FAREWELL TO ALBION!
Shortly after noon next day, the wind still holding from the N.N.W.,
though gradually falling light, the _Vesuvius_ dropped anchor off
Spithead, and Captain Crang at once ordered a boat's crew to convey
the captives ashore.
The Major waved farewell to them from the deck. Though once again
approached by Mr. Sturge, he had repelled all persuasions. In his
breast there welled up an increasing bitterness against his fate, but
on the point of dignity he could not be shaken. He would, on the
first fit occasion, have Captain Crang's blood; but he was obdurate,
though it cost him liberty for a while and compelled him to
disgusting hardship, to stand on the strictest terms of quarrel.
He turned to find the boatswain at his elbow, eyeing him with
sympathy and even a touch of respect.
"You done well," said Mr. Jope. "You don't look it, but you done
well, and I'll see you don't get put upon."
The _Vesuvius's_ destination, as the Major learnt, was to join a
squadron watching the Gallo-Batavian flotilla off the ports of
Boulogne, Ambleteuse and Calais; and the occasion of her dropping
anchor off Portsmouth on the way was a special and somewhat singular
one; yet no more singular than the crisis with which Great Britain
had then to cope.
Behind the sandhills from Ostend around to Etaples lay a French army
of 130,000 men, ready to invade us if for a few hours it could catch
our fleets napping. To transport them Napoleon had collected in the
ports of Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Ambleteuse, Vimereux, Boulogne and
Etaples, 954 transports and 1339 armed vessels--gun-brigs, schooners,
luggers, schuyts and prames; and all these light vessels lay snug in
their harbours, protected by shoals and sandbanks which our heavier
ships of war, by reason of their draught, could not approach.
In particular, a double tier of vessels--one hundred and fifty in
all--which were moored outside the pier of Boulogne, and protected by
heavy shore batteries, excited while it baulked the rage of our
gallant seamen manoeuvring in the deep waters of the Channel.
Strange diseases suggest strange remedies. Our Admiralty, in the
spring of the year, had been approached by an ingenious gentleman
with the model of an invention by which he professed himself able to
reach these hundred and fifty ships in Boulogne and blow them in air
without loss or even danger to our fleet. This machine consisted of
a box, about twenty feet long by three feet wide, lined with lead,
caulked, tarred, ballasted and laden almost to the water's edge with
barrels of powder and other combustibles. In the midst of the
inflammable matter was placed a clockwork mechanism which, on the
withdrawal of a peg, would in a fixed time (within some ten minutes
or thereabouts) ignite and explode the vessel.
A dozen of these engines, claimed the inventor, if towed within range
and released, to be swept down upon Boulogne pier by the tide, would
within a few minutes shatter and dispel the nightmare of invasion.
The Admiralty sanctioned the experiment, news of which had awakened
some interest not unmixed with derision throughout the British Fleet;
and the business which called the _Vesuvius_ to Portsmouth was to
take in tow the first of these catamarans (as our sailors called
them) and convey it across to the squadron watching Boulogne.
On the morning after the _Vesuvius's_ arrival, two dockyard boats
arrived with the hull of the machine in tow--it resembled nothing so
much as a mahogany coffin--and attached her to the _Vesuvius's_ stern
by a kind of shoreline. This done, the officer in charge presented
himself on board with the clockwork under his arm, and in his hand a
letter for Captain Crang, the first result of which was an order to
dress ship. Within half an hour the _Vesuvius's_ crew had adorned
her from bowsprit to trucks and from trucks to stern with bunting, as
if for a Birthday; though, as Mr. Jope observed, with a glance at the
catamaran astern, the preparations pointed rather to a funeral.
Mr. Jope, as third officer of the ship, betrayed some soreness that
his two superiors had not taken him into their confidence.
At eleven o'clock Captain Crang and Mr. Wapshott appeared on the poop
in full uniform, and a further order was issued to load the guns
blank for a salute.
Hitherto the Major had been but an idler about deck; but finding the
crew of a gun short-handed, he volunteered his services, and was
immersed in the business of loading when a hand clapped him on the
shoulder. Turning, he confronted the boatswain.
"And you go for to pretend for to tell me," said Mr. Jope
reproachfully, "that you're a amachoor!"
The Major was about to explain that as an officer of artillery he
understood the working of a gun, when a loud banging from the town
drew all eyes shoreward; and presently Captain Crang, who had been
gazing in that direction through his glass, called to Mr. Wapshott,
who in turn shouted an order to man the yards.
As this was an order which the Major neither understood nor, had he
understood it, could comply with, he remained on deck while the
sailors swarmed aloft and disposed themselves in attitudes the mere
sight of which turned him giddy, so wantonly precarious they seemed.
The strains of the National Anthem from a distant key-bugle drew his
eyes shoreward again, and between the moored ships he descried a
white-painted gig approaching, manned by twenty oars and carrying an
enormous flag on a staff astern--the Royal Standard of England.
