The weather was fine, and the water smooth, on the morning when the
_Aspasia_ arrived at the reef, which, although well known to exist, had
been very incorrectly laid down; and Captain M--- thought it advisable
to drop his anchor in preference to lying off and on so near to dangers
which might extend much farther than he was aware. The frigate was,
therefore, brought up in eighteen fathoms, about two miles from that
part of the reef which discovered itself above water.
The captain and master undertook the survey; but any officers, who
volunteered their assistance, or midshipmen, who wished to profit by the
opportunity of gaining a practical knowledge of maritime surveying, were
permitted to join the party, another boat having been lowered down for
their accommodation. Hector, the captain's Newfoundland dog, was flying
about the decks, mad with delight, as he always was when a boat was
lowered down, as he anticipated the pleasure of a swim. Captain M---,
who had breakfasted, and whose boat was manned alongside, came on deck;
when the dog fawning on him, he desired that his broad leather collar,
with the ship's name in large brass letters riveted round it, should be
taken off; that it might not be injured by the salt water. Jerry, who
was on deck, and received the order, asked the captain for the key of
the padlock which secured it, and Captain M--- handed him his bunch of
keys, to which it had been affixed, and desiring him to take the collar
off and return the keys to him, descended again to his cabin.
Jerry soon dispossessed the dog of his collar, and, ripe for mischief,
went down to the midshipmen's berth, where he found Prose alone, the
rest being all on deck, or scattered about the ship. Prose was the
person that he wanted, being the only one upon whom he could venture a
practical joke, without incurring more risk than was agreeable. Jerry
commenced by fixing the collar round his own neck, and said, "I wish I
could get _promotion_. Now, if the situation of _captain's dog_ was
only vacant, I should like the rating amazingly. I should soon get fat
then, and I think I should look well up in this collar."
"Why, Jerry, that collar certainly does look as if it was made for you;
it's rather ornamental, I do declare."
"I wish I had a glass, to see how it looks. I would try it on you,
Prose, but you've such a bull neck, that it wouldn't go half round it."
"Bull neck, Jerry--why, I'll lay you sixpence that my neck's almost as
small as yours; and I'll lay you a shilling that the collar will go
round my neck."
"Done; now let's see--recollect the staple must go into the hole, or you
lose," said Jerry, fixing the collar round Prose's neck, and pretending
that the staple was not into the hole of the collar until he had
inserted the padlock, turned and taken out the key.
"Well, I do declare I've lost, Prose. I must go and get you the
shilling," continued Jerry, making his escape out of the berth, and
leaving Prose with the collar so tight under his chin, that he could
scarcely open his mouth. Jerry arrived on the quarter-deck, just as the
captain was stepping into the boat, and he went up to him, and touching
his hat, presented him with the bunch of keys.
"Oh, thank you, Mr Jerry; I had forgotten them," said Captain M---,
descending the side, and shoving off.
"Whose clothes are these hanging on the davit-guys?" said Mr Bully, who
had given order that no clothes were to be drying after eight o'clock in
the morning.
"I believe that they are Mr Prose's, sir, though I am not sure,"
answered Jerry, who knew very well that they were not, but wished that
Prose should be sent for.
"Quarter-master, tell Mr Prose to come up to me directly." Jerry
immediately ran down to the berth.
"Well, now, Jerry, this is too bad, I do declare. Come, take it off
again, that's a good fellow."
"Mr Prose," said the quarter-master, "the first-lieutenant wants you on
deck directly."
"There now, Jerry, what a mess I might have been in! Where's the key?"
"I have not got it," replied Jerry; "the captain saw me on the
quarter-deck, and took the bunch of keys away with him."
"What! is the captain gone away? I do declare,--now, this is too bad,"
cried Prose, in a rage.
"Too bad!--why, man, don't be angry--it's a distinction. Between me and
the first-lieutenant, you are created a knight of the _Grand Cross_. I
gave you the _collar_, and he has given you the _order_, which I
recommend you to comply with, without you wish further elevation to the
mast-head."
"Mr Prose, the first-lieutenant wants you, immediately," said the
quarter-master, who had been despatched to him again.
"Why, how can I go up with a dog's collar round my neck?"
"I'm sorry, very sorry indeed, Prose. Never mind--say it was me."
