"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.