Not until the gig, fetching a long sweep, had made a half-circuit of
the _Vesuvius_ and fallen alongside her accommodation-ladder did the
Major comprehend. Captain Crang, with Mr. Wapshott behind him, had
stepped down the ladder and stood at the foot of it reverently
lifting his cocked hat.
That rotund, star-bedecked figure in the stern sheet, beside the Port
Admiral--that classic but full-blooded face crowned with a chestnut
wig. . . . Who could it be if not his Royal Highness the Prince
Regent?
Yes, it was he. Had not our Major scanned those features often
enough--in his own mirror?
The Port Admiral was inviting Captain Crang to step into the gig.
The Prince nodded a careless, haughty assent, shrinking a little,
however, as Mr. Wapshott passed down the clockwork of the catamaran
for his royal inspection. Recovering himself, he glanced at it
perfunctorily and nodded to the sailors to give way and pull towards
the hull of the infernal machine.
The curiosity which had brought him down to Portsmouth to inspect it
seemed, however, to have evaporated. The gig fell alongside the
coffin-like log, and the Port Admiral, having taken the clockwork out
of Captain Crang's hand, had launched into an explanation of its
working when the Prince signified hurriedly that he had seen as much
as he desired. Back to the ship the gig drifted on the tide, and
Captain Crang, dismissed with a curt nod, stepped on to the ladder
again, turned, and saluted profoundly.
As he did so, the Major, erect above the bulwarks, found speech.
"Your Royal Highness!" he cried. "Nay, but pardon me, your Royal
Highness! If I may crave the favour--explanation--a prisoner,
unjustly detained--"
The Prince Regent lifted his eyes lazily as the bowman thrust off.
"What a dam funny-looking little man!" commented he aloud, nudging
the Port Admiral, who had risen and was calling out the order to give
way for shore.
"But, your Royal Highness!--"
The Major raised himself on tiptoe with arms outstretched after the
receding boat. On the instant the ship shook under him as with an
earthquake, and drowned his voice in the thunders of a royal salute.
"The Emperor Jovinian, Mr. Jope--"
"Who was 'e?" Mr. Jope interrupted.
Two days had passed, and the better part of a third. They seemed as
many years to our hero as, seated on the carriage of one of the
_Vesuvius's_ starboard guns in company with the boatswain and Bill
Adams, he watched through its open port the many-twinkling smiles of
the sea, and, scarce two leagues away, the coast of France golden
against the sunset.
"I am not precisely aware when he flourished," said the Major, "but
will make a point of inquiring when I return home. To tell you the
truth, I heard the story in church, in a sermon of our worthy
Vicar's, little dreaming under what circumstances I should recall it
as applicable to my own lot."
"If it's out of a sermon," said Mr. Jope, "you may fire ahead.
But if, as you say, the man was taken for someone else, I thought it
would be clearer to start by knowing who he _was_."
"It happened in this way. The Emperor Jovinian one sultry afternoon
in summer was hunting--"
"What--foxes?"
"Keep quiet," put in Mr. Adams. "When he's telling you it happened
in a sermon!"
"In the ardour of the chase he had left his retinue far behind; and
finding himself by the shore of a lake, he alighted and refreshed
himself with a swim in its cool waters. While he thus disported
himself, a beggar stole his horse and his clothes."
Mr. Jope smote his leg. "Now I call that a thundering good yarn!
Short, sharp, and to the point."
"But you haven't heard the end."
"Eh? Is there any more of it?"
"Certainly. The Emperor, discovering the theft, was forced to creep
naked and ashamed to the nearest castle."
"What was he ashamed of?"
"Why, of being naked."
"I see. Damme, it fits in like a puzzle!"
"But at the castle, sad to say, no one recognised the proud Jovinian.
'Avaunt!' said the porter, and threatened to have him whipped for his
impudence. This distressing experience caused the Emperor to reflect
on the vanity of human pretensions, seeing that he, of whom the world
stood in awe, had, with the loss of a few clothes, forfeited the
respect of a slave."
"I see," repeated Mr. Jope, as the narrator paused. "What became of
the beggar?"
"I knew a worse case than that, even," said Bill Adams, turning his
quid meditatively. "It happened to a Bristol man, once a shipmate of
mine; by name Zekiel Philips, and not at all inclined to stoutness
when I knew him."
"Why _should_ he be?"
"You wait. His wife kept a slop-shop at Bristol, near the foot of
Christmas Stairs--if you know where that is?"
The Major, thus challenged, shook his head.
"Ah, well; you'll have heard of O-why-hee, anyway--where they
barbecued Captain Cook? And likewise of Captain Bligh of the
_Bounty_--Breadfruit Bligh, as they call him to this day?
