, when all of a sudden I felt the ship bring her wind a-quarter, with a furious plunge of the Channel water along her bends, that made every landman's bowels yearn as if he felt it gurgle through him. One young fellow, more drunk than sick, gave a wild bolt right over the cuddy table, striking out with both arms and legs as if afloat, so as to sweep half of the glasses down on the floor. The planter, who was three cloths in the wind himself, looked down upon him with a comical air of pity as soon as he had got cushioned upon the wreck. 'My dear fellow,' said he, 'what do you feel—eh?' 'Feel, you—old blackguard!' stammered the griffin, 'I feel everything! Goes through—through my vitals as if—I was a con—founded whale! C—can't stand it!' 'You've drunk yourself aground, my boy!' sung out the indigo-man; 'stuck fast on the coral—eh? Never mind, we'll float you off, only don't flounder that way with your tail!—by George, you scamp, you've ruined my toe—oh dear!' I left the planter hopping round on one pin, and holding the gouty one in his hand, betwixt laughing and crying; on deck I found the floating Nab Light bearing broad on our lee-bow, with Cumberland Fort glimmering to windward, and the half-moon setting over the Isle of Wight, while we stood up for Portsmouth Harbour. The old captain, and most of the officers, were on the poop for the first time, though as stiff and uncomfortable from the sort of land-sickness and lumber-qualms that sailors feel till things are in their places, as the landsmen did until things were out of them. The skipper walked the weather side by himself and said nothing; the smart chief officer sent two men, one after another, from the wheel for 'cows' that didn't know where their tails were; and as for the middies, they seemed to know when to keep out of the way. In a little, the spars of the men-of-war at Spithead were to be seen as we rose on a sea; before the end of the first watch, we were running outside the Spit Buoy, which was nodding and plashing with the tide in the last slant of moonshine, till at last we rounded to, and down went the anchor in five fathoms, off the Motherbank. What the Indiaman wanted at Portsmouth I didn't know; but, meantime, I had given up all hopes of the nabob being in her, and the only question with me was, whether I should take the opportunity of giving all hands the slip here, even though I left my Yankee friend disconsolate, and a clear gainer by dollars beyond count.

"Early next morning there were plenty of wherries looking out for fares; so, as the Indiaman was not to sail before the night-ebb, when the breeze would probably spring up fair again, I hailed one of them to go ashore at the point, for a quiet stroll over Southsea Common, where I meant to overhaul the whole bearings of the case, and think if it weren't better to go home, and wait the Admiralty's pleasure for a ship. I hadn't even seen anything of Jacobs, and the whole hotel-keeping ways of the Indiaman began to disgust me, or else I should have at once decided to take the chance of seeing Lota Hyde somehow or other in India; but, again, one could scarcely endure the notion of droning on in a frigate without so much as a Brest lugger to let drive at. It was about six o'clock; the morning-gun from the guard-ship off the dock-yard came booming down through the harbour, the blue offing shone like silver, and the green tideway sparkled on every surge, up to where they were flashing and poppling on the copper of the frigates at Spithead. I noticed them crossing yards and squaring; the farthest out hove up anchor, loosed fore-topsail, cast her head to starboard, and fired a gun as she stood slowly out to sea under all sail, with a light air freshening abeam. The noble look of her almost reconciled me of itself to the service, were it for the mere sake of having a share in driving such a craft between wind and water. Just then, however, an incident turned up in spite of me, which I certainly didn't expect, and which had more, even than I reckoned at the time, to do with my other adventure; seeing that it made me, both then and afterwards, do the direct opposite of what I meant to do, and both times put a new spoke in my wheel, as we say at sea here.

"I had observed a seventy-four, the Stratton, lying opposite the Spit Buoy, on board of which, as the waterman told me, a court-martial had been held the day before, where they broke a first lieutenant for insulting his captain. Both belonged to one of the frigates: the captain I had seen, and heard of as the worst tyrant in the navy; his ship was called a 'perfect hell afloat'; that same week one of the boys had tried to drown himself alongside, and a corporal of marines, after coming ashore and drinking a glass with his sweetheart, had coolly walked down to the point, jumped in between two boats and the jetty, and kept himself under water till he was dead. The lieutenant had been dismissed the service, and as I recognised the name, I wondered whether it could actually be my schoolfellow, Tom Westwood, as gallant a fellow and as merry as ever broke biscuit. Two sail-boats, one from around the Stratton's quarter, and the other from over by Gosport, steering on the same tack for Southsea, turned my attention as I sauntered down to the beach. The bow of the nearest wherry grounded on the stones as I began to walk quicker towards the town-gates, chiefly because I was pretty ready for an early breakfast at the old Blue Posts, and also because I had a slight notion of what these gentlemen wanted on Southsea Beach at odd hours. Out they jumped, however—one man in naval undress, another a captain in full fig, the third a surgeon—coming right athwart my course to bring me to. The first I almost at once remembered for the notorious captain of the Orestes, or N'Oreste, as the midshipmen called her, from her French build and her character altogether. 'Hallo, you sir!' said the other captain, decidedly, 'you must stand still.' 'Indeed,' said I; 'and why so, if you please?' 'Since you are here, we don't intend allowing you to pass for some few minutes.' 'And what if I should do as I choose, sir?' I asked. 'If you stir two steps, sir, I shall shoot you,' replied the captain, who was one of the bullying school. 'Oh, very well,' I said, rather confounded by his impertinence, 'then I shall stay'; and I accordingly stood stock-still, with my arms folded, until the other boat landed a party of two. They were in plain clothes; nor did I give them any particular heed till the seconds had stationed their men, when the captain of the Orestes had his back to me, and his antagonist stood directly facing. As his pale resolved features came out before me with the morning sun on them, his lips together, and his nostrils large, I recognised my old friend Westwood. The captain had broke him the day before, and now had accepted his challenge, being a known dead shot, while the lieutenant had never fired a bullet in cold blood; there was, no doubt, a settled purpose in the tyrant to crush the first man that had dared to thwart his will. Westwood's second came forward and mentioned to the other that his friend was still willing to withdraw the words spoken in first heat, and would accordingly fire in the air. 'Coward!' shouted the captain of the Orestes immediately, 'I shall shoot you through the heart!' 'Sir,' said I to his second, 'I will not look on; and if that gentleman is shot, I will be witness against you both as murderers.' I dropped down behind a stone out of the line of fire, and to keep my eyes off the devilish piece of work, though my blood boiled to knock the fellow down that I was speaking to. Another minute, and the suspense was too great for me to help looking up. Just at that moment I saw how set Westwood's face was; he was watching his enemy with an eye that showed to me what the other's must be—seeking for his life. The seconds gave the word to each other in the middle, and dropped two white handkerchiefs at once with their hands together; I caught the flash of Westwood's pistol, when, to my astonishment, I saw the captain of the Orestes next moment jerk up his arm betwixt me and the sky, fire in the air, and slowly fall back—he was dead!—shot through the heart. One glance at his face gave you a notion of the devilish meaning he had had; but what was my surprise when his second walked up to Westwood, and said to him, 'Sir, you are the murderer of Captain Duncombe—my friend fired in the air as you proposed.' 'You are mistaken, sir,' answered Westwood, coldly; 'Captain Duncombe sought my life, and I have used the privilege of self-defence.' 'The surgeon is of my opinion,' said the other; 'and I am sorry to say that we cannot allow you to depart.' 'I shall give myself up to the authorities at once,' said Westwood. 'We have only your word for that, which I must be permitted, in such a case, to doubt,' replied the captain, whose evident wish it was to detain Westwood by force or threats while he sent off his surgeon. The worst of it was, as I now found, that since the court-martial and the challenge, an Admiralty order had arrived, in consideration of several gallant acts during the war, as well as private representation, restoring him to the service; so that he had, in fact, called out and shot his superior officer. As for the charge now brought forward, it was too absurd for any to believe it, unless from rage or prejudice; the case was bad enough, at any rate, without it.

"In the meantime I had exchanged a word or two with Westwood's friend; after which, lifting a second pistol which lay on the sand, I went up to the captain. 'Sir,' said I, 'you used the freedom, a little ago, of forcing me into your concerns, and I have seen the end of it. I have now got to tell you, having watched your conduct, that either you must submit to be made fast here for a bit, else, by the God that made me, I'll shoot you through the head.' The captain looked at me, his surgeon sidled up to him; and being a man near my own size, he suddenly tried to wrench the pistol out of my hands. However, I had him the next moment under my knee, while Westwood's second secured the little surgeon, and took a few round sea-turns about his wrists and ankles with a neckerchief. My companion then gave me a hand to do the same with his superior officer—the medico all the time singing out like a bull, and the captain threatening—while the dead body lay stark and stiff behind us, the eyes wide, the head down, and the breast up, the hand clenching a pistol, just as he had fallen. Westwood stood quite unconscious of everything we did, only he seemed to be watching the knees drawn up as they stiffened, and the sand-flies gathering about the mouth. 'Shall we clap a stopper between their teeth?' said the second to me—he had been at sea, but who he was I never knew—'the surgeon will be heard on the walls, he bellows so!' 'Never mind,' said I, 'we'll just drop them beyond tide-mark—the lee of the stones yonder.' In fact, from the noise the tide was making, I question if the shots could have been heard even by the watermen, who had prudently sheered out of sight round a point. I couldn't help looking, when we had done this, from the captain's body to his own frigate, as she was sluing round head on to us, at single anchor, to the turn of tide, with her buoy dancing on the brisk blue sweep of water, and her figure-head shining in the sunlight. As soon as we had covered over the corpse with tangle, Westwood started as if we had taken something away from him, or freed him of a spell. 'Westwood!' said I, laying my hand on his shoulder, 'you must come along with me.' He said nothing, but followed us quietly round to the wherries, where I told the watermen that the other party had gone a different way to keep clear, and we wanted them to pull for Gosport. At Gosport we had Westwood rigged out in black clothes, his hair cropped, and whiskers shaved off—as I thought it the fittest thing for his case, and what he could best carry out, to go aboard of the Indiaman with me as if he were a missionary. Poor fellow! he didn't well know what he was. So, having waited till dusk, to let the watermen lose our track, and his friend having posted off for Dover, he and I both got safe over to the Seringapatam, where I had him stowed in the first convenient state-room I could find. I had actually forgot, through the excitement, all about having missed my first chase; from one hour to another I kept watching the tide-marks ashore, and the dog-vane on the ship's quarter, all impatience to hear the word given for 'all hands up anchor,' and hoping our worthy friends on Southsea Beach were still lying within hearing of the Channel flood. At last the order did come; round went the capstan merrily enough, till she had hove short and up with fore-topsail set; the anchor was catted, and off went the lumbering old craft through the Solent about midnight, before a fine rattling breeze, in company with six or seven others, all running for the Needles. They were loosing the Indiaman's royals when I heard a gun from the guard-ship in harbour; and a little after up went a rocket, signalling to some frigate or other at Spithead; away they kept at it, with lights from the telegraph to her mast-head, for several minutes. 'All's up!' thought I, 'and both Westwood and myself are in for it!'

"Next morning at daybreak, accordingly, no sooner did the dawn serve to show us Portland Light going out on the weather quarter, with a whole fleet of Channel craft and Mediterranean brigs about us, we surging through it as fast as the Indiaman could go—than there was a fine forty-four standing off and on right in our course, in fact the very identical Orestes herself! She picked us out in a moment—bore up, stood across our weather-bow, and hailed. 'What ship's that?' said the first luff in her mizzen rigging.

"'The Seringapatam, Honourable Company's ship, Captain Williamson!' sung out our first officer, with his cap off. 'Heave to, till I send a boat aboard of you,' hailed the naval man, and there we bobbed to each other with mainyards backed. In a few minutes a master's mate with gig's crew was under our lee-quarter, and the mate came on deck. 'Sir,' said he, 'the Port Admiral will thank you to deliver these despatches for Sir Charles Hyde, who I believe is aboard.' 'Certainly, sir,' said the first officer, 'they shall be given to him in an hour's time.'

"'Good morning, and a fine voyage,' said the master's mate politely; and I took the occasion of asking if Captain Duncombe were on board the Orestes. 'No, sir,' answered the midshipman, 'he happens to be ashore at present.' I have seldom felt so relieved as when I saw the frigate haul round her main-yard, and go sweeping off to leeward, while we resumed our course. By noon we had sunk the land about Start Point, with a breeze which it was no use wasting at that season to take 'departures'; and as the afternoon set in hazy, we were soon out of sight of old England for good. For my part, I was bound eastward at last with a witness, and, like a young bear again, 'all my troubles before me.'

"There is two bells though," interrupted the narrator, starting. "Let us see what sort of night it is before the ladies retire."

CHAPTER IV

The evening after that on which the commander of the Gloucester Indiaman introduced his adventures, nearly the same party met on the poop to hear them continued.

"Well then," began Captain Collins, leaning back against a stanchion of the quarter-rail, with folded arms, legs crossed, and his eyes fixed on the weather-leech of the mizzen-topsail to collect his thoughts; "well then, try to fancy the Seringapatam in chase of the Gloucester; and if I do use a few extra seaterms, I consider the ladies good enough sailors for them already. At any rate, just throw a glance aloft now and then, and our good old lady will explain herself; to her own sex, she ought to be as good as a dictionary, with signs for the hard words!

"The second day out we had the wind more from seaward, which broke up the haze into bales of cloud, and away they went rolling in for the Bay of Biscay; with a longer wave and darker water, and the big old Indiaman surged over it as easily as might be, the blue breeze gushing right into her main-tack through the heave of the following seas, and the tail of the trade-wind flying high above her trucks in shreds and patches. Things got more ship-shape on deck; anchor-flukes brought in-board on the head-rail, and cables stowed away—the very best sign you can have of being clear of the land. The first officer, as they called him, was a good-looking fellow, that thought no small-beer of himself, with his glossy blue jacket and Company's buttons, white trousers, and a gold thread round his cap; he had it stuck askew to show how his hair was brushed; and changed his boots every time he came on deck. Still he looked like a sailor, if but for the East-India brown on his face, and there was no mistake about his knowing how to set a sail, trim yards, or put the ship about; so that the stiff old skipper left a great deal to him, besides trusting him for a first-rate navigator that had learned head-work at a naval school. The crew were to be seen all mustering before tea-time in the dog-watch, with their feet just seen under the foot mat of the fore-course, like actors behind a playhouse curtain—men that I warrant you had seen every country under heaven amongst them—as private as possible, and ready to enjoy their pots of tea upon the forecastle, as well as their talk.

"However, all this was nothing to me, as I saw no sign of the passengers I had counted on. I could do little for poor Westwood but leave him to mope below, over his own thoughts.

"If the Indian judge really chanced to be on board after all, he evidently fought shy of company, and perhaps meant to have his own mess-table under the poop as long as the voyage lasted; scarcely any of the ladies had apparently got their sea-qualms over yet, and, for all I knew, she might not be with him, even if he were there; or, if she were, her father seemed quite Turk enough to keep her boxed up with jalousie-blinds, Calcutta fashion, and give her a walk in the middle watch, with the poop tabooed till morning. The jolly, red-faced indigo-planter was the only one that tried to get up anything like spirit at the table; indeed, he would have scraped acquaintance with me, if I had been in a mood for it; all I did was to say 'Yes' and 'No,' and to take wine with him. 'Poor fellow!' said he, turning to three or four of the cadets, that stuck by him like pilot-fish to an old shark, 'he's thinking of his mother at home, I daresay.' The fools thought this was meant for a joke, and began to laugh. 'Why, you unfledged griffins you,' said the planter, 'what d'ye see to nicker at, like so many jackals in a trap? D'ye suppose one thinks the less of a man for having a heart to be sick in, as well as a stomach—eh?' 'Oh, don't speak of it, Mr Rollock!' said one. 'Come, come, old boy,' said another, with a white moustache on his lip, ''twon't do for you to go the sentimental, you know.' 'Capsize my main-spanker, 'tis too funny, though,' put in a fellow who wore a glazed hat on deck, and put down all the ropes with numbers on paper, as soon as he had done being sick. The planter leant back in his chair, looked at them coolly, and burst out a-laughing. 'Catch me ever "going home" again,' said he. 'Of all the absurd occasions for impudence with the egg-shell on its head coming out, hang me if these fifteen thousand miles of infernal sea-water ain't the worst. India for ever!—that's the place to try a man. He's either sobered or gets room to work there; and just wait, my fine fellows, till I see you on the Custom-house Bunda at Bombay, or setting off up country—you're all of you the very food for sircars and coolies. That quiet lad there, now, soft as he looks'—meaning me—'I can tell by his eye he won't be long a griff—he'll do something. I tell you what, as soon as he's tasted his first mango-fish, he'll understand the country. Why, sir,' said he again, smacking his lips, ''tis worth the voyage of itself—you begin a new existence so to speak. I'll be bound all this lot o' water don't contain one single mango-fish. Remember, boys, I promised you all a regular blow-out of mango-fish, and florican with bread-sauce, whenever you can get across to Chuckbully Factory.' 'Blow, good breeze, then; blow away the main jib!' said the nautical young gentleman; 'I'll join you, old fellow!' 'Not the best way to bring it about, though,' said the indigo-planter, good-naturedly, not knowing but there was such a sail on the ship.

"The yellow setting sun was striking over the starboard quarter-boat, and the Bay of Biscay lay broad down to leeward for a view—a couple of large craft, with all studding-sails set before the wind, making for land, far enough off to bring their canvas in a piece, and begin to look blue with the air—one like a milk-woman with pitchers and a hoop; the other like a girl carrying a big bucketful of water, and leaning the opposite way to steady herself. There was one far to north-east, too, no more than a white speck in the grey sky; and the land-cloud went up over it into so many sea-lions' heads, all looking out of their manes. The children clapped their hands and laughed; and the ladies talked about the vessels, and thought they saw land—Spain or the Pyrenees, perhaps. However, it wasn't long before my American friend Snout caught sight of me in the midst of his meditations, as he turned bolt round on his toes to hurry aft again. 'The fact is, mister,' said he, 'I'm riled a little at the tarnation pride of you Britishers. There now,' said he, pointing at the blaze of the sun to westward, with his chin, 'there's a consolation. I calculate the sun's just over Noo-York, which I expect to give you old country folks considerable pain.'

"'No doubt,' said I, with a sigh; 'one can't help thinking of a banker run off with ever so much English gold.' 'You're a sensible chap, you are. It's a right-down asylum for oppressed Europains—that can't be denied.' 'And Africans, too,' I put in. 'Indy, now,' said he; 'I reckon there's a sight of dollars made in that country—you don't s'pose I'm goin' out there for nothing? We'll just take it out o' your hands yet, mister. I don't ought to let you into the schim till I know you better, you see; but I expect to want a sort o' company got up before we land. There's one of your nabobs now came into the ship at Possmouth, with a whole tail of niggurs dressed up——' 'And a lady with him, I think?' said I, as coolly as I could. 'I'll somehow open on that chap about British tyranny, I guess, after gettin' a little knowledge out of him. We'd just rise the niggurs, if they had not such a right-down cur'ous mythullogy—but I tell you now, mister, that's one of the very p'ints I expect to meet. Miss'naries won't do it so slick off in two thousand years, I kinder think, as this identical specoolation will in ten—besides payin' like Peruvain mines, which the miss'nary line don't. I'm a regoolar down-easter, ye see—kinder piercin' into a subject, like our nation in gin'ral—and the whull schim hangs together a little, I calculate, mister?' 'So I should think, Mr Snout, indeed,' I said. Here the American gave another chuckle, and turned to again on his walk, double quick, till you'd have thought the whole length of the poop shook, when who should I see with the tail of my eye but my friend the kitmagar salaaming to Mr Snout by the break of the quarter-deck. The Yankee seemed rather taken aback at first, and didn't know what to make of him. 'S'laam sah'b,' said the dark servant with an impudent look, and loud enough for me to hear, as I stepped from aft. 'Judge sahib i-send genteeman salaam—say too much hivvy boot he get—all same as illimphant. S'pose master not so much loud walk this side?' 'Well!' broke out the American, looking at the Bengalee's flat turban and moustache, as if he were too great a curiosity to be angry with, then turning on his heel to proceed with his walk. 'Now, mister,' said he to me, 'that's what I call an incalculable impudent black; but he's the first I ever saw with hair on his lip, it's a fact.' 'Master not mind?' said the kitmagar, raising his key next time Mr Snout wheeled round. 'Judge sahib burra burra buhadoorkea!—ver' great man!' 'Low niggur!' said Mr Snout, tramping away aft; 'there's your British regoolations, I say, young man—niggurs bààing on the quarter-deck, and free-born citizens put off it!' 'Bhote khoob, mistree!' squeaked out the native again; 'burra judge sahib not to i-sleep apter he dine, eh? Veri well; I tell the sahib, passiger mistree moor stamp-i-stamp all the moor I can say!' So off he went to report in the poop-cabin. A little after up shot a head wrapped in a yellow bandana, just on the level of the poop-deck, looking through the breast-rail; and the next thing I saw was the great East-Indian himself, with a broad-flapped Manilla hat over his topgear, and a red-flowered dressing-gown, standing beside the binnacle with Captain Williamson. 'What the deuce, Captain Williamson,' said the judge, with an angry glance up to the poop,' cannot I close my eyelids after dinner for one instant—in my own private apartments, sir—for his hideous noise? Who the deuce is that person there—eh, eh?' 'He's an American gentleman, I believe, Sir Charles,' replied the captain. 'Believe, sir,' said the judge; 'you ought to know every individual, I think, Captain Williamson, whom you admitted into this vessel. I expressly stipulated for quiet, sir—I understood that no suspicious or exceptionable persons should travel in the same conveyance with my suwarry. I'd have taken the whole ship, sir!' 'I've no more to do than tell him the regulations aboard, Sir Charles,' said the captain, 'and the annoyance will cease.' 'Tell him, indeed!' said the judge, a little more good-humouredly. 'Why, captain, the man looks like a sea-pirate. You should have taken only such raw griffins as that young lad on the other side. Ho, kitmagar!' 'Maharaj?' said the footman, bowing down to the deck. 'Slippers lao!' 'Jee khodabund,' answered the native, and immediately after he reappeared from the round-house door, with a pair of turned-up yellow slippers. 'Take them up with my salaam to that gentleman there,' said Sir Charles, in Hindoostanee, 'and ask him to use them.' 'Hullo!' sung out Mr Snout, on being hove-to by the kitmagar, with one hand on his breast, and the other holding the slippers, 'this won't do! You'd better not rile me again, you cussed niggur you. Out o' my way!' There they went at it along the poop together, Mr Snout striding right forward with his long legs, and the kitmagar hopping backward out of his way, as he tried to make himself understood; till, all at once, the poor darkey lost his balance at the ladderhead, and over he went with a smash fit to have broken his neck, if the captain's broad back hadn't fortunately been there to receive it. The rage of Sir Charles at this was quite beyond joking; nothing else would satisfy him but the unlucky Yankee's being shoved off the poop by main force, and taken below—the one stamping and roaring like an old buffalo, and the other testifying against all 'aristocratycal tyranny.'