"Say it was you! Why, so it was you. I'd better say that I'm sick."
"Yes, that will do. What shall your complaint be?--a _lockjaw_? I'll
go up and tell Mr Bully--shall I?"
"Do--tell him I'm not well."
Jerry went up accordingly. "Mr Prose is not well, sir--he has a sort
of lock-jaw."
"I wish to God you had the same complaint, sir," replied the
first-lieutenant, who owed him one. "Macallan, is Mr Prose ill?"
"Not that I know of; he has not applied to me. I'll go down and see him
before I go on shore."
Macallan came up laughing, but he recovered his seriousness before Bully
perceived it.
"Well, doctor?"
"Mr Prose is certainly not very fit to come on deck in his present
state," said Macallan, who then descended the side, and the boat, which
had been waiting for him, shoved off. But, this time, Jerry was caught
in his own trap.
"Mr J---, where is the dog's collar?--it must be oiled and cleaned,"
said the first-lieutenant.
"Shall I give it to the armourer, sir?" replied Jerry.
"No, bring it up to me."
Jerry went down, and returned in a few minutes. "I cannot find it, sir;
I left it in the berth when I came on deck."
"That's just like your usual carelessness, Mr J---. Now go up to the
mast-head, and stay there till I call you down."
Jerry, who did not like the turn which the joke had taken, moved up with
a very reluctant step--at the rate of about one ratline in ten seconds.
"Come, sir, what are you about?--_start up_."
"I'm no _up-start_, sir," replied Jerry to the first-lieutenant--a
sarcasm which hit so hard, that Jerry was not called down till dark; and
long after Prose had, by making interest with the captain's steward,
obtained the keys, and released his neck from its enthralment.
The party in the second boat were landed on the reef, and while the rest
were attending to the survey, Macallan was employed in examining the
crevices of the rocks, and collecting the different objects of natural
history which presented themselves. The boat was sent on board, as it
was not required until the afternoon, when the gun-room officers were to
return to dinner. The captain's gig remained on shore, and the coxswain
was employed by Macallan in receiving from him the different shells and
varieties of coral, with which the rocks were covered.
"Take particular care of this specimen," said the surgeon, as he
delivered a bunch of corallines into the hands of Marshall, the
coxswain.
"I ax your pardon, Mr Macallan,--but what's the good of picking up all
this rubbish?"
"Rubbish!" replied the surgeon, laughing--"why you don't know what it
is. What do you think those are which I just gave you?"
"Why, weeds are rubbish, and these be only pieces of seaweed."
"They happen to be _animals_."
"Hanimals!" cried the coxswain, with an incredulous smile; "well, sir, I
always took 'em to be _weggitables_. We live and larn, sure enough.
Are cabbage and _hingions hanimals_ too?"
"No," replied the surgeon, much amused, "they are not, Marshall; but
these are. Now take them to the boat, and put them in a safe place; and
then come back."
"I say, Bill, look ye here," said the coxswain to one of the sailors,
who was lying down on the thwarts of the boat, holding up the coral to
him in a contemptuous manner--"what the hell d'ye think this is? Why,
it's a hanimal!"
"A what?"
"I'll be blow'd if the doctor don't say it's a hanimal!"
"No more a hanimal than I am," replied the sailor, laying his head down
again on the thwarts, and shutting his eyes.
In a few minutes Marshall returned to the surgeon, who, tired with
clambering over the rocks, was sitting down to rest himself a little.
"Well, Marshall, I hope you have not hurt what I gave into your charge."
"Hurt 'em!--why, sir, a'ter what you told me, I'd as soon have hurt a
cat."
"What, you are superstitious on that point, as seamen generally are."
"Super-what, Mr Macallan? I only knows, that they who ill-treats a
cat, comes worst off. I've proof positive of that since I have been in
the service. I could spin you a yarn."
"Well now, Marshall, pray do. Come, sit down here--I am fond of proof
positive. Now, let me hear what you have to say, and I'll listen
without interrupting you."
