The dinner that evening at the Penn was a very pleasant affair indeed,
at all events for Courtenay and myself; for on that occasion we reaped
the first-fruits of all the toil and peril which we had recently
encountered in the shape of that ungrudging and unstinted praise and
commendation which is so welcome and so encouraging to the young
aspirant for fame. The party consisted of three post-captains, a
commander, four lieutenants, and half a dozen mids, ourselves included;
which, with the jolly old admiral our host, made up a nice compact
party. The guests, it appeared, had all been invited expressly to meet
us and do us honour; we consequently found ourselves to be the lions of
the evening. We were, of course, invited to tell our story all over
again from its commencement, which we did, beginning with the mutiny on
board the _Hermione_, the narrative being frequently broken in upon by
questions from one or another of the guests, all of whom, I am bound to
record, manifested the utmost interest in what we had to say. These
questions, on more than one occasion, took quite the form of a severe
cross-examination, the post-captains in particular seeming determined to
arrive at a clear and distinct understanding as to the motives which
prompted us in many of our actions and decisions. I was somewhat at a
loss at first to comprehend the meaning of all this cross-questioning;
but it became apparent later on in the evening when the three captains
and the commander each formally offered to receive us on board their
ships, one of which happened to be a seventy-four, whilst the other
three were fine dashing frigates. These offers were all, of course, of
a most advantageous character, and had we accepted them I feel sure
that, joining either ship with the reputations which we had honestly won
for ourselves, our advancement in the service would have been certain
and rapid. But something in the admiral's manner caused me to hesitate,
so, with hearty thanks to each for his kind offer, I begged the favour
of a few hours for consideration; and Courtenay, taking his cue from me,
did the same. When at length we all rose to take leave of our host and
return to our respective ships the admiral drew Courtenay and me aside,
and said, as he shook hands with us:
"Before you decide to accept or to refuse either of the offers which
have been made to you to-night come and see me. I shall be on board the
flag-ship to-morrow at noon."
We promised that we would do so, and shortly afterwards got under weigh
in company with our fellow guests, the whole party being on horseback,
for Kingston; our road, or rather the bush path along which we travelled
for the greater part of the way, being brilliantly lighted by the rays
of a glorious full moon.
The "autocrats of the quarter-deck" with whom we thus found ourselves
privileged to ride cheek by jowl all proved to be splendid fellows, very
gentlemanly in their manner, yet--having evidently sunk the quarter-deck
for the nonce--frank and hearty as I believe only sailors can be. They
permitted, or rather they _invited_ us by their cordial manner, to join
freely in the conversation, instead of relegating us to the rear, as
some captains would undoubtedly have done in like circumstances, and
held out so many inducements for us to join that I at length got the
idea into my head that they actually _wanted_ us. This frank and
friendly treatment served one good purpose at least; it gave us a
clearer insight into their characters and dispositions than we had been
able to obtain at the admiral's dinner-table, and helped us to
definitely make up our minds under which leader, if either of them, we
would serve.
Punctual to the moment Courtenay and I presented ourselves on the
quarter-deck of the _Mars_ next day and sent in our names to the
admiral, who was in his cabin, just as the ship's bell was striking
eight. We were at once invited to step into the cabin, which we did,
finding the old gentleman busy with his secretary writing letters. He
had evidently just completed the dictation of one as we entered, for he
remarked to the thin pale young man who was seated with him at the
table:
"There, Purkis, that will do for the present. Just transcribe the
documents you have already taken down whilst I have a chat with these
young gentlemen; and I daresay that by the time you have finished I
shall be ready to go on again. Well, young gentlemen," he continued,
"good morning. Find a couple of chairs and bring yourselves to an
anchor," waving his hand toward some of the articles of furniture in
question as he spoke.
When we had seated ourselves he resumed:
"Well, now that you have slept over the offers you received last night,
what do you think of them?"
As he looked straight at me during the propounding of this question I
took the initiative in replying, and said:
"So far as I am concerned, sir, _unless you have something else in view
for me_, I should like to join the _Alecto_ and serve under Captain
Fanshawe."