"At eight bells again I found it a fine, breezy night, the two upper mates walking the weather quarter-deck in blue-water style, six steps and a look to windward, then a wheel round, and, now and then, a glance into the binnacle. I went aft and leant over the Seringapatam's lee quarter, looking at the white back-wash running aft from her bows, in green sparks, into the smooth alongside, and the surge coming round her counter to meet it. Everything was set aloft that could draw, even to a starboard main-topmast stunsail; the high Indiaman being lighter than if homeward-bound, and the breeze strong abeam, she had a good heel-over to port; but she went easily through the water, and it was only at the other side you heard it rattling both ways along the bends. The shadow of her went far to leeward, except where a gleam came on the top of a wave or two between the sails and under their foot. Just below the sheer of the hull, aft, it was as dark as night, though now and then the light from a port struck on it and went in again; but every time she sank, the bight of her wake from astern swelled up away round the counter, with its black side as smooth as a looking-glass. I kept peering into it, and expecting to see my own face, while all the time I was very naturally thinking of one quite different, and felt uneasy till I should actually see her. 'Confound it,' I thought, 'were it only a house, one might walk round and round it till he found out the window.' I fancied her bewitching face through the garden-door, as clearly as if I saw it in the dark head of the swell; but I'd have given more only to hear that imp of a cockatoo scream once—whereas there was nothing but the water working up into the rudder-case; the pintles creaking, and the tiller-ropes cheeping as they traversed; and the long welter of the sea when the ship eased down, with the surgeon and his friends walking about and laughing up to windward. From that again, I ran on putting things together, till, in fact, Jacobs' notion of a shipwreck seemed by far the best. No doubt Jacobs and Westwood, with a few others, would be saved, while I didn't even object much to the old nabob himself, for respectability's sake, and to spare crape. But, by Jove, wouldn't one bring him to his bearings soon enough there? Every sailor gets hold of this notion some night-watch or other, leaning over the side, with pretty creatures aboard he can scarce speak to otherwise; and I was coiling it down so fast myself, at the moment, that I had just begun to pitch into the nabob about our all being Adam's sons and daughters, under a knot of green palm-trees, at the door of a wooden house, half thatched with leaves, when I was brought up with a round turn by seeing a light shining through the hazy bull's-eye in the deck where I stood. No doubt the sweet girl I had been thinking of was actually there, and going to bed; I stretched over the quarter, but the heavy mouldings were in the way against seeing more than the green bars of the after window—all turned edgeways to the water, where the gallery hung out like a corner turret from the ship's side. Now and then, however, when she careened a little more than ordinary, and the smooth lee swell went heaping up opposite, I could notice the light through the venetians from the state-room come out upon the dark water in broad bright lines, like the grate across a fire, then disappearing in a ripple, till it was gone again, or somebody's shadow moved inside. It was the only lighted window in the gallery, and I looked every time it came as if I could see in; when at last, you may fancy my satisfaction, as, all of a sudden, one long slow heave over of the ship showed me the whole bright opening of the port, squared out of her shadow, where it shone upon the glassy round of the swell. 'Twas as plain as from a mirror in a closet—the lighted gallery window with its frame swung in, a bit of the deck-roof I was standing on, and two female figures at the window—mere dark shapes against the lamp. I almost started back at the notion of their seeing me, but away lengthened the light on the breast of the swell, and it sank slowly down into a black hollow, as the Indiaman eased up to windward. Minute by minute, quite breathless, did I watch for such another chance; but next time she leant over as much, the port had been closed, and all was dark; although those few moments were enough to send the heart into my mouth with sheer delight. The figure I had seen, holding with one hand by the port-sill, and apparently keeping up her dress with the other, as if she were looking down steadily on the heave of the sea below—it couldn't be mistaken. The line of her head, neck, and shoulders, came out more certain than if they hadn't been filled up with nothing but a black shadow; it was just Lota Hyde's, as she sat in the ball-room amongst the crowd, I'd have bet the Victory to a bumboat on it; only her hair hung loose on one side, while the girl behind seemed to be dressing the other, for it was turned back, so that I saw clear past her cheek and neck to where the lamp was, and her ear gleamed to the light. For one moment nothing could be plainer than the glimpse old Davy Jones gave me by one of his tricks; but the old fellow was quite as decorous in his way as a chamber-blind, and swallowed his pretty little bit of blab as quickly as if it had been a mermaid caught at her morning toilet. Whenever I found there was to be no more of it for the night, the best thing to calm one's feelings was to light a cigar and walk out the watch; but I took care it should rather be over the nabob's head than his daughter's, and went up to the weather side, where there was nobody else by this time, wishing her the sweetest of dreams, and not doubting I should see her next day.

"I daresay I should have walked out the first watch, and the second too, if Westwood hadn't come up beside me before he turned in.

"'Why, you look like the officer of the watch, Ned!' said my friend, after taking a glance round at the night. 'Yes—what?—a—a—I don't think so,' stammered I, not knowing what he said, or at least the meaning of it, though certainly it was not so deep. 'I hope not though, Tom!' said I again; ''tis the very thing I don't want to look like!' 'You seem bent on keeping it up, and coming the innocent, at any rate,' said he; 'I really didn't know you the first time I saw you in the cuddy.' 'Why, man, you never saw our theatricals in the dear old Iris, on the African station! I was our best female actor of tragedy there, and did Desdemona so well that the black cook, who stood for Othello, actually cried. He said, "Nobody but 'ee dibble umself go for smudder Missee Dasdemoner!"' 'I daresay,' said Westwood; 'but what is the need for it now, even if you could serve as a blind for me?' 'My dear fellow,' said I, 'not at all—you've kept it up very well so far—just go on.' 'Keep it up, Ned?' inquired he—'what do you mean? I've done nothing except keep quiet from mere want of spirits.' 'So much the better,' I said; 'I never saw a man look more like a prophet in the wilderness; it doesn't cost you the least trouble—why you'd have done for Hamlet in the Iris, if for nothing else! After all, though, a missionary don't wear blue pilot cloth trousers, nor tie his neckerchief as you do, Tom. You must bend a white neck-cloth to-morrow morning! I'm quite serious, Westwood, I assure you,' continued I. 'Just think of the suspicious look of two navy men being aboard an Indiaman, nobody knows how! Why, the first frigate we speak, or port we touch at, they'd hand one or both of us over at once—which I, for my part, shouldn't at all like!' 'Indeed, Collins,' said Tom, turning round, 'I really cannot understand why you went out in her! It distresses me to think that here you've got yourself into this scrape on my account! At least you'll put back in the first home-bound ship we——'

"'Oh!' exclaimed I, blushing a little in the dark though, both at Westwood's simplicity, and my not wishing to tell him my secret yet—'I'm tired of shore—I want to see India again—I'm thinking of going into the army!' 'The army, indeed!' said Westwood, laughing for the first time, 'and you still midshipman all over. No, no—that won't do! I see your drift, you can't deceive me! You're a true friend, Ned, to stand by an old schoolmate so!' 'No, Tom!' said I; ''tis you yourself that has too kind a heart, and more of a sailor's, all fair and above-board, than I can manage! I won't humbug you, at any rate—I tell you I've got a scheme of my own, and you'll know more of it soon.' Tom whistled; however I went on to tell him, 'The long and the short of it is, Westwood, you'll bring both of us down by the head if you don't keep up the missionary.' 'Missionary!' repeated he; 'you don't mean to say you and Neville intended all that long toggery you supplied my kit with, for me to sail under missionary colours? I tell you what, Ned, it's not a character I like to cut jokes upon, much less to sham.' 'Jokes!' said I; 'there's no joking about it; 'tis serious enough.' 'Why,' said Westwood, 'now I know the reason of a person like a clergyman sighting me through his spectacles for half an hour together, these two evenings below! This very afternoon he called me his brother, and began asking me all manner of questions, which I could no more answer than the cook's mate.' 'Clergyman be hanged!' said I, 'you must steer clear of him, Tom—take care you don't bowse up your jib too much within hail of him! Mind, I gave your name, both to the head-steward and the skipper, as the Reverend Mr Thomas, going back to Bombay. There was nothing else for it, Westwood,' I said, 'when you were beyond thinking for yourself. All you've got to do with that solemn dissenting chap in the spectacles is just to look as wise as possible, and let him know you belong to the Church. And as for shamming, you needn't sham a bit—take to it, my dear fellow, if that will do you good.' I said this in joke, but Westwood seemed to ponder on it for a minute or two. 'Indeed, Collins,' said he gravely, 'I do think you're right. What do we sailors do but give up everything in life for a mere schoolboy notion, and keep turning up salt water for years together like the old monks did the ground; only they grew corn and apples for their pains, and we have nothing but ever so many dull watches and wild cruises ashore to remember! How many sailors have turned preachers and missionaries, just because something, by accident, as it were, taught them to put to account what you can't help feeling now and then in the very look of the sea. What does it mean in the Scriptures, Ned, about "seeing the wonders of the Lord in the deep?"' As Westwood said this, both of us stopped on the taffrail, and, somehow or other, a touch of I didn't well know what went through me. I held my breath, with his hand on my arm, just at the sight I had seen a thousand times—the white wake running broad away astern, with a mark in the middle as if it had been torn, on to the green yeast of the waves, then right to their black crests plunging in the dark. It was midnight ahead, and the clouds risen aloft over where I had been looking half-an-hour before; but the long ragged split to westward was opened up, and a clear glaring glance of the sky, as pale as death, shot through it on the horizon. 'I can't be sorry for having gone to sea,' said Westwood again; 'but isn't it a better thing to leave home and friends, as those men do for the sake of carrying the Gospel to the heathen?' As soon as we wheeled round, with the ship before us, leaning over and mounting to the heave, and her spread of canvas looming out on the dark, my thoughts righted. 'Well,' said I, 'it may be all very well for some—everyone to his rope; but, for my part, I think if man hadn't been made for the sea, he couldn't have built a ship, and where would your missionaries be then? You're older than I am, Westwood, or I'd say you let some of your notions run away with you, like a Yankee ship with her short-handed crew!' 'Oh, Ned,' said he, 'of all places in the world for one's actions coming back on him the sea is the worst, especially when you're an idler, and have nothing to do but count the sails or listen to the passengers' feet on deck. These two days, now, I've thought more than I ever did in my life. I can't get that man's death out of my head; every time the sea flashes round me as I come from below, I think of him—it seems to me he is lying yet by the side of the Channel. I can't help having the notion he perhaps fired in the air!' ''Twas a base lie!' said I; 'if he weren't there, you wouldn't be here, I can tell you, Westwood.' 'I don't know how I shall ever drag through this voyage,' continued he. 'If there were a French gunboat to cut out to-morrow morning, or if we were only to have a calm some day in sight of a Spanish slaver—'tis nothing but a jogging old Indiaman though! I shall never more see the flag over my head with pride—every respect I had was in the service!'

CHAPTER V

"Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a side-wind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened since midnight with a pour of rain, the sails being all wet, and coats hung to dry in the fore-rigging; she was going little more than five or six knots headway. The water was bluer, lifting in long waves, scarce a speck of foam except about the ship; but instead of having broke up with the sun, or sunk below the level, the long white clouds were risen high to leeward, wandering away at the top, and facing us steady below out of the sky, a pretty sure sign they had more to do. However, the Indiaman was all alive from stem to stern; decks drying as clean as a table; hens and ducks clucking in the coops at their food; pigs grunting; stewards and cabin-boys going fore and aft, below and above, and the men from aloft coming slowly down for breakfast, with an eye into the galley funnel. Most of the passengers were upon deck, in knots all along the poop-nettings, to look out for Corvo and Flores, the western-most of the Azores, which we had passed before daybreak.

"'I say, Fawd!' said the warlike cadet with the moustache, all of a sudden yawning and stretching himself, as if he'd been struck with the thing himself, 'cussed dull this vessel already, ain't it?' 'No,' said Ford, the nautical man; 'that's because you're not interested in the ocean—the sea—as I am! You should study the craft, Bob, my boy! I'll teach you to go aloft. I only wish it would blow harder—not a mere capful of wind, you know, but a tempest!' 'By Jove! Fawd,' said the other, 'how we shall enjoy India—even that breakfast with old Rollock! By-the-by, ain't breakfast ready yet?' These two fellows, for my part, I took for a joint-model, just trying to hit a mid-helm betwixt them, else I couldn't have got through it; accordingly they both patronised me. 'Haw, Cawlins!' said one, nodding to me. 'Is that you, my boy?' said the other; 'now, you're a fellow never would make a sailor!' 'I daresay not,' I said gravely, 'if they have all to commence as horse-marines.' 'Now, such ignorance!' said Ford; 'marines don't ride horses, Collins, you fellow!—how d'you think they could be fed at sea, eh?' 'Well—now—that didn't occur to me!' said I, in the cadet key. 'Fawd, my boy, you know too much—you're quite a sea-cook!' 'Oh, now! But I'm afraid, Winterton, I never shall land ashore in India—I am tempted to go into the navy, instead.' 'I say, Mr Ford,' put in a fat unlicked cub of a tea-middy, grinning as he listened, 'I've put you up to a few rises aboard, but I don't think I told you we've got a dozen or so of donkeys [11] below in the steerage?' 'Donkeys!—no?' said the griffin. 'Yes,' replied the midshipman; 'they kick like mad, though, if they get loose in a gale: why mine, now, would knock a hole through the side in no time—I'll show you them for a glass of grog, Mr Ford.'

"'Done!' and away they went. 'That fool, Fawd, you know, Cawlins, makes one sick with his stuff; I declare he chews little bits of tobacco in our room till he vomits as much as before,' said Winterton. 'I tell you what, Cawlins, you're a sensible man—I'll let you into a secret! What do you think—there's the deucedest pretty girl in the vessel, we've none of us seen except myself; I caught a sight of her this very mawning. She don't visit the cuddy at all; papa's proud, you pusseeve—a nabob, in short!' 'Oh dear!' said I. 'Yes, I do assure you, quite a bew-ty! What's to be done?—we absolutely must meet her, eh, Cawlins?' Here I mused a bit. 'Oh!' said I, looking up again, 'shall we send a deputation, do you think?' 'Or get up a ball, Cawlins? Hallo, what's this?' said he, leaning over the breast-rail to look at a stout lady who was lugging a chubby little boy of three or four, half dressed, up the poop-stair, while her careful husband and a couple of daughters blocked it up above. 'See, Tommy, dear!' said she, 'look at the land—the nice land, you know, Tommy.' 'Come away, my love,' said her spouse, 'else you won't see it.' Tommy, however, hung back manfully. 'Tommy don't want wook at yand,' sang out he, kicking the deck; 'it all such 'mell of a sheep, ma; me wook at 'at man wis gate feel. Fare other feel, man? Oh, fat a ugwy man!' The honest tar at the wheel pulled up his shirt, and looked terribly cut at this plain remark on his phiz, which certainly wasn't the most beautiful; meanwhile he had the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail shaking. 'Mind your helm, there,' sung out the second mate from the capstan. 'My good man,' said the lady, 'will you be so kind as to show us the land?' 'Ay, ay, sir,' growled he, putting up his weather spokes; 'sorry I carn't, ma'am—please not to speak to the man at the wheel.' Jacobs was coiling down the ropes on a carronade close by, and stepped forward: 'Beg your ladyship's pardon,' said he, 'but if ye'll give me charge o' the youngster till you goes on the poop—why, I've got a babby at home myself.' The stout lady handed him over, and Jacobs managed the little chap wonderfully. This was the first time Tommy had been on deck since leaving home, and he couldn't see over the high bulwarks, so he fancied it was a house he was in. 'Oh, suts big tees, man,' shouted he, clapping his hands as soon as he noticed the sails and rigging aloft; 'suts warge birds in a tees.' 'Ay, ay, my little man,' answered Jacobs, 'that's the wonderful tree. Did ye ever hear Jack and the Bean-stalk, Tommy?' 'Oh, 'ess, to be soo, man,' said Tommy, scornfully, as if he should think he had.

"'Well, little un,' said Jacobs, 'that's it, ye see. It grows up every night afore Jack's door—and them's Jack an' his brothers a-comin' down out on the wonderfowl country aloft, with fruits in their hands.' The little fellow was delighted, and for going aloft at once. 'Ye must wait a bit, Tommy, my lad, till you're bigger,' said Jacobs; 'here, I'll show you the country, though'; so he lifted the boy up to let him see the bright blue sea lying high away round the sky. In place of crying, as he would have done otherwise, Tommy stared with pleasure, and finished by vowing to get as soon big as possible, Jacobs advising him to eat always as hard as he had been doing hitherto.

"That morning the breakfast party was in high spirits; Mr Finch, the chief officer, rigged up to the nines in white trousers and Company's jacket, laying himself out to please the young ladies, with whom he began to be a regular hero. He was as blustering as a young lion, and as salt-tongued as a Channel pilot to the men; but with the ladies, on the poop or in the cabin, he was always twisting his sea-talk into fine language, like what you see in books, as if the real thing weren't good enough. He rubbed his hands at hearing the mate on deck singing out over the skylight to trim yards, and gave a look along to the captain. 'You must understand, ladies,' said the mate, 'this is what we mariners call the "ladies' wind"!' 'Oh, delightful!' 'Oh, so nice!' 'You sailors are so polite!' exclaimed the young ladies—'then does it actually belong to us?' 'Why it's a Trade wind, Miss Fortescue!' said Ford, the nautical cadet, venturing to put in a word; but the ladies paid no attention to him, and the chief mate gave him a look of contempt. 'You see, ladies, the reason is,' said the mate, in a flourishing way, 'because it's so regular, and as gentle as—as—why it wafts your bark into the region of, you see—the——' 'The "Doldrums,"' put in the third mate, who was a brinier individual by far, and a true seaman, but wished to pay his compliments, too, between his mouthfuls. 'At any rate,' Finch went on, 'it's congenial, I may say, to the feelings of the fair—you need never touch her braces from one day to another. I just wish, Miss Fortescue, you'd allow me the felicity of letting you see how to put the ship about.' 'A soldier might put her in stays, miss,' said the third mate again, encouragingly, 'and out of 'em again; she's a remarkably easy craft, owing to her——' 'Confound it, Mr Rickett,' said the first mate, turning round to his unlucky inferior, 'you're a sight too coarse for talking to ladies. Well the captain didn't hear you!' Rickett looked dumfoundered, not knowing what was wrong; the old ladies frowned; the young ones either blushed or put their handkerchiefs to their mouths, and some took the occasion for walking off.

"The weather began to have a different turn already by the time we got up—the clouds banking to leeward, the sea dusky under them, and the air-line between rather bluish. Two or three lazy gulls in our wake began to look alive and show themselves, and a whole black shoal of porpoises went tumbling and rolling across the bows for half an hour, till down they dived of a sudden, head-foremost, one after another in the same spot, like so many sheep through a gap.