Well, Bligh, as you know, took the _Bounty_ out to the Islands under
Government orders to collect breadfruit, the notion being that it
could be planted in the West Indies and grown at a profit. When he
came to grief and Government lookedlike dropping the job, a party of
Bristol merchants took the matter up, having interests of their own
in the West Indies, and fitted out a vessel--a brig she was, as I
remember--called the _Perseverance_. Whereby this here friend o'
mine, Zekiel Philips by name, shipped aboard of her. Whereby they
made a good passage and anchored off one of the islands--Otaheety or
not, I won't say--and took aboard a cargo, being, as they supposed,
ord'nary breadfruit; and stood away east-by-south for the Horn,
meaning to work up to Kingston, Jamaica. But this particular
breadfruit was of a fattening natur', whether eaten or, as you may
say, ab-sorbed into the system through a part of it getting down to
the bilge and fermenting, and the gas of it working up through the
vessel. Whereby, the breeze holding steady and no sail to trim for
some days, the crew took it easy below, with naught to warn 'em,
unless, maybe, 'twas a tight'ning o' the buttons. Whereby on the
fifth day they ran a-foul of a cyclone; and the cry being for all
hands on deck, half a dozen stuck in the hatchway and had to be sawed
loose. Whereby, in the meantime, she carried away her mainm'st, and
the wreckage knocked a hole in her starboard quarter. Likewise, her
stern-post being rotten, she lost a pintle, and the helm began to
look fifty ways for Sunday. All o' which caused the skipper to lay
to, fix up a jury rudder and run up for the nearest island to caulk
and repair. But meantime, and before he sighted land, this
unfortunate crew kept puttin' on flesh--and the cause of it hid from
them all the time--till there wasn't on the ship a pair of
smallclothes but had refused duty. Whereby, coming to the island in
question, they went ashore, every man Jack in loin-cloths cut out o'
the stun-s'le, and the rest of 'em as bare as the back of my hand.
Whereby their appearance excited the natives to such a degree, being
superstitious, they was set upon and eaten to a man. The moral
bein'," concluded Mr. Adams, "that a man lay be brought low by bein'
puffed up."
"Ay," said Mr. Jope after a pause. "I never had no great
acquaintance with poetry, but I bought a pocket-handkercher once for
tuppence with a verse on it:"
"'Ri fal de ral diddle, ri fal de ral dee,
What ups and downs in the world there be!'
"And I don't believe you could use a truer text for the purpose, no
matter what you paid."
The Major sighed. He was a high-spirited man, as the reader knows,
and I believe that, but for one cruel memory, he might have learnt
even to taste some humour in his situation. Thanks to Mr. Jope and
Mr. Adams, who had taken a genuine fancy to him, he found life on
board the _Vesuvius_ cheerful if not comfortable. The fare was
Spartan, indeed, but, for a short holiday, tolerable. The prospect
of seeing some real fighting excited him pleasurably, for he was no
coward. Here, before his eyes, lay the coast of France; the actual
forts and guns with which his imagination had so often played.
What a tale he would have to tell on his return! And, by the way,
how his poor Trojans must be suffering in his absence, without news
of him! He pictured that return. . . . Yes, indeed, it was at the
expense of Troy that Fortune had conceived this practical joke.
He could even smile, as yet, at the thought of the Baskets' dismay as
they searched the house for him. He wondered if Mr. Basket had
forwarded his letter to Miss Marty, at the same time announcing his
disappearance. Well, well, he would dry her tears. . . .
But upon this came the recollection of those cruel words:
"_What a dam funny-looking little man!_"
He might--he assuredly would--keep them a secret in his own breast.
But they echoed there.
His vanity was robust. Again and again it asserted its health in his
day-dreams, expelling, or all but expelling, that poisonous memory.
Only at night, in his hammock, it awoke again--sinister, premonitory.
But as yet the man continued cheerfully incredulous. Fate was
playing, less on him than through him, a rare practical joke--no
more.
On the eighth of June, at about nine o'clock in the evening, it
occurred to Admiral Lord Keith that the wind and weather afforded an
excellent opportunity of testing the _Vesuvius's_ far-famed catamaran
against the shipping moored off Boulogne pier. He signalled
accordingly; and at nine-thirty, under the eyes of the squadron, a
boat from the bomb-ship started to tow the infernal machine towards
the harbour. By leave of Bill Adams, commanding, our Major made one
of the crew of twelve.
In less than a quarter of an hour their approach was signalled by the
enemy's vedettes to the forts ashore, which promptly opened fire.
Mr. Adams, having towed the catamaran within its proper range, with
his own hand pulled the plug releasing the clockwork, and gave the
order to cast off, leaving wind and tide to do the rest; which they
doubtless would have done had not a gun from one of the French
batteries plumped a shot accurately into the catamaran.
The catamaran exploded with a terrific report, and the wave of the
explosion caught the retreating boat, lifted her seven feet, capsized
her, and brought her accurately down, bottom upwards.
A score of boats put out to the rescue, picked up the exhausted
swimmers, and attempted to right and recover the boat, but abandoned
this attempt on the approach of an overwhelming force of French.
These, coming up, seized on the boat and gallantly, under a
short-dropping fire from our squadron, proceeded to right their
prize; and, righting her, discovered Major Hymen, clinging to a
thwart, trapped as an earwig is trapped beneath an inverted
flower-pot.