"And you?" inquired the old gentleman, turning to Courtenay.
"I should like to accompany my friend Lascelles wherever he goes, if you
have no objection, sir," was Courtenay's reply.
"Well," said the admiral, rubbing his bald head in a manner which seemed
to denote that he was somewhat perplexed, "I think you have chosen very
well. The _Alecto_ is a noble frigate and a very comfortable ship,
whilst Fanshawe is one of the very best men on the station, or indeed I
may say in the entire service. He will be very glad to have you both, I
know, if you elect to join, him. But you," he continued, addressing me
more particularly, "qualified the expression of your choice by adding
the words, `unless you have something else in view for me,' upon which
words you laid some stress. Now, I do not wish to influence either of
you in any way; but do I understand you to mean by that expression that
you are willing to place yourselves in my hands?"
"Most assuredly yes, sir," I replied. "In any case it would be our duty
to do so, but you have been pleased to express such very high approval
of our conduct during our recent cruise, and have exhibited such a
flattering interest in us and our welfare, that duty in this case
becomes a positive pleasure; and for my part, I ask nothing better than
permission to leave myself entirely in your hands."
"And I, also," chimed in Courtenay.
"Very well spoken, young sirs; very well spoken, indeed!" exclaimed the
admiral, evidently much gratified at our reply. "Well," he continued,
"I _have_ other views for you both; views which presented themselves as
I sat listening to what you had to tell me yesterday morning, and which
were strengthened by what I afterwards found in your capitally written
report. It is not my practice to flatter or unduly praise officers--
especially youngsters like you--for a proper performance of their duty;
such a practice is apt to make them conceited--to think too much of
themselves, to consider that there is nobody like them, and that they
cannot be done without. But you both appear to be modest and thoroughly
sensible lads; you have exhibited an amount of tact and judgment quite
beyond your years, in circumstances where much older men might have been
puzzled how to act; I therefore do not hesitate to say that I am
exceedingly pleased with you both, that I am thoroughly satisfied with
your conduct in every respect; and that I think, considering how very
short-handed we are at present on the station in the matter of officers,
you might be better employed than in the mere doing of midshipman's duty
even on board a smart frigate. You have, both of you, interested me
very much; I should like to see you getting on in your profession and
mounting the ratlines as speedily as may be; and if you like to trust
yourselves to me, are willing to work hard and behave well, I'll see to
it that you have every chance given you to make your mark. But I am
afraid I shall have to separate you. Now, what do you say?"
As the question was again put pointedly to me I replied that, whilst I
should greatly regret being separated from so stanch a shipmate and so
true a friend as my companion had proved himself to be in many a
situation of difficulty and peril, I would not allow the feeling to
interfere in any way with the plans of a kind and generous patron; and I
felt sure that, in saying this on my own behalf, I might also say as
much for my friend. To which speech Courtenay bowed his acquiescence,
looking rather glum at the same time, I must say.
"Very well," said the admiral, "I _must_ separate you for the present;
but I promise you that you shall become shipmates again at the earliest
convenient opportunity. Now, listen to me. There have been numerous
complaints from the merchants here, during the last two or three months,
that cargoes consigned to them have never arrived; and the only
conclusion possible is that the ships carrying these cargoes have been
snapped up by privateers. I have already sent out all the men-of-war
available to cruise about the spots most likely to be haunted by these
pests; but there are a couple of cruising grounds which are still less
effectively watched than I should like, and I have been thinking I would
send you two lads away to them, just to see what you can do. You,
Courtenay, I intend to put in charge of that large felucca you brought
in from the lagoons; she is just the craft for the work you will have to
do--a good powerful vessel, but of light draught of water. Your
cruising ground will be from Cape Maysi northward as far as Long Island,
giving the Kays in Austral Bay an overhaul now and then, thence to
windward of the Windward Passages, down as far south as, say, the Silver
Kay Passage, then to the westward as far as Cape Maysi again. But you
will have to be very careful, young gentleman, in your navigation of
Austral Bay, or you may find yourself cast away on one or another of the
shoals. You, Lascelles, I intend to put in command of that schooner,
the _Dauphin_, which was brought in by the _Minerva_ a few days ago; she
is a really formidable vessel of her class, and I think it quite likely
I shall be very severely blamed--behind my back--for intrusting her to a
mere boy, as you are; but you must look upon this command as an
indication of the confidence I have in your gallantry and discretion,
and I shall look to you to justify me by your conduct in the choice I
have made. Your cruising ground will be round Saint Domingo and as far
east as the Virgin Islands, and the duty of you both will be, firstly,
to protect commerce, and next to beat up the enemy's quarters everywhere
within your bounds, and capture, sink, burn, and destroy everything you
can lay hands on which is not too big for you to tackle. The whole
coast of Saint Domingo is swarming with French privateers, really
pirates under a rather more respectable name; and it is to these fellows
I want you to more particularly direct your attention. The _Foam_ I
shall pay off at once, and I think it will be a good plan if you, Mr
Courtenay, will try to secure the hands you now have on board the
felucca for your next cruise. If you, Mr Lascelles, have any
particularly good men on board the _Foam_ that you would like to keep,
you had better endeavour to get them to enter for the _Dauphin_, which,
by the way, we will re-christen and call the _Dolphin_ for the future.