"My gentleman-mate was to be seen everywhere about the decks, and active enough, I must say; the next minute he was amongst two or three young ladies aft, as polite as a dancing-master, showing them everything in board and out, as if nobody knew it except himself. Here a young girl, one of Master Tommy's sisters, came skipping aft, half in a fright. 'Oh, Miss Fortescue!' cried she, 'just think!—I peeped over into a nasty black hole there, with a ladder in it, and saw ever so many common sailors hung up in bags from the ceiling. Oh, what do you think, one of them actually kissed his hand to me.' 'Only one of the watch below awake, miss,' said the mate; 'impertinent swab—I only wish I knew which it was.' 'Poor fellows,' said the young ladies, 'pray don't be harsh to them; but what have they been doing?' 'Oh, nothing,' said he, with a laugh, 'but swing in their hammocks since eight bells.' 'Then are they so lazy as to dislike getting up to such delightful-looking occupations?' 'Why, ma'am,' said the mate, staring a little, 'they've been on deck last night two watches, of four hours each, I must say that for them.' 'Dear me!' broke out the ladies; and on this the chief officer took occasion to launch out again concerning 'the weary vigils,' as he called them, 'which we mariners have to keep, far distant from land, without a smile from the eyes of the fair to bless us. But, however, the very thought of it gives courage to the sailor's manly heart, to disregard the billows' fearful rage, and reef topsails in the tempest's angry height!' Thought I, 'He'd much better do it before.' However, the young ladies didn't seem to see that, evidently looking upon the mate as the very pink of seamen! and he actually set a second lower stud-sail, to show them how fast she could walk.

"'D'ye know, sir,' put in the third mate, coming from forward, 'I'm in doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round the larboard stun-s'ls.' Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had time, amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread of cloth, he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to north-eastward, one shooting into another—the breast of them lowering down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till it bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of it scarce half-a-mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of it twenty—coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet after you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in 'kingdom-come' all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind the spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye of a stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red, purple, and yellow together—what is called a 'wind-gall'; then it was gone. The American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford, who began to look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the weather. 'Mind your helm there, sirrah!' sung out the mate, walking aft to the wheel, as everything aloft fluttered. 'She won't lie her course, sir,' said the man. 'All aback, for'ud!' hailed the men at work on the bowsprit; and hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over and over again; the wind freshening fast, stu'nsails flapping, booms bending, and the whole spread of canvas in a cumber, to teach the mate not to be in such a hurry with his absurd merchantman's side-wings next time. The last stu'nsail he hauled down caught full aback before the wheel could keep her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched foul at the boom-end, and crack through went the boom itself, with a smash that made the ladies think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The loose scud was flying fast out from behind the top of the clouds, and spreading away overhead, as if it would catch us on the other side; while the clouds themselves broke up slowly to both hands, and the north-east breeze came sweeping along right into the three topsails, the wind one way and the sea another. As she rounded away steadying before it, you felt the masts shake in her till the topsails blew out full; she gave one sudden bolt up with her stern, like an old jackass striking behind, which capsized three or four passengers in a heap, and next minute she was surging along through the wide heave of the water as gallantly as heart could wish, driving a wave under her bows that swung back under the fore-chains on both sides, with two boys running up the rigging far aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing I looked at was poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top of a wave, as if it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen, than it was down in the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of white gulls making snatches at it and one another, and hanging over it again with a doubtful sort of scream. Still the wind was as yet nothing to speak of when once aft; the sea was getting up slowly, and the Indiaman's easy roll over it made everyone cheerful, in spite of the shifts they were put to for getting below. When the bell struck for dinner, the sun was pretty clear, away on our starboard bow; the waves to south-westward glittered as they rose; one side of the ship shone bright to the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail, and we left the second mate hauling down the jibs for want of use for them.

"The splendid pace she went at was plain, below in the cuddy, to everybody; you felt her shoving the long seas aside with the force of a thousand horses in one, then sweep they came after her, her stern lifted, she rolled round, and made a floating rush ahead. In the middle of it, something darkened the half-open skylight, where I perceived the Scotch second mate's twisted nose and red whiskers, as he squinted down with one eye aloft, and disappeared again; after which I heard them clue up to'gallant-sails. Still she was driving through it rather too bodily to let the seas rise under her; you heard the wind hum off the main-topsail, and sing through betwixt it and the main-course, the scud flying over the skysail-mast truck, which I could see from below. The second mate looked in once more, caught the first officer's eye with a glance aloft, and the gallant mate left attending to the ladies to go on deck. Down went the skylight frame, and somebody carefully threw a tarpaulin over it, so that there was only the light from the port windows, by which a dozen faces turned still whiter.

"The moment I shoved my head out of the booby-hatch, I saw it was like to turn out a regular gale from nor'-east. Both courses brailed close up, and blowing out like rows of big bladders; the three topsail-yards down on the caps to reef, their canvas swelling and thundering on the stays like so many mad elephants breaking loose; the wild sky ahead of us staring right through in triumph, as it were, and the wind roaring from aft in her bare rigging; while a crowd of men in each top were laying out along the foot-ropes to both yard-arms. Below, they were singing out at the reef-tackles, the idlers tailing on behind from the cook to the cabin-boys, a mate to each gang, and the first officer, with his hands to his mouth, before the wheel, shouting, 'Bear a hand!—d'ye hear!——two reefs.' It did one's heart good, and I entered into the spirit of it, almost forgiving Finch his fine puppy lingo, when I saw him take it so coolly, standing like a seaman, and sending his bull's voice right up with the wind into the bellies of the topsails—so I e'en fell to myself, and dragged with the steward upon the mizzen reef-tackle till it was chock up. There we were, running dead before it, the huge waves swelling long and dark after us out of the mist, then the tops of them scattered into spray; the glaring white yards swayed slowly over aloft, each dotted with ten or a dozen sturdy figures, that leant over, with the reef-points in their hands, waiting till the men at the earings gave the word; and Jacobs' face, as he turned round to do so—hanging on heaven knows what at one of the ends—was as distinct as possible against the gray scud miles off, and sixty feet above water. A middy, without his cap, and his hair blowing out, stood holding on in the maintop to quicken them; the first mate waved his hand for the helmsman to 'luff a little.' The ship's head was rounded slowly up as she rose on a big blue swell, that caught a wild gleam on it from westward, when I happened to glance towards the wheel. I could scarcely trust my eyes—in fact it had never been less in my mind since coming aboard than at that very point—but outside one of the round-house doors, which was half open, a few feet from the bulwark I leant over—of all moments in the day, there stood Lota Hyde herself at last. Speak of faces!—why I hadn't even power to turn farther round, and if I was half out of breath before, what with the wind and with pulling my share, I was breathless now—all my notions of her never came up to the look of her face at that instant. She just half stopped, as it were, at sight of the state of things, her hands letting go of the large shawl, and her hair streaming from under a straw hat tied down with a ribbon—her lips parted betwixt dread and bewilderment, and her eyes wandering round till they settled to gazing straight at the scene ahead in pure delight. I actually looked away aloft from her again, to catch what it was she seemed to see that could be so beautiful!—the second reef just made fast, men crowding in to run down and hoist away with the rest, till, as they tailed along decks, the three shortened topsails rose faster up against the scud, and their hearty roaring chorus was as loud as the gale. 'Keep her away, my lad,' said the mate, with another wave of his hand; the topsails swelled fair before it, and the Indiaman gave a plunge right through the next sea, rising easily to it, heave after heave. The setting sun struck two or three misty spokes of his wheel through a cloud, that made a big wave here and there glitter; the ship's white yards caught some of it, and a row of broad backs, with their feet stretching the foot-rope as they stowed the foresail, shone bright out, red, blue, and striped, upon the hollow of the yellow fore-topsail, in the midst of the gale; while just under the bowsprit you saw her black figure-head, with his white turban, and his hand to his breast, giving a cool salaam now and then to the spray from her bows. At that moment, though, Lota Hyde's eye was the brightest thing I could find—all the blue gone out of the waves was in it. As for her seeing myself, I hadn't had space to think of it yet, when all of a sudden I noticed her glance light for the first time, as it were, on the mate, who was standing all the while with his back to her on the same plank of the quarter-deck. 'Down main-course!' he sung out, putting one hand in his jacket-pocket; 'down both tacks—that's it, my men—down with it!'—and out it flapped, slapping fiercely as they dragged it by main force into the bulwark-cleets, till it swelled steady above the main-stay, and the old ship sprang forward faster than before, with a wild wash of the Atlantic past her sides.

"'Another hand to the wheel, here!' said the first officer. He took a look aloft, leaning to the rise of her bows, then to windward as she rolled; everything looked trim and weatherly, so he stepped to the binnacle, where the lamp was ready lighted; and it just struck me what a smart, good-looking fellow the mate was, with his sunburnt face; and when he went to work, straightforward, no notion of showing off.

"'Confound it, though,' thought I of a sudden, seeing her eyes fixed on him again, and then to seaward. 'Mr Macleod,' said he to the second mate, 'send below the watch, if you please. This breeze is first-rate, though!'

"When he turned round he noticed Miss Hyde, started, and took off his cap with a fine bow. 'I beg pardon, ma'am,' said he, 'a trifle of wind we have. I hope, Miss Hyde, it hasn't troubled you in the round-house?' What Miss Hyde might have said I don't know, but her shawl caught a gust out of the spanker, though she was in the lee of the high poop; it blew over her head, and then loose—I sprang forward—but the mate had hold of it, and put it over her again. The young lady smiled politely to the mate, and gave a cold glance of surprise, as I thought, at me. I felt that moment I could have knocked the mate down and died happy. 'Why, sir,' said he, with a cool half-sneer, 'I fancied none of you gentlemen would have favoured us this capful of wind—plenty of air there is on deck, though.'

"It just flashed through my mind what sort of rig I was in—I looked over my infernal longshore toggery, and no wonder she didn't recollect me at all. 'Curse this confounded folly!' muttered I, and made a dart to run up the poop-steps, where the breeze took me slap aback, just as the judge himself opened the larboard door. 'Why, Violet,' exclaimed he, surprised at seeing his daughter, 'are you exposing yourself to this disagreeable—I declare a perfect storm.' 'But see, papa!' said she, taking hold of his arm, 'how changed the sea is!—and the ship!—just look where the sun was!' 'Get in—get in, do!' kept on her father; 'you can see all that again in some finer place; you should have had a servant with you, at least, Violet.' 'I shall come out oftener than I thought, papa, I can tell you!' said she, in an arch sort of way, before she disappeared.

"The mate touched his cap to the judge, who asked where the captain was. ''Gad, sir,' said the judge crossly, 'the floor resembles an earthquake—every piece of furniture swings, sir; 'tis well enough for sleeping, but my family find it impossible to dine. If this oolta-poolta continues in my apartments, I must speak to Captain Williamson about it. He must manage to get into some other part of the sea, where it is less rough,' saying which, he swayed himself in and shut the door.

"I still kept thinking and picturing her face—Lota Hyde's—when she noticed the mate. After all, any one that knew tack from bowline might reef topsails in a fair wind; but a girl like that would make more count of a man knowing how to manage wind and sea than of the Duke on his horse at Waterloo beating Bonaparte; and as for talk, he would jaw away the whole voyage, no doubt, about moonlight and the ocean, and your genteel fancy mariners. 'By George, though!' thought I, 'if the mate's a better man than me, hang me—it's all right; but burn my wig if I don't go and turn a Hindoo fakeer, with my one arm stuck up in the air till I die. Go it, old lady,' said I, as I glanced over the side before going below for the night, 'roll away, only shake something or other to do out of the pace you're going at.'

CHAPTER VI

"The next morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, there was still a long sea running after us. However, by noon the sun came sifting through aloft, the breeze got warm, the decks were dry as a bone, and one just saw the large dark-blue swells lift up alongside with a shower of spray, between the seams of the bulwarks. By six o'clock, again, it was got pretty dusk ahead, and I strolled forward right to the heel of the bowsprit with Westwood, looking down through her head-boards into the heap of white foam that washed up among the woodwork every time she plunged. One knot of the men were sitting with their legs over the break of the top-gallant forecastle, swinging as she rolled—laughing, roaring, and singing as loud as they could bawl, since the wind carried it all forward out of the officers' hearing. I was rather surprised to see and hear that Jacobs' friends, Bill Dykes and Tom, were there; the rogues were taking back their savage to the Andaman Isles again, I suppose.

"'Well, my lads,' said Tom, a regular sample of the man-o'-war's-man, 'this is what I calls balling it off. That mate knows how to make her go, anyhow.' 'We'll soon be into tropical regents, I consider,' remarked Bill, who made a point of never using sea-phrases except ashore, when he came out double salt, to make up for his gentility afloat. 'Hum,' grumbled a big ugly fellow, the same so flattered at the wheel by little Tommy, 'I doesn't like your fair winds. I'll tell you what, mates, we'll be havin' it puff more from east'ard ere third watch.' 'What's the odds, Harry, old ship?' said Tom, 'a fair wind still.' 'I say, my lads,' exclaimed Tom again, looking along toward the poop, 'yonder's the ould naboob squinting out of the round-house doors!—what's he after now, I wonder?'

"On stooping down, accordingly, I could see the judge's face with the binnacle light shining on it, as he swayed to and fro in the doorway, seemingly in a passion at something or other. 'Why,' said Bill, 'I consider he can't altogether circumstand the shindy as this here roll kicks up inside of his blessed paliss.' 'Nabob, does ye call him,' said Harry, sulkily; 'I'll tell you what, mates, he ben't nothin' but a reg'lar ould tyrant. T'other mornin' there, I just chances to brush against him as I kiles up a rope; says he, "Fellow" an' says he to the skipper, "I'd take it kind," says he, "if ye'd horder them common sailors for to pay more contention alongside o' my legs, Captain Williamson." Why, do the old beggar not think as a feller ben't a man as well as hisself, with his comming sailors, an' be blowed to him.' 'Well, though, Harry, old ship,' said Tom, 'ain't that daurter of his'n a jewel! I say, mates, she's all rounded into the head, and a clear run from aft, like a corvette model. My eye, that hair of hers is worth gold; I'd go down on the deck to please her, d'ye see.' 'No doubt,' says Bill, 'she's what I call a exact sparkler.' 'Well, I doesn't know,' said Harry, 'last vy'ge but one we'd got one aboard, a'most beautifuller—half as high again, an' twice her beam—I'm not sure but she——' 'All my eye, messmates,' broke in Tom; 'that one were built for stowing, ye see, bo', like yer cargo lumpers. No, this here young gal 'minds me o' no other blessed thing but the Nymph corvette's figure-head—and that warn't her match, neither. She don't look down upon a sailor, I can tell ye; there, I see her t'other morning-watch a-talkin' to Jacobs yonder, as pleasant and cheery as——Hullo, there's the captain comed out of the naboob's cabin, and speaking with the mate by the compass—blest if they ain't a-goin' to alter her course.'

"'Send aft here to the braces!' sung out the first officer to the boatswain. 'Blow me, shipmates, that's yeer naboob now, I'll bet a week's grog,' growled Harry; 'ship's course as fair as a handspike through a grummit; couldn't bring the wind more aft; my eyes, the sea's comin' to be bought and sold.' Whatever it might be for, in came the starboard yard-arms till she lay over a little; down studding and topgallant-sails, as neither of them could stand it except from aft; and off went the old ship rising high athwart the seas, her head sou'-south-east, and one streak of broken yellow light, low down to westward on her lee quarter. It was beginning to blow harder, too, and by eight bells it was 'Reef topsails, single reef.' The waves played slap on her weather side, the heavy sprays came showering over her bulwarks forward, and the forecastle planks were far from being so comfortable for a snooze as the night before.

"As soon as the wheel was relieved, and the other watch below, 'the ugly man' and his companions returned. 'Mates,' said he, solemnly, planting his back against the bitts, 'I've sailed this five-and-twenty year before the mast, an' I never yet seed the likes o' that! Take my say for it, we're on a wind now, but afore next mornin' we'll be close-hauled, beating up against it.' 'Well,' said another, 'she leaks a deal in the eyes of her below; in that case, Harry, your watch as slings in the fore-peak 'll be all afloat by that time.' 'What day did this craft sail on, I asks?' said the sailmaker gravely. 'Why, a Thursday night, old ship,' replied several eagerly. 'No,' went on the sailmaker; 'you counts sea-fashion, shipmates; but till ye're clear o' the pilot, ye know, it's land-fashion ye ought for to go by. 'Twas a Friday by that 'ere said reckoning, shipmates.' 'No! so it was though,' said the rest; 'it don't look well.' 'Howsomedever I'm not goin' to come for to go and be a croaker,' continued the sailmaker, in a voice like a ghost's. 'Well, luck or no luck, mates,' grumbled big Harry, 'if so be them larboard bowlines is hauled taut by the morning watch, blow me if I don't be upsides with that 'ere ould naboob—that's all.'

"Next morning, after all, it was easy to feel the ship had really been hauled close on a wind. When we went up the weather was clearing, though with a strongish gale from eastward, a heavy sea running, on which the Indiaman strained and creaked as she rose, rolling slowly to windward with her three double-reefed topsails strained full, then pitched head into it as a cloud of foam and spray flew over her weather-bow. It was quite early, the decks lately washed down, and the Indian judge walking the weather quarter-deck as grave and comfortable as if it was all right. The captain was with him, and two mates to leeward. 'Sail ho!' hailed a man on the foreyard. 'Whereaway?' sang out the mate of the watch. 'Broad abeam!'

"The captain went up to the poop, and I stood on the foremost carronade near the main rigging, where I could just see her now and then white against the blue haze between the hollows of the waves, as the Indiaman lifted. 'There she is!' said I, thinking it was Westwood that stopped behind me; it was the judge, however, and as soon as I got down he stepped up, holding on with one hand to a back-stay. The ship was rising after a pitch, every bulkhead and timber in her creaking, when all of a sudden I felt by my feet what all sailors feel the same way—she was coming up in the wind too fast to mount with the next wave, and a regular comber it was going to be. I looked to the wheel—there was big Harry himself with a grin on his face, and his eye on Sir Charles, as he coolly gave her half a weather-spoke more, and then whirled it back again to meet her. 'For heaven's sake, look out, sir!' exclaimed I. 'Why, so I do,' said the judge, rather good-naturedly. 'Zounds! what's——' You felt the whole ship stop creaking for a moment, as she hung with the last wave—'Hold on!' shouted a mid—she gave a dull quiver from stem to stern, and I fairly pulled the judge close into the bulwark, just as smash, like thunder, came a tremendous green sea over us, three in one, washing down into the lee scuppers. The old gentleman staggered up, dripping like a poodle, and unable to see—one heard the water trickling through the skylights, and stepping away downstairs like a fellow with iron heels; while there was the sailor at the wheel grinding down his spokes in right earnest, looking aloft at the shaking fore-topsail, and the Indiaman seemingly doubtful whether to fall off or broach-to. Up she rose again, however, and drove round with her Turkhead in the air, then dip through the spray as gallantly as ever.

"'Send that lubber from the wheel, Mr Macleod!' said the captain angrily, when he came down, 'he nearly broached the ship to just now!' The 'ugly man' put on a double-gloomy face, and grumbled something about her 'steering wild'; but the knowing squint he gave Jacobs, who relieved him, was enough to show me he was one of the best helmsmen aboard. As for the judge, he hadn't the least notion that it was anything more than a natural mischance, owing to exposing himself. He eyed the bulwark as if he couldn't understand how any wave was able to rise over it, while the captain was apologising, and hoping he wouldn't be the worse. 'Eh, young gentleman!' said Sir Charles of a sudden, turning round to me, after a glance from the weather side to the lee one, 'now I observe the circumstances, the probability is I should have had myself severely injured on the opposite side there, had it not been for your presence of mind, sir—eh?' Here I made a bow, and looked as modest as I could. 'I perceive you are wet, young gentleman,' said he again; 'you'd better change your dress—eh?' 'Thank you, sir!' I said; and as he walked off quite drenched to his cabin with the captain, I heard him remark it was 'wonderfully intelligent in a mere griffin.'

"However, the wind soon got down to a fine top-gallant breeze; less of a sea on, the clouds sunk in a long grey bank to leeward, and the strange sail plain abeam of us—a large ship steering seemingly more off the wind than the Seringapatam, with topgallant-sails set—you could just see the heads of her courses, and her black lower-yards, when both of us rose together. Our first officer was all alive at the sight; the reefs were out of our topsails already, and he soon had us ploughing along under ordinary canvas, though still hugging the wind. In a short time the stranger appeared to take the challenge, for he slanted his yards, clapped on royals and hauled down a stu'nsail, heading our course, till he was one body of white cloth on the horizon. For awhile we seemed to gain on her; but after dinner, there was the other ship's hull up on our lee-bow, rising her white streak out of the water steadily, and just lifting at times on the long blue seas; she was fore-reaching on us as plain as could be. The mate gave a stamp on the deck, and kept her away a little to set a stu'nsail. 'Why,' said I to Westwood, 'he'll fall to leeward of himself!' 'She's too much by the head, Collins,' said Westwood; 'that's it!' 'Hasn't he the sense to take the fore-course off her?' said I, 'instead of packing more on! Why that craft weathers on us like a schooner—I wish you and I had the Indiaman for an hour or two, Tom!'

"It wasn't an hour before we could see the very waves splashing up under her black weather-side, and over her high bows, as she slanted right through it and rose to windward again, standing up to cross our course—a fine frigate-built Indiaman, sharper stemmed than her kind in ordinary, and square in her spread; one yard-arm just looking over the other as they ranged aloft, and all signs of a weatherly craft. 'That's the Duke o' Bedford!' said a sailor at the braces to his companions, 'all oak planks, and not a splinter of teak in her! No chance!' Out flew the British colours from her mizzen-peak, and next the Company's striped ensign at her fore-royal mast-head, as a signal to speak. However, the Seringapatam only answered by showing her colours, and held on. All of a sudden the other Indiaman was seen slowly falling off before the wind, as if in scorn at such rude manners, and sure of passing us if she chose. For a moment the red sunset glanced through betwixt all three of her masts, every rope as fine as wire! then the canvas swung broad against it, blood-red from the sun, and she showed us her quarter-gallery, with a glimpse of her stern-windows glittering—you even made out the crowd of passengers and soldiers on her poop, and a man or two going up her rigging. The sea beyond her lay as blue as blue could be, what with the crimson streak that came zigzag on both sides of her shadow, and gleamed along the smooth troughs, taking a crest or two to dance on by the way; and what with the rough of it near hand, where the tops of the dark waves ran hither and thither in broad white flakes, we surging heavily over them.