The coxswain took his seat, as Macallan desired, and, taking the quid of
tobacco out of his cheek, and laying it down on the rock beside him,
commenced as follows:--
"Well now, d'ye see, Mr Macallan, I'll just exactly tell you how it
was, and then I leaves you to judge whether a cat's to be sarved in that
way. It was when I belonged to the _Survellanty_ frigate, that we were
laying in Cawsand Bay, awaiting for sailing orders. We hadn't dropped
the anchor more than a week, and there was no liberty ashore. Well,
sir, the purser found out that his steward was a bit of a rascal, and
turns him adrift. The ship's company knew that long afore; for it was
not a few that he had cheated, and we were all glad to see him and his
traps handed down the side. Now, sir, this here fellow had a black
cat--but it warn't at all like other cats. When it was a kitten, they
had cut off his tail close to its starn, and his ears had been shaved
off just as close to his figure-head, and the hanimal used to set up on
his hind legs and fight like a rabbit. It had quite lost its natur, as
it were, and looked, for all the world, like a little imp of darkness.
It always lived in the purser's steward's room, and we never seed him
but when we went down for the biscuit and flour as was sarving out.
"Well, sir, when this rascal of a steward leaves the ship, he had no
natural affection for his cat, and he leaves him on board, belonging to
nobody; and the steward as comes in his place turns him out of the
steward's room; so the poor jury-rigged little devil had to take care of
itself.
"We all tried to coax it into one berth or the other, but the poor brute
wouldn't take to nobody. You know, sir, a cat doesn't like to change so
he wandered about the ship, mewing all day, and thieving all night. At
last, he takes to the master's cabin, and makes a dirt there, and the
master gets very savage, and swears that he'll kill him, if ever he
comes athwart him.
"Now, sir, you knows it's the natur of cats always to make a dirt in the
same place,--reason why, God only knows; and so this poor black devil
always returns to the master's cabin, and makes it, as it were, his
head-quarters. At last the master, who was as even-tempered an officer
as ever I sailed with, finds one day that his sextant case is all of a
smudge: so being touched in a sore place, he gets into a great rage, and
orders all the boys of the ship to catch the cat; and after much ado,
the poor cat was catched, and brought aft into the gun-room. `Now,
then, P---,' said the master to the first-lieutenant, `will you help
kill the dirty beast?'--and the first-lieutenant, who cared more about
his lower deck being clean than fifty human beings' lives, said he
would; so they called the sargant o' marines, and orders him to bring up
two ship's muskets and some ball cartridge, and they goes on deck with
the cat in their arms.
"Well, sir, when the men saw the cat brought up on deck, and hears that
he was to be hove overboard, they all congregates together upon the lee
gangway, and gives their opinions on the subject,--and one says, `Let's
go and speak to the first-lieutenant;' and another says, `He'll put you
on the black list;' and so they don't do nothing--all except Jenkins,
the boatswain's mate, who calls to a waterman out of the main-deck port,
and says, `Waterman,' says he, `when they heaves that cat overboard, do
you pick him up, and I'll give you a shilling;' and the waterman says as
how he would, for you see, sir, the men didn't know that the muskets had
been ordered up to shoot the poor beast.
"Well, sir, the waterman laid off on his oars, and the men, knowing what
Jenkins had done, were content. But when the sargant o' marines comes
up, and loads the muskets with ball cartridges, then the men begins to
grumble; howsomever, the master throws the cat overboard off the
lee-quarter, and the waterman, as soon as he sees her splash in the
water, backs astarn to take her into the boat, but the first-lieutenant
tells him to get out of the way, if he doesn't want a bullet through his
boat--so he pulls ahead again. The master fires first, and hits the cat
a clip on the neck, which turns her half over, and the first-lieutenant
fires his musket, and cuts the poor hanimal right in half by the
backbone, and she sprawls a bit, and then goes down to the bottom.
`Capital shots both,' says the first-lieutenant; `he'll never take an
observation of your sextant again, master;' and they both laughs
heartily, and goes down the ladder to get their dinner.
"Well, sir, I never seed a ship's company in such a farmant, or such a
nitty kicked up 'tween decks, in my life: it was almost as bad as a
mutiny; but they piped to grog soon a'ter, and the men goes to their
berths and talks the matter over more coolly, and they all agrees that
no good would come to the ship a'ter that, and very melancholy they
were, and couldn't forget it.