And now, good morning both of you; if you want a few days' leave, take
it, sending Mr Purkis here your addresses, so that I may know where to
communicate with you. Do not leave your ships, however, until the
_Foam_ is paid off, which will be to-morrow."
Upon this hint to depart we rose, and thanking our kind benefactor as
briefly as possible for his really extraordinary kindness to us, bowed
ourselves out and withdrew.
As we went down over the side I resolved that I would there and then pay
a visit to my new command, and see what she was like. I had already
noticed her lying alongside the dockyard wharf, and had admired her, not
only for her handsome rakish appearance, but also because she was the
largest schooner I had at that time ever seen. We therefore pulled
straight away for the dockyard, Courtenay accompanying me in the
_Foam's_ gig. As soon as we were fairly away from the _Mars_ my _fidus
achates_ turned to me and said:
"Well, Lascelles, this is all very well for you, old fellow, who are
well up in your navigation; but I really don't know how in the world _I_
shall get on. It is true I did fairly well in the felucca on our trip
from the lagoons; but then I was always careful to keep the schooner
well in sight, so that I was really trusting to you as much as to
myself. But now I shall have to depend upon myself, and if I had not
felt certain that you will polish me up during the few days that we may
be in port together, I should have been obliged to decline the admiral's
very kind offer. What a brick the old fellow is, to be sure; and yet
see what a name he has for harshness and severity."
"Depend upon it," said I, "he is only harsh and severe with those who
deserve it. Then, great allowances must be made for a man occupying
such a responsible position as his; no matter what goes wrong, or who is
to blame, it is always he who is called to account for it. He has
certainly proved himself a true friend to us, and henceforward I will
never sit down tamely and hear him vilified. And as to yourself, my
dear fellow, make your mind easy; you are a far better navigator than
you think yourself, and what little help you may need to render you
perfect I will cheerfully give you; a week's hard study on your part
will be quite sufficient to qualify you for going anywhere."