"In a few minutes more the sun was not only down, but the clouds banked up to westward of a deep purple; and almost at once you saw nothing of the other ship except when a stray streak somehow or other caught her rising, or her mast-heads came across a pale line in the clouds. The breeze got pleasanter as the night went on, and the Seringapatam rattled away in fine style, careening to it by herself.

"Well, you know, nothing could be better for a good understanding and high spirits amongst us than a fast course, fine weather, and entering the tropics. As for the tropics, if you have only a roomy ship and a good run of wind, as we had, in those latitudes, everything outside of you seems almost to have double the stuff in it that air and water have in other places; while inside of one, again, one felt twice the life he had before, and everybody else came out newer a good deal than on the parlour-rug at home. As the days got each hotter than the last, and the sea bluer and bluer, we began to think better of the heavy old Seringapatam's pace, teak though she was, and her sole good point right before the wind. Every night she lighted her binnacle sooner, till deuce the bit of twilight there was, and the dark sky came down on us like the extinguisher over a candle. However, the look of things round and aloft made full amends for it, as long as we held the "Trades"; old Neptune shifting his scenes there so quickly, that nobody missed getting weather and air, more than he could help, were it only a sight how the Indiaman got on, without trouble to any living soul save the man at the wheel, as one long, big, bright wave shoved her to another, and the slower they rose the more business she seemed to do of herself. By the time they had furbished her up at their leisure, the Seringapatam had a queer Eastern style, too, throughout; with her grass mattings and husky coir chafing-gear, the yellow varnish about her, and her three topsails of country canvas, cut narrow towards the head—bamboo stu'nsail booms, and spare bits of bamboo always ready for everything; besides the bilious-like gold-coloured patches here and there in the rest of her sails, and the outlandish figure-head, that made you sometimes think there might be twenty thousand of them under the bows, dancing away with her like Juggernaut's travelling pagoda.

"The decks were lively enough to look at; the men working quietly by twos and threes about the bulwarks all day long, and pairs of them to be made out at different points aloft, yarning away comfortably together, as the one passed the ball for the other's serving-mallet, with now a glance at the horizon, and now a grin at the passengers below, or a cautious squint at the top of the mate's cap. White awnings triced over poop and quarter-deck, the cover of the waist hammock-netting clean scrubbed, and the big shady main-course half brailed-up, rustling and bulging above the boats and booms amidships; every hatchway and door with a round funnel of a wind-sail swelling into it, and their bellies moving like so many boa-constrictors come down from aloft, and going in to catch cadets. You saw the bright white sky dazzling along under the awning-cheeks, that glared on it like snow; and the open quarter-deck ports let in so many squares of shifting blue light, with a draught of air into the hot carronade muzzles, that seem to gasp for it, with their red tompions stuck out like tongues. The very look of the lifting blue water on the shady side was refreshing, and the brighter the light got, it grew the darker blue. You listened for every cool splash of it on the bends, and every rustle of the canvas aloft; and instead of thinking, as the landsmen did, of green leaves and a lazy nook for shelter, why to my fancy there's a great deal more satisfaction in good dark blue, with a spray over the cathead to show you're going, and with somewhat to go for! For want of better, one would have given his ears to jump in head-foremost, and have a first-rate bathe—the very sea itself kept rising up alongside, to make an easy dive for one, and sinking into little round troughs again, where the surges would have sprinkled over your head. Now and then a bigger wave than ordinary would go swelling up, and out sprang a whole glittering shower of flying-fish, freckling the dark side with drops, and went flittering over into the next, or skimming the crests out of sight into a hollow.

"The writers and cadets were in high feather at knowing they were in the same latitude as India, and appeared in all sorts of straw hats, white trousers, and white jackets. Ford had left off talking of going aloft for awhile, to flourish about his swimming—when he looked over with the surgeon into the smooth of a hollow, and saw something big and green, like an immense cucumber, floating along within a fathom or two of the ship, deep down in the blue water. While the griffin asked what it was, a little ripple broke above, a wet black horn came right out of it, and two fiendish round eyes glared up at us ahead of it, as we leant over the quarter, set wide in a broad black snout, shaped like a gravedigger's shovel; then it sank away into the next wave. Ford shivered, in spite of the heat. 'The devil?' inquired one of the writers, coolly, to the surgeon. 'Not just him,' said the Scotchman; 'it's only the first shark!'

"The young ladies, in their white dresses, now made you think of angels gliding about: as to the only one I had an eye for, by this time it wasn't of not seeing her often enough I had to complain, as she seemed to delight in nothing else but being somewhere or other upon deck, first one part of the ship, then another, as if to see how different the look-out could be made, or to watch something in the waves or the horizon. Instead of sitting with a needle or a book, like the rest, with the corner of one eye toward the gentlemen, or talking and giggling away at no allowance, she would be noticing a man aloft as if she were there herself, or trying to see past a sail, as if she fancied there was something strange on the other side of it. The rest of the girls appeared shy of her at first, no doubt on account of the judge's separate quarters and his grandee style; next, they made acquaintance, she speaking and smiling just as if she had known them before; then again most of them seemingly got jealous because the cadets squinted after her, while old Rollock said Miss Hyde would be the beauty on Chowringee Course, and the first officer was eternally pointing out things to her, like a showman at a fair.

"However, she seemed not to mind it at all, either way; those that did talk to her would scarce hear her answer ere they lost her, and there she was, looking quietly down by herself into the ripples alongside; a minute after she would be half-playing with little Tommy, and making companions of Tommy's young sisters, to see the sheep, the pigs, and the cow, or feed the poultry. As for the handsome 'first officer,' when he caught occasion for his politeness, she took it graciously enough, and listened to all he said, till, of a sudden, a smile would break over her face, and she seemed to me to put him off as easy as a duchess—on the score, it might be, of the judge's looking for her off the poop, or something else of the kind. 'Twas the more curious how much at home she seemed amongst the men at work, when she chanced to go 'forward' with Tommy and his sisters, as they skipped hither and thither: the rough blue-shirted fellows took the quids out of their cheeks as soon as they saw the party coming from aft, and began to smirk, shoving the tar-buckets and ropes aside.

"One forenoon, an old lady under the poop awning, where she and her daughter were sewing together at a bright strip of needlework, asked me to hold her woollen yarns for her as she balled them off—being the red coat for a sepoy killing a tiger, which her daughter was making in yellow. I couldn't well refuse, seeing that amongst the ladies I was reckoned a mild, quiet young man. Even in these days I must say I had a good deal of that look, and at home they used always to call me 'quiet Ned.' My mother, good soul, never would believe I broke windows, killed cats, or fought; and the mystery to her always is why the neighbours had a spite at me, for if I had been a wild boy, she said, or as noisy as little Brown next door, why she wouldn't have objected to my going to sea!—that noisy little Brown, by-the-by, is now a fat banker. So in I had to stick my thumbs at arms'-length, and stoop down to the old lady, the more with a will since I guessed what they were talking of.

"'Well though, Kate,' continued the old lady, winding away at the thread, 'you cannot deny her to be a charming creature, my love?' 'Oh, if you mean pretty!' said the girl, 'I don't want to deny it—not I, ma'am—why should I, indeed?' 'Pity she's a little light-headed,' said her mother in a musing way. 'Affected, you mean, mother!' said Miss Fortescue, 'and haughty.' 'Do you know, Kate,' replied the old lady, sighing, 'I fear she'll soon go in India!' 'Go?' said the daughter, sharply. 'Yes; she won't stand the hot season as I did—these flighty girls never do. Poor thing! she certainly hasn't your stamina now, my love!'

"Here Miss Fortescue bit her lip, tossed her head, and was saying that wasn't what she cared about, though in fact she looked ready to cry; when just at the moment I saw Lota Hyde herself half above the little gallery stair, gazing straight at me, for the first time, too; a curious kind of half-smile on her face, as I stood with my paws out, the old lady jerking the yarn off my wrists, and I staring right over her big bonnet at the sky astern of the awning, pretending not to listen. All at once my mouth fell, and before she could turn her face away from the funny countenance I no doubt put on, I saw her cheek rosy and her eyes sparkle with laughter, instead of seeming like one to die soon.

"For my part I couldn't stand it at all, so I just bolted sheer round and made three strides to the poop-ladder, as dignified as was possible, with ever so many plies of red yarn foul of my wrists, and a big red ball hopping after me when I'd vanished, like a fellow running from a hot shot! I daresay they thought on the poop I'd had a stroke of the sun on my brain, but till next day I kept clear of the passengers, and took to swigging off stiff nor'-westers of grog as long as Westwood would let me.

CHAPTER VII

"Next evening, when the cuddy dinner was scarce over, I went up to the poop, where there was no one to be seen; the sun just setting on our starboard-quarter in a golden blaze that stretched overhead, with flakes of it melting, as 'twere, all over the sky to port, and dropping in it like threads of oil in water; the ship with a light breeze aft, and stu'nsails packed large upon her, running almost due for the line. The waves to westward were like liquid light, and the eddies round our counter came glittering out, the whole spread of her mizzen and main canvas shining like gold cloth against the fore: then 'twas but the royals and sky-sails brighter than ever, as the big round sun dipped down with a red streak or two, and the red water-line, against his hot old face. Every blue surge between had a clear green edge about its crest, the hollows turning themselves inside out from deep purple into bright blue, and outside in again—and the whole rim of the sea grew out cool and clear, away from the ship's taffrail. A pair of sharp-headed dolphins that had kept alongside for the last few minutes, swimming near the surface, turned tail round the moment I put my nose over the bulwark, and shot off like two streaks of a rainbow after the flying-fish.

"I was just wondering where Lota Hyde could be this time, when on a sudden I observed little Tommy poke his curly head out of the booby-hatch, peeping cautiously round; seeing nobody, however, save the man at the wheel, who was looking over his shoulder at the sun, the small rogue made a bolt out of the companion, and scampered aft under the awning to the judge's starboard door, with nothing on but his night-shirt. There he commenced kicking and shoving with his bare feet and arms, till the door flew open, and over went Tommy on his nose, singing out in fine style. The next thing I heard was a laugh like the sound of a silver bell; and just as the boy's sister ran up in a fright lest he had gone overboard, Violet Hyde came out leading the little chap wrapped in a long shawl that trailed astern of him, herself with a straw bonnet barely thrown upon her head. 'Tommy says you put him in bed too soon, Jane!' said she, smiling. 'Iss!' said Master Thomas, stoutly, 'go 'way, Dzane!' 'You hadn't bid me good-night—wasn't that it, Tom? But oh! what a sea!' exclaimed she, catching sight of it under the awning. The little fellow wanted to see it, too; so the young lady lifted him up in her arms, no small weight I daresay, and they both looked over the bulwark: the whole sky far out of the awning to westward being spotted with orange scales, turning almost scarlet, faster than the dusk from both ends could close in; the clear greenish tint of it above the openings of the canvas going up into fathomless blue overhead, the horizon purple, and one or two still black clouds tipped with vermilion against the far sky—while the Indiaman stole along, scarce plashing under her bends.

"Every now and then you heard a whizz and a flutter, as the flying-fish broke out of a bigger surge, sometimes just missing the ship's side; at last two or three fell over the mizzen chains, and pop came one all of a sudden right into the white breast of Miss Hyde's dress inside her scarf, where only the wings kept it from disappearing. She started, Jane screamed, but the little boy coolly pulled it out, commencing to overhaul it in great delight. 'Oh, fat a funny ickoo bird!' shouted he; 'it's fell down out of 'ese t'ees!' looking aloft. 'No, no,' said Miss Hyde, laughing, as she drew her shoulders together with a shiver—'birds' noses don't drop water! 'Twill die if you don't put it in again, Tommy—'tis a fish!' 'A fish!' said he, opening his eyes wider, and smacking his lips. 'Yes, Tommy eat it for my beckfust!' However, the young lady took it out of his hand, and dropped it overboard; on which the small ogre went off rather discontented, and kissed her more as a favour than otherwise. It was almost dark already, the water shining up in the ship's wake, and the stars coming out aloft; so I was left wondering at the impudence of flying-fish, and the blessings of being a fat little imp in a frock and trousers, compared with this puzzle of a 'traverse,' betwixt being a third lieutenant and hailing for a 'griffin.'

"The night following, after a sultry hot day, the wind had varied a good deal, and the ship was running almost close-hauled on a warm south-easterly breeze, with somewhat of a swell in the water. Early in the first watch there was a heavy shower, after which I went on deck, leaving Westwood at his book. The half-moon was just getting down to leeward, clear of a ragged dark cloud, and a long space of faint white light spread away on the horizon, behind the sheets of the sails hauled aft; so that you just saw a sort of a glimmer under them, on the black heave of the swell between. Every time she rolled to leeward on it, a gleam of the moonshine slipped inside the shadow of her high bulwarks, from one wet carronade to another, and went glistening over the moist decks, and among the boats and booms, that looked like some big brute or other lying stretched out on his paws, till you saw the men's faces on the forecastle as if they were so many mutineers skulking in the dark before they rush aft: then up she righted again, and all was dark in-board.

"The awnings were off, and the gruff third mate creaking slowly to and fro in his soaked shoes; the judge stood talking with the captain before one of the round-house doors; directly after I noticed a young lady's figure in a white dress close by the mizzen-rigging, apparently intent on the sea to leeward. 'Well, now or never!' thought I, stepping over in the shadow of the mainsheet. I heard her draw a long breath; and then, without turning her head at the sound of my foot, 'I wonder if there is anything so strange in India,' exclaimed she; 'is there now?' 'No, no, madam!' said I, starting, and watching as the huge cloud grew darker, with a rusty stain in it, while three or four broad-backed swells, one beyond the other, rose up black against the setting moon, as if they'd plunge right into her. Miss Hyde turned round, with one hand on the bulwark to steady herself, and half looked at me. 'I thought,' said she—'where is papa?—I thought my father——' I begged pardon for intruding, but next minute she appeared to have forgotten it, and said, in a musing sort of way, partly to herself, partly to me—'I seem to remember it all—as if I just saw that black wave—and—that monstrous cloud over again! Oh! really that is the very same top it had then—see!'—'Yes,' said I, leaning forward, with a notion I had seen it before, though heaven knew when. 'Did you ever read about Columbus and Vasco di Gama?' asked she, though directly afterwards her features broke into a laughing smile as she caught sight of mine—at the thought, I suppose, of my ridiculous figure the last time she saw me. 'No, never,' said I; 'but look to windward, ma'am; 'tis coming on a squall again. For heaven's sake, Miss Hyde, go in! We're to have another shower, and that pretty thick. I wonder the mate don't stow the royals.' 'What do you mean?' said she, turning. 'Why are you alarmed, sir? I see nothing particular.' The sea was coming over, in a smooth round-backed swell, out of a dirty, thick jumble of a sky, with a pitch-black line behind—what Ford would have called 'wild' by daylight; but the young lady's eye naturally saw no more in it than a dark night.

"Here the judge came over from the binnacle, giving me a nod, as much as to say he recollected me. 'I am afraid, sir,' said I, 'if you don't make haste, you'll get wet.' 'How!' said Sir Charles, ''tis an exceedingly pleasant night, I think, after such a very hot day. They don't know how to cool rooms here—this perpetual wood retains heat till midnight, sir! That detestable pitch precludes walking—the sea absolutely glares like tin. Why do you suppose so now—eh, young gentleman?' said he again, turning back, all of a sudden, with his daughter on his arm.

"'Why—why—why, Sir Charles,' said I, hesitating betwixt sham innocence and scarce knowing what reason to give; 'why, I just think—that is to say, it's my feeling, you see.' 'Ah, ah, I do see,' replied the judge, good-humouredly; 'but you shouldn't ape the sailor, my good fellow, as I fancy you do a little. I don't particularly admire the class, but they always have grounds for what they say in their profession, frequently even acute. At your aunt's, Lady Somers's now, Violet, who was naturally so surrounded by naval officers, what I had to object to was, not their want of intelligence, but their forwardness. Eh—eh! who—what is that?' exclaimed he suddenly, looking straight up into the dark, as five or six large drops fell on his face out of it. All at once you heard a long sigh, as it were, in the canvas aloft, a clap like two or three carronades fired off, as all the sails together went into the masts—then a hum in the air far and near—and whish! rush! came the rain in sheets and bucketfuls off the edge of a cloud over our very heads, plashing and washing about the deck with coils of rope; ship rolling without a breath of wind in her sails; sails flapping out and in; the rain pouring down ten times faster than the scupper-holes would let it out, and smoking grey in the dark hollow of the swells, that sank under the force of it.

"The first officer came on deck, roaring in the hubbub to clue up and furl the royals before the wind came again. It got pitch-dark, you couldn't see your hand before you, and we had all lost mark of each other, as the men came shoving in between us. However, I knew whereabouts Miss Hyde was, so I felt along the larboard rigging till I found a back-stay clasped in her hands, and the soaked sleeve of her muslin dress, while she leant back on a carronade, to keep from being jerked down in the water that washed up over her feet with every roll, full of ropes and a capstan bar or two. Without saying a word, I took up Lota in my arms, and carried her aft in spite of the roll and confusion, steering for the glimmer of the binnacle, till I got her inside one of their own cabins, where there was a lamp swinging about, and laid her on a sofa. I felt somehow or other, as I went, that the sweet creature hadn't fainted, though all the while as still as death; accordingly I made off again at once to find the judge, who, no doubt, was calling for his daughter, with a poor chance of being heard.

"In a minute or two more the rain was over; it was light enough to make out the horizon, as the belt of foam came broadening out of it; the ship gave two or three wild bounds, the wheel jolting and creaking; up swelled the black waves again over one side, the topsails flapped full as the squall rushed roaring into them, and away she rose; then tore into it like a scared horse, shaking her head and throwing the snow-white foam into her fore-chains. 'Twas as much as three men could do to grind down her wheel, leaning and grinning to it; you saw just the Indiaman herself, scarce so far forward as the booms, and the broad swell mounting with her out of the dark, as she slowly squared yards before it, taking in to'gallant-sails while she did so with her topsail-yards lowered on the caps. However, the look of it was worse than its force, else the swell wouldn't have risen so fast, as every sailor knew; and by two bells of the mid-watch she was bowling under all, as easy as before, the mate of the watch setting a stunsail.

"When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, reading Don Quixote in Spanish. 'Bless me, Ned!' said he, 'you seem to like it! paying fair and weathering it too!' 'Only a little adventure, Westwood!' said I, laughing. 'Why, here have I been enjoying better adventures than we seem likely to have,' said he, 'without stirring a hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here's Don Quixote——' 'Don Quixote be hanged!' said I: 'I'd rather wear ship in a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened—out of an old play-book. What's the use of thinking you see service, when you don't? After all, you couldn't expect much till we've crossed the Line—nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot, Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!' 'Well, we'll see,' said Westwood, lazily, and half asleep.

"The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient, by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and before crossing it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang besides.

"Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies—so he got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood scot-free; but, for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind the studding-sail curtain into three feet water, where I absolutely saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog.

"Late at night the breeze held and freshened, and, being Saturday night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their troubles; drinking and singing songs—Tom Little's and your sentimental affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through the water; so 'Hang it!' thought I, 'somehow or other I'll have out a stave of "Black-eyed Susan" at the top of my pipe, though overboard I go for it.

"There was an old square topsail-yard slung alongside to larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend the fat midshipman was in the boat itself, 'caulking' [12] his watch out, as he did every night in a fresh place.

"I was no sooner there again, than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in my head if I sung there, why, in place of being afraid there was someone under her casement, that and the wind and water together would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night—in fact, I may say I was a little 'slewed' [13] at the time. How to get there, though, was the matter, it being rather a nice practice to sling over an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter; accordingly, first I took the end of coil round the mizzen-shrouds, and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising away, with a light at his mast-head, back to the Line.

"'Twas curious, but when I was 'two or three sheets in the wind,' far from growing stupid, I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and cheat a purser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet, slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got, how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his baby. All at once I felt the rope was giving off the belaying-pin, till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash of the waves the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace; now and then there came a sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell out of the dark for miles.

"I fancied I didn't care for the water, but I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into such an infernally flame-looking stream; I was actually in a fright at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul myself up, when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute, and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to make known.

"'Ford!' said he. 'Ay,' said Ford, feeling to haul off his trousers—'ay—avast you—blub-lub-lubber!' 'I say, Ford!' said the cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marling-spike, and then fell to cry—Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp out, carefully enough, but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw a spark catch in the stuff, and there it was, swinging slowly away in the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers, ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew Winterton kept powder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. 'Confound it,' I thought, quite cooled by the sight, 'the sooner I get on deck the better.'