"Well, sir; our sailing orders comes down the next day, and the first
cutter is sent on shore for the captain, and six men out of ten leaves
the boat, and I'm sure that it warn't for desartion, but all along of
that cat being hove overboard and butchered in that way--for three on
'em were messmates of mine--for you know, sir, we talks them matters
over, and if they had had a mind to quit the sarvice, I should have
know'd it. The captain was as savage as a bear with a sore head, and
did nothing but growl for three days afterwards, and it was well to keep
clear on him, for he snapped right and left, like a mad dog. I never
seed him in such a humour afore, except once when he had a fortnight's
foul wind.
"Well, sir, we had been out a week, when we falls in with a large
frigate, and beats to quarters. We expected her to be a Frenchman; but
as soon as she comes within gunshot, she hoists the private signal, and
proves to be the _Semiramus_, and our senior officer. The next morning,
cruising together, we sees a vessel in-shore, and the _Semiramus_ stands
in on the larboard tack, and orders us by signal to keep away, and
prevent his running along the coast. The vessel, finding that she
couldn't go no way, comes to an anchor under a battery of two guns--and
then the commodore makes the signal for boats manned and armed, to cut
her out.
"Well, sir, our first-lieutenant was in his cot, on his beam ends, with
the rheumatiz, and couldn't go on sarvice; so the second and third
lieutenants, and master, and one of the midshipmen, had command of our
four boats, and the commodore sent seven of his'n. The boats pulled in,
and carried the vessel in good style, and there never was a man hurt.
As many boats as could clap on her took her in tow, and out she came at
the rate of four knots an hour. I was coaxswain of the pinnace, which
was under the charge of the master, and we were pulling on board, as all
the boats weren't wanted to tow--and we were about three cables' length
ahead of the vessel, when I sees her aground upon a rock, that nobody
knows nothing about, on the starboard side of the entrance of the
harbour; and I said that she were grounded to the master, who orders us
to pull back to the vessel to assist 'em in getting her off again.
"Well, sir, we gets alongside of her, and finds that she was off again,
having only grazed the rock, and the boats towed her out again with a
rally. Now the Frenchmen were firing at us with muskets, for we had
shut in the battery, and as we were almost out of the musket-shot, the
balls only pitted in the water, without doing any harm--and I was
a-standing with the master on the starn-sheets, my body being just
between him and the beach where they were a-firing from. It seemed
mortally impossible to hit him, except through me. Howsomever, a bullet
passes between my arm--just here, and my side, and striked him dead upon
the spot. There warn't another man hit out of nine boats' crews, and
I'll leave you to guess whether the sailors didn't declare that he got
his death all along of murdering the cat.
"Well, sir, the men thought, as he had _fired first_, that now all was
over; only Jenkins, the boatswain's-mate, said, `that he warn't quite
sure of that.' We parts company with the commodore the next day, and
the day a'ter, as it turned out, we falls in with a French frigate. She
had the heels of us, and kept us at long balls, but we hoped to cut her
off from running into Brest, if a slant o' wind favoured us--and
obligating her to fight, whether or no. Tom Collins, the first
lieutenant, was still laid up in his cot with the rheumaticks, but when
he hears of a French frigate, he gets up, and goes on deck; but when he
gets there he tips us a faint, and falls down on the carronade slide,
and his hat rolled off his head into the waist. He tried, but he was so
weak that he couldn't get up on his sticks again.
"Well, sir, the captain goes up to him, and says something about zeal,
and all that, and tells him he must go down below again, because he's
quite incapable, and orders the men at the foremost carronades to take
him to his cot. Now, sir, just as we were handing him down the ladder,
for I was captain of the gun, a shot comes in at the second port, and
takes off his skull as he lays in our arms, and never hurts another man.
He was dead in no time; and what was more curious, it was the only shot
that hit the frigate. The Frenchman got into Brest--so it was no
action, after all.
"So, you see, Mr Macallan, in two _scrummages_ only two men were killed
out of hundreds, and they were the two who had killed the cat! Now,
that's what I calls proof positive, for I seed it all with my own eyes;
and I should like to know whether you could do the same, with regard to
that thing being a _hanimal_?"
"I will, Marshall; to-morrow you shall see that with your own eyes."
"To-morrow come never!" [see note 1] muttered the coxswain, replacing
the quid of tobacco in his cheek.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. The phraseology of sailors has been so caricatured of late,
that I am afraid my story will be considered as translated into English.
Seamen, however, must decide which is correct.