As we rapidly approached the wharf, the noble proportions of the
_Dolphin_ became every moment more apparent, and when at length the gig
dashed alongside and I passed in through the wide gangway I felt as
though I had a frigate under me. She measured one hundred and twenty
feet in length between perpendiculars, and was thirty feet beam at her
widest part, which dimensions gave her a measurement of close upon five
hundred tons. Her hull was, however, exceedingly shallow, her draught
of water being only nine feet when in her usual sailing trim; her lines
were, moreover, without any exception the finest and most beautiful I
ever saw; so that, though, in consequence of the curious manner in which
tonnage was at that time calculated, she was an extraordinarily large
vessel of her class, I do not believe she would have carried a cargo of
more than four hundred tons of dead weight. This, however, was all in
her favour, so far as speed was concerned, as it gave her large and
beamy hull a very small displacement, whilst her long flat floor
rendered her exceedingly stiff; this latter quality being peculiarly
apparent from the fact that, though on this occasion she had an empty
hold--her iron ballast having been all removed and stacked upon the
wharf--she scarcely deigned to heel at all to the sea-breeze, though it
was blowing half a gale at the time, whilst her spars were all ataunto
just as she had come in from sea. She was a truly noble craft, her
model was superb, and I fell in love with her on the spot--no sailor
could have helped doing so. She had been taken under French colours,
but my own opinion, which was supported by that of others who were far
better judges than myself, was that she was American built. There was
an easy graceful spring in her long spacious deck which no Frenchman
could ever have compassed, and there was an American look too about her
bows, which raked forward in an exquisite curve, whilst they flared
outward in a way which promised to make her wondrously dry and
comfortable in a sea-way. Her armament had been, like her ballast,
removed to the wharf, and I understood from the foreman in charge that
it was to be replaced by one somewhat lighter; but when I stepped on
shore and saw the guns--eight long eighteens, with a long thirty-two
mounted on a pivot for the forecastle--I inwardly resolved that, since
she had been able to carry them so far, she should continue to do so if
my powers of persuasion could be made to avail anything with the
admiral. She had accommodation for eighty men forward, and a cabin
abaft which for size and elegance of fittings would not have disgraced a
frigate. Poor Courtenay was so completely overwhelmed with admiration
that I really felt quite sorry for him; hitherto there had been nothing
approachable in his opinion to the felucca--which, by the bye, I have
forgotten to say was called the _Esmeralda_--but now she was dwarfed
into insignificance in every respect by the _Dolphin_, and her young
skipper quite put out of conceit with her. However, I consoled myself,
if not him, with the reflection that, the _Dolphin_ once out of sight,
he would forget all about her. Having given the craft a thorough
overhaul, we sauntered off to the naval hospital, only a short distance
from the dockyard gates, to see how our wounded were progressing, and
also--to tell the whole truth--that my boat's crew might have an
opportunity to take a good look at the schooner, which I felt sure would
so favourably impress them that I should have little difficulty in
persuading them to enter for her.
We remained in the hospital about an hour, and on our return to the
dockyard I just caught a glimpse of my men tumbling over the schooner's
side back into their boat, so I had good hopes of finding that they had
one and all swallowed my bait.
Shoving off, I put Courtenay on board his craft and then proceeded to
the _Foam_, where I was kept pretty busy for the remainder of the day
preparing to pay off, as I had no clerk to help me. I allowed the hands
to go to dinner without saying anything to them, to give the "gigs" an
opportunity to discuss the _Dolphin_ with their shipmates, as I felt
sure they would, but before they turned-to after dinner I sent for them
aft and made my maiden speech, which ran somewhat as follows:
"My lads," said I, "I have sent for you to tell you that the _Foam_ will
be paid off to-morrow. And I wish to take advantage of the opportunity
which this announcement affords me to also thank you heartily for the
gallant way in which you have all stood by me, and for the way you have
behaved generally from the moment when it devolved upon me, through Mr
O'Flaherty's wounding and subsequent death, to assume the command of the
schooner. Our cruise together has been a short one, it is true, but it
has been long enough to enable me to become personally acquainted with
you individually, and to discover both your good and your bad qualities.
The latter, I am pleased to say, have been so few and so trifling that
they are not worth further mention, whilst the former have been so
conspicuous as to render me anxious for a continuance of the connection
between us. And this brings me to my final statement, which is that the
admiral has been pleased to announce his intention of commissioning that
fine schooner the _Dolphin_, yonder, and placing me in command. Now, my
lads, I daresay you guess pretty well at what further I have to say: the
_Dolphin_ is to proceed against the French privateers which are snapping
up so many of our westerly-bound merchantmen, so there will probably be
plenty of fighting for her to do, but there will also be plenty of
captures and recaptures, which mean plenty of prize-money for her crew.