"However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys; so I held on till they'd go forward again; suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know 'what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail clueline here?' Down I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to save myself by a clutch of the port-sill at arm's-length—where, heaven knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the moulding. 'Man overboard,' shouted he, and the men after him; however, I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat, where I clung like a cat.

"How to get on deck again without being seen was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning train inside, when out jumped someone over my head; I heard a splash in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits. I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming up was the ship's lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after, the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round to the wind, and we were very shortly on board again.

"'Confound it, Simm, what took you overboard, man?' asked the mid in the boat at his dripping messmate, the fat reefer. 'Oh, bother!' said he,'if you must know—why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas the other I was in when you kicked up that shindy. Now I remember, though, there was too much rain in it for comfort.' 'Well, youngster,' said Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, 'this here gentleman saved your life, anyhow!' 'Why, mate,' whispered Bill, ''tis the wery same greenhorn we puckalowed so to-day. Didn't he jump sharp over, too?' 'Pull! for your lives, my lads!' said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing up he got; the men swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the judge's cabins; especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside.

CHAPTER VIII

"You must surely be tired by this time, ma'am, of this long-winded yarn of mine?" said the commander of the Gloucester to the elder of his fair listeners, next evening they met with the evident expectation of hearing further; "but after all, this voyage must be dull work for you at present, so I daresay you are amused with anything by way of a change.

"Well, one morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, it was a stark staring calm; as dead as a mill-pond, save for the long winding heave that seemed to come miles up out of the stale blue water, and get tired with the journey—from the horizon to us in one lazy coil, and on every side, just serving to jerk the wheel a spoke back and forward, with nobody at it. The very bits of pumpkin-paring and fat which the cook had thrown overboard the night before lay still alongside, with an oily track oozing round about them from the 'slush' [14] —the sails hanging from the yards, up and down, like clothes on a screen—and when you looked over the side away from the sun, you saw your own face, like a fellow's that had been long drowned, peering back at you, as it were, round the keel—in fact, there you scarce knew where the water was.

"Somehow or other the ship kept sheering round, by little and little, till, although one had chosen a shady spot, all of a sudden the blazing sun came right into his eyes; or the single streak of white cloud lying behind you, to starboard, a while after stuck itself before your face from the very opposite quarter—you fancying, too, you had your eye the whole time on the same bit of water. Being lost in a wood or a fog was nothing to it, especially with the sun at noon drawn up right overhead, so that you couldn't look aloft, and staring down into the sea out of a pool of bright light; 'like one tremendously keen little eye,' as some of the passengers said, 'examining a big blind one.' 'Why,' put in one of the writers, 'I fear he wants to take the mote out of his brother's eye—this vessel, that is to say!' 'Hang it, I hope not!' said Winterton, rather alarmed. 'He promises well to do it, then,' said another young civilian, 'but I wish he'd take the beam out of his own first, ha, Smythe?' However, few men have the spirit to laugh at little in a calm near the Line, so Smythe gave no more than a sickly grin, while Westwood looked the clergyman very properly.

"Both passengers and crew, all of us that could swim, gave wistful looks now and then alongside at the water, hot as it seemed, for a bathe; just floating up, as it were, with the mere huge size of it, under a dazzle of light, and so blue and smooth you couldn't see a hair's-breadth below; while, a bit off, the face of it and the very air appeared to dance and quiver like little streams of glass. However, all thoughts of bathing were put out of your head when you saw the black three-cornered affair, with a rake aft, somewhat like the end of a scythe, that went steering slowly round us; then cruising hither and thither, till its infernal horn was as dry as the deck; and at times driving straight off, as if it ran in a groove through the level surface; when back again it came from the other side, creeping lazily towards us, till it sank with a light tip, and a circle or two on the blue water. The hook and chain were hanging up and down over the taffrail, with the piece of rank pork looking green in the shadow near the rudder, where you read the white figures of her draught as plain as in dock; but the shark, a fifteen-feet customer, if he was an inch, was too knowing to have touched it.

"'Pity he's gone, Collins,' said Ford to me, after we had watched him at last out of sight; 'wasn't there any plan of catching him, I wonder! Now we shall have a bathe though, at any rate.' 'Gone?' said I, 'he won't leave us in a hurry, if we don't leave him!' 'Poh, man!' said Ford, 'I tell you he's tired out and gone away!' Five minutes after Ford was leaning over the quarter and wiping his face, while he fanned himself with his straw hat, which fell out of his hand into the water. He had got over into the mizzen-chains to throw a line round it, when he gave a loud shriek, and jumped in-board again. Two or three fathoms of green came up from the keel, balancing on a pair of broad fins under Ford's hat, and a big round snout touched it; then a dozen feet of white belly gleamed in the water, the hat gave a gulp as it was drawn down, and a few small air-bells rose to the top. 'He prefers some flavours to others, you see, Ford,' said I. ''Tis the second hat I've seen you lose: I hope your head won't be in the third; but you mariners, you see——' However, Ford had bolted to his cabin.

"On turning round I perceived Miss Hyde, with the general's lady, under the awning on the other side, where the old lady leant against a cushion, with her hands crossed and her bonnet strings loose—though a strapping raw-boned Irishwoman she was—and kept Miss Hyde's maid fanning her from behind with a large feather punkah. The old lady had started at Ford's cry, and gave a look round at me, half fierce and half orderly, as if she expected to know what was the matter at once. 'Only my friend lost his hat, ma'am,' said I, stepping forward. 'These cadets are so 'tagious, my dear!' said she to the young lady, falling back again without the least more notice of me. 'They plague the life of me, but the brigadier can't drill them as he would if this were a troopship—I wish he could, for the sake of the profession!—now, my dear, you kape out of the s-hun!' However, I stuck where I was, fancying I caught the slightest bit of an arch twinkle in the corner of the young lady's eye, though she didn't look at me. 'Keep going, can't ye!' said the old lady crossly to the maid. 'No, ma'am, indeed!' said the girl, glancing over to her young mistress, 'I'm ready to drop!' 'Send up papa's kitmagar, then, Wilkins,' said Miss Hyde; and the girl went off toward the gallery stair, muttering she 'hoped she didn't come—here to be—made a black Indian slave of—at least to a old'—the remainder being lost in the stair.

"As I leant on the rail-netting, behind the old lady, I happened to tread on her fat pug-dog's tail, whereupon the ugly brute made its teeth meet, without further notice, in the small of my leg, after which it gave a yelp, and ran beneath the chairs. 'What's that, Die?' exclaimed its mistress; 'good hivens! is that same griffin here yet, my dear! Hadn't he ayven the spirit to take a hint?—I say, was it you hurt Dianny, young man?' 'Oh dear no, ma'am, not for the world!' said I, looking at my trousers, hard as the thing was to stand, but thinking to smooth her over, though I wasn't quite up to the old Irishwoman it turned out. 'Ha! ha! so she bit you?' said she, with a flash of her hawk's eye, and leaning back again coolly. 'If he'd only kicked poor Die for it under my chair now, I'd have forgiven him; but he hadn't ayven the heart at the time to drop her a curse—and I thinking all the while, too, by the luke of his eye he was from the County Clare! My heart warms to the County Clare always, because, although I'm not Irish myself, you know, I'd once a schoolfellow was born in it—without counting all my relations! Oh, the smooth spalpeen!' continued she, harder than before, glancing at me as I looked all abroad from one to the other; 'listen, niver you let that fellow spake to you, my dear! he's too——' But here I walked quietly off to put the poop's length betwixt me and the talking old vixen, cursing her and her dog both, quite enough to have pleased her Irish fancy.

"On the quarter-deck, the judge and the general seemed really to enjoy the heat and quiet, sitting with their feet up before the round-house, and smoking their long red twisted hookahs, while they watched the wreaths of smoke go whirling straight up from the bowls to the awning, and listened to the faint bubble of it through the water in the bottles, just dropping a word now and then to each other. A tall, thin 'native' servant with long sooty hair hanging from his snow-white turban, stood behind the judge's chair, bolt upright, with his arms folded, and twice as solemn as Sir Charles himself; you saw a stern-window shining far abaft, through one of the round-house doors, and the fat old fellow of a consumah [15] busy laying the cloth for tiffin, while the sole breath of air there was came out of thereaway.

"Suddenly eight bells struck, and everyone seemed glad of something new; the judge's consumah came out salaaming to say tiffin was ready; the cuddy passengers went below for wine-and-water and biscuit; and the men were at dinner. There being nothing to take care of on deck, and the heat of course getting greater, not a soul stayed up but myself; but I preferred at the moment lighting a cheroot, and going up aft to see clear of the awnings. The cockatoo had been left on the poop-rail, with its silver chain hitched round one of the mizzen back-stays, where it shifted from one leg to the other, hooked itself up the back-stay as far as it could go, then hurried down again, and mused a bit, as wise as Solomon—then screamed out at the top of its voice—'Tip—tip—pr-r-retty cacka—tippoo— cok-ka—whee-yew-ew-ew!' finishing by a whistle of triumph fit to have split one's ears, or brought a gale of wind—though not on account of skill in its books, at any rate. Again it took to swinging quietly head-down, at furious rate, and then slewed upright to plume its feathers, and shake the pink tuft on its head.

"No sooner had I got up the stair, however, than, to my perfect delight, I saw Violet Hyde was still sitting aft, and the old Irishwoman gone; so I stepped to the taffrail at once, and, for something to be about, I hauled up the shark-hook from astern. The moment I caught her eye, the young lady smiled—by way of making up, no doubt, for the old one. 'How very solitary it is!' said she, rising and looking out; 'the ship almost seems deserted, except by us!' 'By Jove! I almost wish it were,' thought I. 'A dead calm, madam,' I said, 'and likely to hold—the under-swell's gone quite down, and a haze growing.' 'Are we sure ever to leave this spot then?' asked she, with a slight look of anxiety. 'Never fear it, ma'am,' said I; 'as soon as the haze melts again, we're near a breeze, I assure you—only, by the length of the calm and the heat together, not to speak of our being so far to east'ard, I'm afraid we mayn't get rid of it without a gale at the end to match.' 'Indeed?' said Miss Hyde.

"The fact was, Westwood and I had been keeping a log, and calculated just now we were somewhere to south-eastward of Ascension; whereas, by the captain and mate's reckoning she was much farther to west.

"'I never thought the sea could appear so dreadful,' said she, as if to herself—'much more than in a storm.' 'Why, madam,' said I, 'you haven't exactly seen one this voyage—one needs to be close-hauled off the Cape for that.'

"Somehow or other, in speaking to her, by this time I forgot entirely about keeping up the sham cadet, and slipped into my own way again; so all at once I felt her two dark-blue eyes looking at me curiously. 'How!—why,' exclaimed she suddenly, and then laughing, 'you seem to know all about it!—why, you speak—have you been studying sea affairs so thoroughly, sir, with your friend, who—but I do think, now, one can scarcely trust to what you have said?' 'Well—why—well,' said I, fiddling with the shark-hook, 'I don't know how it is, but I feel as if I must have been at sea some time or other before; you wouldn't suppose it, ma'am, but whenever I fix my eyes on a particular rope, I seem almost to know the name of it.' 'And its use too?' asked she, merrily. 'I shouldn't wonder!' said I; 'perhaps I was born at sea, you know, madam!' and I gave a side-look to notice how she took it. 'Ah! perhaps!' said Miss Hyde, laughing: 'but do you know one sometimes fancies these things; and now I think of it, sir, I even imagined for a moment I had seen yourself before!' 'Oh,' said I, 'that couldn't be the case; I'm sure, for my part, I should recollect clear enough if I'd seen—a—a lady anywhere! I think you said something of the kind, ma'am, that night of the last squall—about the water and the clouds, ma'am, you remember?' The young lady looked away, though a notion seemed to flash through her mind. 'Yes,' said she, 'that terrible rain, you were——' 'Washed into the lee-scuppers,' said I, indifferently, for I didn't want her to suspect it was I that had kissed her hand in the dark as I carried her in. 'I hope Sir Charles and yourself got in safe, Miss Hyde?' However, she was watching the water alongside, and suddenly she exclaimed, 'Dear! what a pretty little fish!' 'By heavens!' said I, seeing the creature with its sharp nose and blue bars, as it glanced about near the surface, and then swam in below the ship's bilge again, 'that's one of the old villain's pilots—he's lying right across our keel! I wish I could catch that shark!'

"The pork was of no use for such an old sea-lawyer, and I cast a wistful eye on the Irishwoman's fat pug-dog stretched asleep on her shawl by the bulwark; 'he'd take that in a trice though!' I even laid out some marline from a stern-locker, and noticed how neatly one could pass the hook under her belly round to the tail, and seize her so snugly on, muzzled and all; but it was no go, with the devil to pay afterwards. All of a sudden I heard somebody hawking and spitting above the awning forward, near where the cockatoo kept still trying to master his own name. 'The Yankee, for a thousand!' thought I; 'is Daniel trying to walk along the spanker-boom?' Next, someone sung out, 'Hal-loo-oo-oo!' as if there was a tomahawk over him, ready to split his brain. Miss Hyde looked alarmed, when the Scotch mate, as I thought, roared, 'Shiver my tops'ls!' Then it was a sailor hailing gruffly, 'Bloody Capting Brown—bloody Capting Brown—Capting Brown!'

"'Somebody drunk aloft!' thought I, walking forward to see; when a funny little black head peeped round the awning with a yellow nose as sharp as a marling-spike, and red spectacles, seemingly, round its keen little eyes; then, with a flutter and a hop, the steward's pet mina-bird [16] came down, and lighted just under the cockatoo. 'Ha!' said I, laughing, 'it's only Parson Barnacle!' as the men called him—a sooty little creature scarce bigger than a blackbird, with a white spot on each wing, and a curious pair of natural glasses on his head, which they kept in the forecastle and taught all sorts of 'jaw,' till they swore he could have put the ship about, took kindly to tar, and hunted the cockroaches like a cat.

"No doubt he was glad to meet his countryman the cockatoo, but Tippoo stuck up his crest, swelled his chops, and looked dreadfully frightened; while the mina-bird cocked his head on one side, gave a knowing wink as it were, though all the time as grave, with his spectacles, as a real parson. 'How's her head?' croaked he, in a voice like a quartermaster's; 'blowing hard!' 'Old Capting Brown!' and hopped nearer to the poor cockatoo, who could stand it no longer, but hooked himself up the back-stay as fast as possible, out of sight, the chain running with him; and just as I swung myself clear of the awning to run aloft for a catch of it, out flew Parson Barnacle to the end of the crojack-yard, while the cockatoo gave a flap that loosed the kitmagar's lubberly hitch, and sent him down with his wings spread on the water.

"At another time it wouldn't have cost me a thought to go head-foremost after him, when I heard his young mistress exclaiming, 'Oh, poor dear Tippoo will be drowned!' but recollecting our hungry green friend on the other side, I jumped down for the end of a rope to slip myself quietly alongside with. However, at the very moment, Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, happening to come up from the forehatchway to throw something overboard, and seeing Miss Hyde's cockatoo, off went his shoes and jacket at once, and I heard the splash as he struck the water. I had scarce time to think, either, before I saw Mick O'Hooney's red head shoot up on deck, and heard him sing out, 'Man overboard, be the powers, boys! Folly my lader! Hurroo!' and over he sprang. 'Here's dip,' said another, and in half a minute every man that could swim was floundering in the smooth water alongside, or his head showing as it came up—pitching the cockatoo to each other, and all ready to enjoy their bathe; though, for my part, I made but one spring to the ship's starboard quarter, to use the only chance of saving the thoughtless fellows from a bloody fate to some of them.

"I knew the shark would be cautious at first, on such a sudden to-do, and I had marked his whereabouts while the men were well toward the bows; and 'hang it,' thought I, seeing the old woman's fat pug in my way, 'Dianny, or die all; I bear no malice, but you must go for it, my beauty!' As quick as thought, I made one turn of marline round her nose, took off the pork, and lashed her fast on to the hook all standing, in spite of her squeaks; then twisted the lady's shawl round the chain for a blind to it, and flung the whole right over the larboard quarter, where I guessed the old fellow would be slewing round astern to have a look out before he went fairly in chase. I watched the line sink slowly with the weight over the gunwale for half a minute, afraid to let him see my head, and trembling for fear I should hear a cry from one of the men: when jerk went the rope clear of a belaying-pin as he ran off with his bait. I took a quick turn to hook him smartly in the throat, and then eased off again till the 'cleets' brought him up with a 'surge' fit to have parted the line, had it not been good new inch-and-a-half rope—though, as it was, the big Indiaman would soon have sheered stern-round to the force of it, if he'd only pulled fair.

"The young lady stood noticing what I did, first in a perplexed sort of a way, and then with no little surprise, especially when the shark gave every now and then a fiercer tug, as he took a sweep astern; by this time, however, everybody was on deck in a crowd, the passengers all in a flurry, and half of the men scrambling up from alongside to tail on to the line, and run him out of water. So away they went with it full-speed towards the bows, as soon as the ladies were out of the way—dragging two or three cadets back-foremost, head over heels, down the poop stair—till, in spite of his tugging, the shark's round snout showed over the taffrail, with the mouth wide open under his chin, as it were, and one row of teeth laid flat behind another, like a comb-maker's shop-counter. A running bowline passed round his handsome waist, then another pull, and over he came on the poop, floundering fourteen feet long, and flourishing his tail for room, till the carpenter chopped it across, in a lucky moment with his axe.

"All hands gathered round the shark to see him cut up, which was as good as a play to them, becalmed as we were; when, to my no small dismay, I heard Mrs Brigadier Brady's loud voice asking where her dog was; and the brigadier himself, who seemed more afraid of his wife than anybody else, kept poking about with his red-faced English butler to find the animal. 'For God's sake,' said he, in a half whisper, twenty times over, 'haven't ye seen Mrs Brady's dog, any of ye?—she'll rout the ship inside out for it, captain, if we don't soon ase her mind.' However, I knew only Miss Hyde was aware who caught the shark, and as she didn't appear to have told, why of course I kept all fast myself. 'Here's a 'baccy-box!' sung out the big old boatswain, standing astride over the tail, while the cook and his black mate ripped away from the tail up. 'Hand over, if ye please, sir,' said 'ugly' Harry, 'it's mine, Mr Burton!' Harry gave it a wipe on his knee, and coolly bit a quid off the end of his lost pigtail. The next thing was Ford's hat, which no one claimed, so black Sambo clapped it on his woolly head.

"'What's that you've got there now, Sambo?' said the boatswain: 'out with it, my lad!' 'Golly!' chuckled the nigger, rolling the whites of his eyes and grinning like mad; 'oh sar, Misser Barton! dis 'ere shark riglar navligator! I 'clare to you, sar, um got chr'ometer aboard. Oh gum; berry much t'ink dis your own lost silber tickler, Misser Barton.' 'Bless me, so it is, my lad,' said the boatswain, as the black handed him a silver watch as big as a turnip, and he looked at the cook, who was busy fumbling with his knife. 'Sorry as you was taxed with it, doctor,' [17] said he, doubtfully; 'well, I'm blowed, though, it only goes an hour and a half—and here it's a-ticking yet.' Here a burst of laughter went round, and somebody sung out, 'Maybe the ould pawn-broking Judas of a shark winded it up hisself, just to mark the time o' his "goin' off the hooks."' 'I say, doctor,' hailed another, 'too bad, ain't it though, to cut up your uncle?' 'Ha, ha, ha,' cried the cadets and writers, looking at the Scotch surgeon; 'd' ye hear that, doctor? I wouldn't stand it. They say you ain't particular in Edinbro', though. Some rum mistakes happened there, eh, doctor?'

"The Scotchman got into a passion at this, being the worst cut they could give any fellow from a country where they were famous for kindred and body-snatching at once—but all of a sudden there was a 'Hulloo! Shiver my taw'sels! What's this? Let's see'; and the whole poopful of us were shoving together, and jumping on each other's shoulders to have a look. 'Well, we-ell,' said the old boatswain, as he peered curiously into the mess of shark's bowels—'I'll be blowed.' 'The likes o' that now!' croaked the old sailmaker, lifting up his two hands, ''tain't lucky, Mr Burton!' 'My eye! them's not young sharks, anyhow!' said one of the men. 'What's t'ou think they be, mun,' said the north-country Chips, 'but litter o' young blind poops? an' here's t' ou'd un, see, as deed's mutton! Dang him, but someun's got an' baited t' hook wi't, there's nou't else in 's guts.'

"The whole poop was one roar of laughing, when Mrs Brady's pug was found delivered of four pups inside the shark, since she went overboard, and two of 'em alive; the news ran fore and aft in a moment. 'Took short she's been, Jack!' said one. 'Beats the prophet Joney!' 'I say, mate, them whelps is born twice over. Blessed if my Sal at home, now, wouldn't give a year's 'lotment for one on 'em.'

"'Look out, all hands of ye,' cried someone, 'there's the old girl herself coming on deck; sharp's the word.' And away we scuttled right and left, some aloft, and some down one poop-ladder, as Mrs Brady, with the brigadier and his butler after her, came fuming up the other. The black made one spring over the quarter as soon as he saw her; but the Irish topman, Mick, slipped his foot amongst the shark's blood, and rolled on his back, while the old bo'sun made stand in the thick of it behind. 'Saze the villains, I charge ye, brigadier,' screamed Mrs Brady, though he and his manservant only kept dodging the boatswain round a sort of a quagmire of blood and grease, while the old vixen caught Mick by his red hair and whiskers. 'Where's my dog, ye murderous spalpeen?' said she, panting for breath; 'what have ye done with my Dianny, ye monsther? Spake, or I'll——' 'Be the holy elaven thousand, yer ladyship!' said Mick, 'an' it's lost did ye think she wor! Isn't there five of 'em back! Whisper! yer ladyship's riv'rence—she's laid in, poor craythure, an'——' 'Oh! you Irish thief!' Tug came both Mrs Brady's hands through his hair, while the butler caught a kick in the stomach from Mick's foot. 'Murther!' gasped the poor fellow, 'sure an' I dun' know she was ayven a faym'le, fur me own part; bad luck t' ye mates, give uz a hand. Och, an' is this the road ye thrate a counthryman, mim?' 'Me your countryman! ye bog-trottin' wretch ye!' screamed the old fury, her brogue getting worse the more she heated—'take that!—don't rise, if ye dare.' 'Faix thin, yer ladyship darlin',' said O'Hooney, grinning in spite of his hard usage, 'I tould a lie—och, lave some o' me hair!—murther intirely! I'm——'

"All the time none of us could stir for sheer laughing, but seeing poor Mike like to fare hard with the old vixen, who was near as big as himself, and as strong as a horse, I whispered to the men to run round and let go the poop awning—so down it came, with a few buckets of water in it, over the five of them; and you just saw Mrs Brady's sharp elbow through the canvas, lifted for the next slap, when we had her all fast, struggling like a cat in a bag, while O'Hooney and the boatswain crept out below. 'Stiff breeze that as we've had!' said the bo'sun shaking himself on the forecastle. 'Couldn't ye've bowsed over on the old jade's pitticuts, Mick?' said one of his shipmates, 'and capsized her all standing?' 'Sorra fut you'd stir, yourself, mate,' said he, wiping his face, 'wid such a shay grinnydeer! she'd man-handle ye as asy's twurl a mop!'

CHAPTER IX

"After all this, you may suppose one didn't weary so much, even of the calm. As soon as the decks were clear, most of us took tea on the poop, for fear of meeting the brigadier's lady below, everyone holding his cup ready for a start. Rollock, the planter, who had slept and swung in his cot half the day, was like to split his sides when he heard the story; by-the-way, I believe both the little pups lived and throve on goat's milk, and the men called one of them 'Young Jonah,' though he had so much of the terrier that the old lady disowned him.

"It was quite dark, and cool for a night near the Line, though not a ripple stirred, and I stayed after the rest to smoke a cigar, stopping every now and then near the aftermost bull's-eye, that shone through the deck, and thinking of Lota. 'By Jove!' thought I, 'she hasn't said a word to the judge about our having met before. Think of having a secret, almost, with her!' After all, though, I felt well enough I might as soon hope for the Emperor of China's daughter as for such a creature, unless something wonderfully strange fell out; deucedly in love as I was, I wasn't puppy enough to fancy I'd ever succeed by mere talk; 'but here's for a bold heart and a weather eye,' I thought; 'and if these can't do it, I will!' said I aloud, when someone clapped me on the shoulder.

"'Well, Tom, are you there?' said I, thinking it was Westwood. 'Why,' answered old Rollock, laughing, 'not so far wrong, my boy—but as it's thirty years since anyone called me so, I thought you were, for a moment!—Meditating, eh?' 'Only a cigar before bedtime—will you have one, sir?' 'Ah—well,' said the planter, 'I'll take a light at least—queer life this, eh? Shouldn't know this was water, now—more like train-oil! Looks junglish a little under the stars yonder.' 'Nothing but the haze come down,' said I; ''tis clear enough aloft, though—look out for squalls ere long.' 'As your friend Ford would have it,' said Rollock; 'but how a lad of your spirit can manage to stand this so well, I can't think!' 'Deyvilish dull, sir!' said I, with a lazy drawl, 'but can't be helped, you know.' 'Come, come, now, don't mend it by copying poor Winterton,' chuckled Rollock; 'you're no fool, Collins, so don't pretend to be. I say though, Collins, my boy,' continued he rather gravely, 'there is one really soft piece I begin to notice in you lately—I fear you're falling in love with that girl!' 'I, sir!' said I; 'dear me, what makes you——' 'My dear boy,' went on the kind-hearted old fellow, 'I take an interest in you; no lad of your stuff practises all this tomfoolery without something under it, and I see you've some serious meaning or other. Did you know her before?' 'Oh—why—not exactly,' I dropped out, taken rather short. 'I see, I see!' he went on; 'but I tell you what, Collins, a cadet can do nothing madder than marry at first landing; she had better be a cold-hearted flirt, after all—though, God knows, no man can say what that does but one that's—felt it!—I—I mean I knew—a young fellow that went out as ambitious as you can be, and he——'

"Here the planter's voice shook a little, and he stopped, puffing at his cheroot till the short end of it just lighted up his hook nose and part of his big white whiskers in the dark, only you saw his eye glistening, too. 'Devil take it!' thought I, 'who'd have expected the old boy to be so sharp, though?' 'Well but, Collins,' said he at last, 'just you enter heart and soul into your profession; I'd stake my life you'll rise, who knows how far—when you get captain's pay even, then you may think of it—that is, if she——' 'Why,' said I, 'd'ye suppose the judge would——' 'Judge!' exclaimed Mr Rollock—'worse and worse! Weren't we talking of pretty little Kate Fortescue? My dear boy, you don't intend to say you mean Miss Hyde! I left that to your puppy of a "first officer," as they call him! Why, that young girl will be the beauty of Calcutta.' At this I fancied someone else gave a whistle near us. 'Of course, sir,' said I, raising my voice, 'you didn't suppose me such a fool.' In fact, Miss Fortescue had never entered my head at all. 'Something strange about you, Collins!' said the planter, a little shortly; 'you puzzle me, I must say.' As we turned to go below, I heard somebody walk down the poop-ladder, and then the mate's voice sung out from the binnacle to 'strike eight bells!'

"The calm was as dead as ever next morning, and, if possible, hotter than before—not a rope changed aloft, nor a cloth in the sails moved; but it was pretty hazy round us, which made the water a sort of pale old-bottle blue, that sickened you to look at; and a long dipping and drawling heave gradually got up as if there were blankets on it; the ship, of course, shifting round and round again slowly, like a dog going to lie down, and the helm giving every now and then a sudden jolt. Near noon it cleared up with a blaze of light, as it were; the sole difference at first being, that what looked like melting lead before now turned into so many huge bright sheets of tin, every sudden bend of it as good as flashing up thousands of needles in your eyes. A good deal surprised we were, however, shortly after, to find there was a sail in sight, another square-rigged vessel, seemingly standing up on the horizon six or seven miles off. Being end on to us at the time, though every glass in the ship was brought to bear on her, 'twas hard to say what she was; then she and we went bobbing and going up and down with a long round heave between us, slowly enough, but always at cross purposes, like two fellows see-sawing on a plank over a dyke. When she was up, we were down, and we just caught sight of her royal, no bigger than a gull on the water; jerk went our rudder, and next time she seemed to have vanished out of the glasses altogether, till we walked round to the other side, and made her out again under the awning on the opposite beam. At length she lifted broad to us for a moment or two, showing a long pale sort of hull with a red streak, apparently without ports, and brig-rigged, though the space betwixt her two masts was curious for that kind of craft.

"'Wonderful light-sparred for her size that brig, sir,' said the third officer, dropping his glass. 'Ay, so she is, Mr Small,' replied Captain Williamson; 'what would you call her then? You've as good knowledge of craft as any man, Mr Small, I think.' 'Why,' said the old mate, screwing his eye harder for a long look, 'I'd say she's—not a cruiser, Captain Williamson—no, nor a Greenock Indyman—nor a——' 'Oh!' said Finch, 'some African timberer or other, I daresay, Small.' 'Well, Mr Finch,' said the third mate, handing him the glass, 'mayhap you'll just say yourself, sir.' 'No, no, Mr Small,' said the captain; 'I'd trust to you as soon as any man, sir, in a matter of the kind.' 'Why, the hull of her's wonderful Yankee-like, sir,' said Small again; 'I'm thinking they've been and squared her out of a schooner—and made a bad job of it too, sir! Bless us! what a lean-headed pair o' taups'ls—as high as our fore one, sir.' Suddenly the old mate gave his thigh a slap, and laid down his glass on the capstan; 'Lor', sir!' said he, 'that's the thing; she's nothing more nor less but a John Crapeau, Captain Williamson!'

"'I daresay you're right, Mr Small,' said the skipper, taking the glass; 'just so—ay, ay—I thought it myself!' 'Pity Old Nap's boxed up yonder nowadays, then, sir,' said the first officer, rubbing his hands and pointing to eastward, where he thought St Helena was; 'why, sir, we should have the peppering of the Frenchman; I don't suppose we'd need to care though she were twice the size—and what's more, we want fresh water before seeing the Cape, sir!' 'Well,' said the old skipper, laughing, 'that is the worst of it, Finch! As for spirit, you've as much as any man, Mr Finch, and I do think we'd know how to take the weather-hand of him—eh?' 'I'll be bound we should!' said Finch, laughing too. As for the Frenchman, both Westwood and I had made him out by his rig at once, thanks to man-o'-war practice; but we smiled to each other at the notion of making a prize of Monsieur, under Finch's management, with not a gun that could have been used for half a day, and everything else at sixes and sevens.

"In a little while it was proposed amongst the cadets, hot as the calm was, to make a party to go and see the French vessel. Ford of course was at the head of it. Winterton thought they would no doubt have plenty of champagne on board, and some others, who could row, wanted to try their hands. Accordingly the captain's gig was got ready, a sort of awning rigged over it, and two or three of them got in; when one, who was Miss Fortescue's cousin, persuaded her to join, if Mr Rollock would come. Then the brigadier, being rather a good-humoured man, said he should like to face the French once more, and Daniel Snout shoved himself eagerly in without asking, by your leave. One of the men was sent to take charge; and as there was room still, I was just going to jump in too, for the amusement of it, when Mrs Brady hurried to the taffrail with her parasol up, and said, if the brigadier went she should go as well—in fact, the old woman's jealousy of her rib was always laughably plain. 'Hang it! then,' thought I, 'catch me putting myself in the same boat with her! the same ship is enough in all conscience!' So away they were lowered off the davits, and began pulling in tolerable style for the brig, a couple of hours' good work for such hands at midday, smooth water as it was.

"'Now, gentlemen,' said the first officer briskly, as we looked after them dipping over the long bright blue heave—'now, gentlemen, and ladies also, if you please, we'll have another party as soon as the men get their dinner—give these gentlemen a full hour's law, we'll overhaul them. See the larboard quarter-boat clear, Jacobs.' It was just the least possible hazy again behind the brig in the distance, and as the judge stood talking to his daughter on the poop, I heard her say, 'Is the other vessel not coming nearer already, papa? See how much more distinct its sails are this moment—there!—one almost observes the white canvas!' 'Pooh, Lota, child!' answered Sir Charles, 'that cannot be—'tis perfectly calm, don't you know?' In fact, however, Lota showed a sailor's eye for air, and I was noticing it myself; but it was only the air made it look so. 'Ah! now,' exclaimed she again, ''tis as distant as ever! That must have been the light'; besides, the brig had been lifting on a wide swell.

"'I beg pardon, Sir Charles,' said the mate, coming up and taking off his cap, 'but might I use the freedom—perhaps yourself and Miss Hyde would like to visit the French brig?' The judge looked at his daughter as much as to ask if she would like it. 'Oh yes! so much!' exclaimed she, her bright eyes sparkling, 'shall we?' 'No! Not I!' said Sir Charles. 'I shall take my siesta. Quite safe, sir—eh?' 'Oh, quite safe, Sir Charles!' said Finch, 'a dead calm, sir—I'll take the utmost care you may be sure, Sir Charles—as safe as the deck, sir!' 'Oh, very well,' replied the judge, and he walked down to see after his tiffin. The young lady was going down the quarter-gallery stair, when I caught my opportunity to say— 'I hope you'll excuse it, Miss Hyde, ma'am—but I do trust you'll not risk going in the boat so far, just now!' Half a minute after I spoke, she turned round, and looked at me with a curious sort of expression in her charming face, which I couldn't make out—whether it was mischievous, whether it was pettish, or whether 'twas inquisitive.

'Dear me!' said she, 'why—do you——' 'The weather might change,' I said, looking round about, 'and I shouldn't wonder if it did—or a swell might get up—or——' 'I must say, Mr—Mr Collins,' said she, laughing slightly, 'you are very gloomy in your anticipations—almost timorous, I declare! I wonder how you came to be so weather-wise! But why did you not advise poor Mrs Brady, now?' I couldn't see her face as she spoke, but the tone of the last words made me feel I'd have given worlds to look round and see what it was like at the moment. 'Perhaps, ma'am,' said I, 'you may remember the rain?' 'Well, we shall see, sir!' replied she, glancing up with a bright sparkle in her eye for an instant, but only toward the end of the spanker-boom, as it were; and then tripping down the stair.

"I kept watching the gig pull slowly toward the brig in the distance, and the cutter making ready on our quarter till the men were in, with Jacobs amongst them; where they sat waiting in no small glee for the mate and his party, who came up a few minutes after; and I was just beginning to hope that Violet Hyde had taken my advice, when she and another young lady came out of the round-house, dressed for the trip, and the captain gallantly handed them in. 'My compliments to the French skipper, Mr Finch,' said the captain, laughing, 'and if he ain't better engaged, happy to see him to dinner at—two bells [18] in the dog-watch, we'll make it!' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Finch. 'Now then!—all ready?' 'Smythe's coming yet.' said a 'writer.' 'We can't wait any longer for him,' replied the mate; 'ease away the falls, handsomely, on deck!' 'Stop,' said I, 'I'll go then!' 'Too late, young gentleman,' answered the mate, sharply, 'you'll cant us gunnel up, sir!—lower away, there!' However, I caught hold of a rope and let myself down the side, time enough to jump lightly into her stern-sheets the moment they touched the water. The officer stared at me as he took the yoke-lines to steer, but he said nothing, and the boat shoved off; while Miss Hyde's blue eyes only opened out, as it were, for an instant, at seeing me drop in so unceremoniously; and her companion laughed.

"'I shouldn't have supposed you so nimble, Mr Collins!' said the writer, looking at me through his eyeglass. 'Oh,' said I, 'Ford and I have practised climbing a good deal lately.' 'Ha! ha!' said the civilian, 'shouldn't be surprised, now, if your friend were to take the navigation out of Mr Finch's hands, some day!' 'Bless me, yes, sir!' said Finch, with a guffaw, as he sat handling the lines carelessly, and smiling to the ladies, with his smart cap over one ear; 'to be sure—ha! ha! ha!—it's certain, Mr Beveridge! Wouldn't you take the helm here, sir?' to me. 'Oh, thank you, no, sir!' replied I, modestly, 'I'm not quite so far yet—but we've got a loan of Hamilton Moore and Falconer's Dictionary from the midshipmen, and mean to——' 'No doubt you'll teach us a trick or two yet!' said Finch, with a sneer. 'Now, for instance,' said I, coolly, 'aloft yonder, you've got the throat halliards jammed in the block with a gasket, and the mizzen-topsail cluelines rove wrong side of it, which Hamilton Moore distinctly——'

"'Hang the lubber that did it, so they are!' exclaimed the mate, looking through the spy-glass we had with us. 'Now you've your jibs hauled down, sir,' continued I, 'and if a squall came on abeam, no doubt they'd wish to shorten sail from aft, and keep her away—however, she would broach-to at once, as Hamilton Moore shows must——' 'You and Hamilton Moore may——Well, no fear of a squall just now, at any rate, ladies,' said he. 'Stretch out, men—let's head upon Mr Ford and his gig, yet!'

"Terribly hot it was, close to the water, and so stifling that you scarce could breathe, while the long glassy swell was far higher than one thought it from the ship's deck; however, we had an awning hoisted, and it refreshed one a little both to hear the water and feel it below again, as the cutter went sliding and rippling over it to long slow strokes of the oars; her crew being all men-o'-war's-men, that knew how to pull together and take it easy. The young ladies kept gazing rather anxiously at the big old Seringapatam, as she rose and dropped heavily on the calm, amused though they were at first by a sight of their late home turning 'gable' on to us, with her three masts in one, and a white straw hat or two watching us from her taffrail; whereas, ahead, they only now and then caught a glimpse of the brig's upper canvas, over a hot, hazy, sullen-looking sweep of water as deep-blue as indigo—with six hairy brown breasts bending before them to the oars, and as many pair of queer, rollicking, fishy sort of eyes, fixed steadily on the bonnets aft, in a shame-faced, down-hill kind of way, like fellows that couldn't help it. In fact, I noticed a curious grin now and then on every one of the men's faces, and a look to each other when they caught sight of myself sitting behind the mate, as he paid out his high-flying speeches; Jacobs, again, regarding me all the while out of the whites of his eyes, as it were, in a wooden, unknowing fashion fit to have made a cat laugh—seeing he never missed his mark for one moment, and drew back his head at every pull with the air of a drunken man keeping sight of his own waistcoat buttons.

"By the time we were halfway, the swell began to get considerable, and the mate stepped up abaft to look for the gig. 'Can't see the boat yet,' said he; 'give way there, my lads—stretch out and bend your backs! there's the brig!' 'Hallo!' exclaimed he again, 'she's clued up royals and to'gallants'ls! By heavens! there go her tops'ls down too! Going to bend new sails, though, I daresay, for it looks clear enough there.' 'The ship's run up a flag, aft sir,' said Jacobs. 'The——so she has,' said Finch, turning round; 'recall signal! What's wrong? Sorry we can't dine aboard the French vessel this time, ladies!' said he, 'extremely so—and the griffins there after all, too. I hope you won't be disappointed in any great measure, Miss Hyde; but if you wished it now, miss, I'd even keep on, and——'

"The young lady coloured a little at this, and turned to her companion just as I remembered her doing from the dragoon in the ball-room. 'Do you not think, Miss Wyndham,' said she, 'we ought not to wish any officer of the ship should get reproved, perhaps, on our account?' 'Oh dear, no,' said Miss Wyndham: 'indeed, Mr Finch, you had better go back, if the captain orders you.'

"'Hold on there with your larboard oars, you lubbers!' sang out Finch, biting his lip, and round we went, pulling for the Indiaman again; but by this time the swell was becoming so heavy as to make it hard work, and it was soon rarely we could see her at all; for nothing gets up so fast as a swell, sometimes, near the Line; neither one way nor the other, but right up and down, without a breath of wind, in huge smooth hills of water darker than lead, not a speck of foam, and the sky hot and clear. 'Twas almost as if a weight had been lifted from off the long heaving calm, and the whole round of it were going up dark into the sky, in one weltering jumble, the more strange that it was quiet; sweep up it took the boat, and the bright wet oar-blades spread feathering out for another stroke to steady her, let alone making way; though that was nothing to the look of the Indiaman when we got near. She was rolling her big black hull round in it as helpless as a cask; now one side, then the other, dipping gunwale to in the round swell that came heaping up level with her very rail, and went sheeting out bright through the bulwarks again; the masts jumping, clamps and boom-irons creaking on the yards, and every sail on her shaking, as her lower yard-arms took it by turns to aim at the water—you heard all the noise of it, the plunge of her flat broadside, the plash from her scuppers, the jolts of her rudder, and voices on board; and wet you may be sure she was from stem to stern.

"'Comfortable,' thought I; 'we've come home too soon of a washing-day, and may wait at the door, I fear!' 'Oh dear,' exclaimed the three griffins, 'how are we to get in!' and the young ladies looked pale at the sight. The mate steered for her larboard quarter without saying a word, but I saw he lost coolness and got nervous—not at all the man for a hard pinch: seemingly, he meant to make a dash alongside and hook on. 'If you do, sir,' said I, 'you'll be smashed to staves'; and all at once the ship appeared almost over our heads, while the boat took a send in. I looked to Jacobs and the men, and they gave one long stroke off, that seemed next heave to put a quarter of a mile between us. 'Close shave that,' said the bowman. 'Begs pardon, sir,' said Jacobs, touching his hat, with his eyes still fixed past the mate, upon me; 'hasn't we better keep steadying off, sir, till such time as a sulk in the swell——' 'Hold your jaw, sirrah,' growled Finch, as he looked ahead still more flurried; 'there's a squall coming yonder, gentlemen, and if we don't get quick aboard, we may lose the ship in it! Pull round, d' ye hear there!' Sure enough, when we lifted, there was the French brig clear out against a sulky patch of dark-grey sky, growing in, as it were, far off behind the uneven swell, till it began to look pale; the Indiaman's topsails gave a loud flap out, too, one after the other, and fell to the mast again.