And I am most anxious that that crew shall be a good one, as good in
every respect as the _Foam's_ crew has proved itself to be; in short, my
lads, I should like to have every one of you with me again. Think the
matter over, and those of you who are willing to try another cruise with
me, and to enter for the _Dolphin_, can let me know to-morrow when you
are paid off. That will do now, you may go to your duty." Instead of
turning-to at once, however, the men clustered together and began to
confer eagerly with each other, and with the boatswain, the gunner, and
the quarter-master; the result of the confabulation being that in less
than five minutes the entire crew, to a man, came forward and announced
their desire to enter for the _Dolphin_. This was eminently
satisfactory, for I now had at least the nucleus of a thoroughly good
crew.
On the following day the _Foam_ was paid off, as previously arranged,
whereupon all hands re-entered for the _Dolphin_, after which they were
granted forty-eight hours' leave.
This business being settled, I sought another interview with the
admiral, and told him of my success, at which he expressed himself
greatly pleased. "There will be no difficulty in making up your
complement," said he, "though I shall have to put on board you a few
convalescents from the hospital, but I will take care that you get none
but thoroughly sound and healthy men; there are at least a dozen now
ready to be discharged, and who only want a mouthful of sea air and a
meal or two of salt junk to make them fit for anything. I shall also
give you a couple of midshipmen and a master's mate, which, with what
you have already, will, I think, make you pretty complete."
This was more than I had dared hope, though certainly not more than was
necessary for such a craft as the _Dolphin_; so, finding the old
gentleman disposed to be generous, I boldly broached the matter of the
guns, and pleaded so earnestly that I at length won his consent to my
retention of the schooner's original armament. This concluded my
business on board the flag-ship, so, handing my address to the
secretary, I jumped into a shore-boat which I had alongside, and made
the best of my way to Kingston, where Courtenay had preceded me. We had
previously made up our minds to test the sincerity of an invitation
which Mr Thomson--who had very hospitably entertained us on our last
visit to Kingston--had given us, so we first disposed at the hotel of an
excellent meal, which we _called_ lunch, but which was quite substantial
enough to merit the name of dinner, then hastily dashed off letters to
the officers who had proposed to receive us on board their ships,
thanking them for their very kind offers, which we explained we were
gratefully obliged to decline in consequence of the admiral having
intimated his intention of sending us on special service. This duty
performed we sallied forth and made the best of our way to our friend's
place of business, where, upon our first hint of having obtained a few
days' leave, his former invitation was repeated so earnestly and
heartily as to leave us in no shadow of doubt as to its sincerity. We
found to our great gratification that his family still occupied the
country house where we had previously been so hospitably entertained,
and to get over the slight difficulty which presented itself as to how
we were to convey ourselves thither, our host, with a generous
confidence which we certainly had done nothing to merit, urged us to
make an immediate start in his ketureen, begging us at the same time not
to forget to send into town a saddle-horse for his own use later on in
the day. The unbounded confidence reposed in us by this gentlemen will
be better understood when I mention that we were actually trusted _to
drive ourselves_! However, we proved worthy of the trust, I am proud to
say, we neither broke the knees nor the wind of the spirited animal
which had us in tow, nor did we smash the ketureen; on the contrary, we
arrived at our journey's end with both in such excellent condition as to
extort a compliment upon our skilful driving from our somewhat surprised
but by no means disconcerted hostess. We also faithfully delivered the
message anent the saddle-horse, and then, feeling that we had done our
whole duty manfully, we dropped into the wake of the two black servants
who had shouldered our trunks, and followed them to the rooms promptly
assigned to us, where we hastily removed our travel stains preparatory
to entering the family circle.
Our appearance there was greeted with enthusiasm; for the news of our
triumphant return from the lagoons had by this time spread throughout
the entire length and breadth of the island; we were regarded as heroes,
especially by the juveniles; we were invited to fight our battles over
and over again; were made much of; and, had we remained there long,
there is no doubt we should have been utterly spoiled. Luckily,
perhaps, for us--though we certainly did not think so at the time--our
leave was cut short on the fourth day by an intimation from the admiral
that our presence on board our respective ships had now become
desirable; whereupon we reluctantly bade our land friends adieu once
more, and returned to Port Royal; Courtenay, I more than half suspected,
leaving his heart behind him in charge of sweet Mary Thomson, our host's
youngest and (if such a distinction be permissible) most charming
daughter.