"Suddenly I caught the glance of Violet Hyde's eyes watching me seriously, as I sat overhauling the Indiaman for a notion of what to do, and I fancied the charming girl had somehow got nearer to me during the last minute or two, whether she knew it or not; at any rate, the thought of having such a creature to protect made all my blood tingle. 'Never fear, ma'am,' said I, in a half whisper; when Finch's eye met mine, and he threw me a malicious look, sufficient to show what a devil the fellow would be if ever he had occasion; however, he gave the sign for the men to stretch out again, and high time it was, as the Indiaman's main-topsail made another loud clap like a musket-shot. Still he was holding right for her quarter—the roll the ship had on her was fearful, and it was perfect madness to try it; but few merchant mates have chanced to be boating in a Line swell, I daresay; when just as we came head on for her starboard counter, I took the boat's tiller a sudden shove with my foot, as if by accident, that sent us sheering in close under her stern. The bowman prized his boat-hook into the rudder-chains, where the big hull swung round us on both sides like an immense wheel round its barrel, every stern window with a face watching us—though one stroke of the loose rudder would have stove us to bits, and the swell was each moment like to make the men let go, as it hove us up almost near enough to have caught a hand from the lower-deck.

"'For God's sake steady your wheel,' said I; 'hard a port!' while the mate was singing out for a line. 'Now, up you go,' said I to Jacobs in the hubbub, 'look sharp, and send us down a whip and basket from the boom-end, as we did once in the Pandora, you know!' Up the rope went Jacob like a cat, hand over hand; and five minutes after, down came the 'basket' over our heads into the boat, made out of a studding-sail and three capstan-bars, like a big grocer's scale dangling from the spanker-boom. The mate proposed to go up first with Miss Hyde, but she hung back in favour of her companion; so away aloft went Miss Wyndham and he, swinging across the Indiaman's stern as she rolled again, with a gant-line to steady them in—Finch holding on to the whip by one hand, and the other round the young lady, while my blood crept at the thought how it might have been Lota herself!

"As soon as it came down again, she looked for a moment from me to Jacobs, when Captain Williamson himself shouted over the taffrail! 'Sharp, sharp, there! the squall's coming down! she'll be up in the wind! let's get the helm free!' and directly after I found myself swinging twenty feet over the water with Violet Hyde, as the ship heeled to a puff that filled the spanker, and rose again on a huge swell, gathering steerage way, while every bolt of canvas in her flapped in again at once like thunder. I felt her shudder and cling to me—there was one half-minute we swung fairly clear of the stern; they stopped hoisting—and I almost thought I'd have wished that same half-minute half-a-day; but a minute after she was in the judge's arms on the poop; the men had contrived to get the cadets on board, too, and the boat was dragging astern, with the line veered out, and her crew still in it baling her out.

"I fixed my eyes at once, breathless as we of the boat party were, on the weather-signs and the other vessel, which everybody on the poop was looking at, as soon as we were safe, and our friends in the gig had to be thought of. The short top-swell was beginning to soften in long regular seas, with just air enough aloft to give our light sails a purchase on it, and put an end to the infernal clatter; but the vapour had gathered quicker than you could well fancy behind the brig in the distance, so that she looked already a couple of miles nearer, rising up two or three times on as many huge swells that shone like blue glass, while she steadied herself like a tight-rope dancer on the top of them, by a studding-sail set high from each side. On the far horizon beyond her, you'd have thought there was a deep black ditch sunk along under the thickening blue haze, as it stretched out past her to both hands, till actually the solid breast of it seemed to shove the brig bodily forward over the oily-like water, every spar and rope distinct; then the fog lifted below as if the teeth of a saw came splitting through it, and we saw her bearing down towards us—cloud, water, and all, as it were—with a white heap of foam at her bows.

"'Brace up sharp, Mr Finch!' said the old skipper hastily, 'and stand over to meet her. Confound this! we must have these people out of that brig in a trice; we shall soon have a touch of the Horse Latitudes, or my name's not Richard Williamson—ay, and bid good-bye to 'em too, I think!'

"For a quarter of an hour or so, accordingly, we kept forging slowly ahead, while the brig continued to near us. No one spoke, almost—you heard the lazy swash of the water round our fore-chains, and the stillness aboard had a gloomy enough effect, as one noticed the top of the haze creep up into round vapoury heads upon the sky, and felt it darkening aloft besides. We were scarce three-quarters of a mile apart, and could see her sharp black bows drip over the bright sheathing, as she rolled easily on the swell; when the Indiaman suddenly lost way again, sheered head round, and slap went all her sails from the royals down, as if she had fired a broadside. Almost the next moment, a long low growl ran muttering and rumbling far away round the horizon, from the clouds and back to them again, as if they had been some huge monster or other on the watch, with its broad green muzzle shooting quietly over us as it lay; the brig dipped her gilt figure-head abeam of us, and then showed her long red streak; the swell sinking fast, and the whole sea far and wide coming out from the sky as dark and round as the mahogany drum-head of the capstan.

"'Bless me, Small,' said the captain, 'but I hope they've not knocked a hole in my gig—ay, there they are, I think, looking over the brig's quarter—but don't seem to have a boat to swim! Get the cutter hauled alongside, Mr Stebbing,' continued he to the fourth mate, 'and go aboard for them at once—confounded bothering, this! Mind get my gig safe, sir, if you please—can ye parley-voo, though, Mr Stebbing?' 'Not a word, sir,' said the young mate, a gentlemanly, rather soft fellow, whom the other three all used to snub. 'Bless me, can't we muster a bit o' French amongst us?' said the skipper; 'catch a monshoor that knows a word of English like any other man—'specially if they've a chance of keeping my gig!' 'Well, sir,' said I, 'I'll be happy to go with the officer, as I can speak French well enough!' 'Thank ye, young gentleman, thank ye,' said he, 'you'll do it as well as any man, I'm sure—only look sharp, if you please, and bring my gig with you!' So down the side we bundled into the cutter, and pulled straight for the brig, which had just hoisted French colours, not old 'three-patches,' of course, but the new Restoration flag.

"I overhauled her well as we got near, and a beautiful long schooner-model she was, with sharp bows, and a fine easy-run hull from stem to stern, but dreadfully dirty and spoilt with top-bulwarks, as if they meant to make her look as clumsy as possible; while the brig-rig of her aloft, with the ropes hanging in bights and hitches, gave her the look of a hedge-parson on a race-horse; at the same time, I counted six closed ports of a side, in her red streak, the exact breadth and colour of itself. Full of men, with a long gun, and schooner-rigged, she could have sailed round the Indiaman in a light breeze, and mauled her to any extent.

"They hove us a line out of the gangway at once, the mate got up her side as she rolled gently over, and I followed him: the scene that met our eyes as soon as we reached the deck, however, struck me a good deal on various accounts. We couldn't at first see where Mr Rollock and his party might be, for the shadow of a thick awning after the glare of the water, and the people near the brig's gangway; but I saw two or three dark-faced, very French-like individuals, in broad-brimmed straw hats and white trousers, seemingly passengers; while about twenty Kroomen and negroes, and as many seamen with unshaven chins, earrings, and striped frocks, were in knots before the long-boat, turned keel up amidships, careless enough, to all appearance, about us. One of the passengers leant against the mainmast, with his arms folded over his broad chest, and his legs crossed, looking curiously at us as we came up; his dark eyes half closed, the shadow of his hat down to his black moustache, and his shirt-collar open, showing a scar on his hairy breast; one man, whom I marked for the brig's surgeon, beside him; and another waiting for us near the bulwarks—a leathery-faced little fellow, with twinkling black eyes, and a sort of cocked hat fore-and-aft on his cropped head. 'Moi, monsieur,' said he, slapping his hand on his breast as the mate looked about him, 'oui, je suis capitaine, monsieur.'

"'Good-day, sir,' said Stebbing, 'we've just come aboard for our passengers—and the gig—sir, if you please.' 'Certainement, monsieur,' said the French skipper, bowing and taking a paper from his pocket, which he handed to the mate, 'I comprind, sare—monsieur le capitaine d' la frégate Anglaise, il nous demande nos—vat you call—peppares—voilà! I have 'ad le honneur, messieurs, to be already sarch by vun off vos crusoes—pour des esclaves! vous imaginez cela, messieurs!' and here the worthy Frenchman cast up his hands and gave a grin which seemed meant for innocent horror. 'Slaifs! chez le brigantin Louis Bourbon, Capitaine Jean Duprez? Non!' said he, talking away like a windmill, 'de Marseilles à l'Isle de France, avec les vins choisis——' 'You mistake, monsieur,' said I, in French; 'the ship is an Indiaman, and we have only come for our friends, who are enjoying your wine, I daresay, but we must——' 'Comment?' said he, staring, 'what, monsieur? have de gotness to——'

"Here the moustached passenger suddenly raised himself off the mast, and made one stride between us to the bulwarks, where he looked straight out at the Indiaman, his arms still folded, then from us to the French master. He was a noble-looking man, with an eye I never saw the like of in anyone else, 'twas so clear, bold, and prompt—it actually went into you like a sword, and I couldn't help fancying him in the thick of a battle, with thousands of men and miles of smoke. 'Duprez,' said he, quickly, 'je vous le dis encore—debarquez ces misérables!—nous combattrons!' 'Then, mon ami,' said the surgeon, in a low, cool, determined tone, stepping up and laying a hand on his shoulder, 'aussi, nous couperons les ailes de l'Aigle, seulement!—Hush, mon ami, restrain this unfortunate madness of yours!—c'est bien mal-à-propos à present!' and he whispered something additional, on which the passenger fell back and leant against the mainmast as before. 'Ah!' said the French master in his own language, shaking his head, and giving his forehead a tap, 'le pauvre homme-là! He has had a coup-de-soleil, messieurs, or rather of the moon, you perceive, from sleeping in its rays! Ma foi!' exclaimed he, on my explaining the matter, 'c'est pos-sible?—we did suppose your boat proposed us the honour to visit, when evidently deterred by the excessive undulation!—My friends, resign yourselves to a misfort——' 'Great heavens! Mr Stebbing,' said I, 'the boat is lost!' 'By George! what will the captain say, then!' replied he; however as soon as I told him the sad truth, poor Stebbing, being a good-hearted fellow, actually put his hands to his face and sobbed.

"All this time the brig's crew were gabbling and kicking up a confounded noise about something they were at with the spare spars, and in throwing tarpaulins over the hatches; for it was fearfully dark, and going to rain heavy; the slight swell shone and slid up betwixt the two vessels like oil, and the clouds to south-westward had gathered up to a steep black bank, with round coppery heads, like smoke over a town on fire. 'Will you go down, messieurs,' said the Frenchman, politely, 'and taste my vin de——' 'No, sir,' said I, 'we must make haste off, or else—besides, by-the-way, we couldn't, for you've got all your hatches battened down!' 'Diable, so they are!' exclaimed he, 'par honneur, gentlemen, I regret the occasion of—ha!' Just before, a glaring brassy sort of touch had seemed to come across the face of the immense cloud; and though everything, far and wide, was as still as death, save the creaking of the two ships' yards, it made you think of the last trumpet's mouth! But at this moment a dazzling flash leaped zigzag out of it, running along from one cloud to another, while the huge dark mass, as it were, tore right up, changing and turning it inside out like dust—you saw the sea far away under it, heaving from glassy blue into unnatural-like brown—when crash broke the thunder over our very heads, as if something had fallen out of heaven, then a long bounding roar. The mad French passenger stood up, walked to the bulwarks, and looked out with his hand over his eyes for the next; while the young mate and I tumbled down the brig's side without further to-do, and pulled fast for the ship, where we hardly got aboard before there was another wild flash, another tremendous clap, and the rain fell in one clash, more like stone than water, on sea and decks. For half an hour we were rolling and soaking in the midst of it, the lightning hissing through the rain, and showing it glitter; while every five minutes came a burst of thunder and then a rattle fit to split one's ears. At length, just as the rain began to slacken, you could see it lift bodily, the standing sheets of it drove right against our canvas and through the awnings—when we made out the French brig with her jib, topsails, and boom-mainsail full, leaning over as she clove through it before the wind.

"The squall burst into our wet topsails as loud as the thunder, with a flash almost like the lightning itself, taking us broad abeam; the ship groaned and shook for a minute ere gathering way and falling off, and when she rose and began to go plunging through the black surges no brig was to be seen: every man on deck let his breath out almost in a cry, scarce feeling as yet but it was equal to losing sight for ever of our late shipmates, or the least hope of them. The passengers, ladies and all, crowded in the companion-hatch in absolute terror, every face aghast, without thinking of the rain and spray; now and then the sulky crest of a bigger wave would be caught sight of beyond the bulwarks, as the sea rose with its green back curling over into white; and you'd have said the shudder ran down into the cabin, at thought of seeing one or other of the lost boat's crew come weltering up from the mist and vanish again. I knew it was of no use, but I held on in the weather mizzen-rigging, and looked out to westward, against a wild break of light which the setting sun made through the troughs of the sea; once and again I could fancy I saw the boat lift keel up, far off betwixt me and the fierce glimmer.

"'Oh, do you see them? do you not see it yet?' was passed up to me over and over, from one sharp-pitched voice to another; but all I could answer was to shake my head. At last, one by one, they went below; and after what had happened, I must say I could easily fancy what a chill, dreary-like, awful notion of the sea must have come for the first time on a landsman, not to speak of delicate young girls fresh from home, at sight of the drenched quarter-deck leaning bare down to leeward, the sleet and spray battering bleak against the round-house doors, where I had seen Miss Hyde led sobbing in, with her wet hair about her face; then the ship driving off from where she had lost them, with her three strong lower masts aslant into the gale, ghastly-white and dripping—her soaked sheets of canvas blown grey and stiff into the rigging, and it strained taut as iron; while you saw little of her higher than the tops, as the scud and the dark together closed aloft. Poor Miss Fortescue's mother was in fits below in her berth—the two watches were on the yards aloft, where no eye could see them, struggling hard to furl and reef; so altogether it was a gloomy enough moment. I stayed awhile on deck, wrapped in a pea-coat, keeping my feet and hanging on, and thinking how right down in earnest matters could turn of a sudden. I wasn't remarkably thoughtful in these days, I daresay, but there did I keep, straining my eyes into the mist to see, I couldn't tell what, and repeating over and over again to myself these few words out of the Prayer-book, 'In the midst of life we are in death,' though scarce knowing what I said.

CHAPTER X

"However, the Indiaman's officers and crew had work enough in managing her at present: after a sunset more like the putting out of him than anything else, with a flaring snuff and a dingy sort of smoke that followed, the wind grew from sou'-west into a regular long gale, that drove the tops of the heavy seas into the dead-lights astern, rising aft out of the dark like so many capes, with the snow drifting off them over the poop. At midnight, it blew great guns, with a witness; the ship, under storm staysails and close-reefed main-topsail, going twelve knots or more, when, as both the captain and mate reckoned, we were near St Helena on our present course, and to haul on a wind was as much as her spars were worth; her helm was put hard down, and we lay-to for morning, the ship drifting off bodily to leeward with the water. The night was quite dark, the rain coming in sudden spits out of the wind; you only heard the wet gale sob and hiss through the bare rigging into her storm canvas, when the look-out men ahead sung out, 'Land—land close to starboard!' 'Bless me, sir,' said the mate to the captain, 'it's the Rock—well that we did—' 'Hard up! hard up with the helm!' yelled the men again, 'it's a ship!'

"I ran to the weather main-chains and saw a broad black mass, as it were, rising high abeam, and seeming to come out from the black of the night, with a gleam or two in it which they had taken for lights ashore in the island. The Seringapatam's wheel was put up already, but she hung in the gale, doubtful whether to fall off or not; and the moment she did sink into the trough, we should have had a sea over her broadside fit to wash away men, boats, and all—let alone the other ship bearing down at twelve knots. 'Show the head of the fore-topmast-staysail!' shouted I with all my strength to the forecastle, and up it went slapping its hanks to the blast—the Indiaman sprang round heeling to her ports on the next sea, main-topsail before the wind, and the staysail down again. Next minute a large ship, with the foam washing over her cat-heads, and her martingale gear dripping under the huge white bowsprit, came lifting close past us—as black as shadows aloft, save the glimmer of her main-tack to the lanterns aboard—and knot after knot of dim faces above her bulwarks shot by, till you saw her captain standing high in the mizzen-chains, with a speaking-trumpet. He roared out something or other through it, and the skipper sung out under both his hands, 'Ay, ay, sir,' in answer; but it turned out after that nobody knew what it was, unless it might be, as I thought, 'Where are you going?' The minute following, we saw her quarter-lanterns like two will-o'-the-wisps beyond a wave, and she was gone—a big frigate running under half her canvas, strong though the gale blew.

"'Why, Mr Finch,' said Captain Williamson, as soon as we had time to draw breath, 'who was that bid show the fo'topmast-stays'l; twan't you?' 'No,' said the mate, 'I'd like to know who had the hanged impudence to give orders here without——' 'Well now, Finch,' continued the old skipper, 'I'm not sure but that was our only chance at the moment, sir; and if 'twas one of the men, why I'd pass it over, or even give him an extra glass of grog in a quiet way.' No one could say who it was, however; and, for my part, the sight of the frigate made me still more cautious than before of letting out what Westwood and I were. In fact, I couldn't help feeling rather uneasy, and I was glad to hear the superstitious old sailmaker whispering about how he feared there was no luck to be looked for 'when drowned men and ghostesses began to work the ship!'

"The first streak of dawn was hardly seen, when a sail could be made out in it, far on our lee bow, which the officers supposed to be the frigate. Westwood and I, however, were of opinion it was the French brig, although by sunrise we lost sight of her again. Everyone in the cuddy talked of our unfortunate friends and their melancholy fate; even Ford and Winterton were missed, while old Mr Rollock had been the life of the passengers. But there was naturally still more felt for the poor girl Fortescue; it made all of us gloomy for a day or two; though the fresh breeze and the Indiaman's fast motion, after our wearisome spell of a calm, did a great deal to bring things round again. Westwood was greatly taken up with my account of the brig and her people, both of us agreeing there was somewhat suspicious about her, though I thought she was probably neither more nor less than a slaver, and he had a notion she was after something deeper: what that might be, 'twas hard to conceive, as they didn't appear like pirates. One thing, however, we did conclude from the matter, that the brig couldn't have been at all inclined for visitors; and, in fact, there was little doubt but she would actually refuse letting the boat aboard, if they reached her; so in all likelihood our unhappy friends had been swamped on that very account, just as the squall came on. When this idea got about the ship, of course you may suppose neither passengers nor crew to have felt particularly amiable towards the French vessel; and if we had met her again, with any good occasion for it, all hands were much inclined to give her a right-down thrashing, if not to make prize of her as a bad character.

"'Well, Tom,' said I to Westwood one day, 'I wish these good folks mayn't be disappointed, but I do suspect this blessed mate of ours will turn out to have run us into some fine mess or other with his navigation! Did you notice how blue the sky looked this morning, over to eastward, compared with what it did just now where the sun set?' 'No,' said Westwood, 'not particularly; but what of that?' 'Why, in the Iris,' replied I, 'we used always to reckon that a sign, hereabouts, of our being near the land! Just you see now, to-morrow morning, if the dawn hasn't a hazy yellow look in it before the breeze fails; in which case 'tis the African coast to a certainty! Pity these "Hyson Mundungo" men, as Jack calls them, shouldn't have their eyes about them as well as on the log-slate. I daresay now,' continued I, laughing, 'you heard the first mate bothering lately about the great variation in the compass here? Well, what do you suppose was the reason of it, but that sly devil of a kitmagar shoving in his block for grinding curry under the feet of the binnacle every time he was done using it! I saw him get a kick one morning from the man at the wheel, who chanced to look down and notice him. Good solid iron it is, though painted and polished like marble, and the circumcised rascal unluckily considered the whole binnacle as a sort of second Mecca for security.' 'Hang the fellow!' said Westwood, 'but I don't see much to laugh at, Ned. Why, if you're right, we shall all be soaked and fried into African fever before reaching the Cape, and we've had misfortunes enough already. Only think of an exquisite creature like Miss——' 'Oh,' interrupted I, fancying Master Tom began lately to show sufficient admiration for her, 'betwixt an old humdrum and a conceited fool like that, what could you expect? All I say is, my dear parson, stand by for a pinch when it comes.'

"On going down to tea in the cuddy, we found the party full of spirits, and for the first time there was no mention of their lost fellow-passengers, except amongst a knot of cadets and writers rather elevated by the Madeira after dinner, who were gathered round the Reverend Mr Knowles, pretending to talk regretfully of his Yankee friend Mr Daniel Snout. 'Yes, gentlemen,' said the missionary, who was a worthy, simple-hearted person, 'in spite of some uncouthness, and perhaps limited views, the result of defective education, he was an excellent man, I think.' 'Oh certainly, certainly,' said a writer, looking to his friends, 'and the one thing needful you spoke of just now, sir, I daresay he had it always in his eye, now?' 'Mixed, I fear,' replied the missionary, 'with some element of worldly feeling, for in America they are apt to make even the soul, as well as religious association, matter of commerce; but Mr Snout, I have reason to be assured, had the true welfare of India at heart. We had much interesting conversation on the subject.' 'Ah,' said the sharp civilians, 'he was fond of getting information, was poor Daniel. Was that why he asked you so many questions about the Hindoo gods, Mr Knowles?' 'He already possessed much general knowledge of their strange mythology himself,' answered the missionary, 'and I confess I was surprised at it, especially as he confessed to me that that gorgeous country, with its many boundless capabilities, should have occupied his thoughts more and more from boyhood, amidst the secular activity of modern life—even as it occurred unto myself!'

"Here the worthy man took off his large spectacles, gave them a wipe, and put them on again, while he finished his tea. 'Before this deplorable dispensation,' continued he again, 'he was on the point of revealing to me a great scheme at once for the enlightenment, I believe, of that benighted land, and for more lucrative support to those engaged in it. I fear, gentlemen, it was enthusiasm—but I have grounds for thinking that our departed friend has left in this vessel many packages of volumes translated into several dialects of the great Hindoo tongue—not omitting, I am convinced, the best of books.' 'Where?' exclaimed several of the cadets, rather astonished. 'Well! poor Snout can't have been such a bad fellow, after all!' 'All hum!' said the writer, doubtfully, 'depend upon it. I should like now to have a peep at Jonathan's bales!' 'I myself have thought also,' said the missionary, 'it would gratify me to look into his apartment—and were it permitted to use one or two of the volumes, I should cheerfully on our arrival in Bom——' 'Come along,' said the cadets—'let's have a look!—shouldn't wonder to see Daniel beside his lion yet, within! or hear "Guess I ain't."' 'My young friends,' said the missionary, as we all went along the lighted passage, 'such levity is unseemly'; and indeed the look of the state-room door, fastened outside, as the steward had left it before the gale came on, made the brisk cadets keep quiet till the lashing on it was unfastened—'twas so like breaking in upon a ghost. However, as it chanced, Mr Snout's goods had got loose during her late roll, and heaped down to leeward against the door—so, whenever they turned the handle, a whole bundle of packages came tumbling out of the dark as it burst open, with a shower of small affairs like so many stones after them.

"'What's all this?' exclaimed the cadets, stooping to look at the articles by the lamp-light, strewed as they were over the deck. The reverend gentleman stooped, too, stood straight, wiped his spectacles, and fixed them on his nose, then stooped again; at length one long exclamation of surprise broke out of his mouth. They were nothing but little ugly images done in earthenware, painted and gilt, and all exactly the same: the writer dived into a canvas package, and there was a lot of a different kind, somewhat larger and uglier. Everyone made free with a bale for himself, shouting out his discoveries to the rest. 'I say, Smythe, this is Vishnu, it's marked in the corner!' 'I say, Ramsay, here's Brahma!' 'Ha! ha! ha! if I haven't got Seeva!' 'I say, what's this though?' screamed a young lad, hauling at the biggest bale of all, while the missionary stood stock upright, a perfect picture of bewilderment, 'Lo!' being all he could say. The lad had lighted on a gross or so of hideous gentlemen and ladies with three heads and five arms, packed nicely through each other in cotton, but inside the state-room. At this last prize, however, the poor missionary could stand it no longer. 'Oh! oh!' groaned he, clapping his hand to his head, and walking slowly off to his berth; while, as the truth gleamed on the cadets and us, we sat down on the deck amidst the spoil, and roared with laughter like to go into fits, at the unfortunate Yankee's scheme for converting India. [19] I had found the American by no means to my fancy as a berth-mate, so, after some dealings with the steward, I not only had secured a pretty comfortable berth for my poor friend Westwood, but one for myself. This had been, in short, soon afterwards managed, with the help of some shifting among the best-natured of the young cadets.

"'Well—hang me!' said a writer, as soon as he could speak, 'but this is a stroke beyond the Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge!' 'Every man his own priest—ha! ha! ha!' shouted another. 'I say, Smythe,' sung out a cadet, 'just fancy—ha! ha! "D. Snout, Esquire, and Co."—ho! ho! ho! you know it's too rich to enjoy by ourselves, "Mythullogy store," Bombay, near the cathedral!' 'Cheap Brahmas, wholesale and retail—eh? families supplied!' 'By George! he's a genius lost!' said Smythe; 'but the parson needn't have broken with him for that—I shouldn't wonder, now, if they had joined partnership, but Daniel might have thought of mining all their clay heads with gunpowder and percussion locks, so that the missionary could have gone round afterwards and blown up heathenship by a touch!'

"The noise of all this soon brought along the rest of the gentlemen, and few could help laughing. When the thing got wind on deck, however, neither the old skipper nor the men seemed to like it much; what with the notion of the ship's being taken, as it were, by a thousand or two of ugly little imps and Pagan idols, besides bringing up a drowned man's concerns, and 'yawhawing,' as they said, into his very door—it was thought the best thing to have them all chucked overboard next morning.

"'Twas a beautifully fine night, clear aloft, and the moon rising large on our larboard bow, out of a delicate pale sort of haze, as the ship headed south'ard with the breeze; for I marked the haze particularly, as well as the colour of the sky, that lay high over it, like a deep-blue hollow going away down beyond, and filling up with the light. There was no living below for heat, and the showers of cockroaches that went whirring at the lamps, and marching, with their horrid feelers out, straight up your legs; so, fore and aft, the decks were astir with us all. Talk of moonlight on land! but even in the tropics you have to see it pouring right down, as it was then, the whole sky full of it aloft as the moon drew farther up, till it came raining, as it were, in a single sheet from one bend of the horizon to another, the water scarce rippling to the breeze, only heaving in long low swells that you heard just wash her bends; one track brighter than the rest, shining and glancing like a looking-glass drawn out, for a mile or so across our quarter, and the ship's shadow under her other bow. You saw the men far forward in her head, and clustered in a heap on the bowsprit-heel, enjoying it mightily, and looking out or straight aloft, as if to polish their mahogany faces, and get their bushy whiskers silvered; while the awnings being off the poop, the planks in it came out like so much ivory from the shade of the spanker, which sent down a perfect gush of light on everyone moving past. For the air, again, as all the passengers said, it was balmy, though for my part—perhaps it might be a fancy of mine—but now and then I thought it sniffed a little too much that way to be altogether pleasant in the circumstances.

"Of course, no sooner had I caught sight of Sir Charles Hyde than I looked for his daughter, and at last saw someone talking to a young lady seated near the after-gratings, with her head turned round seaward, whom it didn't require much guessing for me to name. Not having seen her at all since the affair of the boats, I strolled aft, when I was rather surprised to find that her companion was Tom Westwood, and they seemed in the thick of an interesting discourse. The instant I got near, however, they broke it off; the young lady turned her head—and never, I'd swear, was woman's face seen fairer than I thought hers at that moment—when the bright moonlight, that had seemed trying to steal round her loose bonnet and peep in, fell straight down at once from her forehead to her chin, appearing, as it were, to dance in under her long eyelashes to meet her eyes: while one fall of her brown hair hung bright in it, glistening against the shadow round her cheek, that drew the charming line of her nose and lip as clear as the horizon on the sky! The very moment, in fact, that a bitter thought flashed into my mind, for to my fancy she looked vexed at seeing me, and a colour seemed mounting up to her cheek, even through the fairy sort of glimmer on it. Could Tom Westwood have been acting no more than the clerical near such a creature? and if a fellow like him took it in his head, what chance had I? The next minute, accordingly, she rose off her seat, and gave me a slight bow in answer to mine, and walked direct to the gallery stair, where she disappeared.

"'We were talking of that unlucky adventure the other day,' said Westwood, glancing at me, but rather taken aback, as I thought. 'Ay?' said I, carelessly. 'Yes,' continued he; 'Miss Hyde had no idea you and I were particularly acquainted, and seems to think me a respectable clergyman, but I must tell you, Ned, she has rather a suspicious opinion of yourself!' 'Oh, indeed!' said I, suddenly. 'Fact, Ned,' said he; 'she even remembers having seen you before, somewhere or other—I hope, my dear fellow, it wasn't on the stage?' 'Ha! ha! how amusing!' I said, with the best laugh I could get up. 'At any rate, Collins,' he went on, 'she sees through your feigned way of carrying on, and knows you're neither griffin nor land-lubber, but a sailor, for I fancy this is not the first time the young lady has met with the cloth! What do you suppose she asked me now, quite seriously?' 'Oh, I couldn't guess, of course,' replied I, almost with a sneer; 'pray don't——' 'Why, she inquired what could be the design of one concealing his profession so carefully—and actually appearing to be on a secret understanding with some of the sailors! Directly after, she asked whether that brig mightn't really have been a pirate, and taken off the poor general, Miss Fortescue, and the rest?' 'Ah,' said I, coldly, 'and if I might venture to ask, what did you——' 'Oh, of course,' replied Westwood, laughing, 'I could only hide my amusement and profess doubts, you know, Ned!' 'Very good joke, Mr Westwood,' thought I to myself, 'but at least you can't weather on me quite so innocently, my fine fellow! I didn't think it of him, after all! By Heaven, I did not!'

"'By-the-by, Collins,' exclaimed Westwood in a little, as he kept his eye astern, 'there's something away yonder on our lee quarter that I've been watching for these last ten minutes—what do you think it may be? Look! just in the tail of the moonshine yonder!' What it might be, I cared little enough at the time, but I did give a glance, and saw a little black dot, as it were, rising and falling with the long run of the water, apparently making way before the breeze. 'Only a bit of wood, I daresay,' remarked I; 'but whatever it is, at any rate, the drift will take it far to leeward of us, so you needn't mind.' Here we heard a steward come up and say to the first officer, who was waiting with the rest to take a lunar observation, that Captain Williamson had turned in unwell, but he wanted to hear when they found the longitude; accordingly they got their altitude, and went on making the calculations on deck. 'Well, steward,' said the mate, after a little humming and hawing, 'go down and tell the captain, in the meantime, about five east; but I think it's a good deal over the mark—say I'll be down myself directly.'

"'A long sight below the mark, rather!' said I, walking aft again, where Westwood kept still looking out for the black dot. 'You'll see it nearer now, Ned,' said he; 'more like a negro's head, or his hand, than a bit of wood—eh?' 'Curious!' I said; 'it lies well up for our beam still, 'spite of the breeze. Must be a shark's back fin, I think, making for convoy.' In ten minutes longer the light swell in the distance gave it a lift up fair into the moonshine; it gleamed for a moment, and then seemed to roll across into the blue glimmer of the sea. 'I say, Collins,' said Westwood, gazing eagerly at it, ''tis more like a bottle, to my sight!' We walked back and forward, looking each time over the taffrail, till at length the affair in question could be seen dipping and creeping ahead in the smooth shining wash of the surface, just like to go bobbing across our bows and be missed to windward. 'Crossing our hause I do declare!—Hanged if that ain't fore-reaching on us, with a witness!' exclaimed the two of us together: 'And a bottle it is!' said Westwood.

"I slipped down the poop-stair, and along to the forecastle, where I told Jacobs; when two or three of the men went out on the martingale-stays, with the bight of a line and a couple of blocks in it, ready to throw round this said floating oddity, and haul it alongside as it surged past. Shortly after, we had it safe in our hands; a square-built old Dutchman it was, tight corked, with a red rag round the neck, and crusted over with salt—almost like one of Vanderdecken's messages home, coming up as it did from the wide glittering sea, of a tropical moonlight night, seven weeks or so after our leaving land. The men who had got it seemed afraid of their prize, so Westwood and I had no difficulty in smuggling it away below to our berth, where we both sat down on a locker and looked at one another. 'What poor wretch hove this overboard, I wonder, now?' said he; 'I daresay it may have knocked about, God knows how long, since his affair was settled.' 'Why, for that matter, Westwood,' replied I, 'I fancy it's much more important to find there's a strong easterly current hereabouts just now.' [20]

"Here Westwood got a corkscrew, and pulled out the cork with a true parson-like gravity; as we had expected, there was a paper tacked to it, crumpled up, and scrawled over in what we could only suppose was blood.

"'No. 20,' read he, 'what does that mean?' 'The twentieth bottle launched, perhaps,' said I, and he went on—'For God's sake, if you find this, keep to the south-west—we are going that way, we think—we've fallen amongst regular Thugs, I fear—just from the folly of these three griffins—(they're looking over my shoulder, though)—we are not ill-treated yet, but kept below and watched—yours in haste——' 'What this signature is I can't say for the life of me, Ned; no date either.' 'Did the fellow think he was writing by post, I wonder?' said I, trying to make it out. 'By the powers, Westwood, though,' and I jumped up, 'that bottle might have come from the Pacific, 'tis true—but what if it were old Rollock, after all! Thugs, did you say? Why, I shouldn't wonder if the jolly old planter were on the hooks still. That rascally brig!' And accordingly, on trying the scrawl at the end, over and over, we both agreed that it was nothing but 'T. Rollock.'"

CHAPTER XI

The next evening our friend the captain found his fair audience by the taffrail increased to a round dozen, while several of the gentlemen passengers lounged near, and the chief officer divided his attention between the gay group of ladies below and the "fanning" main-topsail high up, with its corresponding studding-sail hung far out aloft to the breeze; the narrative having by this time contracted a sort of professional interest, even to his matter-of-fact taste, which enabled him to enjoy greatly the occasional glances of sly humour directed to him by his superior, for whom he evidently entertained a kind of admiring respect, that seemed to be enhanced as he listened. As for the commander himself, he related the adventures in question with a spirit and vividness of manner that contributed to them no small charm; amusingly contrasted with the cool, dry, indifferent sort of gravity of countenance amidst which the keen grey seawardly eye, under the peak of the naval cap, kept changing and twinkling as it seemed to run through the experience of youth again—sometimes almost approaching to an undeniable wink. The expression of it at this time, however, was more serious, while it appeared to run along the dotted reef-band of the mizzen-topsail above, as across the entry in a log-book, and as if there were something interesting to come.

"Well, my dear captain," asked his matronly relative, "what comes next? You and your friend had picked up a—a—what was it now!"

"Ah! I remember, ma'am," said the naval man, laughing; "the bottle—that was where I was. Well, as you may conceive, this said scrap of penmanship in the bottle did take both of us rather on end; and for two or three minutes Westwood and I sat staring at each other and the uncouth-looking fist, in an inquiring sort of way, like two cocks over a beetle. Westwood, for his part, was doubtful of its being the planter's writing at all; but the whole thing, when I thought of it, made itself as clear to me, so far, as two half-hitches, and so the angrier I was at myself for being done—by a frog-eating bloody-politeful set of Frenchmen like these. Could we only have clapped eyes on the villanous thieving craft at the time, by Jove! if I wouldn't have manned a boat from the Indiaman, leave or no leave, and boarded her in another fashion. But where they were now, what they meant, and whether we should ever see them again, Heaven only knew. For all we could say, indeed, something strange might have turned up at home in Europe—a new war, old Boney got loose once more, or what not; and I could scarce fall asleep for guessing and bothering over the matter, as restless as the first night we cruised down the Channel in the old Pandora.

"Early in the morning-watch a sudden stir of the men on deck woke me, and I bundled up in five minutes' time. But it was only the second mate setting them to wash decks, and out they came from all quarters, yawning, stretching themselves, and tucking up their trousers, as they passed the full buckets lazily along; while a couple of boys could be seen hard at work to keep the head-pump going, up against the grey sky over the bow. However, I was so anxious to have the first look-out ahead, that I made a bold push through the thick of it for the bowsprit, where I went out till I could see nothing astern of me but the Indiaman's big black bows and figure-head, swinging as it were round the spar I sat upon, with the spread of her canvas coming dim after me out of the fog, and a lazy snatch of foam lifting to her cutwater as the breeze died away.

"The sun was just beginning to rise; ten minutes before it had been almost quite dark; there was a mist on the water, and the sails were heavy with dew; when a circle began to open round us, where the surface looked as smooth and dirty as in a dock, the haze seeming to shine through, as the sunlight came sifting through it, like silver gauze. You saw the big red top of the sun glare against the water-line, and a wet gleam of crimson came sliding from one smooth blue swell to another; while the back of the haze astern turned from blue to purple, and went lifting away into vapoury streaks and patches. All of a sudden the ship came clear out aloft and on the water, with her white streak as bright as snow, her fore-royal and truck gilded, her broad foresail as red as blood, and every face on deck shining as they looked ahead, where I felt like a fellow held up on a toasting fork, against the fiery wheel the sun made ere clearing the horizon. Two or three strips of cloud melted in it like lumps of sugar in hot wine; and after overhauling the whole seaboard round and round, I kept straining my eyes into the light, with the notion there was something to be seen in that quarter, but to no purpose; there wasn't the slightest sign of the brig or any other blessed thing. What struck me a little, however, was the look of the water just as the fog was clearing away; the swell was sinking down, the wind fallen for the time to a dead calm; and when the smooth face of it caught the light full from aloft, it seemed to come out all over long-winding wrinkles and eddies, running in a broad path, as it were, twisted and woven together, right into the wake of the sunrise.

"When I came in-board from the bowsprit, big Harry and another grumpy old salt were standing by the bitts, taking a forecastle observation, and gave me a squint, as much as to ask if I had come out of the east, or had been trying to pocket the flying-jibboom. 'D'you notice anything strange about the water at all?' I asked in an offhand sort of way, wishing to see if the men had remarked aught of what I suspected. The old fellow gave me a queer look out of the tail of his eye, and the ugly man seemed to be measuring me from head to foot. 'No, sir,' said the first, carelessly; 'can't say as how I does'; while Harry coolly commenced sharpening his sheath-knife on his shoe. 'Did you ever hear of currents hereabouts?' said I to the other man. 'Hereaway!' said he. 'Why, bless ye, sir, it's unpossible as I could ha' heerd tell on sich a thing, 'cause, ye see, sir, there ain't none so far out at sea, sir—al'ays axin' your parding, ye know, sir!' while he hitched up his trousers and looked aloft, as if there were somewhat wrong about the jib-halliards.

"The Indiaman by this time had quite lost steerage-way and came sheering slowly round, broadside to the sun, while the water began to glitter like a single sheet of quicksilver, trembling and swelling to the firm edge of it far off; the pale blue sky filling deep aloft with light, and a long white haze growing out of the horizon to eastward. I kept still looking over from the fore-chains with my arms folded, and an eye to the water on the starboard side, next the sun, where, just a fathom or two from the bright copper of her sheathing along the water-line, you could see into it. Every now and then little bells and bubbles, as I thought, would come up in it, and break short of the surface; and sometimes I fancied the line of a slight ripple, as fine as a rope-yarn, went turning and glistening round one of the ship's quarters, across her shadow. Just then the old sailor behind me shoved his face over the bulwark, too, all warts and wrinkles, like a ripe walnut-shell, with a round knob of a nose in the middle of it, and seemed to be watching to see it below, when he suddenly squirted his tobacco-juice as far out as possible alongside, and gave his mouth a wipe with the back of his tarry yellow hand; catching my eye in a shame-faced sort of way, as I glanced first at him and then at his floating property.

"I leant listlessly over the rail, watching the patch of oily yellow froth as it floated quietly on the smooth face of the water; till all at once I started to observe that beyond all question it had crept slowly away past our starboard bow, clear of the ship, and at last melted into the glittering blue brine. The two men noticed my attention, and stared along with me; while the owner of the precious cargo himself kept looking after it wistfully into the wake of the sunlight, as if he were a little hurt; then aloft and round about, in a puzzled sort of way, to see if the ship hadn't perhaps taken a sudden sheer to port. 'Why, my man,' I said, meeting his oyster-like old sea-eye, 'what's the reason of that?—perhaps there is some current or other here, after all, eh?' Just as he meant to answer, however, I noticed his watch-mate give him a hard shove in the ribs with his huge elbow, and a quick screw of his weather top-light, while he kept the lee one doggedly fixed on myself. I accordingly walked slowly aft as if to the quarter-deck, and came round the long-boat again, right abreast of them.

"Harry was pacing fore and aft with his arms folded, when his companion made some remark on the heat, peering all about him, and then right up into the air aloft. 'Well then, shipmate,' said Harry, dabbing his handkerchief back into his tarpaulin again, 'I've seen worse, myself—ownly, 'twas in the Bight o' Benin, look ye—an' afore the end o' it, d'ye see, we hove o'erboard nine o' a crew, let alone six dozen odds of a cargo!' 'Cargo!' exclaimed his companion, in surprise. 'Ay, black passingers they was, ye know, old ship!' answered the ugly rascal, coolly; 'an' I tell ye what it is, Jack, I never sails yet with passengers aboard, but some'at bad turned up in the end—al'ays one or another on 'em's got a foul turn in his conscience, ye see! I say, mate,' continued he, looking round, 'didn't ye note that 'ere longshore looking customer as walked aft just now, with them soft quest'ns o' his about——' 'Why,' says Jack, 'it's him Jacobs and the larboard watch calls the Green Hand, an' a blessed good joke they has about him, to all appearance, but they keeps it pretty close.' 'Close, do they,' growled Harry, 'I doesn't like the cut of his jib, I tell ye, shipmate! Jist you take my word for it, that 'ere fellow's done some'at bad at home, or he's bent on some'at bad afloat—it's all one! Don't ye mark how he keeps boxhaulin' and skulking fore an' aft, not to say looking out to wind'ard every now an' again, as much as he expected a sail to leave in sight?' 'Well, I'm blowed, but you're right, Harry!' said the other, taking off his hat to scratch his head, thoughtfully. 'Ay, and what's more,' went on Harry, 'it's just comed ath'art me as how I've clapped eyes on the chap somewheres or other afore this—if I don't think it was amongst a gang o' Spanish pirates I saw tried for their lives, and let off, in the Havanney!'

"'Thank you, my man,' thought I, as I leant against the booms on the other side. 'Did you?—a wonder it wasn't in the Old Bailey, which would have been more possible, though less romantic—seeing in the Havannah I never was!' The curious thing was that I began to have a faint recollection, myself, of having seen this same cross-grained beauty, or heard his voice, before; though where and how it was I couldn't for the life of me say at the moment.